Betrayal on the Border

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  Cradled in a leather recliner in a Southwestern-themed sitting room, she savored her sandwich in front of a television screen that covered most of the wall. An enormous yawn cracked her jaw, but she shook her head. She’d resist sleep at least until she heard the noon news. She woke up in time for the evening report.

  Maddie’s and Chris’s names were central once more in the anchorman’s blather, and speculation was rampant about their nefarious purpose at the Laredo hotel. “Authorities have recently reported that the pair may have left the country.”

  The concluding statement brought Maddie upright in the lounger. People thought they were gone? Really? How did that happen?

  She worked the remote control on the chair—yes, the thing was operated electrically!—and hopped up. Her muscles protested the movement with minimal complaint. Progress toward renewed vigor. She’d need every ounce of strength and sanity she could muster.

  A few minutes later, clad in a fresh set of clothes, she followed the sound of masculine voices and chuckles to the kitchen. Dressed in casual clothing similar to hers, the men were seated at a polished mahogany table. Chris had his injured foot up on another chair. The leg below the knee was encased in a walking cast and padded wrap-boot. A pair of crutches rested against the wall nearby. Did Greene have a pet doctor in his pocket, too?

  As she entered the room, they ceased talking and their heads turned toward her. She stopped and leaned over the center island on her elbows. “Thanks for the hideaway and the clothes and stuff, too.” Under the circumstances, she could be polite to anyone, but that didn’t mean she approved of their host.

  “You’re welcome.” The man nodded his head.

  That misty gaze would be spooky if it wasn’t also gentle. A little wary, though, as if he half thought she might go all kung fu on him.

  “She does have a nice smile.” Their host looked toward Chris.

  “Tons of nice things about her,” Chris answered.

  After indulging the daydream of herself flying through the air in a screaming karate kick, Maddie sucked in the grin she hadn’t known was showing. Tons of nice things? Hmmph! What had Chris really been telling this man about her? That she was a suspicious, angry woman? Well, she was, and she hated it, but couldn’t change until truth was known.

  She hugged herself and cleared her throat. “I see you’ve had medical attention.”

  Chris’s face took on a guarded look, but their host shrugged with a half smile. “Sometimes it pays to be a quarter Apache. The doc on the reservation will make house calls, and he’s not inclined to tell tales.”

  Maddie nodded. That explained that. “Either of you have any idea why the news would report that Chris and I have left the country?”

  The men gazed at each other, wearing blank looks.

  “We were faking out the government rats that we wanted to head for South America,” Chris said to his buddy. “But they know we didn’t leave. They were planning to bury us instead.”

  Maddie narrowed her gaze on David Greene. “You didn’t slip some misinformation to the authorities?”

  The man answered with a grimace and a shrug. “My pockets aren’t deep enough to buy credibility with the police or the news hounds.”

  “Great!” She dropped her arms to her sides and turned away. “Another mystery.”

  Maddie hurried up the hallway toward her bedroom. Tears surged behind her eyeballs like a tide against a dam. Frustration? Maybe. But lots more. So much pain she didn’t know what to do with it all. But this was not the time to give in, was it? She’d stood strong so far. She just needed to rein in her emotions a little bit longer.

  She reached her room, shut the door, and then stood with her fists clenched, barely breathing. But the surge would be denied no longer. Her chest cavity quivered and shook. Then a high-pitched sob escaped, and the dam crumbled. She stumbled into the bathroom and sat hunched over a box of tissues while the long pent-up flood carried her away.

  How long she sat huddled on the commode she couldn’t say, but at last the gusher subsided into a trickle. Her head ached, and goopy heaviness filled her chest. These were not cleansing tears, and they weren’t over. Not by a long shot. Could a person drown in hopelessness and confusion?

  What did she do with these feelings for Chris that persisted against the compelling case for mistrust? How could she honor the memory of her fallen comrades when she longed to love the very man that reason dictated was their betrayer? Why were her tears focused in this moment over Chris and not the loss of her brother, her fellow soldiers and her career? Those things hurt, but not like the slash and burn in her heart of the inevitable future without Chris.

  On wobbly, leaden legs, she returned to her bedroom, undressed and crawled between the cool sheets. She’d never been so tired in her life—not from physical exertion, but from the utter aloneness that never abated. If she slept forever and a day, would the nightmare end?

  * * *

  Chris tore his gaze from the computer screen and rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. He’d been at this for hours again today—three days, total, since David had taken them in. He was starting to feel halfway human again with rest and good food, but his nerves never quite settled.

  Maybe that condition came from being a wanted fugitive. Or maybe he couldn’t relax because, with every click of the mouse, he uncovered fresh information on their cast of villains. For instance, the duly elected representative to the Texas state legislature, Donald Jess, was the registered owner and CEO of the Rio Grande Paper Plant. Surprise! Surprise! The guy also owned some intriguingly isolated property a few miles from the plant, right along the river. A little research via satellite imagery revealed that a ravine wound around from that river property to the factory, maybe the very ravine in which he and Maddie nearly met their Maker. Nifty little concealed route for transportation of contraband by mule or ATV.

  As for the FBI agent who’d helped DEA agent Ramsey shoot up the dummies in the hotel room, Adrian Lesko was his name. That tidbit had been a challenge to unearth. The FBI was protective of agent identities, but Chris took a digital cutout of the man’s mug from the internet replay of the interview with Representative Jess. Then face-recognition software dug up an obscure story in an online newspaper that featured Lesko spearheading a local school program to help troubled kids make better choices. Hah! The urge to barf nearly overcame him on that one. But the biggest challenge had been discovering the identity of Representative Jess’s muscleman, and the truth was definitely stranger than fiction. If the knowledge wasn’t so dismaying, he’d be doing a jig. In his mind anyway. His gaze strayed to the cast on his leg, and he shook his head.

  No, his problem wasn’t the hours at the computer. Research energized him; it didn’t unnerve him. Then what was his problem? They were closer than they’d ever been to exposing the entire nest of scorpions. All they needed was a neat little plan to tie it all up.

  Maybe that was the hitch. There was no “they.” For all he saw of her, his partner seemed to have dropped out of the quest. Maybe her beef with David was the reason. But he sensed something different, something more—as if she was going down for the third time but didn’t dare allow anyone close enough to throw her a life raft. The woman was a case and a half, and he needed to have his head examined for caring so much about her. If he wanted to be honest with himself, had he already lost his battle not to fall in love with her?

  On a long groan, Chris rose from the desk chair in David’s cavernous office and stretched his arms wide, then rolled the kinks out of his shoulders. A pair of crutches leaned against the desk. He tucked them under his arms and hobbled over to the wide window that looked out on the garden at the back of the house.

  David’s garden. His haven, he called it. Not the usual vegetable plot. In fact, not much in the vegetable department at all. The man was a fiend for flowers—native wildflower
s of Texas. He was an expert, and he liked to tend them himself as he was doing right now on his hands and knees not far from the window, trowel busily transferring granules of what must be fertilizer from a bag onto grass beds growing around spikes of Texas Paintbrush. Chris wouldn’t even know that much about the kinds of flora out there, except David had insisted on showing off his rare Albino Paintbrush last evening. Evidently the flower didn’t show up white very often.

  Oops! And there was another flower that hadn’t been showing up very often lately. Correction—cactus. Chris frowned toward the tall, slender figure that stepped into view around the side of the house. Maddie followed a redbrick path into the garden area, looking all too appealing in a pair of designer jeans and a trendy T-shirt. She stepped slowly, gaze fixed ahead, as if she walked in her sleep. Were her eyes puffy, or was he imagining things?

  Without conscious direction, Chris’s hand rose and pressed against the warm glass. So far, he’d heeded her signals that she wanted to be left alone, but they needed to talk. Ready or not.

  Uh-oh! His eyes widened. The collision was inevitable. He could see it coming, but he couldn’t do a thing to stop it. If she didn’t start paying attention to her surroundings, she was going to trip over David’s feet and splat onto her face. When she picked herself up, and saw their host, they could be treated to a confrontation of epic proportions.

  He turned from the window and began crutching toward the nearest exit. He’d better get out there. Now!

  FOURTEEN

  Oomph! The breath jarred out of her body.

  One second Maddie was treading the garden walk; the next her nose was up against the bricks. Only trained reflexes, certainly not any lightning-fast awareness, saved her noggin from a severe bruising.

  Propped up on her elbows, Maddie gazed over her shoulder. Whose feet did she just trip over? Not Chris’s. One of his was encased in a walking boot. These clodhoppers wore scuffed and frayed tennis shoes. That eliminated her homicidal host. Or did it?

  David Greene unfolded himself from the ground and rose to stand above her, trowel dangling from one grubby fist. “Sorry about that. Are you all right?” His drawl was all West Texas gentlemanly, and then he offered a hand to help her up. “Oops!” He took the hand back and wiped it on his shabby denims.

  She got to her feet without extra help and then grimaced at a tear in the knee of her pants. Both knees stung, but between the edges of the rip a streak of blood showed from a minor laceration.

  “I’ll live. I’ve experienced worse.”

  “I’m sure you have. This being an army ranger must be pretty interesting business.”

  Not half as interesting as yours, buster. She kept the comment to herself. Chris might be surprised to know she had a few manners. “I didn’t know millionaires liked to get their hands dirty.”

  Okay, very few manners. She hadn’t meant the comment quite like it came out. Then again, maybe she had, considering the things she knew about him. Or thought she knew. Nothing about this guy had been what she’d expected.

  From the little she’d seen of the man, he was soft-spoken and good-humored. He had surprisingly stodgy taste in music, judging from the classical piano CDs that played occasionally on the other end of the house, but she couldn’t fault him as a gracious and thoughtful host. Nor had she glimpsed so much as a rolled joint or a pipe, a bottle of booze or a happy pill on the place. The man who’d strangled his girlfriend had been publicized as a party animal with all the vices the super-rich could indulge in.

  This man in grubby jeans grinned and turned toward the plants he’d been working on. “Money can’t buy the satisfaction of growing a perfect white Castilleja indivisa.”

  “A castle-what?”

  “A very rare Albino Paintbrush.” Greene chuckled and patted a cream-hued flower spreading large petals from a long, leafy stalk. “This entire garden is wildflowers and grasses native to Texas.” He spread his arms toward the colorful vista that was his backyard.

  Maddie scanned the varied hues that splashed the landscape all the way to the horizon. She’d seen smaller corn fields. This “garden” extended for acres and acres. Many hours these past days had been consumed in wandering the maze of paths and reading the occasional posts that told what was growing here and there. The guy could charge admission and offer a display well worth the cost.

  “Do you tend all this yourself?”

  “As much as I can.” His smile went rueful. “This project is bigger than one person though. Teams come out pretty regularly from arboretums in and out of state. They come to study, and generally they lend a hand. I’ve also got a yard man that bunks with the other hands at ranch headquarters.”

  “This isn’t headquarters?”

  “Naw. This is my getaway cottage. Headquarters is too busy for my taste. Stables and barns and pastures and fields with wranglers coming and going all over the place. The big house sits empty, except for the housekeeper, most of the time.”

  “Oh.” Maddie blinked and gazed off over Greene’s shoulder toward clumps of feather-topped grasses waving in the breeze.

  What else could she say? It made sense that this guy’s idea of a cottage would dwarf most family homes. So why was she standing around making small talk with David Greene? She should walk away, but something held her in place—a need to get a clear read on this man who’d made her grudgingly beholden.

  “Go ahead and ask.” Weariness, or perhaps resignation, tinged her host’s voice.

  “Ask what?”

  “Did I kill Alicia?”

  Heat worked its way up Maddie’s neck. Was she that obvious? Apparently so. “I suppose everyone you meet is wondering about that.”

  Greene walked a few steps away and plunked down on a stone bench. He ran splayed fingers through his thick hair. Whatever he’d been using in his gardening left streaks of a gray substance among the midnight strands. Then he nodded and met her steady look. “It does get old. I wish I knew myself. I mean, there’s circumstantial evidence that says I did, but I don’t remember. Nobody really seems to get what that feels like—not to be sure what happened—how it happened—what I did. Even if it’s the worst, it would be nice to know.”

  Maddie studied her host. Greene wasn’t much older than she was, but his eyes were ancient. She recognized the haunted, hunted, lonely look from the gaze that stared back at her regularly in the mirror. She fought the urge to press the heels of her hands to swollen eyes she knew betrayed the tears she’d been shedding in fits and starts over the past three days. Why had that abundance of tears not yet eased the knotted mass of pain that weighted her chest like a cancer?

  A lump invaded her throat, and she cleared it. “I do get what it’s like not to be able to remember events that changed a person’s whole world.”

  The edges of Greene’s mouth drooped. “Chris told me a little about it. You were wounded. I was just wasted. My own fault, all of it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away. “The blanks would drive me crazy if Chris hadn’t gone out of his way to hunt me down after all the media hoopla and make me listen to the truth.”

  Maddie’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead. “Chris missed his calling as a psychotherapist. He pops that stuff on me all the time, too.”

  Greene chuckled. “Chris made no attempt to fix me or figure me out or milk a story out of me. The last person I wanted to talk to was a reporter, even if he was an old acquaintance, but he was persistent. Finally I agreed to see him, but to my shock, he didn’t want an exclusive interview, though I gave him one later. He just wanted to talk to me about Jesus. Said God wouldn’t let up on him until he gave me the chance to meet my Savior. And do you want an even bigger shock? I listened when I never had before.”

  Maddie sucked in a deep breath. “So that’s the big favor he did you?”

  “About the biggest there is, don’t
you think?” Her host’s silvery gaze bored into her. “At least now I know I’m forgiven for whatever I did. Chris is a good man. He could never do what they’re accusing him of doing...you, either. Not if the half of what Chris tells me about you is true.”

  “What?” Maddie struggled to process the implication of Greene’s words.

  This man who might or might not be a murderer acquitted her without knowing her, purely on the basis of Chris’s say-so. Such faith in God...in Chris...in her...spoke louder than all the logic-driven suspicions in her head. She should have listened to her heart all along—or the voice of the Holy Spirit, if she’d been able to recognize Him speaking through her heart.

  Her knees went weak, and she plunked onto the bench beside a possible murderer without a second thought. Realizations lasered through her mind, shedding light into dark corners.

  Of course, Chris had nothing to do with the massacre on the Rio. Of course! He couldn’t have. Not that he couldn’t, but it wasn’t in his nature. Why had she not seen something so obvious until this moment? She’d been searching for a scapegoat. Craved one! Someone she could see and touch. Someone solid, not a big black question mark. She couldn’t handle not knowing, so she’d made a case out of circumstance and clung to it blindly with all the stubbornness in her natural makeup.

  How could she ever face Chris again? How could she not! Pressure squeezed her chest, her throat, her eyeballs. Not again! She couldn’t cry more. Not here. Not now.

  “Umm. Are you all right?”

  David’s hesitant words barely registered. A sob gathered like a clenched fist in her windpipe.

  * * *

  Chris gaped as his warrior princess slumped on the bench, hugging herself against muted sobs and scrunched together like she might fly apart if she let go. He’d almost made it to the scene in time to stop whatever had happened, but not quite. Bother the need for these crutches! What had David said to her?

  He glared toward his friend, who responded with a shrug and spread hands. “I told her why I owe you more than my life. That’s all.” David rose and scurried toward him like a man escaping a fire. “She’s all yours, man,” he said as he hustled past.