See How They Run

by Bethany Campbell

  As briefly and clinically as possible, Estrada recounted the murders and how the twins had witnessed the Zordani killing. And he told Hepfinger the damning truth about whom the twins had seen—Reynaldo Comce.

  “I knew about Reynaldo from the start,” Estrada said in disgust. “None of the three fired the gun. Reynaldo wanted to go with them, and they let him shoot. He bragged of it to a servant that same afternoon. The servant, a good man, phoned me.”

  “Reynaldo Comce,” Hepfinger said, looking more regretful than surprised. “That’s why he was sent home?”

  “Yes. I told only Don Diego the truth. He ordered Reynaldo back. The cover story is that he was sent home because of the girl, the actress. That she was being used to get to him. As few people as possible should know the truth.”

  Hepfinger gave a nod of friendly concern. “Absolutely. And as for the witnesses, the Cartel can offer expertise and means. But the blame should be put squarely on this Deeds.”

  “Of course. He’s the ass who started it.”

  “Exactly,” said Hepfinger. “I’ll do all I can. It’s only a question of finding this Montana person, the twins, and the woman? The black man isn’t with them?”

  “Yes,” Estrada said.

  “You have records on them, files and such?”

  “I have sources in the task force. We know everything they know.”

  “I’ll need all that information, of course. All of it.”

  “It’s at your disposal,” said Estrada.

  Suddenly Hepfinger’s stomach growled, and he laughed with chagrin, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He placed his hand affectionately on the mound of his belly. “Would you happen to have some cheese? Some crackers or water biscuits? A nice Brie would hit the spot.”

  “Of course.” Estrada pushed the button that summoned the maid.

  Hepfinger regarded his beer mug, then took a drink that left a slight mustache of foam on his upper lip. He licked it off with relish.

  “As for the twins and the woman?” he asked. “Consider them yours.”

  Laura watched, wary, as Montana used the cellular phone to call the realtor in Hooksett. He confirmed that he’d pick up the keys to the country house tomorrow.

  Everything Montana told the man was untrue yet sounded plausible. He lied with such ease that Laura was taken aback.

  When he hung up the phone, he gave Laura and Jefferson a tight smile. “We’ve got porcelain, Jefferson. Electricity, too.”

  “It’s furnished?” Jefferson asked. “Real beds? Real chairs?”

  “It’s furnished. It belonged to a doctor in Boston. His family used it summers. He died last fall. It’s got twenty acres and a pond. He fished a lot.”

  “Fishing,” Jefferson said dubiously. “I never understood fishing. You want to eat a fish, buy one. Well, I’m not gonna think about that. I’m going to bed.”

  Jefferson took another pain pill. He stood at the counter, washing the pill down with a drink of luke-warm cola and grimacing at the taste. Then he turned, rubbing his shoulder, and lumbered toward his room.

  A suspicion had begun to gnaw at Laura. She waited until Jefferson was out of sight to speak.

  “Montana, you said Phase One is Hooksett. Phase Two is getting to Canada and this Florent Porrier. But you’ve never said what Phase Three is. Or exactly what Porrier’s doing for us. There’s something you’re not telling me. I think Jefferson knows it, but I don’t. What is it? Don’t lie to me. Please.”

  Montana paused for a long moment, as if deciding how much to reveal. His face became unreadable. At last he said, “Florent can get new papers for me and one of the boys. Then we’ll separate.”

  Laura’s head jerked back as if she’d been struck. “Separate? What do you mean?”

  Montana’s gaze met hers. “I mean separate. You and Jefferson take one twin. I take the other.”

  She stared at him, stunned. “Separate them?”

  “We split up. Don’t travel together. Don’t live together.”

  “But—for how long?”

  “As long as we have to.”

  Laura felt as if the ground had been cut away from beneath her feet. “You can’t do that. What about their feelings? They’ve never been apart for any length of time. You’re not equipped to handle a child like that. There are lessons, there are—”

  “We’ve got tranquilizers,” Montana said. “I’ll keep him drugged.”

  “That’s inhuman,” she protested. “I won’t have it—”

  Montana cut her off. “Together, they stand out too much. The most conspicuous thing about them is there are two of them.”

  “No,” she said with passion. “I’m their guardian. I won’t allow—”

  Again he cut her off. “You saw what happened at Valley Hope. Do you want it to happen again? Do you want them alive—or dead?”

  She looked at him in panic. His expression showed no emotion; it was perfectly controlled.

  “But—” Laura said, then stopped, groping for words. Objections swarmed through her mind, too many to choose from, but Montana held the trump card, and she knew it.

  “It’s the safest thing,” he said. “We do what we have to.”

  Her heart thudded faster. “Jefferson and I—and a white child?”

  Montana said, “Say he’s your second husband. Toronto’s an international city, sophisticated. Nobody’s going to look twice at a mixed marriage.”

  “But you?” she protested. “Alone with a child? A child with special needs?”

  “I’ll say my wife died, I’ll say she left me. What’s it matter? The world’s full of single fathers.”

  “But you don’t know enough.”

  “Maybe I won’t need to,” he said. “Maybe the task force’ll have rooted out whoever informed and we can go back. We take this one day at a time.”

  Laura wasn’t mollified. Montana suddenly seemed monstrously duplicitous to her. Was this the same man who had just helped her comfort crying children? Who had held her in his arms only this afternoon, as if he’d always stand by her?

  She darted a resentful glance at him, then looked away, sick with a sense of betrayal.

  “Want to sit in the other room? Talk it over?” He spoke as if nothing of import had happened.

  “Montana, I can’t accept this,” she said. “Separating the boys, going different ways—I can’t allow it.”

  “This place is damned cold tonight,” he said. “It’ll be good to get to a real house.”

  Anger flared within her. Wasn’t he even going to answer her? She stared bleakly at the fireplace, which was empty except for a gray heap of dusty ash.

  Montana had let the fire die because the snow had stopped and the sky had cleared. They couldn’t take the chance of smoke being seen.

  They’d put one propane heater in the boys’ room. Jefferson had taken the second into the bedroom with him. One remained in the lodge’s main section, throwing off only the faintest hint of warmth in the big room.

  She shivered, not knowing if it was from the outer chill or some deeper inner coldness. “You never said we’d have to separate,” she said, not looking at him. “Have you planned this all along?”

  She meant Did you have this in mind when you made love to me last night?

  Again he was silent a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was neither hard nor gentle. “I’ve thought it from the start,” he said. “Before we got to Marco’s, even. I had to. I wasn’t going to tell you until the time came. But I thought I should. Maybe I was wrong.”

  “Oh,” she said bitterly. “Just like that—‘By the way, we’re splitting now. And, oh, I’m taking a kid.’ How am I supposed to react?”

  “Do you think it makes me happy?” he countered. “But it’s not a matter of feeling. We’ve got to think. The law and the Colombians are both looking for twins. Twins, a woman, a white man. You tell me. Which is safer—to stay together—or split?”

  Tears welled in her eyes, burning. She couldn’t answer bec
ause she knew he was right. He was right, and she hated it.

  Her chest tightened as if in a vise, and her thoughts spun. If they separated, it was more logical for Montana to take one of the boys. How could Jefferson do it? How could he explain himself, a lone black man in a foreign country with a white child, obviously not his?

  “Who—who would you take?” she managed to say. “Which one? Trace? Or Rickie?”

  He paused again before he answered. “Rickie’s got an easier nature. He let me hold him tonight. Rickie, yes.”

  She couldn’t help it, the angry tears spilled and crept down her cheeks. “I don’t think I can stand it,” she said. “Letting him go. Not knowing—”

  She stood and was going to stalk away from him, but he, too, was on his feet. He caught her, held her so she wouldn’t leave. “Laura, Laura,” he said softly, “don’t cry. I’ll take care of him. I swear it.”

  “Leave me alone.” She struggled feebly to break free from him.

  He pulled her close. “Leave you alone?” he said in her ear. “It’s the last thing I want. Not now, not in Canada. We’ll get back together. I promise you that, too.”

  Paradoxically, for as much as he’d hurt and startled her, she wanted him more than ever. Perhaps it was because she needed another human being, any human being. Perhaps it was simply lust, because lust could temporarily cancel hurt and fear. Or perhaps she needed to be near him because she might lose him so soon.

  “Laura,” he said again, holding her tighter. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. But I thought the longer I waited, the worse it’d be.”

  She clung to him, not knowing what else to do. She buried her face against his shoulder.

  “Jefferson already knew,” she said miserably. “Didn’t he? I was the only one who didn’t guess.”

  “We talked yesterday. When you were out with the kids.”

  “If you take Rickie, I’ll worry about him all the time,” she said, her voice tight. “And they’ll miss each other.”

  “It can’t be helped,” he said.

  “You can’t drug him,” she insisted. “I won’t let him go if you drug him.”

  “It has to be done.”

  “No. I mean it. I won’t let him go.”

  He drew back, took her face between his hands, and stared down at her. “There’s no choice, Laura. It’s better he’s drugged than dead.”

  She blinked hard, refusing to let more tears fall. “Don’t talk like that.”

  He shook his head, a troubled expression on his face. “It won’t hurt him, not in the long run. Laura, you’re so protective of them. Too protective. It’s the reason you’re here. You shouldn’t be. You should have walked away when you had the chance.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” she said bitterly. “Somebody had to be here for them.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Somebody did. But it didn’t have to be you. I conned you.”

  She didn’t answer him. If she were honest enough, she would say, I conned myself. I was as self-isolated as the children. I stayed with them because I was like them, caught inside myself. I didn’t want to feel this much for them. But I do feel, and I feel alive again, and I want to stay alive.

  Montana gazed down at her, his face gilded by lantern light. She thought real regret was etched into his expression, that his dark eyes held something almost akin to sorrow.

  But she couldn’t know. How could she ever know what a man like him truly thought, truly felt?

  “It’s true,” he said. “You didn’t have to be here.”

  “What’s done is done,” she whispered.

  “I watched your face when I was on the phone,” he said. “You didn’t like what you heard, did you?”

  “You lie too well,” she said. “It scares me.”

  Her ex-husband, too, had been an accomplished liar, and she knew how dangerous such men were.

  “I worked undercover for four years,” he said. “Do you know what that means?”

  “No. What does it?”

  “It means I can be a lying, scheming two-faced son of a bitch. It means I can convince somebody he’s my best friend, then turn around and sell him down the river.”

  “That’s a terrible way to live,” she said.

  “Maybe. I didn’t think about it. I just did it.”

  “Because it had to be done?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I told myself. And still do.”

  His face was so near she could sense the warmth of his mouth hovering so close to hers. I still want him, she thought, bewildered. And he wants me. Why? Why do I feel this way?

  She took a deep breath. “Montana,” she said carefully, “if I’m what needs to be done, it’s all right. It’s nice to be wanted by somebody besides students. I don’t care if you’re pretending. It helps. It’s fine.”

  He raised his bad hand to her forehead, stroked back her bangs with his knuckles. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said. She raised her chin, gave him an uncompromising look. “I suppose I’m using you, too.”

  He looked into her eyes. “This isn’t about using.”

  She held his gaze. “Then maybe it’s about needing. I’m scared, Montana. When I close my eyes, it’s trite, but I imagine an hourglass with the sand running out. Maybe we need to make the most of time.”

  He gave her a strange one-sided smile that had no happiness in it. “You’re unusual, you know that?”

  “No,” she said. “I just have the feeling there’s no time to be coy. I’m not naive.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re not.”

  She set her jaw. “So maybe you’re screwing me for my morale. Or maybe because you feel time is running out, too, and we better take what we can while we can. It’s all right. Maybe you think you’re a lying son of a bitch. Maybe you are. But you aren’t when you’re with the kids. You can’t fake that. But I’ll still fight you over Rickie. I will. All the way.”

  He frowned. “Laura …”

  “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” she said and put her hand to his face. “We’ll just play this out as it happens.”

  “We’ll do what we have to do,” he said, his voice even, controlled. Then he looked at her mouth, took a deep breath, and pulled her into his arms again, hard. He kissed her, almost roughly.

  She didn’t mind. She liked it. From here on out, everything should be intense, every breath of air, every bite of food, every second of vision. And every touch—like this.

  She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him, kissing him back, as aggressively as he kissed her.

  He pulled her against him so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. She didn’t mind that, either, and wished he could do it harder still. He did. She gasped in a combination of pain and pleasure.

  “I am not,” he said against her lips, “doing this for your goddamn morale.”

  “Are you doing it for yours?”

  “I’m doing it because I want you,” he said. “You. I want you.”

  She didn’t believe him. It didn’t matter. Against everything that was sane, she still desired him. She knew she was alive because of him, and that his touch made her feel more alive, made her on fire for life itself with every atom of her being.

  ELEVEN

  They awoke in each other’s arms in the black, noiseless hour before dawn. They said nothing, only drew closer, naked body to naked body.

  Montana didn’t know if he kissed her first, or if she was the one to brush her lips against his. He did not know who made the initial seductive caress; did he touch her, did she touch him? Or by some unspoken consent had they acted at the same moment?

  It did not matter. In the cold, the silence, the dark, they made love again. There was desperation, a fierce need in their hunger for each other. But as their bodies locked together, straining, there was also an unexpected poignancy, a haunting sweetness that made Montana keep her tightly in his embrace afterward.


  She lay with her cheek against his chest. All she said was, “I mean it, Montana. I’ll fight you over Rickie.” Her breath was soft and warm against his naked skin.

  “I know,” he said, his arms locking around her more possessively. “I understand.”

  He held her, his face buried in her hair and thought, There’s not enough time. There’s not enough time.

  At last he left her for a cold, uncomfortable bed across from Jefferson’s and a sleep full of evil dreams. When he woke, the twins were waking, too, resentful and cantankerous. He was plunged into the clamor of another unsettled morning, and of making ready for another confusing change for the boys.

  From time to time, his eye caught Laura’s, but her gaze told him nothing. He kept his own expression as inscrutable as he could.

  She muttered that she was worried about Trace, that he seemed listless. Montana looked at the kid and thought he did seem sickly. So, for that matter, did Jefferson.

  Jefferson kept coughing, which tore at his wound and made him wince. The big man didn’t complain, but seemed weaker than he had been.

  Shit, thought Montana, what next? He loaded all their possessions into the van and wondered if the police and the feds were yet looking for them.

  But their trek toward Hooksett was more mundane than dramatic. They’d hardly been on the road half an hour when Rickie’s voice came plaintively from the backseat of the van. “Rickie’s got to pee-pee!”

  “Montana …” Laura said apologetically.

  “There’s a town ahead,” Montana said. “I’ll stop as soon as I can.”

  “Pee-pee, pee-pee, pee-pee!” Rickie chanted with monotonous regularity. “Pee-pee, pee-pee, pee-pee!”

  Jefferson covered his eyes with his hand and sank more deeply into his seat. “Why can’t he take a whiz in the snow like other kids?”

  “Because he’s not used to it,” Montana answered grimly. “He’d explode first.”

  “My head’s what’s gonna explode,” Jefferson said and sank lower in his seat. “Lone Ranger never had to stop for a kid to go pee. Superman never had to. Rambo neither.” He sneezed, dug in his pocket for a handkerchief, and blew his nose.