"A telegram?" LeAnn asked, holding up the envelope.
"They were sort of reborn during the latter stages of the military actions that crushed the drug cartels in 2073. The military revived the telegram system because the cartels were intercepting other forms of communication. It has sort of hung around since, though it's rarely used except by diplomats and important people. Strange that Stacy would receive one. Unless it's from Edna."
"I guess we shouldn't open it." I could hear in her voice the disappointment of a little girl discovering she wouldn't be told a secret no matter how many times she asked. It was endearing how she could be a sexy woman one second, and a little girl the next.
"You can always make sure you're there when she opens it."
"Yes, I can." Her smile was full of mischief. "But not tonight."
She stood, unbuttoning the top button of her respectable orange garment, working her way down until it was open and revealing. Panties obviously weren't the only undergarment she wasn't wearing. She slid the back portion of her short sexy skirt up over her gorgeous white butt and leaned back against our table, her arms behind her and away from her body so that her soft milky breasts were exposed. She slid her rear up onto the table, causing the front of her glittery skirt to rise high along her thighs, until a faint shadow of softness was visible. White legs so beautiful and sexy that a welling hunger began to burn inside of me served as a highway to heaven. I caressed and kissed them, taking my time because the road to heaven was filled with such beauty that to hurry was to miss some of it. Between soft, wet kisses on legs I adored, I told her how beautiful she was. She ran her fingers tenderly through my hair as my kisses moved upward. I kissed her in a place that only I could kiss, then slid the top off her shoulders a few inches. I pulled it tight in the front, pinning her arms to her sides. "Oh sweetie," she moaned as I pulled her forward and took one of her beautiful breasts into my mouth to love and devour. She tasted of sweet flesh and girl, and smelled wonderful and intoxicating.
Suddenly her legs were around me and we were on top of the table. I kissed her and hurriedly pulled off the orange top, wadding it up and placing it beneath her head. She smiled, touching my cheek warmly, her dove-gray eyes filled with love and desire. I felt her hands freeing me as I kissed her neck. My lips found hers as I plunged into her luscious velvet sea. The uncomfortableness of the table was overridden by love and need, and several minutes later, when I could hold on no longer, I added to her ocean as she arched upward and cried out. Several seconds passed before our eyes met and we began to laugh. It was wonderful laughter, drifting in the Mexican wind and mingling with the faint sound of the waves washing up on the sand.
We were laughing as we scrambled to get off the table. I had just grabbed LeAnn's waist to help her down when the explosion came from the other side of the Las Ventanas. The force of the blast was as powerful as the one in Paris, and threw us both back several feet. I lay stunned and my ears were ringing like a centuries old telephone. My head felt like tiny miners were using hammers and pick axes to work their way out of my skull. It took a moment for the cobwebs to clear and for me to realize what had occurred. Pain shot through me as I panicked, searching for LeAnn. She was off to my left and she was moving. I thanked God, literally. We were fortunate that the concussion of the blast had been strong enough to throw us clear of the debris and onto the softer sand. Tables and chairs lay scattered around us but none had pummeled us in flight or landed on us. The sky was bright and the world was on fire as I crawled over to LeAnn. I helped her sit up and she hugged me. She smiled and I stroked her hair. She was okay. We were trying to stand when I saw him.
He was a dark figure running along the beach, away from the blast. Even by the light of the flames I couldn't make out his features. We were too far away. But I knew what he held in his hand as he ran was a gun. My head nearly split in two when I leaned down to unsheathe the Howzer from my ankle holster. I looked at LeAnn and she nodded that I should go. I took off after him, taking an angle which I hoped would help me cut him off. He was too intent on escape to notice me in all the ensuing chaos. I was able to stay on the sand as I cut across to the beach but even so, each time my feet touched ground pain shot through my skull like a chorus of drummers. People were suddenly everywhere, and sirens were blaring in the distance. We were far enough away from the fire that I could use the darkness to my advantage now, if I could get close. I took stock of the distance and knew I had made up all the ground I was ever going to and could not catch him. I was too winded, and the pounding caused by the foot chase was beginning to take its toll.
But I caught a break when he slowed unexpectedly. He came to a complete stop and was looking toward the beach. I followed his gaze. Stacy was behind him and off to my left. She was just sitting on the sand, staring at the fire. Her face was illuminated by the inferno and she wore the blank expression of someone in shock. He backtracked, moving toward her, and unknowingly, closer to me. He was almost upon her and hadn't yet seen me. She seemed unconcerned as he approached, gun pointing at her head. She either didn't see him or she didn't care. Maybe both. He put the gun against her head as I hollered, startling him. When he wheeled I blew his head into pieces with the armor piercing power of the Howzer. I walked slowly towards Stacy. She had not moved. Her gaze was constant, peering at the fire as if in a trance. Her room had been on the side of the explosion. Where was John? Hadn't they come to the beach together? There was gray matter in her hair and small bone chips from the dead man's skull. I gently picked out the skull fragments. I suddenly knew John was dead. And I knew Stacy was in trouble. It was a kind of trouble I knew nothing about and I didn't know what to do.
She wasn't going anywhere so I walked over to the body. He wasn't going anywhere either. There was a long slim envelope in his inside jacket pocket. It contained several thousand dollars, Stacy's room number, and a photo of her. There was no ID anywhere on him. I checked his hands. The tips of his fingers were smooth, prints removed. One eye was destroyed but the other had that milky look of someone using a retinal alteration drug. He was a pro. With his face blown to hell there probably wasn't any way to identify him. Someone had tried to kill Stacy, for reasons I could not in my wildest dreams imagine. They had probably killed John as collateral damage. It made no sense that someone would want Stacy dead, and even less sense to blow her to kingdom come and make a spectacle of it. There had to be more to it. Much more. LeAnn walked up as I was thinking about that. She saw the dead man at Stacy's feet, and turned back to the object of Stacy's fixed gaze.
A look of fear so strong I could almost feel it crossed her face and she ran quickly to Stacy. As I stood watching, stunned, she began to strike her repeatedly, open-handed at first, then with her fist. She was going for a right cross when Stacy reached up and grabbed her wrist, eyes flashing in anger. And then an atrocious sound filled the night. It was a cry of agony, more animal than human. For a moment I was in Paris again, watching an old woman in the middle of the street as she mourned her husband, holding all that was left of him. Stacy sat crying out in unbearable anguish as LeAnn wrapped her arms around her and rocked her slowly back and forth. LeAnn was sobbing uncontrollably, sharing her best friend's pain. The sound of sirens closing in pierced the night, mercifully drowning out the gut-wrenching screams of a girl we loved who in an instant had lost all that mattered in this world.
Chapter Seven
For love brings unimagined joy into our lives for everyone to see, but its loss brings pain and misery so deeply buried within the heart that only time can reveal it
A Civil Fire vehicle hovered over the ocean collecting sea water before it quickly positioned itself directly over the fire and doused it. It took four trips from two of the special glider craft to put it out, the smell of smoke and steam and charred timber drifting down the beach to where we sat watching. Stacy was calmer now, and LeAnn took her by the hand and led her to where I sat. Stacy seemed to notice me for the first time and stared at me a moment before she
eased slowly to her knees in front of me and fell into my arms crying. They were tears of realization and sadness. The unbelievable pain and shock had finally passed. The anger would come later. I held her in my arms, stroking her hair while LeAnn looked on tenderly. She was further away than the dark horizon of the ocean, and it was the type of distance that could never be traversed by any bridge. I could only hold and comfort her in my arms, from far away. Death was never the end, because it left the living behind to suffer.
I noticed the tall dark Mexican who was directing the emergency workers cast a glance our way. His interest was casual at first, until it registered that no one would be sprawled out on the beach like the dead guy was. Someone would have to be dead drunk or just dead, to sleep through something as awful as this. When it was obvious the emergency was under control he began walking toward us. He was moustached and had a cerveza paunch and carried himself with his head tilted slightly up as he walked, in a questioning way. I'd seen his kind before and didn't like him long before he got close to us. Mexico had lost its drug trade but not its corruption. Edna Bascomb had confided to me once that it was one of the few places in the world that she had little influence, other than cash. Anything and anyone could be bought in Mexico, for a price. Caliente ass of literally any age or posicion social, from barato street prostitutes to costoso la mar de elegante were easy to find for anyone looking. Politicos, jueces and oficiales de la ley were for sale to those wanting to inquire. The violence had been removed, but the seediness and inclination towards graft remained. Mexico would always be Mexico in the same way Paris would always be Paris. Only with Paris, that was a good thing.
"Your friend looks like he has seen better days," he said with a chuckle as he pointed his thumb toward the dead man.
Stacy sat up and moved next to LeAnn. I saw his eyes flash with lust for a second when he got a good look at her. He gave her a smarmy grin and was about to make a vulgar observation but stopped short when I stood and he saw the look in my eyes. He was a slimeball alright. "You're the CR here?" I asked. Something in my tone got his attention. I pulled out my wallet and showed him my card. He didn't like it that there was another CR around. He handed it back to me.
"He belong to you?"
"He was fleeing from the scene and I chased him here. He finally tired and turned to shoot and I took him out." I left out everything else. I didn't trust him. And I didn't want to give him the opportunity to question Stacy. He would haul her in and try to get in her panties.
"None of you ever seen him before?" he questioned no one in particular. While he walked over to the body and turned him over with his foot I told him I had never seen him, and my wife and her friend had only by chance been on the beach at the time. His head popped up when he realized one of the women was my wife. I knew he was trying to figure out which one but I offered him no further information.
"Perhaps he was the bomber and he was running away."
I had counted on his laziness to come to that conclusion. It would be all wrapped up for him and he would not have to investigate the bombing. He could go back to extorting underage whores for anal and oral sex and taking bribes from tourists for minor violations of traffic laws. There was a decade during the twentieth century when Civil Enforcers and Regulators, then known as cops, were called 'pigs' by the younger generation. In this instance, over two centuries later, it was accurate.
"How long will your stay be in my beautiful country?"
"No longer than it takes us to get a flight back. I think we're done here in your beautiful country," I said with sarcasm and disgust.
"It is probably for the best." He walked away.
I could feel LeAnn's soft breast against my arm and I had the sudden urge to hide from the world inside her. Only a couple of hours ago we had been making love semi-dangerously on a table under the night sky as the breeze from the ocean reminded us we were alive. And the world had looked bright and hopeful for Stacy. I took LeAnn's hand and she took Stacy's and we walked down the beach to assess the visible damage. I caressed LeAnn's waist as I slid behind her and over so that Stacy was between us, holding one of our hands in each of hers. LeAnn smiled. Stacy tried to smile. I knew it might be a long time before the invisible damage was known. A very long time.
Chapter Eight
For man has only lived life to its fullest when he has stood in the darkness, and survived to stand in the light
It was further from midnight than dawn by the time all the Emergency Service Vehicles and Civil Enforcement ground and glider transports had vacated the scene. One of the few pockets left on Earth where the sky was still blue by day and the stars still visible by night could not make that boast on this evening. Clouds had formed and there still hung in the air smoke from the now extinguished fire. The breeze was moving it slowly out to sea, but it was so thick and dense I suspected it might be daylight before it had all dissipated. By morning, no one would ever know what had transpired here were it not for the gaping hole where one of the large rooms had once been. Stacy's room, and John's. Only he was no more, blown into a million pieces and scattered among tiny bits of debris on the beach, a human life indistinguishable from the remains of a resort accommodation.
One couple had been so shaken by the evening's events that they had quickly packed and bugged out, a full refund provided by the understanding folks at the Las Ventanas. We had moved Stacy into the vacated room and LeAnn had brought her a few clothes to throw in the closet as well. I did not understand the latter, considering we would soon be leaving also, but I was a man. Okay, technically a robot with a soul, if I stopped to think on such matters anymore. I rarely did. I was a man as much as any man was, because loving LeAnn had made me one. She belonged to me and I to her, and in that way she was part me and I was part her. She was showering before coming to bed this late night or early morning. I lay on the bed in my clothes with a million thoughts running through my mind; not the least of which was whether it was Stacy whom the explosion was designed to kill, or John. The killer on the beach suggested Stacy. But then, did it? Perhaps he was cleaning up a mistake, and both of them were the target. But why?
I was thinking so hard my head was beginning to hurt. My eyes were growing tired when LeAnn came from the bathroom and changed all that. She was wearing very little, and what she was wearing was white and lacy and showed her to wonderful advantage; not that the task wasn't an easy one. I was instantly awake and felt a twinge of guilt at my relief that the room we had obtained for Stacy was not next to ours. Somehow the thoughts running through my mind and the feelings coursing through parts of my body would seem more inappropriate if the girl we cared about who had lost her husband tonight was next door. Sometimes proximity mattered.
LeAnn smiled but did not come over to the bed. Her sweet, beautiful breasts were barely covered, white against white flesh, and I was suddenly hungry. It was a hunger only her love could quench. I needed to walk along her tender shore and plunge into the velvet sea I knew from experience was underneath the white satin. I loved watching her walk around the garden back in New Chicago because I thought it was the sexiest sight on the planet. God, she had a great ass. I got out of the bed and took off my pants. She turned and I followed her out the sliding doors to the big terrace facing the beach. She spread her arms out along the railing with her back to the ocean. She tilted her head slightly, the breeze catching her long hair and tossing it about.
"I love you."
It was all she had to say. She was telling me that no matter what, we would always be us, and we would not let the world intrude on that with its ugliness. Not in Paris. And not here in Mexico. She kept her arms on the wood railing while I kissed her, and kept them there when I reached in and took out her soft white breast and made love to it. She remained still while I kissed and adored it, even when I devoured it, nibbling on the soft pink tip. Her sighs and moans were soft and full of pleasure. I didn't want to neglect the other one and took it out to play as well, loving it with the same affection and
abandon as I had its beautiful twin. My fingers explored her tender shore and began to touch deeper waters where her velvet sea beckoned me. Still, she remained motionless. Finally, she leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "Love me, darling." And then she turned around, stepping away from the barrier a couple of feet, letting her beautiful rear press against me as she leaned over to grab the railing again.
The smoke had moved farther out to sea and taken the cloud cover with it. I lifted her negligee and the moonlight highlighted her great beauty. I ran my hands over the soft feminine curves I loved and found heaven just beneath. I swam as far out in her lovely sea as I could, my strokes sure and relentless. Her soft cries and gasps urged me past the point of ever returning safely. Eventually a harsher cry, filled with love and pleasure drifted out to sea with the tide. Her body went limp and she subsequently laid her head on the railing while I remained in her ocean of dreams. After a time, she straightened and I put my arms around her waist from behind. She leaned back, her long black hair soft against my cheek. I held her and we let the breeze from the ocean cool us down. We had reaffirmed life after so much death had touched our lives this night. Spent and enjoying the sound of the surf and the warm breeze, we curled up together on one of the padded lounge chairs and slept.
Chapter Nine
For when loneliness and the memory of what might have been are all that remain, our only refuge is the night
The silence of her lonely room was deafening. Stacy yearned to hide from this unimaginably cruel world in sleep, but sleep would not come. Outside, in the darkness, only the distant roar of the tide intruded on the quiet. But inside her room, the sound of her life torn to pieces reverberated from every corner. It was a heartrending sound that only she could hear. She lay staring at the ceiling, listening to the blaring echo of her pain. He was not there to love her. He would never again be there to love her. She tried not to feel him enter her, but memory betrayed her; agonizing desire and agonizing truth heartbreakingly intertwining. Her hand slipped involuntarily down to the softness he had often touched and loved. She ached to feel him there once more, just to say goodbye. A single tear rolled down her cheek, the only tangible evidence of a heart in torment. On the beach, the sound had overpowered everything else in her life, and she had shut down. Had it not been for LeAnn, she might not have made it back from that dark whirlpool of numbness where she had taken shelter. She didn't know whether to be angry with her friend or grateful.
The Tender Shore: A Matt Ransom Mystery Page 3