by Elisabeth Naughton, Cynthia Eden, Katie Reus, Alexandra Ivy, Laura Wright, Joan Swan
“Please step back.” She kept her voice level but direct. “I need room to work.”
He cut a cold, challenging gaze back to her and took a marginal step out of her way. “If you here to fix them, do it.”
Cassie’s heart pounded so hard her ribs felt bruised. But she was in it waist-deep now, with no way out. She only had to hold tight until emergency service arrived, but in this remote area, that could take up to an hour.
She sidestepped the smuggler and flicked her flashlight over the older woman on the ground. From the size of the bloodstain beneath her head and shoulders, Cassie had little hope.
A younger woman bent over the victim, stroking the blood-matted hair from her face. “Despierta, Tia Rosa. Despierta. Por favor respondeme.”
She knelt next to the victim’s niece, who begged her aunt to wake up and talk to her. Something bit into Cassie’s knee—gravel, glass, metal—she didn’t know. She pulled on gloves and pressed two fingers against the woman’s carotid artery—and found a pulse. A little zing of shock traveled up her arm. The beat was weak and erratic, but the woman was still alive. Thoughts clicked through Cassie’s brain, fast, haphazard. How could she keep the woman alive with so much blood loss? What would her quality of life be even if she could be saved? How far out was that ambulance?
She spread her fingers and gently inched both hands over the woman’s head, starting at the front and working back. Just past the ears, bone gave beneath Cassie’s easy pressure. The softness and warmth of brain tissue surrounded her fingers. Cassie’s stomach plummeted. Twisted and revolted.
She pulled her hands away, rocked back on her heels into a crouch, and stared at the ground. Swallowed back the bile. Breathed. Swallowed. Breathed.
Don’t think. Just work.
Cassie checked the woman for a pulse again. Nothing this time. She took a deep drag of the cool night air, repositioned her fingers. Concentrated. Nothing.
A shallow numbness spread over her body. Familiar. Not completely unwelcome. To witness how quickly life could slip away, day in and day out, as she did, Cassie needed that filter to keep her sane. Or mostly sane. If she were completely sane, she wouldn’t be kneeling in the dirt on the side of a deserted Mexican highway in the middle of the freaking night.
She was grateful for that distance now when she met the niece’s light brown gaze, prepared to smash the hope shining there.
“Lo siento, señorita.” She softened her voice to the tone she wished someone had used when they’d informed her of her mother’s and stepbrother’s deaths. “Lo siento pero ella está muerta.”
“No!” The niece fell onto her aunt’s chest, sobbing.
The poor girl’s anguish stirred Cassie’s pain. Pain she’d buried—the grief, the loss, the abandonment. Pain she would have to face again when she reached the estate. That thought in the midst of this visceral tragedy tore at the fragile barriers between her broken pieces as emergency physician, victim, and orphan.
But she couldn’t let those walls fail. She couldn’t practice emergency medicine if she was unable to separate herself from a victim’s trauma. She wouldn’t be an efficient physician if her mind was distracted with fear for the family of a patient in distress. Her boss had been right to put her on leave. She definitely needed to get her head on straight.
Cassie pushed to her feet and pulled off her gloves. An older woman broke from a group nearby and pulled the niece close. The girl went boneless in the woman’s arms, and a deeper level of pain echoed through her cries. And, God help her, Cassie’s entire body tugged and twisted with empathy.
She caught her mind right on the edge of slipping out from under her and sucked in air. Forced herself to think.
Holy hell, she was a mess. The ambulance would be here by the time she’d done a prelim on the injured; then she could escape.
She dropped the gloves and grabbed the Maglite. Cassie turned toward the other victims but found them moving on their own. A siren drifted on the air. Yes! Escaping just became priority number one.
She scanned shadows for the smuggler and set a determined pace toward her car. The flashlight beam melted across the side of the truck, the partially open cargo door, the ground, the…
A fist of ice jabbed her stomach. Cassie jerked the light backward, over the ground, across the open cargo door, and stopped…on the arm hanging out.
Fuuuuuck.
She turned and headed for the cargo bay.
A meaty hand closed around her arm. Fingers dug into muscle. She jerked sideways. Her shoulder popped and the flashlight fell out of her hand. Pain shot deep into her shoulder, down her arm, up her neck. Not horrible pain. But bad enough to scare all the heat from her blood. Bad enough to spit spikes of rage down her spine. She was transported back in time, back to grade school when fights with local bullies occurred almost daily. They’d ultimately been the ones to teach her how to street fight. Of course, they hadn’t usually carried guns.
She pulled against his hold. “Don’t touch—” Her gaze dropped to a tattoo on his forearm, an old cross wrapped in thorns. The same image her stepbrother had inked on his shoulder. Right before the explosion.
“They’re dead.” His response came in that dark bite, making Cassie flinch, but she didn’t back down.
“I’m sure you’re right, but as a doctor, it’s my duty to check.”
She pulled from his grasp and turned, tucking the sight of that tattoo away for later. His hand landed on her shoulder. The one he’d nearly dislocated. Pain skewered her arm. Rage clenched her muscles. She ducked from his grasp, gripped the handle of her Maglite, prepared to strike.
“Leave her.” The deep voice—a new voice—came from the shadows alongside the overturned truck.
Cassie’s heart stopped beating. One extra-long pause. The blood pounding in her ears went silent. Then her heartbeat popped a double tap and picked up a quick rhythm. Her hands fumbled with the flashlight. Finally, she aimed it in the direction of the voice. A second man lurked nearby in the shadows.
She reached for the canister in her pocket. The siren grew louder. “That’s emergency. And the police.”
“We also called them, señorita.” The Lurker’s voice was just as deep, just as raspy as the other smuggler’s, but delivered so easily Cassie felt like a ruffled bird having its feathers smoothed. “But thank you for your help. Pedro,” he said to the first smuggler, who dug those sausage-like fingers into her biceps again. “Leave. Her.”
The first ambulance pulled onto the scene in a swirl of dust. Gyrating red lights illuminated the night and cast orange blurs on the mountainside to the east. The headlights illuminated a scene far more devastating in the light. Two young attendants pulled equipment from their van.
The smuggler shoved Cassie’s arm away. Her stomach whipped, a whirlpool of acid. They were just going to let her go? Let emergency personnel tend the injured?
A dark film of realization slid through Cassie’s brain, and her developing suspicion was confirmed by the smugglers’ acceptance of the EMTs’ services. They were going to salvage the women they could and go ahead with the sale. All without any fear of discovery, because the majority of the Mexican police department was as corrupt and unethical as the American health insurance industry.
But that was a problem centuries in the making. She’d done her part. Help had arrived. She was out of here. There was more than one way to skin a smuggler.
The two men watched the EMTs work among the victims. While their attention was diverted, Cassie pulled her phone from her pocket and turned on the video camera. Holding her phone backwards, down by her thigh, she filmed what she could of the scene on her way to the car.
The first, threatening smuggler turned toward her. “’Ey. You!”
Adrenaline surged and made her heart skip. Made her think quicker, move faster. She ran for the car. Footsteps grated on the sandy dirt behind her. She let the strap of her bag slide off her shoulder and wrap around her hand. One solid strike in the head with this
Maglite and that bastard would go down.
“What you doing? Get back here—”
“Pedro, don’t,” Lurker called from farther away, his voice harsh and impatient. “Pedro!”
Listen to him, dickhead. Listen to him.
Cassie propelled herself into the driver’s seat, hit the door locks, and reached for the keys hanging in the ignition.
Bang, bang sounded on her trunk.
Cassie jumped. Her fingers slipped off the keys.
Thump, thump. The smuggler pulled her door handle. It was locked.
His ugly face crunched and distorted with fury, his curses muffled behind the glass.
She reached for the keys again. Fumbled.
Pound, pound. The smuggler hammered her window with his fist. Then pulled the gun from his pants.
Terror burned up her chest. She gripped the keys. Twisted. The engine rumbled.
Clank, clank. Cassie jerked at the sharp sound. The crack of glass. She ducked. Gaze darted to the window. The smuggler hammered again with the butt of his gun. Clank, clank. Not a bullet. Not yet.
Cassie jammed the transmission into drive. Fishtailed onto the asphalt. The tires grabbed and the car shot forward. She had the gas pedal floored, the speedometer passing ninety miles per hour before she noticed.
Mind racing, heart throbbing, Cassie strangled the steering wheel and eased her foot off the gas until she’d slowed to a more reasonable sixty-five then set her cruise control.
She shook—hands, shoulders, legs. Every breath rattled her chest. “Jesus.”
She swallowed. Pressed her hand to her forehead. Her mouth. Her chest. Let out a whimper. She rocked deeper into her leather seat and concentrated on breathing. That helped her from reliving all that could have gone wrong out there. All that nearly went wrong out there. So damn wrong.
Breathe in, breathe out. Focus.
Within seconds, her emotional defenses kicked in, and she smothered her terror with anger. Ridiculous, irrational anger. She glanced at her side window where a starburst with craggy arms reached outward. And all she could think was how it could have been in her skull. “That bastard.”
Cassie dragged her phone from her pocket and dialed 9-1-1 emergency this time, not the Mexican emergency number she’d called for the accident.
“Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?”
“This is Doctor Cassie Christo of UCSD Medical Center.” She hated leveraging her title but knew her call would be considered a prank in this situation if she didn’t. “I’m traveling south on Mexican Highway One and came upon an accident. Before you tell me to call Mexican emergency services, hear me out.”
She described the situation, the injured, the smugglers, the truck, and asked that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be alerted that the group planned to continue toward the border.
That last part was only a tiny lie. And she told it only because she believed it and because she knew the threat would ensure law enforcement’s attention. CYA—covering your ass—certainly wasn’t exclusive to the medical profession.
Once she hung up, her anger ebbed, but the fear remained. She kept a close watch in her rearview mirror. Only minutes passed before she’d reached the estate. When no lights appeared behind her, Cassie took the turn, eased up to the security gates, and stopped. She reached into the glove compartment, pushed the remote, and the ornate iron gates parted slowly.
The sight had always reminded Cassie of her mother’s arms opening to welcome her home. That hit her hard now. A pointed, powerful, painful shot straight to the heart.
She sat there even after the gates were fully open. Caught. She couldn’t bear to move forward. But couldn’t force time backward.
“God.” She clenched her teeth to keep the tears back. “This is so…wrong.”
On a deep breath, Cassie started up the palm-lined driveway, struggling for equilibrium. She couldn’t face Saul with any weakness showing. The same way she had to face bullies here. She’d learned young that they could smell fear. Taste weakness. She’d learned young that standing up to people here was the only way to earn any respect. And respect gained a person a certain amount of security. If she’d backed down from that smuggler, she had no doubt she’d either be dead or cuffed in the back of that van.
She wasn’t in America anymore.
Her pulse had slowed, but that devastating sense of loss remained. The road’s slight grade gave way to the estate’s roof peaks. Then the high taupe walls came into view, where exterior lights highlighted the rough surface. Stone walkways edged with miniature lights wove through flourishing gardens. Waves swooshed on the nearby shore. The estate was only a mile outside the city of Ensenada, but Terra del Mar’s tranquility had always made the urban chaos and crime seem much, much farther away.
Sweet nostalgia nearly choked her by the time she’d parked in front of the five-car garage. Her heart had descended into her stomach, and tears not only welled in her eyes but expanded in her chest.
Her trauma at the accident scene seemed trivial compared to the pummeling grief she now had to face. Her mother wouldn’t greet Cassie at the door of their home with that beaming smile. Her stepbrother wouldn’t sit up until the early morning hours, begging Cassie for just one more story from the ER.
She pressed a fist to the base of her neck, where her pulse rocked beneath. She didn’t know how to do this. Didn’t know how to live without them.
She thought of the man from the funerals again. The strength of his arms. The sureness in his voice. And sighed. That gave Cassie enough stability to collect her bags from the trunk.
At the back of her car, she purposely turned her mind away from the night’s drama and back to her immediate future. To collecting evidence on Saul and evicting him. An involuntary shiver rippled her skin. Not even one foot in the house and she already felt greasy. Saul was already under her skin.
She grabbed an old Padres baseball cap from the trunk where it was partly wedged under the spare tire and pulled it on. She figured it was only fair she and Saul start the night off even.
On the porch, she took a moment to caress the deep patterns of the beautifully hand-carved wooden door, gathering strength from her mother’s memory before she passed through the entry and stepped into the foyer.
Her running shoes squeaked on the marble. She paused. Took in the house. The feel of it. The smell of it. The sound of it.
Empty. Disinfected. Silent.
So damn silent.
Her eyes closed. Chest squeezed. The warmth and personality had vanished. The scents of lilac and jasmine had disappeared. The music and laughter were gone.
The house was hollow. Barren.
Or maybe that emptiness lived inside her. She couldn’t tell the difference.
“What the hell happened?”
The deep voice cracked through the hush and ripped Cassie’s eyes open. A male voice filled with authority and anger.
A voice she didn’t know.
Chapter Two
Rio Santana braced one hand against the wall beside the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the ocean at Villas Terra del Mar. He pressed the phone to his ear with the other hand, gripping the cell so hard the casing creaked.
“A tire blew on the truck.” Tomás’s voice was steady, curt, normal for an ordinary report. But this was not an ordinary report. “We rolled, ended up in the median.”
“What about the women?” Rio glanced over his shoulder to make sure Saul wasn’t nearby. And even though his boss wasn’t hovering, Rio still lowered his voice. “And the young ones. The girls?”
“Not good.” The low, soft shift in his partner’s tone hinted toward trouble. “Three dead.”
Rio’s stomach contracted. What little he’d eaten for dinner rolled toward his throat. He pushed off the wall and planted a hand over his face. “Shit.”
“It’s my fault,” Tomás said. “I shouldn’t have let Pedro drive. He doesn’t have the skills I do—”
“No way.” Rio drop
ped his hand and stared hard at the window. With night blanketing the waves, the glass reflected the twist of anguish on his face. He looked away, setting his eyes on the ebony grand piano instead. “I’ll be damned if you’re taking the blame for these animals. This was not, in any way, your fault. Do you hear me? Get that out of your head right now.”
Now, if Rio could only take his own advice, he might be able to get his own shit straight. No one was supposed to die. Certainly not innocent women simply searching for a better life in America. Certainly not girls barely into their teens with their whole lives ahead.
“Kollman’s going to shit bricks over this,” Rio said. “And when you report, don’t say what you just said to me, got it? You know how fast they’d pull you out? I can’t afford to lose you.”
“Don’t worry.” Tomás’s voice sounded lighter, more like the partner he’d worked with for eight years. “I don’t want to be sitting in some state-appointed shrink’s office for the next two months talking about my feelings.”
“What’s the fallout of this going to be?”
“The policía were easy. I paid them off,” Tomás said. “And I talked to Kollman. He’s making sure the families are still getting US citizenship, the homes, the jobs, the same life we give all the women once they hit the border and we take out the receiving smuggler. It won’t make up for the loss, but… Look, we may have another problem.”
Rio’s mind scanned trouble spots. “What?”
“Someone stopped.”
He swung his arm out to the side, exasperated. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Who the hell would…?”
The front door closed behind him. Rio spun toward the foyer and reached to the small of his back for his gun. A woman stood in the shadows, three duffle bags at her feet.
Had to be one of Saul’s whores.
“I’ll call you back.” He disconnected and slid the phone into its holster.
The hallway was dark, but it took only a glance to know this wasn’t Saul’s typical playmate. She was young and had the lithe build Saul favored, but everything else was off. She wore a baseball hat—of all things. A Padres cap, which, okay, gave her a favorable point in Rio’s book, but it was filthy. She wore her dark hair in a messy ponytail, and her khaki shorts were stained. Saul wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.