by Lois Greiman
Exhaling a shuddering breath, she crept to the nearest window and tried to peer inside. But the shades were drawn, the house closed up tightly. She tried the next and the next. Each was the same…until she arrived at the fifth window.
It was open, just a crack.
Carlotta would’ve liked to believe she was elated. Even mild relief would have been welcomed. But terror gnawed at her in earnest now, immobilizing her limbs, accelerating her heart. Yes, she had lied about Sofia’s whereabouts. But she had not been entirely untruthful regarding the frightening man so often at Tevio’s side. Long she had wondered about his role in Señor Tevio’s life. Why did a peaceable doctor need such a person? And was that person responsible for her sister’s disappearance?
Carlotta was no hero. No champion of any sort. In fact, she had left the hero behind. Had tricked him, lied to him. What a fool she was. But perhaps it wasn’t too late. She could return to the inn. Beg for his—
It was then that the scent of peaches reached her nostrils. Close on its heels was a muffled moan. Sofia! She almost gasped the name, but she steadied herself. Fortifying her flagging courage, she slid her hands beneath the window and lifted. It slid silently upward. Inside, the room was dark as pitch. Still, she jerked away and pressed her back against the warm siding. But no monsters swooshed out to devour her.
It seemed an eternity before she could find a modicum of quavering nerve. But finally, she pulled the folding knife from her pocket. Reaching out soundlessly, she cut through the screen as quietly as possible. The blade against the mesh seemed as loud as a freight train to her sensitized ears. She held her breath, waiting to be caught, to be questioned, to be tortured. But only the sound of night insects disturbed the stillness.
Heart in her throat, she forced one foot through the opening and slithered over the sill. Dropping silently to the floor, she remained as she was. Like a prisoner awaiting execution, she hunched her shoulders, held her breath. Silence marched on, seconds ticking away like a time bomb until there was nothing she could do but go on. Swallowing her fear, she pulled out her gun as her eyesight adjusted. Before her lay an open floor plan, living area, kitchen, entry, and a small bathroom. Only one door was closed.
Her heartbeat increased, pounding in her ears. She scanned every visible inch of her surroundings, the muzzle of her weapon following her line of vision, but no desperados shared her space. Either Sofia was alone, trussed up like an animal waiting to be slaughtered…or the bastard was in there with her.
Another moan, louder now, issued from behind the closed door.
Rage stormed through Carlotta, drowning her fear, devouring her uncertainty.
There was no more thought of consequences. No more time to wait.
Staggering to her feet, Carlotta rushed forward, ripped open the door, and launched into the room.
“What the hell!” someone rasped.
“Do not move!” She shouted the words, though she hadn’t meant to. “Don’t move or I will shoot. I swear I will,” she vowed and, crouching slightly, reached for the switch beside the door.
Light blazed from the ceiling, illuminating the couple in the bed.
They were young, pretty, wide-eyed, and speechless. He was dark-haired and bare-chested. She was blond and terrified, peeking out from behind the sheet she’d dragged like a paper-thin shield to her nose.
Confusion roared through Carlotta, but she rallied, straightening slowly. “What have you done with her?” she rasped and swung the muzzle of the gun toward the man.
He held up a quivering hand and squabbled something inarticulate.
“My sister,” she demanded, though doubts were swarming in like army ants. “Where is she? Tell me or you die.”
“No!” rasped the blonde.
Carlotta swung the gun toward her. “Where?” she repeated. “Where you have Sofia?”
The girl clutched the sheet tighter to her face and whispered, “Mandón?”
Confusion swamped Carlotta, nearly bowling her over, dragging her under, but she spread her legs and remained upright. “How do you…” she began.
But just then the door crashed open behind her.
Chapter 19
Shep leapt into the room just as Carlotta swung her weapon toward him and squeezed off a shot.
“Dammit sideways!” Stumbling backward, he lifted his arm and gazed at the track the bullet had torn through a fold in his favorite shirt.
“Linus?” Carlotta rasped. “Linus Shepherd?”
“What the hell! Ya tryin’ to kill me?”
“What are you do here?”
“I came to save you.”
“I told you, Sofia is not here.”
“Yeah. And you’re the worst fuckin’ liar in the… “ he began then motioned wildly at the pistol. “Will you point that thing somewhere else?”
She did so, turning shakily back toward the couple in the bed.
“D-don’t shoot!” the boy stuttered, but Carlotta advanced, gun held steady in both hands now.
“What is it you have done with my sister?”
“Your sister! Your…” the kid began then, swiveling frantically toward the girl beside him, begged. “Take it off.”
“What?”
“Please!” he begged.
“Oh,” the girl said and, reaching up, tugged the wig from her head. Beneath, her hair was as black as octopus ink.
“Hola,” she said.
“Sofia!” The gun drooped in Carlotta’s stunned fingers.
The boy smiled. The expression was jumpy, lopsided, but he gave it a game try. “You must be Carlotta,” he guessed.
She blinked, floundering, wordless.
“I am so very glad to meet you. Sofia, she tell me much—“ he began, but a snarl escaped Carlotta’s lips. She raised the gun again.
“No!” Sofia rasped and, scrambling sideways, shielded the scrawny boy with her body. Which, as luck would have it, was naked…and fairly stunning. And where, Shep wondered foggily, were the glasses and the bushy hair. “Wait! Carly,” the girl soothed, twisted over the boy with one hand raised like a white flag. “This is Rafael. Rafael Peya.”
Carlotta actually stumbled as if she’d taken a blow to the body. “The gardener’s boy?”
“Sí. We met at the cantina. Hadn’t seen each other for years.” Sofia laughed. “At first, I didn’t even recognize him. But when I did…” She paused, beamed, shrugged.
A growl escaped Carlotta’s lips.
“We’re…we’re going to be married,” the boy assured him, but if he thought that little piece of news would soothe her ruffled feathers, he was sadly mistaken.
“Over my dead body!” Carlotta snarled, tightening her hands on the grip. “Or yours.”
Sofia’s brows lowered. Her expression darkened. The glasses and the bushy hair weren’t all that was lacking, Shep realized. The girl’s renowned sweetness also seemed to be AWOL. “I knew you’d be like this!” she spat. “Always, you are the pushy one.”
Carlotta fired back in Spanish. Her sister rose to her knees on the bed, her tirade just as fierce.
Carlotta stepped forward, gun still aimed dead center on poor Rafael’s chest as Sofia leapt to her feet, straddling the boy’s prone body like a slim Amazonian warrior.
It was then that Shep found his senses—or more likely lost them—and stepped into the fray. “Hey! Ladies…” He was neither brave enough nor foolish enough to suggest that, in that moment, he used the term rather loosely. “What’s goin’ on here?”
“This is my sister!” Carlotta hissed.
“I sorta gathered—“
“And the bastard son of a spawn,” she spat, “with whom she is living in sin.”
“Living in sin?” the girl scoffed. “Do you hear yourself? You sound a hundred years old. Living in sin! Can’t you see I love him?”
“Love!” Carlotta snapped. “You are too young to know what—“
“I’m almost seventeen! Yet you treat me like a child. Like a…” She w
aved wildly, making her breasts bobble slightly. “A slave or a nun or a—“
“You are yet sixteen! When I was your age—“
“You were a prude. Just as you are now. But I won’t be wasting—“
“Alright…” Shep placated. “Let’s all just simmer down a little. Sofia…nice to meet you.” Honest to God, this had to be the weirdest little SNAFU he’d ever found himself embroiled in. “But maybe ya’d better put on some clothes so we can talk this through like—“
“You’re Linus, aren’t you?” the girl asked. “Linus Shepherd.”
“Yeah, but nobody calls me—“
“I told you,” Sofia said, half turning to the boy who still cowered beneath her. “Didn’t I tell you?” she asked then shifted her warm-chocolate gaze back to Shep. “I knew you’d come.”
For a second, Shep wondered what kind of rabbit hole he’d fallen into, but he found his tongue and managed to move on. “Listen, your sister’s been kinda…” He wobbled his head. “She’s been sorta concerned that—“
“Sí!” Carlotta snapped and shoved the pistol into the back of her still-wet jeans. “I was worried that you were being raped and tortured and sold into slavery. Not that you had lost your mind and were throwing your life away. Whoring like a Jezebel who—“
“Whoring!”
“Hey, now!” Shep soothed. “Let’s not go sayin’ anythin’ we can’t—“
“How can you tolerate such a self-righteous prig?” Sofia asked, turning to Shep again.
“Well...”
“She lied about you,” Sofia continued.
Carlotta countered in warp-speed Spanish.
Sofia snorted before speaking to Shep again. “She said you were somewhat handsome. What she did not say is that you’re hotter than hell.”
“Sofia Angelina Padilla-Osorio!” Carlotta snapped.
“But I knew she wanted you.”
“What are you speak about?” Carlotta rasped.
“You!” Sofia said, jabbing a finger at her sister. “And him. You were miserable after he returned to the States, and you know it.”
“I was not—“
“Blaming yourself for his injuries. Second-guessing every decisions. And all the while believing you owned Tevio your loyalty. Thinking you owed him your life! With me…with most…you are the bossy one. But with Tevio, you are like the tiny mouse. Timid. Uncertain. Jesus! It makes me—“
“You will not take our Lord’s name in—“
“But you don’t! Don’t you see, Carly?” She took a step forward…and goddamn if she wasn’t still naked. “Tevio isn’t what you think he is. I, too, believed he was all that is good, but he is not. We can’t live under his thumb any longer.”
“She’s right.” Rafael’s voice quavered. Still, Shep was pretty damned impressed the boy had the balls to open his mouth at all. “Señor Tevio is not a good man. My father, he, too, will not admit this. But your sister…she is brave and—“
“Who asked you to speak?” Carlotta snapped.
The poor kid’s shoulders drooped, and Shep was pretty sure that beneath the bed sheet, other body parts were suffering the same ignominious fate.
“You’re too stubborn to see it,” Sofia accused. “But it’s true! We must leave Inrida. Must leave Colombia altogether. We’re not safe there, and I knew you wouldn’t leave if I but asked you. So I made a strategy. Learned of Linus Shepherd’s location. Already, he had planned a trip to Florida. Did you know this? It would be no hardship for him to go a bit out of his way. Thus I invented a story. No different than those mystery novels you devour. I planted all the clues so carefully. It was kind of a game. I knew you would worry. But I was sure you were smart enough to follow the clues, smart enough to go to Shepherd for help. And I hoped you would enjoy the journey. The gardens, the food, the—“
“Wait,” the boy demanded, befuddlement rife in his tone. “I thought you told her you weren’t in danger.”
“Yes,” Sofia admitted happily. “See? That was the brilliant part. My sister’s smarter than she realizes. I knew I had to be crafty to convince her to come.”
“Ya set this all up yourself?” Shep asked. “Just to lure her here?”
“I know her well,” Sofia admitted. “And I hoped like hell she wasn’t foolish enough to come alone. Not when she was acquainted with someone like you. But I didn’t know her lover would be so”—she eyed him up and down—“delicioso.”
Shep raised his brows…along with other parts. Carlotta’s innocent little sister wasn’t so innocent…or so little.
“Thus you lied?” Carlotta hissed.
“Sí, I lied!” Sofia snapped back. “Which I would not have had to do if you weren’t so pigheaded, so blind. If, for once, you could see that you can have a life. That you deserve happiness. That Señor Tevio is not what he seems. He is Timoteo Santiago. Nothing but a criminal. Nothing but scum that should not be allowed—“
Her tirade was cut short as someone stepped into the room.
“Tsk tsk…” said Santiago and shook his head with fatherly disappointment.
Chapter 20
Shepherd’s gut clenched like a fist.
Timoteo Santiago! The bastard he had watched poison his own man. The monster who’d held Carlotta captive, if not by physical force, by a means even more sinister.
Except for the knife in his boot, Shep was unarmed. And not foolish enough to believe this conniving lunatic had come alone.
But Santiago turned toward him with a paternal smile. “Do not be foolish, Mr. Cherokee. Or shall I call you Mr. Shepherd?” He shook his head and tsked again like a disillusioned father, a long-suffering mentor. “So duplicitous. And after all I did for you. I am quite disappointed.”
“Señor!” Carlotta’s voice was soft, almost reverent. “You are here.”
Santiago smiled. “Of course, my dear. You are experiencing familial difficulties, are you not? You did not think I would neglect you in your time of need, did you?”
There was something about the old fucker’s voice that made Shep’s skin crawl, that made him want to reach into his boot and pull out the blade hidden there, but Santiago flicked his gaze to Shep’s ankle, eyes twinkling.
“Let us not do anything we shall regret, Mr. Shepherd. Remember, there are many lives at risk here,” he said and nodded almost imperceptibly toward the window.
So, as expected, he had planted someone outside to wait.
“How did you find us?” Sofia asked. Her voice, at least, was rife with the suspicion Santiago’s presence warranted. Carlotta may be blind to the old man’s murderous ways, but at least her younger sister understood the danger. The danger from which Shep would have to extract them.
“How?” Santiago asked. “Your dearest sister trusts me, even if you do not. She wisely alerted me to your absence, of course.”
The old man’s words struck Shep like a blow. So Carlotta had from the very beginning, he realized but didn’t shift his attention from Santiago. “What happens now?” he asked and kept his voice carefully level, cautiously low.
“Now?” Santiago asked and shrugged. “I suspect we all go our separate ways so long as we know the girl is healthy and happy.” He turned toward Sofia as if she were no more than six years of age…as if she weren’t as naked as the day she was born. “You are happy, are you not, my child?”
“Yes,” she said, but her eyes were narrowed, her tone suspicious.
“And you, my dearest Carlotta, you are well?”
She was silent for a moment. “I did not tell you Sofia was gone.”
“What?” Santiago raised his bushy brows as if surprised. “Surely, you remember your call to me.”
Carlotta shook her head. “I do not,” she said, but was she lying to the very end?
Santiago shook his head and watched her with avuncular concern. “You were quite distraught at the time. I imagine your worry drove the conversation straight from your head. Sofia…” His tone took on a bit of disapproval. “You shou
ld have informed your sister of your plans beforehand, but I suppose young love has been responsible for more egregious failings. Well, I will leave you then, unless you wish for a ride somewhere. The airport perhaps?”
“No,” Carlotta said, confusion heavy in her tone. “I do not.”
“Very well. I but need a few words with your friend here. Then I shall be on my way.” He raised his brows at Shepherd, tacitly issuing the challenge.
Shep nodded and turned toward the door, but Carlotta spoke before he moved in that direction. “Why?”
“What?” Santiago asked, seeming surprised that she’d questioned him.
“Why do you wish to speak to him?”
“It is nothing for which you must concern yourself, my dear. Just a small conversation between a doctor and his patient. We will only be—“
“Why not speak here?”
“Let it go, Lotta,” Shep warned.
“No,” she said and shook her head. “No, I will not let it go. Why are you here, señor? How did you find us?”
“You sound quite suspicious,” Santiago said, disappointment heavy in his fatherly tone. “After all we’ve been through together. After all I have done. Have I not cared for you since your father’s death? Have I not protected you, Carlotta Osorio?”
Guilt blended, hot and potent, with a half dozen other volatile emotions on her expressive face, but she kept her chin high, her brows low. “I did not inform you of Sofia’s disappearance.”
Santiago was silent for a moment then, “Ahhh, so you have feelings for this Americano, sí?” The last word was almost gritted, but he smiled through his teeth. “You have no wish for him to believe we have a…special bond.”
“Special bond?” Shep said and laughed.
Santiago turned woodenly toward him. “Something amuses you, señor?”
“Yeah, it does!” Shep said and laughed again. “Something amuses the hell outta me. In fact, it’s pretty damned hilarious to think that a dodderin’ old psychopath could catch the interest of a woman like Carlotta.”