by D. V. Berkom
A generously proportioned woman dressed in a black sequined gown and about half a million dollars' worth of diamonds walked to the microphone. She tapped it with her manicured fingernail to make sure it was working.
Clearing her throat, she intoned, "Ladies and gentlemen."
At first no one paid any attention, most deep in conversation or queuing up to the bar for drinks. The woman spoke into the microphone again, this time gaining everyone's attention. A hush settled over the room.
"Thank you for coming this evening. I hope you all had the opportunity to enjoy the refreshments." A general murmur of approval traveled through the crowd.
"Tonight is about vision." She gazed at the audience, pausing for emphasis. "A vision that will soon become reality.” I stifled a yawn as she went on about how Wild Horse Ridge was the largest resort ever attempted in Northern Arizona, etcetera.
“I’m honored tonight,” she continued, “to present the man behind the vision; a man without whom this extraordinary enterprise would not have come to pass. M.B. West's own visionary, Simon Boudreaux."
Applause erupted as Simon took the stage, I would guess more from the free alcohol rather than from his popularity. The guy behind me did a wolf whistle. Simon smiled and waited for the applause to die down before speaking. He was clearly at home on a stage- he worked the crowd like a pro.
I caught a glimpse of Dave Sinclair standing in the front row. He looked quite pleased with himself. Durm Fidelity and Trust was a major player in the project, and his obvious sense of superiority showed in the way he stood apart from the milling crowd.
That was my take, anyway.
The lights dimmed and Simon turned toward the large monitor as the first strains of the theme from The Magnificent Seven boomed through the speakers. Bright, colorful images of sunny, happy people living the Southwestern lifestyle flashed across the screen and Simon's commanding voice-over narrative recounted the beginnings of Wild Horse Ridge.
After what seemed like hours, but was probably closer to twenty minutes, the program ended with a musical crescendo. The screen went dark. Scattered applause accompanied the crowd’s migration to view the model.
"Pretty impressive,” Cole said, reading the information off a placard placed next to the model. "Says here it’s a professionally rated 36-hole course, surrounded by a water park, a movie theater, and riding stables.”
“It’s all very nice,” I said, “but they’re messing with one of the best areas I know for wildlife spotting.”
Cole shook his head. “Progress.”
I excused myself and went in search of the ladies room. Afterward, I gave myself a once over in the mirror and left the restroom, all but colliding with Simon in the hallway.
"Sorry," I said with a laugh.
Simon's eyes lit up.
"Just the person I wanted to see." He waited until two women exited the restroom behind me and had walked back down the hall to the party.
"I don't want this to be general knowledge, since I can't accommodate everyone, but I've invited you and Cole on an exclusive tour of Phase One of Wild Horse Ridge. He’ll meet up with us shortly. Shall we go to my office to wait?" He indicated a closed door at the end of the hallway.
"Oh. Sure. Fine." Damn. Just as I was going to suggest to Cole that we leave. It looked like my plan to seduce him would have to wait.
Simon led the way, unlocking the heavy wooden door with a key from his pocket. Silence descended as he closed the door and the party noise receded into the background.
"Help me celebrate?" Simon poured two glasses of champagne from a bottle on his desk and handed me one.
"Sure. Thanks." I raised the crystal flute in a toast and took a small sip.
"Please, have a seat," he said, indicating one of two chairs positioned in front of a blazing gas fireplace.
I sat down and took in my surroundings. The thick carpet added to the luxurious, insulated feel of the room. A massive bookshelf lined one wall. Floor to ceiling windows covered another. Simon sat on the arm of the other chair and smiled.
"So Kate. Why don't you tell me a little about what brought you to Durm?"
As usual, my cover story slid out with ease. "Nothing too interesting, Simon. I came here on vacation about five years ago and fell in love with the place. Applied at Hard Rock Country Jeep Tours and the rest is history."
He set his glass down, his dark eyes focused on me.
"What about before you came here? I'll bet there's an interesting story there."
"I'm afraid not." I shrugged, keeping my expression as neutral as possible. What was he driving at? "I grew up in Minnesota. Nothing exceptional about that." I took another, larger sip of champagne.
"Are you sure you've never lived anywhere else?"
His intense gaze started to make me feel uncomfortable. I shifted in my chair, the impulse to leave growing.
"No, can't say as I have. Why do you ask?" The last word came out as 'athk'. My tongue tasted like wool. Odd. I hadn't had that much to drink.
"You don't remember me, do you?" His eyes narrowed when I shook my head.
"No. Should I?" We'd met before? I searched my memory, but couldn't come up with anything. I'd never met Simon before, I was sure of it. Klaxon horns started going off in my brain.
I tried to stand. "Where's Cole?"
Simon pushed me back into the chair.
"He's not coming. It's just you and me, Kate."
My heart beat double time. What was he doing? His features started to blur and I felt nauseous.
He circled me, trailing his fingers across my hand and up my arm to caress my cheek. I jerked my head away, and the room started to spin.
"Now is that any way to treat an old friend?" He ran his fingertips along my collar bone, giving me chills, and not the good kind.
"Old friend? What are you talking about?" The words came out thick and slurred. My brain kept telling me I was in trouble and needed to leave but my body wouldn’t respond. My arms and legs felt like dead weights and my peripheral vision faded in and out. Simon wavered like the flame from a candle in a gentle breeze.
"Are you feeling all right?" Simon bent down so I could see his face. There was no trace of concern. It was too difficult to form words, so I didn't try.
"I'll refresh your memory. We met at one of Roberto Salazar's bashes several years ago."
I tried to speak, but only managed to turn my head in his direction.
"I remember." He lifted the hair off my neck, letting it fall through his fingers. "You wore a backless red dress and drank champagne. Salazar couldn't take his eyes off you. No one could." He moved behind me, where I couldn't see him. The voice in my head screamed Run! Now!
I couldn't move.
He chuckled, but it lacked mirth. "I thought you were a damsel in distress and needed saving. I slipped a note under your wine glass, telling you I'd be waiting outside the compound in my car and we'd drive to safety. You didn't come. Instead, three large men did and made it very clear I wasn't to come near you or anyone associated with Salazar's operation." Simon’s face was like stone. "I had to leave everything, start from scratch. Believe me, Kate, I won't make that mistake again."
I tried to speak, tried to tell him I never got the note, but it was no use.
He grabbed a handful of hair and wrenched my head back. The pain seemed far away but important. I wondered if anyone would hear me scream. I opened my mouth to try but the attempt died in my throat.
He brought his face next to mine, breath hot against my cheek.
"You gave me up to those sadistic thugs. Now I'm going to return the favor."
The faint realization hit me that I'd been drugged and was now in grave danger, but then the idea skated away and all I knew was that I couldn't hold myself upright anymore.
As I slid to the floor, my last thought was of Cole.
FOUR
Cold. Damp.
Dark.
The pain wrenched me from the void, spiraling down my ne
ck and shoulders. I was curled in a fetal position, my hands and ankles bound. It took a minute to realize I was being transported somewhere. The air around me smelled like rust and dirt, and whatever was below me emitted a screek! screek! sound. Each jolt brought the pain back, sending a shudder from my head to my cold, bare feet.
I made myself focus on the pain as I struggled against the lure of oblivion.
Opening my eyelids to slits, I kept my head down and tried to get a glimpse of my surroundings. Intermittent, strobe-like light splayed across my bent legs from a single, bobbing light, revealing details one moment, plunging everything into darkness the next.
I was in a wheelbarrow being pushed by a tall, broad-shouldered silhouette of a man wearing a headlamp, his breathing labored. It wasn’t Simon. Too tall. The shadows created by the lamp obscured his features, but something about the way he carried himself seemed resolute and vaguely familiar.
We slowed to a crawl and stopped. The pain receded, leaving my mouth dry and head throbbing like some horrible hangover from my twenties.
Water dripped, echoing in the stillness and penetrated the fog surrounding my brain. The man coughed and reached inside his pocket, pulling out a pair of leather gloves. He struggled to yank them on, flexing and jamming his fingers together to make them fit.
Where was I? The last I remembered, I'd been waiting for Cole in Simon's office. My confusion began to clear and it was just enough to scare the crap out of me. Things were way better unconscious.
He turned and walked out of my field of vision and I raised my head to get my bearings. Between flickers from the headlamp, I recognized the rock walls and dirt floor of an abandoned mine, similar to one of hundreds scarring the high desert of Arizona. The man stood near a metal contraption the miners called a "honey wagon." Historically used by miners to relieve themselves during grueling, sixteen hour days, it had two square lids that opened to reveal a pair of buckets.
I’d been around enough mines to know this was not a great place for a first date. If the bad air or hidden shafts didn’t kill you, then the support timbers, rotted through from years of moisture and neglect, would give way if you so much as sneezed on them. There was also the distinct possibility of stumbling across an unstable, long-forgotten cache of dynamite.
The man picked a canvas bag up off the ground and loosened the drawstring, glancing inside. I blinked hard. It must have been the drugs – I could have sworn the bag was writhing. He turned. I dropped my head back and closed my eyes.
The sound of his footsteps signaled he was nearby. I felt his hands slide underneath my knees as he lifted me out of the wheelbarrow. I willed my body to go slack. Any rigidity and he’d know I was awake. I let my head fall back and kept my breathing steady. I opened my eyes to slits again and tried to get a glimpse of who I was up against.
I didn’t have to wait long.
He dropped me onto the ground. I hit hard. Gasping for air, I rolled onto my side and propped myself up on my elbow.
"You’re awake." The mine wasn’t the only thing that brought a chill.
I'd know John Sterling's gravelly voice anywhere. Anyone else and I might have been able to talk or fight my way out of whatever might be in store. Not Sterling. I was pretty sure I'd made the top of his shit list and that wasn’t about to change with some amiable conversation.
"When’d you get out?" Last I'd heard, he was going on an extended vacation - for ten years. And, from what my DEA contact told me, the prison he’d been assigned to in Tucson wasn't exactly spa-like.
“A week ago. Surprised?”
Though vaguely defined from the indirect light of the headlamp, the familiar facial features stood out: square jaw, aquiline nose, high forehead. He hadn't changed much from ten years in prison, except the nose had an unfamiliar jog to it, like it had been broken. Probably from the accident. He crouched in front of me and pulled out a length of rope.
“Sit up.”
I slid backwards and leaned against the cold steel of the ancient porta-potty. He wrapped the rope around my chest and arms, and then looped it through a bar on the honey wagon, cinching it tight behind me.
“How do you know Simon?" Did Simon know Sterling wanted to kill me? If so, then his anger ran deeper than I imagined.
“Simon was a stroke of luck. He was happy to accept the finder’s fee I offered. After I saw the two of you together and did a little research, I was able to play on his need for revenge."
Where had Sterling seen Simon and me together?
Sterling checked the rope for slack. “I know a little bit about revenge, you see. When I got released I hooked up with Enrique, and the rest was easy. Just took a little persuasion. Did you know he'd been keeping tabs on you for Salazar?” Sterling leaned back with a thin smile. “Knowing where the rot is hidden ¿es muy importante, si?”
Salazar knew where I was all along? Why hadn’t he come after me? He wouldn’t have wasted resources keeping track of my whereabouts for no reason. It wasn’t his style. His style was slice a throat now, ask questions later.
The money. That was it. He was waiting to see if I went back to Mexico to get the money I'd stashed. It'd be a long wait. I had no idea if the money was still where I'd left it. It had been ten years. I sure as hell wasn't going to find out.
Not yet, anyway.
I assumed Enrique was dead, knowing Sterling's fanatical need to tie up loose ends. Salazar would have to find someone else to take his place.
“If anyone could be described as rot, Sterling, it’s you. You were the bad seed in all of this, not me.”
His laughter ricocheted off the walls. Small stones skittered down the rock wall beside me, bouncing across the dirt floor. I braced myself and hoped the tunnel was sturdier than it looked.
“And you were little Miss Innocent, right? You would never steal from the great Salazar. You'd have to look over your shoulder the rest of your natural life.”
“I didn’t steal from Salazar,” I lied. “Only you were that stupid.”
Sterling had played both sides. One of the DEA’s best field agents, he worked undercover in Salazar’s illegal drug world. Boredom or vanity took over and he decided to use his connections for real, and ran his own operation under the ruse of undercover work. The sweet side deal lasted for years, until his luck ran out. He hadn't been pleased with my role in that.
“No, you did me one better. You betrayed both Salazar and Anaya.” He stood up, reached behind his back and pulled out a gun, aiming it at me. “Where’s the money, Kate?”
He wouldn’t fire it. We'd both die when the mine collapsed. He was trying to intimidate me.
“I don’t have it.”
“I don’t believe you.” He slid an old wooden box over with his foot and sat. “I got time, Kate. And, to help you in this little exercise-” He grabbed the canvas bag and slid it between us, “I brought your favorite.” He opened it and indicated I should take a look.
God, the thing was moving. Whatever was inside was alive - ominous hissing sounds erupted from the interior. Nauseous, I leaned back, but he shoved the bag in my face, lighting the interior with his flashlight. I had no choice but to peer in at the mass of coiled, slithering snakes.
Visceral fear washed over me. I glimpsed orange and white sliding among the familiar diamond pattern. Corals and rattlers. He didn’t stint on quality. Not that there wouldn’t have been enough ways to off someone in an old mine- throw them down a dark shaft, rig a timer on some old explosives, drown them in a slurry pool. No, Sterling brought snakes.
I hated snakes.
I’d always had an aversion to the things, even the harmless ones. I leaned back again, keeping my face impassive. I refused to let him see my fear.
“That’s sweet. How did you know rattlesnakes were my favorite?”
“I didn’t. That’s why I got all different kinds. Now, where’s the money?”
“I told you, I don’t have it.”
“Wrong answer.” He grabbed my wrists and yanked
me forward. His glittering eyes bored holes into mine. “I hear death from snake venom is slow and painful.”
I swallowed but my throat went dry. He pushed my hands toward the bag.
My fingers retracted and I turned my face away. My voice ratcheted up an octave. “God, Sterling, don’t do this. Yes, I had it.” He eased off a bit and I added, “But it’s gone.”
His lips curled into a thin line and he pulled my hands back toward the bag.
“No. Stop. I lost it. I’m not lying to you. It’s gone.” I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath, waiting for the pain. Please, God, let it be fast.
I was surprised when Sterling let me go and dropped the bag to the ground. “If you’re not going to tell me where it is, its location dies with you. Unless-” He turned to look at me. “You let someone else in on it, like maybe that sheriff friend of yours?”
Now he was bringing another innocent person into his twisted act of revenge. I had to do something, fast, or he’d go after Cole.
He pulled out his cell phone and came in for a close up with the camera. “Turn to the right, the light's better." I stared ahead, not moving. He took the picture and stood.
"I hear Anaya’s got a reward out for the person who finds and kills you. I know you have the money, Kate, and I want to make sure he knows I was the last one to see you alive." He slipped the camera back into his pocket. "I’ll take the post-mortem afterwards. It's so much more gratifying this way." I didn’t think Vincent Anaya, the other drug lord I'd testified against, would be pleased Sterling had let me die before recovering the money, and I said as much.
His laughter had a brittle ring. "I need…what'd they call it in group?" He frowned, then snapped his fingers. "Closure. I need closure. Fuck Anaya."
Sterling must have realized he’d been standing next to the snakes. He moved past me to get out of the way and I thrust out my feet. I was fast and he was unprepared. He lost his balance and grabbed for something to hold onto, but caught air. His body slammed into the half-rotted wooden support beam and six-and-a-half feet of angry landed on the ground with a thud. Dirt and small rocks rained down around us. I shielded my head with my bound hands, expecting the whole thing to collapse and bury us alive.