[Santa Olivia 02] - Saints Astray

by Jacqueline Carey

  They accompanied them to the car. Sabine opened the door for her employer, then favored Loup and Pilar with a curt nod.

  “Godspeed,” she said briefly. “I hope you succeed.”

  “As do I.” Magnus shook both their hands, then kissed them on both cheeks, European-style. “Take care.”

  “Hey, Magnus! C’mere.” Pilar put one hand on the back of his neck, tugging his head down, and whispered something inaudible in his ear. He pulled back and gave her an incredulous look. She nodded encouragement. “I’m serious. Try it and see.”

  Something in his face softened. “I just might at that.”

  “Good.” She smiled happily, ignoring the return of Sabine’s scowl.

  Loup watched the car pull away. “Pilar Ecchevarria, what in the world did you say to him?”

  She looked smug. “I told him to open his eyes and ask Sabine out on a damn date.”

  “Seriously?” Loup laughed.

  “Yep. Did you see his face? He didn’t have the first clue.”

  “No, he did not.” She took Pilar’s arm affectionately. “I have a feeling Magnus knew a lot of things he wasn’t telling us, but that was not one of them. C’mon, Cupid. Let’s go see what our new bosses want.”

  Not much, as it transpired. For the better part of a week, the band rehearsed and recorded in the studio, honing and refining the new material. There was no news on the Miguel Garza front. Geordie Davies worked frantically to coordinate arrangements for Kate’s concert on the mall, scheduled to take place the day before the hearings began. He assigned Pilar the task of sending a press release and the link to the Rolling Stone Australia cover story to every media contact he had in the United States.

  Calls and emails came flooding in.

  “They want to interview you,” he complained to Loup.

  “Keep it about the band for now,” she said calmly. “I won’t do any advance interviews. Stick to the plan. Don’t give them my name, anything. Keep the mystery alive.”

  He nodded. “Right.”

  The band recorded a decent rough cut of “Cages” and leaked it.

  It was very, very popular.

  “Check it out.” Pilar showed Loup a video mash-up on her Dataphone, the new recording interspersed with amateur concert footage from the tour. Half featured the band playing; the other half featured Loup onstage, hoisting and whirling delighted fans.

  Christophe called. “Hey, prima!” he shouted into his phone over considerable background noise. “I am in this club in Monterrey. You are on the video screens!”

  Loup smiled. “Yeah?”

  “Yes! Hey, I watch the news. Are you the mystery witness in America?”

  “No, Pilar. Unless, um, we get caught.”

  “Caught?”

  “Yeah, um… you know that missing witness? He’s a friend, and he’s gotten himself in trouble. We might have to try to rescue him.”

  “I see.” Christophe sounded disgruntled. “So much for all my hard work rescuing you, eh? Well, if you do get caught, they are going to ask how you got out. Both of you. Call John Johnson, okay? He took a big risk for you, he and his brother who covered for him, and many other soldiers, too. If you go public, there will be many, many questions. I gave him a what do you call it? Up head?”

  “Heads-up.”

  “You have his number? I put it in your phone.”

  “Yeah.” Loup winced. “I kind of forgot. Thanks, Christophe.”

  “Yes, all right. Anyway, nice work, prima!”

  She hung up, brooding.

  “What’s up, baby?” Pilar asked, anxious.

  “Johnson.”

  “The guy from the tunnel? The guy who killed Tommy?” She paused. “Yeah, he could get in pretty serious trouble for letting you out of prison, couldn’t he?”

  “Yeah.” Loup frowned. “I wasn’t thinking. If it’s just you, explaining the tunnel’s easy enough, but if anything happens to me, we’re gonna have to come up with a good story about how I got out of that damn cell. Fuck! Everything we do puts someone else at risk. I’m gonna call him and see if he has any ideas.” She dialed. “Hey, Johnson? Loup Garron. Yeah, they’re talking about us. Sort of, anyway. Pilar for sure. It’s a long story. But we can cover—” She listened. “Are you sure? I mean, sure sure?”

  “He’s sure,” Pilar murmured. “He’s like you.”

  “Okay. Okay, I will.” Loup ended the call. “Fuck!”

  “He wants us to tell the truth if we get caught, doesn’t he?”

  She nodded.

  “Loup.” Pilar put her arms around her neck. “Honey, this could get messy. You can’t protect everyone, okay?”

  “I hate that!”

  “I know.” Pilar kissed her tenderly. “I know, I know. I do. It’s one of the many, many reasons that I love you. But you can’t, okay? You have to let people make their choices. Like Randall and the band, like that Johnson guy. Even me. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Loup said softly.

  Her Dataphone rang.

  “Hi!” She snatched it up. “Senator, hello.” She listened. “Seriously? Why?” She listened some more. “No… no. I can’t promise that. But I can promise you that Pilar will be there to testify.” She smiled. “The concert? Yeah, it’s become kind of a thing, hasn’t it?” Her expression turned serious. “Okay, thanks. I appreciate the warning. We’ll be in touch.”

  She ended the call.

  Pilar regarded her with trepidation. “Bad news?”

  “Yeah.” Loup flung herself onto a couch. “The skeevy hotel guy didn’t go for it. He thinks they’re bluffing.”

  “What else?”

  She looked up reluctantly. “He knew about the concert. He doesn’t think Kate’s mystery bodyguard is on the government’s radar yet, but it’s not gonna be long. They’ll be able to get our names from the flight records. And once it happens, I won’t make it through immigration. I’ll be detained the minute we land.”

  “I see,” Pilar said slowly. “How long do we have?”

  “A week, tops. Maybe less.”

  “And you’re hell-bent on trying to rescue Miguel?”

  Loup hesitated. “Not if you ask me not to,” she said in a quiet tone. “I promised, and it’s starting to look… bad. If you ask me not to go, I won’t. But I get the feeling they’ve given up on Miguel, Pilar—especially now that you’ve promised to testify. And if the bad guys in the government figure it’s not worth paying to have him disappeared, the skeevy hotel guy might just cut his losses and get rid of him anyway to cover his own ass. This might be our only chance to save him. No one else is gonna do it.”

  “Miguel fucking Garza.”

  Loup nodded.

  “Okay.” Pilar took a deep breath and let it out. “Guess I’d better start booking flights to Las Vegas. Let’s go find the boys and see if they’re serious about this.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The boys were serious.

  “I give up,” Geordie said. “I absolutely, positively surrender. Who is this person you’re attempting to rescue and why?”

  “Miguel Garza. My sparring partner. He was supposed to be the one testifying at the hearings.”

  “Oh, of course! It all makes perfect sense.” He sat down and put his head in his hands. “Is any of what you’re plotting remotely legal?”

  “Well, it’s not illegal.” Loup patted his slumped shoulder reassuringly. “Look, we know he’s being held at the Hellfire Club. All we have to do is find out which room and get him out. Simple.”

  “Simple,” he echoed. “And why, I ask, is Kate involved?”

  “They’re not, really.”

  “The fuck we’re not!” Randall smiled slyly. “You want to find out what room he’s being held in? Give me five minutes with any hotel chambermaid.”

  “Hmm,” Pilar said thoughtfully. “I was thinking give me five minutes with the room service delivery guy.”

  “Want to make it a contest?”

  “Sure.”

  Geor
die groaned.

  “My money’s on Pilar,” Charlie offered. Randall gave him a wounded look. “What? Look at her! If the chambermaid’s not a Kate fan, you’re just another skinny English bloke with silly hair, mate.”

  “Why are we doing this?” Geordie asked no one in particular.

  “Because we are,” Donny said firmly. “Loup, can I ask a favor?”

  She looked curiously at him. “Sure.”

  His face was open and earnest. “Before we go, will you have dinner with me? Just you and me? Please? I just want to talk to you.”

  Loup glanced at Pilar, who shrugged, leaving the decision to her. “I guess. But it would just be dinner, Donny. Seriously.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay.”

  He glowed. “Thanks!”

  By the end of the day, Pilar had reserved an expensive suite at the Hellfire Club for the band and regular rooms for the rest of them, and booked flights for two days after tomorrow.

  “You and I get in earlier,” she said. “If they’re gonna start cross-checking flight records any day now, I figured it was best if we didn’t travel with the band.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Thanks.” She hesitated. “Loup… this dinner with Donny.”

  “It’s just dinner!”

  “To you, maybe.” Pilar took her hand. “And I would have said yes, too, because he looked that pathetic, and they’re good guys in their own way, and we owe them for helping us, and it kind of reminds me of the way T.Y. used to look at you. All of that. But T.Y. wasn’t a one in a hundred, as much as he wanted to be. Donny’s gonna plead his case to you. He can’t help himself. And whatever you decide—”

  “Pilar!”

  She shook her head. “Hear me out. We’re doing this thing. And, Loup…” Tears filled her eyes. “It’s beginning to sound like sooner or later, you are going to be taken back into custody.” She rubbed her eyes and sniffled. “All I ask is that you save the last night we know we’re safe together for me.”

  Loup raised her eyebrows. “Pilar, I know this is getting scary, but are you crazy? You think I’m going to sleep with Donny?”

  “I don’t think anything. I’m just saying what I’m saying. Promise?”

  “Yes. Now will you quit being weird?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Pilar was right; the following night, Donny took Loup out to dinner and pleaded his case. He ordered brandies after they’d eaten and summoned his courage.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  He swirled the brandy in his snifter, nervous. “The bloke you mentioned. The, um, dick-in-the-vise fellow. Was he like me? Feeling the way I do about you?”

  “No,” Loup admitted.

  Donny gulped his brandy and signaled for another. “So you’ve never been with a fellow who was?”

  “No.”

  “Or anyone that was but Pilar?”

  She sipped her brandy. “No.”

  “It’s just…” He took another deep drink, then slammed down his snifter. “Fuck me, Loup! You’re young. You’re fucking, what? Eighteen years old? How can you say you know what you want? You’re going to throw your whole life away on the first person to want you when there are so many options you haven’t even tried?” Donny tugged his hair in frustration. “I don’t mean any disrespect. Pilar’s great. But for fuck’s sake! You don’t know until you’ve tried. Two days from now, you could vanish into the system. Don’t you want to know you’ve lived?”

  “You think I haven’t?”

  “No!” He sighed. “And yeah. I think you settled for the first thing to come along. And I know you owe her and all, giving up everything to be with you. But I don’t think you’re being fair to yourself. I don’t.”

  Her heart ached for him. “Donny… love’s not fair.”

  “Love.” He pronounced the word glumly.

  “Yeah, love.” Loup smiled ruefully. “Maybe I haven’t made it as obvious as I could have, because… well, I knew how you felt. I didn’t want to throw it in your face, and God knows, Pilar’s enough of an exhibitionist for both of us. But I really do love her, Donny. Not just a little. A lot. A whole lot.”

  “I know,” he mumbled.

  “No, you don’t.” She shook her head. “All she has to do is smile at me in this one way, and it feels like my heart’s turning over in my chest. It was that way in the beginning, and it’s that way now. I’m sorry, but it is.”

  “I know.” Donny traced the rim of his snifter. “I’ve seen that smile.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he said sadly. “Makes you look all dopey and gooey-eyed, which of course I find ridiculously adorable and painful. I fuckin’ hate that smile.”

  “I’m sorry,” Loup repeated.

  “Don’t you wonder about what you’re missing?”

  “No.”

  “Never? Other girls, even?”

  “No.”

  “Fuck! That’s not natural. It’s not healthy.”

  “Maybe not for you, but it is for me. For us.” She made a face. “GMOs. Stupid term. But we are what we are. That Johnson guy, he said that when we fall in love, it tends to stick. It did with my father and all of his kin, the ones who found someone. It did with me. My cousin Alejandro, he’s sixteen. He has this girlfriend, Amaya, and he looks at her like she’s the only girl in the world. I know how he feels.”

  Donny smiled a little. “You’re not that gooey.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “I just don’t believe…” He sighed. “I just can’t fucking believe that I can feel something this strong for you, and you could feel nothing at all.”

  Loup gazed at him with pity.

  “Fuck me. You really don’t, do you?” Donny drank the rest of his brandy. “You really, really don’t.”

  “I like you.”

  He threw his snifter. It shattered on the floor. A hushed server hurried over with a dustpan. “Like sucks!”

  “Yeah, well, so does petulant rock star.” Loup folded her arms and gave him a stern look. “Donny, we can be friends or not. That’s up to you. If this is all too much for you, I’m sure we can dissolve the contract. You’ll probably lose some big deposit, but that will be the end of it.”

  “I don’t want that.” He rubbed his temples. “Besides, Rand would kill me.”

  “So?”

  He gave her a hopeful look. “Can I guilt you into a pity fuck?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, c’mon! Just once. So I don’t have to die not knowing.”

  “You wouldn’t like it,” Loup said gently. “Believe me, I know. Because I have been with people who didn’t want me that way, no matter how much they might have wanted to or cared about me. And it’s not a good feeling. Not at all. Afterward, you’d just feel alone and empty.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “I won’t.” She rose in one seamless motion and put out her hand. “C’mon. Dinner’s over. Friends or not?”

  He heaved one last sigh. “Friends.”

  She drove them back to the estate. On the doorstep, Donny caught her arm as she began to unlock the door. The electric lantern above the door cast shadows over his face.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks for listening. You know I had to try?”

  Loup nodded. “Yeah.”

  He stooped quickly and kissed her. She could have stopped him, but didn’t.

  “You have really soft lips,” Donny said dreamily, moving closer. “Softer than I imagined—”

  She put her hand on his chest and held him at bay.

  “Ow.” He winced. “Fuck, you’re strong!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Sexy little bitch.” Donny smiled despite himself. “All right. I get it. I do. End of story, eh? It was nice, though, wasn’t it? It was a nice kiss.”

  She smiled back at him. “Yeah, Donny. It was a nice kiss.”

  “Hey, Loup?” he said as she unlocked the door. “I have an idea. About Las Veg
as and this guy you’re trying to rescue. I think I know how we can get him out past hotel security.”

  “Yeah?” She followed him inside and locked the door behind them.

  “Yeah. But we can talk about it in the morning.”

  “Okay.”

  In the room they shared, she found Pilar reading a magazine in bed, trying very hard to look casual and unconcerned. Loup leaned against the bedroom door, watching her.

  “Hey, baby,” Pilar said at length. “Nice date?”

  “It wasn’t a date.”

  “It was a date.”

  “Did you think I was afraid I was missing out on something?” Loup asked curiously.

  “Well, not afraid, no.” Pilar closed her magazine. “Jesus, I know you better than that. But what if you are, Loup? Missing out? Charlie said something to me. He said I was being selfish—”

  She laughed.

  “He did!”

  “No doubt,” Loup said in a low voice. “I’m sure Charlie has nothing but my best interests at heart.” She crossed the room, shedding clothes. “I’m sure he’d never play on your sense of guilt and fairness in the hope that I’d sleep with his infatuated boyhood friend…”

  “I know! But—”

  She pounced on the bed, straddling Pilar. “But what?”

  Pilar wriggled beneath the covers. “What if you are? I know the difference between you and not-you. You don’t. Between me and—”

  “Don’t want to know.” Loup kissed her. “Don’t care.”

  “You can’t be—”

  “Sure?” She tugged off Pilar’s camisole. “Sure, I can. Sure sure.” She sat back on her heels and regarded her, cocking her head. “Do you not want me to feel the way I do, O sexiest sidekick in the universe?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “A little.”

  Pilar caught her around the waist. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Okay, it was stupid. Get your cute little butt under the covers and make love to me, Supergirl. Okay?”

  Loup smiled happily. “Okay!”

  They made love for a long time. Sex hadn’t changed since the beginning, either; only deepened. For Loup, the sheer joy of physical intimacy was a revelation every time. She delighted in all of it; the give and take, the slow languor and the rising urgency. She liked it when Pilar was indolent and lazy, her body writhing with luxurious waves of pleasure. And she liked it when Pilar was ardent and aggressive, rolling her over to devour her hungrily.