Jennifer laughed.
“Oh, your great-grandmother was born knowing things, but even she said that the gift took time to mature.”
Alexa reached out and touched the present.
“Maybe it’s a pony.”
Jennifer laughed.
“The box is not quite that big.”
***
When he was certain that the old woman and the child had left the bedroom, Rodrigo Lucia looked out once more through the air hole to make certain. After seeing no one around, he undid the latches inside the box and stood while lifting the top with him.
Rodrigo was a skilled thief, and he had used the ruse of the giant gift to gain entry to the home. The note attached to the box instructed that it was to be placed in the master bedroom, and so it had been, just feet from the wall safe.
Rodrigo was in his mid-thirties, wore a beard, and was taller than most Mexican men were. Being inside the box for hours had made his back ache, and so he stretched to limber up.
Rodrigo had no idea what the old woman and the cute child had been prattling on about, and didn’t care. All that concerned Rodrigo was the safe, and the jewelry and cash stored within it. He removed the picture hanging over it and went to work on the combination.
***
Jennifer returned downstairs with Alexa and headed outside to the patio.
The old ranch home was looking beautiful. Her oldest son, Alejandro, had done well in the car business and had refurbished the home in style. There was even a new swimming pool, and it heartened Jennifer to see the entire family gathered together for a reunion.
All six of her children were there along with their spouses, and Jennifer’s twenty-three grandchildren. Jennifer reminded herself to spend time with each child over the weekend. She had such an affinity for Alexa that she often spent too much time with her at the neglect of the others.
When the feeling hit, it was like nothing she had ever felt before, and when Jennifer looked down at Alexa, she saw that the child had sensed it as well.
“Ooh, my head, Grandma, what is happening?”
Jennifer looked about as she tried to catch her breath. Her mind was filled with fear and her heart was racing as if she’d run a mile, but as she gazed around, she saw that all was well.
“I don’t know what’s happening, baby, but... I’m suddenly so scared... so afraid.”
That’s when they heard the sound, the sound of the trucks. The two massive vehicles came around the curve that led to the driveway and kept going until they had trampled a small picket fence and entered the pool area. The trucks looked like farm vehicles and there were men riding in the back of the trucks, many men.
Jennifer grabbed Alexa by the shoulders, turned her small body around, and shoved her back towards the house.
“Run baby, run and hide now!”
Alexa had just made it past the glass doors of the patio when the men jumped from the trucks, well over a dozen men, and each one was holding a gun or rifle. They spread out among the crowd and kept anyone from leaving.
Everyone at the party had been waiting for Alexa’s Uncle Alejandro to show up. He had just arrived.
Alejandro had been beaten to death. One eye was closed and his jaw sat crooked. A man with long dark hair and bushy eyebrows tossed his body from the cab of the first truck and onto the patio tiles.
One of Alejandro’s brothers went towards the body. He was Alexa’s father. He made it within three feet of Alejandro before the man in the truck shot him five times.
The shooter was Alonso Alvarado.
The partygoers erupted in screams and turned to flee, but when they saw the men with the rifles behind them, they all froze in place.
“Herd them into the pool,” Alvarado said.
As he spoke, Alejandro’s wife, Margo, the birthday girl, lowered herself beside her husband’s battered body and wept. Alvarado shot her in the head and watched as she fell backwards into the spreading overflow of water leaving the pool.
By the time everyone had jumped or been herded into the water, the displaced pool water had spread across the patio, and those packed into the pool were standing in water barely waist-high. Two of the women held babies in their arms, and they cradled the screaming infants while trying to comfort them.
The patio doors burst open and more of Alvarado’s men came out. They had been dropped off at the front, and then went through the house to gather anyone found inside.
They had seven people with them. Three of them were cousins of Jennifer’s late husband, while the other four were older boys from the family that had been in the den playing video games. They were all pushed into the pool with the others.
Jennifer saw with great relief that they had missed Alexa, and she assumed that the girl’s “little voice” had guided her to safety.
When Alvarado looked about, he spotted Jennifer Cazares still standing by the patio doors.
“Come here, old woman.”
Jennifer did go to him, with her eyes full of tears, and when she reached him, she slapped his face.
Alvarado laughed, and looked down at Jennifer’s son, Alejandro.
“You have more guts than your son, but no more brains. He thought that he could just walk in and take over my territory, but he was wrong.”
“What are you talking about you monster?” Jennifer asked.
Alvarado looked towards the crowd in the pool.
“What I do today lies at the feet of Alejandro Cazares, and it will let any other man as foolish as he know that I am not someone to be messed with.”
One of Jennifer’s other sons spoke up from where he stood in the pool.
“You’ve proved your point, Alonso, now just leave, man.”
Jennifer gazed at her son, as an awful realization struck her.
“Valentino... is this about drugs?”
Valentino wiped at tears.
“Yes, Mama, we were transporting drugs, Alejandro and I... the car dealership was just a cover for it.”
“Oh Lord, oh dear Lord, how did I not feel this?”
Alvarado laughed.
“Ah, you are the so-called psychic I heard so much about, the North American, and you say that you get feelings? Well...”
Alvarado walked back to one of the trucks and fished around in the toolbox beneath the front seats. When he returned to Jennifer, he was holding a hammer.
“Let’s see if you can feel this, old lady.”
Alvarado smashed Jennifer across the face and pieces from several of her teeth exploded from her mouth. He managed to hit her again, even as she was falling towards the ground.
Every woman present screamed, as Valentino scrambled out of the pool to defend his mother, but he was smashed across the face with a rifle butt and shoved back into the water.
By the time Alvarado finished with Jennifer, the face on her corpse was nothing more than a scrambled blob of torn flesh, and he himself was covered in her blood.
He had been kneeling beside her as he killed her, and when he stood, wild-eyed and bloody, he pointed at the people in the pool.
“Kill them; kill them all!”
And as the guns and rifles roared, Alexa screamed.
***
After entering the house, Alexa had run into the kitchen and shouted for the women to hide. When they tried to question the child, there came the sound of the front door being kicked in.
Despite her begging them not to go, all three women ran from the kitchen when they heard the rough male voices shouting at the boys in the den.
When the women screamed and the first shots came from outside, Alexa climbed inside a broom closet to hide.
She emerged after peering out and seeing the men herd her cousins onto the patio. Afterwards, she climbed up the back stairs and looked down on the nightmare from the window on the landing.
Her screams mixed with the screams of the others as she witnessed the brutal death of her grandmother, her beloved abuela.
When the men opened fire on
the pool, she felt as if she would die herself, as she watched everyone she ever loved be murdered.
***
As the roar from the guns finally died down, Alvarado became aware of the scream and realized that it was coming from behind him, but when he turned to look at the house, he saw no one.
Still, he knew what he heard, and called to his best friend.
“Juan!”
“Yes Alonso?”
“There are still men out front?”
“Yes, and no one can get by them.”
“I think there’s someone in the house. Find them and kill them—hurry!”
***
Inside the house, on the rear staircase, Rodrigo lay atop the floor of the landing with Alexa wrapped in his arms. He had grabbed the child and covered her mouth just as Alvarado turned to look up at the window.
“Shh, you must be quiet, child. If they find us, they will kill us.”
Alexa nodded her small head, and Rodrigo let her go.
She rolled over on the floor and stared at him.
“Who are you?”
Rodrigo wiped gently at her tears.
“I am your pony. Now come, we have to hide.”
***
“No one?”
“No one is inside,” Juan said. “We checked the attic, every closet, looked under the beds, and peeked above the drop ceiling in the basement. Hell, Alonso, I even checked inside the refrigerator.”
Alvarado nibbled at his bottom lip, and then mumbled.
“I know I heard something.”
“We have to go,” Juan said.
“We’ll go, but have the men burn this house to the ground.”
The men drained fuel from the tanks of the trucks and used it to encircle the home. After lighting a corner of the structure, the fire spread quickly, and Alvarado was satisfied that if anyone remained hidden inside, that they would soon wish they had taken a bullet rather than burn. The men climbed back into the trucks and headed away from the flames, assured that no one else would be foolish enough to cross them.
***
Rodrigo unlatched the top of the phony gift box. He and Alexa had hidden within it as the cartel troops had searched for them.
Rodrigo sniffed at the air. Yes, he had smelled smoke.
While holding Alexa’s tiny hand, he crept into the hall and listened. Fire, the crackling sounds of numerous flames, and the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere.
After picking up Alexa, Rodrigo rushed from room to room and discovered that the fire was on all sides. He returned to the hallway. The men had searched the attic for them and had left the pulldown stairs in the down position.
After rushing up the steps, Rodrigo sat Alexa down and kicked out the glass in the attic window, he climbed up onto the roof of the home and then reached back inside to grab up the tearful Alexa. The poor child had been through hell and now feared her own death by fire.
Rodrigo would not let that happen, and thanks to a set of old skills, they would soon be safe.
A thick cable, a power line, stretched from the roof of the house to a pole near the side fence. Rodrigo considered hanging from it and going hand-over-hand, but the cable was entwined with other cables, and their combined circumference was too thick to ensure a tight grip.
Fortunately, having been born into a family of tightrope walkers, Rodrigo saw another way to use the cable as their path to safety.
“We’re trapped,” Alexa whispered, as the flames ate at the house.
Rodrigo bent down and told her to climb on his back.
“I’ll keep you safe, little girl, I swear it, but you have to hold on tight and stay as still as possible.”
Alexa climbed on, but when Rodrigo went to step on the wire, she shouted.
“We’ll fall!”
Rodrigo turned his head and stared into her eyes.
“Trust me.”
Alexa stared back, and felt herself grow calmer. She nodded, and Rodrigo tested the cable with his right foot.
Rodrigo said a silent curse. The damn thing had too much give and would sway wildly. Rodrigo called on the spirits of all his circus ancestors, and stepped out onto the cable.
It took him twenty patient careful minutes to travel thirty-eight feet, and he was forced to dive for the pole at the end, because the fire had reached the section of the house the cable had been attached to, and was burning through the wood.
Once on the ground, both he and Alexa were drenched in sweat from the heat of the flames, and the child clung to him as if he were life itself.
He looked down at her as she watched the fire, and realized that if she were known to be alive, she wouldn’t be for very long, like himself, she had witnessed a massacre and knew the face of the man who had ordered it.
“Come on, child, we have to go.”
“But what about the policia?”
“They can’t help you.”
Alexa’s face crumpled and her small body shook from her sobs.
Rodrigo picked her up and hugged her.
“I will protect you until the day I die. You have my word.”
The crying continued, and Rodrigo walked through the trees to the place he’d hidden his car, while carrying the sole surviving member of the Cazares Family.
CHAPTER 14 – An ally
Tanner returned to the hotel and found Joe sitting in the bar alone and drinking a beer, although there were four men guarding the entrance.
He saw the weariness in Joe’s eyes; it matched the fatigue he felt.
Joe spoke as Tanner grabbed a beer from a refrigerated case.
“I saw on the news where there was a plane crash and a fire up north. They seem to think that the plane was brought down by a rocket. You know anything about that?”
“I know that I should have brought two rockets with me. Things would have gone easier.”
Joe shook his head in amazement.
“I thought you gave us hell when you were fighting The Conglomerate, but you were kissing us compared to what you’ve done to The Alvarado Cartel. How many men have you killed today?”
Tanner stared at Joe.
“Not nearly enough.”
“I hear you, and I’ve got good news, Sammy’s awake.”
“I guess I don’t have to ask how he’s doing.”
“He’s gutted, Tanner, and... he’s just not the same. This has changed him forever.”
“Yes, death will do that, and so will surviving it.”
Joe sipped at his beer and then sighed.
“They’ll send more men, and the word on the street is that there’s a heavy price on your head.”
“I’ll watch my back, but we need to plan for these new men.”
“You’ve got something in mind?”
Tanner grinned behind his beer bottle.
“Oh yeah, I’ve thought of something.”
***
In San Juan del Río, Alexa entered the home and saw Emilio seated at his piano.
Emilio was Rodrigo’s long-time lover, and he had recently lost his sight due to an illness. He had come into Alexa’s life when she was only eleven, and she thought of him like a second father.
He knew the tragic and horrific tale that had united her and Rodrigo, but he was the only one either of them had ever trusted with the truth.
Alexa walked over and kissed Emilio on the cheek while hugging him, and he patted the piano bench, telling her to sit beside him.
Like Rodrigo, Emilio had also grown up in the circus, and had done many things. He had been a master with knives as a younger man, and had trained Alexa in the arts of knife throwing and acrobatics.
Rodrigo looked at the flyer with Tanner’s face on it.
“A Tanner? If so, he’s the sixth or seventh, the fifth Tanner would have died years ago, but perhaps he’s just a man going by that name.”
“No Papa, I checked the Internet when I stopped for gas and there’s a report that one of Alvarado’s jets crashed in New York State. The report also
said that numerous bodies were found burned, far too many for one jet. The authorities there are calling it a mystery, but there’s no mystery, it was Tanner.”
Emilio laughed as he adjusted the dark glasses he wore.
“It looks like that bastard Alvarado may have angered the wrong man.”
“Yes,” Alexa said. “And I’ve just found an ally.”
Rodrigo had been sitting on a sofa. He stood and marched over to Alexa.
“I thought you had given up this insane idea of killing Alvarado. The man is too well protected in that fortress of his. No one has even seen him outside its walls in years.”
“It’s not insane. He nearly died once; it’s how he was so badly injured.”
“Yes, and now he hunts that man night and day. Another useless endeavor, that man could be anyone his face is so common.” Rodrigo took Alexa’s hands in his. “I love you, and it would kill me to lose you. Having you to raise and protect gave my life meaning. Please don’t throw your life away.”
“I’m not throwing it away; I’m living it, and I’ll have no peace until that bastard is dead by my hand.”
Rodrigo gave her a pleading look.
“He’ll kill you. That bastard will kill you the way he wiped out your family.”
Alexa sighed, and then kissed Rodrigo gently on the lips. He had no idea that she had already begun her quest and had been killing Alvarado’s men. If he knew how dangerously she’d been living, he would never get a wink of sleep.
She had sold her jewelry shop and abandoned her career as a businesswoman, and afterwards, she had spent months learning all she could about The Alvarado Cartel. She knew the names and addresses of over a hundred of Alvarado’s men, and had recently begun hunting them. Killing Alvarado’s men was just practice. She would someday kill the man that destroyed her family, but only after she told him who she really was, the last survivor of the Cazares family.
“I will kill Alvarado, Papa. This I know.”
Rodrigo released her hands and began pacing.
“You and that ‘little voice’ nonsense, it drives me crazy.”
Alexa smiled.
“It’s never been wrong, and it brought you and Emilio together.”
Rodrigo’s face softened and he laughed at the memory.
The TANNER Series - Books 7-9 (Tanner Box Set Book 3) Page 30