Stranger Danger

by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

  His expression turned skeptical, illuminated by the faint light of the dash. “Are you any good?”

  “I’m damn good,” she said with pride, in truth.

  “Good,” he said. “That may come in handy tonight.”

  On Riverside Drive, Luis slowed and cut the headlights. He drove with slow precision, apparently able to see through the gloom better than Sara could. “Do you know exactly where?”

  “No.”

  “Never mind, I’ll find them.”

  On their second pass, Sara caught sight of the figures beneath a picnic shelter at the 41st Street Plaza. “Luis, I think that’s them.”

  “Si, I think so, too.” He pulled over and parked beneath some trees. “We walk from here.”

  Before she could react, he was out of the car and moving through the night with a panther’s stealth. Sara followed and tried to mimic his steps. She did her best to keep back in the shadows and to make as little noise as possible. Once they reached a secluded spot near the pavilion, Luis held up a hand and she halted in place. “Now we wait,” he said. “And listen.”

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Sara saw Santiago. He stood a little apart from the others, his back straight and his posture taut. His right eye was swollen, well on the way to being black and his cheek sported a small cut. A trail of blood ran down his face. Someone had tried to beat him, she thought, but when she glanced at Santiago’s knuckles, they were scuffed. He’d fought back, then, and held his own. A breeze blew off the river and she caught the scent of honeysuckle mingled with the harsher aroma of marijuana, sweat, tobacco smoke, and beer.

  The man who faced Santiago must be Enrique, she guessed. The intricate tattoos worn by many M13 members covered his face and otherwise bald head. His eyes were dark slits, and he had a reptilian appearance, like a dangerous snake. Sara guessed he must be in his forties, if not older, lean and weathered. His expression conveyed anger, hostility, and he all but radiated with repressed violence. A trio of hombres stood behind him, his bodyguards, each with a lethal manner.

  In addition to Enrique and the three, she counted five more. Eight, she thought, eight against three. They were hardened men, trained to kill, willing to risk everything. The odds seemed against them, but then she remembered how tough Santiago was, the things he’d done. Luis, in their youth, had commanded respect. She’d been in a few fights, held her own in some tough situations, but the real power surging through her now came from love. Sara realized she’d do anything to save Santiago.

  Spanish, spoken in a harsh voice, reached her, but Sara failed to understand all of it. Enrique, if it was the man, called Santiago ‘Javier’ more than once as he spoke of betrayal and retribution. His words sharpened as he spoke and the insults increased. Through it all, Santiago stood like a soldier, his face a mask. He gave nothing away of his emotions, and pride swelled her heart, even as terror claimed her soul.

  The conversation grew more heated by the moment and she spotted Enrique’s increasing agitation. His face flushed with anger beneath the tattoos. He’d act soon. A few paces ahead of her, Luis cocked his weapon, ready to fire. Like her, he must have been aware of the deteriorating situation. She prepared the pistol she carried too. An eerie calm descended over Sara, almost a fugue state as she anticipated action.

  For a few minutes, time seemed to cease. The wind didn’t blow and sound diminished. Sara’s senses enhanced. Although she watched the scene before her and her focus remained on Santiago, she became almost feral, somehow wild. When Enrique stepped forward and put a .357 against Santiago’s forehead, Luis gasped, but Sara reacted and rushed forward to stop it.

  Heedless of her safety, thoughtless of anything but saving Santiago, she plunged forward with a loud cry. She caught Luis’ whisper to stop as she streaked past him but ignored it in her rush. Sara plunged into the gang members and thrust herself between Enrique and Santiago. Then she lifted the pistol and aimed it at Enrique’s throat. He stood much taller than she and she couldn’t reach any higher. “Drop it, cabron.”

  If she hadn’t been a woman or lacked the element of surprise, Sara imagined they would’ve cut her down with rapid fire. Instead, Enrique stared at her. “Ay, caramba, what the fuck is this?”

  An explosion roared in her ears and the gangbanger leader’s face exploded in a gory spray of blood and bone. Some of it rained across her hands and arms as she stumbled back in horror. At the same time, multiple headlights panned across the scene, and Santiago shouted at her. Her ears were ringing from the report and she struggled to make out his rapid-fire Spanish. Through the roar, she thought he called her crazy and urged her to get out of the way fast. Someone pulled her to one side with rough hands. She allowed it until she realized it wasn’t Santiago or Luis but one of the bangers. Sara jerked free and whirled around as numerous guns fired into the night.

  Luis grasped her. “Sara, move! Get out of the way before you get killed. I think the FBI is here. Andale!”

  “Where’s Santiago?” Gun shots echoed all around her and many voices shouted in both English and Spanish. “Santiago?”

  She heard his voice and turned toward it, in time to see him step over Enrique’s lifeless body, then shoot one of the three bodyguards. Sara shook out of Luis’ grip and started toward Santiago. Before she could, Santiago made a terrible sound. Red blossomed across his chest like some distorted flower and she screamed. So did someone else and their words cut deep into her soul and scarred her heart.

  “El esta muerto!” Someone was dead but who? Not Santiago, please God, not him.

  Her prayer was interrupted when something fierce seared her thigh. Intense pain radiated from it and Sara glanced down. Blood spurted from her upper leg. Dizziness swirled her head and turned the scene into a nightmarish merry-go-round. Shadows crept closer and spread until she saw nothing but utter blackness. As she yielded to it, she thought she heard Santiago scream her name and then she knew nothing more.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There were no colors anymore, nothing but the most absolute black she’d ever known. No light filtered through it or tempered it. It was eternal night, one without any chance of morning. Her mind floated in the endless void, confused and unable to focus. Somewhere, pain existed but it seemed distant, almost unreal. She knew it existed but for now, she did not feel it. If she focused or tried, agony would devour her so Sara retreated deeper into the dark cocoon around her.

  A sense she didn’t belong here niggled at the edges of her consciousness. She tried to push the idea away but it remained, as insistent as an itch. In her zone of semi-comfort, one thing bothered her – the abject loneliness. Sara hated being alone. She craved something. No, someone. She yearned for someone and needed them, but a terrible voice within her soul whispered he was dead. Muerto.

  His name echoed in her mind and filled her heart. Santiago. Her Santiago. Bits of memory surfaced, floating through the darkness like flotsam in a flood. The more pieces she saw, the deeper her inner anguish and fear. Gunshots echoed in her mind, blood ran red, and she ran from the memories and drifted, barely aware, uncertain, and cold.

  When next she held a coherent thought, she decided hell must be frigid, as barren as a winter wasteland. California raised, she loathed the cold weather. She didn’t like the snow, but she hated the ice more. It froze her in place now, like a winter storm, coating roads and power lines with deadly ice. She couldn’t move but realized if she didn’t, she might die soon, if she were not already dead.

  A voice penetrated her darkness, a man’s voice. His broken tone hurt to hear, so fragile and so filled with desperation. Sara listened, the lilt of his accent familiar. She realized, after several repetitions, he recited the prayer to St. Jude, patron of hopeless situations. In her mind, she began to follow the words as he said them, remembering each one from the past.

  “Oh, gloriosisimo Apostol San Judas!, siervo fiel y amigo de Jesus, el nombre del traidor que entrego a vuestro querido Maestro en manos de sus enemigos ha sido la ca
usa de que muchos os hayan olvidado, pero la Iglesia os honra e invoca universalmente como patron de los casos dificules y desesperados...” he said and she named him. Santiago. If he prayed, he lived or else she had died too.

  Her will to fight surged through her body and she struggled through layers of darkness, one at a time. Sara paused, her eyes closed, and listened as the prayer stopped. Before, everything audible sounded muffled, but she heard now with clarity.

  “You should get some rest, hermano. You’ll be in the hospital too if you don’t.”

  “I can’t.” Santiago sounded shattered, his voice a ghost of what she remembered. “I can’t, Luis.”

  “Then you need to eat something. At least go get some coffee, Santiago. The doctor said she should recover.”

  “She almost died, Luis. And, I won’t leave her, not until she wakes up.”

  “Will you eat a sandwich if I bring one to you?” Luis sounded worried and exasperated. “I’ll bring you one and a cup of coffee. If you want, I’ll even sneak in some tequila.”

  Santiago made a faint, choking sound and she realized it was a dry laugh. “Si, Luis. I’ll eat something or try if you bring it to me. But no tequila, not yet. Gracias.”

  “De nada.”

  Her awareness increased. Sara heard the soft whoosh as a door opened, then shut. Her ears caught the small beeps and other sounds of a hospital room. She inhaled an antiseptic odor and listened as Santiago abandoned the words of the formal prayer to speak from his heart. Although he spoke Spanish, a tongue she knew well enough, her mind translated his heartfelt prayers, and his pleas, into English. After a long while, he shifted from prayer to declarations of love for her. “You are my life,” he croaked in a hoarse whisper. “You’re my heart and soul. Everything I’ve done, I did so we could be together, to have the life I dreamed of since I was a teenager but without my little doll, my Sara, my heart, it’s all nothing.”

  His love brought light into her darkness and she sought it. With effort and stubborn will, Sara forced her way through all the layers. She opened her eyes and when she could focus, she saw Santiago kneeling beside her bed. His head rested against the mattress, face hidden from view. His shoulders quivered as he wept, still mumbling words of love alternating with more prayers.

  Santiago clutched her left hand in his grasp and she concentrated on wrapping her fingers around his. He didn’t seem to notice so she forced words through her dry, aching throat. “Santiago, mi corazon,” she whispered. “Te amo, darling, te amo.”

  He stilled and lifted his head. Sara tried to smile at him, but his grin outshone her feeble efforts. “Sara, oh, la muñequita,” he cried. “Gracias a dios!”

  Then he pulled himself upright, still holding her hand tightly, and covered her face with butterfly kisses. He kissed her mouth last of all, so gentle and light it was no more than a breath. He sat on the edge of the bed, careful of the lowered rail, and cupped her cheek with his free hand. “You scared me, Sarita. You were shot, querida, and almost bled to death. I thought I was going to lose you.”

  “Never,” she said. Her throat hurt and she was so thirsty. “Are you okay?”

  “Si, now I am.”

  She touched his face with feeble fingers. His unshaven whiskers were rough beneath her touch and he had dark circles beneath his eyes. He sported the black eye and the cut she remembered. She’d never seen him look so haggard, not even after he’d been shot. “You look terrible. Haven’t you slept?”

  “No, not for three days. I’ve waited for you to wake up, querida.”

  “Where am I?”

  His voice was so soft, so very tender. “You’re in the hospital.”

  Sara tried to roll her eyes. “I know that but where? Tulsa?”

  “Si. You’re in a room now, but you were in ICU with a tube down your throat, hooked up to all kinds of monitors.”

  No wonder her throat ached. “So what happened?”

  “It’s over.”

  “And?”

  “Can’t it wait until you’re better?”

  She shook her head, surprised at how much effort it took. “I need the short version, now.”

  “Enrique’s dead. So are the rest of the gang members at the meeting. And the FBI bastard, too but apparently Enrique handled him sometime before the other night. As far as the official record, Javier is dead and I’m alive. And no one who matters realizes Santiago was ever part of it. I can go back to the LAPD if I want. The FBI moved in about the time you got shot. It’s their investigation now, but Luis and I are both cleared of any charges. The story is that you, me, and Luis were here on a vacation, stumbled into a gang meeting, and got caught in it. Like I said, it’s over and I’m free.”

  Her weary mind grasped the main points. “Luis was right?”

  “Si. I’d probably be dead if he hadn’t come to save me, but I was mad he brought you there.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Santiago grinned. “He understood and I’m not, now.”

  Remembering when he’d been shot, she said. “I’m not as tough as you.”

  “Si, maybe not but you’re braver than me.”

  Luis walked into the room. When he realized Sara had roused, he smiled. “Thank God. Now my little brother can eat and sleep. I thought I would have to bury him before I could go home to LA.” He leaned over to plant a brother’s kiss on her forehead. “I’m glad you’re recovering, Sara.”

  A languid weakness overwhelmed her as she nodded. “Could I have some water, please?”

  Santiago poured a cup from the carafe on the table and held it so she could drink it through a straw. Raising her head to manage sapped her energy and it must’ve shown. “You’re getting tired,” he said. “Close your eyes and sleep. I’ll be here.”

  “You need to rest, too.”

  Luis interrupted. “He will. He’ll eat, then he’ll get some sleep.” Santiago opened his mouth to protest, but Luis held up one hand. “I’ll stay here with Sara for awhile.”

  “I’m not going to the hotel.”

  “Sleep in the waiting room, then,” Luis said. “Everyone else including me has.”

  Sara watched, half-eyed, as Santiago devoured the roast beef and cheese sandwich, drank the coffee, and ate the piece of pie. He kissed her, promised to be back in a few hours, and left. Luis took the chair he’d vacated and she shut her eyes, asleep in minutes.

  Two days later, the hospital dismissed her. She and Santiago spent another five days in the hotel in Owasso. He pampered her until she was so bored she threatened to start throwing things. Then he took her home to Los Angeles, not to her mother’s house or but to his place.

  “It’s a simple, studio apartment,” he said as they entered. “It’s not much. I haven’t been here much the last couple of years, but I kept the rent paid to have a place to come back to when it was over.”

  “I like it,” Sara told him. “I don’t mind staying here for now, but I’d rather not live here.”

  He grinned. “Who says you would, anyway?”

  She smiled back. “I’m saying I won’t.”

  “I haven’t asked you something I want to, yet.”

  Sara sat down on his sagging couch and gazed at the profusion of bougainvillea blossoms outside the sliding glass door. “So ask me.”

  One of his eyebrows arched. “Here? I planned to take you to the beach or somewhere pretty.”

  “I’m too tired to go today and I don’t want to wait.”

  Santiago dropped to one knee and reached for her hand. “I meant to make this romantic and perfect but you’re impatient, la muñequita. I love you and I’d like to ask if you’d be my wife.”

  Joy erupted and she wanted to laugh with delight. Instead, she spoke the single word necessary. “Yes. Si, if you prefer. Kiss me.”

  “Not yet.” He reached into his pocket and took out a ring box. “I want to put this on your finger.”

  She held out her hand and he slid an exquisite diamond solitaire ring onto her finger. The stone c
aught the sunlight streaming through the windows and sparkled. “It’s beautiful, Santiago. When did you have time to shop for it?”

  “I’ve had it for years,” he said. “I bought it for you a long time ago.”

  Then he kissed her, slow and sweet, the heat lingering on her lips then traveling through her body. “Te quiero, Santiago,” she said. “I need you.”

  He lifted her effortlessly into his arms and carried her into his bedroom, mindful of her wounded leg. He did everything, undressed her with gentle hands, and settled her onto his king-sized bed. Sara watched as he stripped, noted the bruise on his chest where the slug meant to kill him had left a bruise, and forgot to think as he joined her. He didn’t kiss her again, not yet. Instead, Santiago stroked her body, his fingers tender as they moved across her ultra-sensitive skin. He touched her face with reverence, then moved to fondle her breasts but with a slow hand, light and easy.

  Santiago kissed the spot between her breasts and then moved his lips to her throat. His warm mouth delivered sweet kisses, slow and heated at the base, then on each side. He used his teeth to nibble just enough to evoke a surge of passion.

  Sara’s need notched higher as Santiago shifted position. He rubbed her belly as he headed downward to her v. Mindful of her sore thigh, he lowered his head between her legs and kissed her there. His warm breath against her sweet spot increased her need. When he inserted his tongue, she writhed in response, fingers clawing against the sheet. Her hunger grew until it became almost painful, the urgency sharp and consuming.

  He didn’t hurry. Instead, he rose and kissed her mouth. Sara didn’t mind the taste of her own sex on his tongue. Somehow it cemented them together all the more. “La muñequita,” he whispered. “Are you ready?”

  “Oh, Lord, yes,” she moaned. “Santiago, please.”

  She asked and he delivered. He rose up, his cock proud and hard, and entered her. Her walls were slick and ready as he eased in to pack her full. Sara sighed as he filled her, then when he began to move, each motion as graceful as a dance step, she cried out with delight.