Dead to You

by Heather Wynter

  “Wouldn’t have,” Sean said, “but I wouldn’t have wanted that knife in my gut either. Thank you for that.”

  Greer nodded with a little smile. She was glad to have been able to do it—not only saving Sean’s life, but having the personal fortitude to do such a thing. It was an act of the woman Greer was becoming, not the woman she’d been.

  Two lives, she realized then, hating herself for being glad for what she’d had to do. Two lives.

  “I … I just hope it’s over,” she said. “I don’t want to have to … to kill people like this. It’s not normal. It’s not me.”

  “I think it’s time you reconsider the whole concept of me, Greer.”

  Bang! Bang! The windshield shattered, the taxi swerved, and Greer screamed.

  Chapter Twenty

  The taxi hit the sedan next to it, the driver honking, the taxi rolling nearly to a stop. Sean looked back, pistol out and ready. He seemed to deduce that the shot had come from the front of the cab, but that they’d careened past the shooter.

  Greer threw herself over the front seat, opened the car door, and dumped the driver’s body out before taking the wheel. With Sean shooting behind her, Greer stomped on the accelerator and turned the wheel. Pure good luck put them just in front of a freeway on-ramp, and the tires screeched as she pushed that taxi up and off the city streets. Her heart was thumping, palms sweaty on the steering wheel. White wafts of smoke rose up from the hood, suggesting that the engine had been hit or damaged, but there was no way to know how badly and certainly no time to check it out.

  “Nice work,” Sean said from the backseat.

  “Did you get him?”

  Sean shrugged. “Hard to say. Three shooters on the street, plus one in the window. What the hell’s going on?” He climbed over and took the passenger seat.

  “Must be the mafia, like Spencer said.”

  “Then why weren’t they after him?”

  “Probably got to him by now.”

  Sean seemed to give it a moment’s thought. The smoke started to rise thicker from under the front hood. “That’s not promising.” He looked around. “You know how to get us to the airport?”

  “It’s … it’s north, isn’t it?” But one look at the most majestic volcanic mountains on the west and east sides of the city told Greer that they were headed south, every minute taking them further from their destination. “Guess we gotta turn around.”

  “Not yet, not here. The important thing is to put as much distance between us and Quito, whatever direction we’re headed.”

  Bang, bang!

  The rear windshield exploded behind them, and Sean turned and took aim. Bang, bang! Click click click.

  “What’s wrong?” Greer asked.

  “Out of bullets.”

  “Don’t you have another clip?”

  “I really didn’t expect to wind up at the OK Corral, Greer! Can you get us outta here?”

  Bang, bang!

  “I can try.”

  Greer stomped on the accelerator and cranked the wheel to fill the space in the lane next to them. She pulled ahead of the car in front of her, a red Fiat, and pushed on. A big tourist bus dominated the lane ahead of her, and she knew if she could get around it, then she might be able to lose them.

  Bang, bang!

  The engine roared as Greer came up on the bus then swerved into the lane next to it. But a motorcycle had been behind the bus, hidden, and she nearly smashed into the back of it, a mistake that would have killed the rider. Her brakes screeched, and the motorcycle rider turned, then gunned his own engine and glided out of the way.

  She drove up and tried to pass the bus, but another gunshot was answered with the bursting of her left rear tire. The car swerved, suddenly leaning to one side. The scream of metal against metal shot through Greer’s ears, her jaw locked as she wrestled with the car.

  She turned back into the emergency lane and gunned it, smashing into the concrete safety wall. Sparks shot up from the rear tire and from the side as the car dragged along the rail.

  They took a bend in the freeway, but another crippled car sat in the safety lane ahead of them, smoke pouring up out of the engine. Greer cranked the wheel just before smashing into the crippled car, knocking into a pickup truck in front of her.

  Police sirens leaked in from a distance but got louder fast, and she had no doubt about whom they were coming for.

  “Shit,” Sean said, “the cops. That’s bad.”

  “But … this isn’t our fault!”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Three marked police cruisers drove up between the other cars behind them, and Greer’s stomach turned with nerves. “What do we do? We can’t outrun them in this thing, not anymore!”

  Sean nodded as he seemed to give it some thought.

  Blam!

  The car shook and ground to a much slower speed, a cloud of white smoke spilling out from under the hood. The car ground down in a loud series of clangs and bangs, metal churning and twisting as the taxi finally rolled to a stop.

  “Policía! Sal con las manos en alto!”

  Greer wasn’t precisely sure what the cop shouted, but with eight uniformed officers surrounding the car with their handguns out and trained on them, she hardly needed a translator.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sean was separated from Greer for the processing, photos, and fingerprints and a whole lot of waiting. It felt like it took hours just to work his way into the holding cell. His time was spent sitting on a bench, absorbing the glares of the some of the meanest-looking men he’d ever seen. Sean had heard that the jail in Guayaquil was the third most dangerous in the world, and just a taste of the Ecuadorian penal system told him that the future would be bleak if he couldn’t get both himself and Greer out of there—and quick.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about Greer. She was capable, but not that capable. He knew what kind of women she’d be facing, the overwhelming numbers. And while he’d be dealing with the same thing, he knew how to handle the situation, but he hadn’t had time to school Greer in the fine art of cellblock survival.

  Without that knowledge, she was doomed, and his guess was that she probably knew it. Wondering what kind of tortures they were putting her through at that very moment, he could imagine how terrified she must be. And it wasn’t just the other prisoners. The male guards who processed the female prisoners wouldn’t be accustomed to a woman of Greer’s incredible beauty. Her pale skin alone would be enough to get her raped to death in one of the guard booths or any number of rooms they kept secure for just such a thing. She’d fight like a champ, Sean knew that, but she’d lose, and he knew that too.

  And he had himself to worry about as well.

  Once in the holding cell, the other prisoners were quick to scope Sean out. He had a height advantage to almost all of them, as they weren’t a tall race. But that wouldn’t keep him alive against a mass attack. And Sean knew damned well that some of those vicious bastards could gut a man with their bare hands.

  So when they circled him, Sean knew there was no talking his way out of it. But he knew that going in. Instead, he scanned the crowd and found the biggest, burliest, meanest-looking one in the cell and took a step toward him. The man was so big, in fact, that he hadn’t seemed to have paid Sean’s entry any mind at all. But Sean was going to change that.

  In an angry, demanding tone, Sean said, “Qué mierda estás mirando?”

  The big man looked around as if surprised to have been approached in such a way. He asked, “Qué?”

  Sean looked at the others as if already exasperated by the big man’s lack of a proper response. So he turned back to the big prisoner and said, “Te pregunté qué estabas mirando, gran cabrón gordo!”

  The other men gasped, one giggling as the big man stood up to face Sean down to answer his question.

  “Un gringo muerto.”

  Sean knew he needed to strike first, a hard jab right in the face that sent the big man’s head snapping back, but di
d nothing to put him off his feet. The men around them were instantly cheering as Sean threw two more jabs square into his opponent’s face. The man tried to duck out of the way, but Sean was quick to grab his lowered head and hurl him stumbling across the holding cell. The others dodged out of the way, and the big man hit the concrete wall before turning and charging again.

  He barreled into Sean, beefy shoulder hitting Sean’s taut torso, the force sending him scrambling backward. He’d hit the concrete hard, but Sean knew how to use his enemy’s momentum against him—he’d taught Greer the same thing. So it was a quick and easy matter to shift just so, only a few inches to the right, and the big man charged his own head into the wall.

  The crowd threw up a communal, “Oooohhhhhhh!” as the big man stumbled back from the wall, a bloody split on his dark forehead. He took a few more stunned steps back, the cell going silent as everybody waited for his next move.

  When it didn’t come, Sean lunged with a hard right cross, knuckles cracking against his cheek to send him falling to the grimy floor. The other men began jeering and spitting and kicking him, converging on their fallen friend, their ex-leader, like a pack of wild dogs.

  And Sean was their new alpha male.

  He knew he’d be able to survive in Guayaquil, but he still didn’t want to, and he had little idea of how he was going to get out of there, much less get poor Greer out.

  Things aren’t too bad for her, he thought. She might be able to bribe her way out. It’ll cost a lot of that app money, but it’d be worth it, I’m sure. And as for me, well, maybe in another lifetime …

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  After they separated Greer and Sean and processed them, Greer was fingerprinted and photographed and thrown into a huge holding cell with about two dozen women. The cell stank of body odor and urine, a toilet in the corner the cell’s only furnishing. But the way several women sat on the floor, backs against the wall, one curled up in a fetal position, told Greer that a lot of them had been there for days, maybe longer.

  Greer could only imagine what was happening to Sean. He was big and intimidating, but even that wouldn’t be much in a South American jail. As for herself, neither big nor intimidating, she had hardly any chance at all other than Sean.

  Sean was right, she thought, and that New York cop was right. They were all right. I should have let things rest, let the past be the past. Now I don’t even have a future! Her stomach turned again with the stink of the room. Voices echoed from outside the bars, where guards and others still walked free.

  Free.

  Her heart started to beat faster, a million invisible needles pricking her skin, palms dripping with sweat.

  God, I gotta get outta here … I gotta get outta here!

  But the rise of panic was a terror of its own, and Greer knew she was too close to going right over the edge.

  Take it easy, have to take it easy, she told herself. Sean’ll think of something. This will work out somehow. It has to work out! I can’t be here, not another second. I gotta get out, gotta get outa here!

  The terror proved impossible to resist, and it rose again, ready to burst out of her mouth and eyes and nose.

  But then Greer looked over to see a big, fat woman approaching her. She had dark skin and hair and wore a wicked smile as she strode across the holding cell toward her, others flanking her.

  “Mira el pequeño gringo,” she said. Greer looked at the other girls, then back at their obvious leader. “Terminaste en el lugar equivocado, dulce cosa.”

  Greer couldn’t understand what she was saying, but by the woman’s tone, her threatening body language, and the way she looked Greer over like she was some kind of prize, she knew nothing good was about to happen. “Look, I … I get that this is your house, y’know. I … I don’t mean to intrude, and I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Vamos a divertirnos contigo, niña.” The big cell block cheddar took another step closer, Greer backed against the wall. She knew she didn’t have a chance of talking her way out of this, and she didn’t see much chance of fighting her way out either.

  That left only one choice.

  “Now you listen to me,” Greer said in an angry tone, pointing an angry index finger in the big cheddar’s face. “You girls might think I’m locked in here with you, but actually you’re locked up in here with me! I shot two men today, you understand?” Greer held up two fingers. “Dos, dos muertos!”

  The girls exchanged a curious glance with their leader, then redirected their attention toward Greer, who went on, “Now I’m going to start working my way through you bitches one at a time, and I’m starting with you! I’m in charge here now, got that?”

  Another woman stepped out of the crowd and approached the fat leader. “Este es mío.”

  Big Cheddar replied, “Yo soy quien dice cómo están las cosas por aquí, y me la llevo.”

  “Después de patearte el culo!” The challenger threw the first punch, wild and fast and snapping into the fat leader’s face. But she responded quickly, and the two were suddenly entangled. One pulled the other’s hair, and fists threw hard and fast into faces and stomachs. The other girls gathered around them in a frenzied instant, suddenly shouting and waving their fists to encourage one or the other or maybe both.

  The two fell to the floor of the holding cell, rolling and pulling and punching. It was too easy to imagine herself as one of the combatants, and she knew she’d never survive there. One good beating could kill her, but several in a row, and she might not even want to survive. Big Cheddar stood up and started kicking her opponent, the challenger taking terrible strikes to the head, the back.

  “Joder, te mataré aquí y ahora. No vuelvas a hacerme frente! Estás muerto, me oyes? Estás jodidamente muerto!”

  A loud metal clang filled the holding cell, cutting through the clamor of the cheering and the jeering and eventually drawing the fight to a close. A male guard holding a black baton stood on the other side of the cell, a second guard with him. They opened up the cage door, and one of them pointed directly at Greer with the baton. She stepped toward them, the others looking on in silent tension. As soon as she was close enough, one of them grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the cell, his partner closing the door behind her.

  Greer’s imagination flashed with images of what was to come. One would hold down her arms, and the other would be the first one to rape her. They were going to delight in her terror and savor the memory of slow-motion murder. Her heart beat faster as they walked her down the hall.

  But when she saw Sean being led down the hall from the other direction, relief flooded her system. He didn’t seem the worse for wear, no fresh cuts or bruises, and she hoped that told her the true story of what had happened to him while waiting.

  The guards put them on a bench in a bullpen, where several desks had ringing landline telephones and old computers with big boxy monitors, and officers crossed to file cabinets and murmured worried conversations in different corners of the big room.

  The bullpen was surrounded by little offices, one in each corner, each with a name printed in black. The door next to Greer and Sean’s bench read Det. Raoul Estevez.

  Ten minutes later, they were in the office, sitting across the desk from the man who would decide their fate.

  Greer was flashing back on their meeting with the detective in New York, how even there they were being threatened with false imprisonment. And here, they were in police custody with at least two deaths on her hands. Her blood ran cold, and she was dizzy and nauseous with the certainty that she’d spend the rest of her life in a vicious Ecuadorian prison, where she’d live torturously and die violently.

  Raoul Estevez, the Ecuadorian detective handling the case, leaned back in his chair behind the desk, graying black hair and mustache giving him an aged, haggard look. His brown eyes shifted from Sean to Greer and back. This time, Greer was content to let Sean do the talking.

  “All right then,” Estevez said in a thick Spanish accent, “explain to me
why you are tearing up Quito and killing my citizens?”

  “We didn’t kill anybody,” Sean said, and Greer’s case of nerves was worsened by the lie. “We were driving when the car approached us from behind and started shooting.”

  “And why were you driving a taxi?”

  “Well,” Sean said, “it happened on the street. Somebody took a shot at us, and we made it onto the freeway.”

  “And who would be shooting at you?”

  “We don’t know. We think maybe the mafia.”

  “You’re in the mafia?”

  “No,” Sean said, “but somebody we know in town might be.”

  “And why was there a gun in the taxi?”

  Sean shook his head. “It was there.”

  “There were two other dead bodies on the streets, and a shopkeeper gave us your descriptions.”

  “Don’t know what to tell you about that,” Sean said.

  “You’re lying,” Estevez said, “and we have ways of … inspiring people to tell the truth.” He looked at Greer, eyes combing her compact curves and long limbs.

  Greer could only say, “Sean?”

  The nervous tension in the little office was terrible, and Greer could hardly breathe. It was too easy to imagine herself being held down on that table, viciously raped and beaten for hour after brutal hour.

  “All right then,” said Estevez, “if you won’t tell me the truth, I shall tell you. We have information on you already. Your name is Sean Callahan, late of Peru … on some international business.”

  “I’m a licensed private investigator.”

  Estevez, black mustache lying flat over his mouth, didn’t seem impressed. “It just so happens that we have word on a gringo coming into Quito to assassinate our president.”

  Greer could hardly believe her ears but tried to disguise her shock. Sean played it cool.

  “This gringo works with operatives,” Estevez went on, his eyes finding Greer before adding, “operatives who might be disguising their appearance for some reason. Your ID pictures you as a redhead, Miss Lange.”