[Santa Olivia 02] - Saints Astray

by Jacqueline Carey

  He huffed and puffed. “Why not take the elevator?”

  “Security cameras,” Pilar said. “They’ll get us anyway, but we’re trying to make them work for it. Plus, according to the specs, security teams check in verbally every fifteen minutes. Standard procedure. If they cop to us—” She touched her earpiece and winced. “And they have. They’ve just figured out your guards aren’t responding. They’re on alert.”

  “Are they moving to block the exits?” Loup asked.

  Pilar listened as they clattered down another flight of stairs. “Not yet. They’re sending another team to the suite.”

  Miguel wheezed. “I’m fucking dying here!”

  “Jesus, Mig!” Loup slowed. “Why’d you let yourself get so out of shape?”

  “Because I’ve been a goddamned hostage!” he growled.

  “Only for a few weeks.”

  “You think being in protective custody was any different?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Okay, code red!” Pilar interjected. “They’re not waiting for confirmation. They’re sending guards to cover all the elevator banks and fire exits on the ground floor.”

  “Plan B.” Loup keyed her earpiece. “Bill? We’re coming down the escalator. Got a good crowd around it? Great.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Miguel said. “You’re fucking kidding me. You want to ride down the escalator in plain sight?”

  “That’s exactly right.” Loup hit a landing and yanked the door open. “As of this moment, you’re no longer an escaping hostage. You’re escorting your little sister and her best friend to get autographs from their favorite band, because you’re just that kind of guy. In fact, you’re such a nice guy, you’re even wearing Kate gear to humor them.”

  He snorted.

  “Move it!” Pilar snapped.

  They hurried down the maze of hallways and reached the giant escalator. They had two stages to ride before the final descent to the main floor. Loup peered over the railing into the immense stairwell, trying to gauge the size of the crowd below. “Looks good.” She straightened, pushing up the sunglasses that had begun to slide down her nose. “Oops.”

  Miguel regarded her. “Why the hell are you wearing sunglasses in here? It’s like the fucking City of Night in this place.”

  “Thought you liked it here.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Loup’s, um, kind of semifamous with Kate fans,” Pilar explained. “It’s a thing. She’s trying not to be recognized.”

  They stepped onto the last stage of the escalator.

  Below, the band was clustered. Randall was holding forth at length, rambling. Donny and Charlie were still signing autographs. A small sea of Kate fans, teenyboppers peppered with a number of laconic hipsters, surrounded them. Beyond them, they could see security guards in neat suits circulating.

  None of them gave the escalator more than a cursory look.

  “Right behind you, Bill,” Loup said into her earpiece as they descended.

  Kate’s head of security gave her a curt nod. His team directed fans to shift subtly, making room for their arrival. Randall began wrapping up his speech.

  They hit the bottom of the escalator and melted into the crowd—more or less.

  Loup thumped Miguel on the shoulder. “Try not to look so hulking.”

  “Fuck you! I’m a big guy.”

  “All righty-right!” Geordie Davies said brightly, taking over from Randall. “Everyone had a nice time? Got yourselves some nice swag and all? Well, we’ve got to be off. Let’s give the boys from Kate a big round of applause and see them out to the limo, shall we?”

  The crowd shrieked.

  “Goddamn!” Miguel complained. “My ears!”

  “Shut up.” Pilar pushed him. “Follow the band.”

  Kate’s security team closed around them. There were guards posted at the main entrance to the casino, but they stood back to let the entourage pass, scanning beyond them. They exited in a swirl of fans.

  Two limos were waiting. Loup steered Miguel toward the farthest, while the band took the nearest. She glanced over her shoulder as Miguel squeezed himself through the car door and saw a guard talking into his earpiece with a suspicious look.

  “Uh-oh.” She clambered into the limo after Pilar. “Airport, please. We’re in a hurry.”

  “Hold on, miss,” the driver said, listening to his transmitter. “I’m getting an order from casino security to wait.”

  “Shit!” Loup glanced at Pilar, who looked stricken. It wasn’t a contingency they’d considered. “Route to the airport?”

  Pilar fumbled for her Dataphone. “I’ll find it. Go!”

  Loup whipped out of the limo and around to the driver’s door, moving in a blur. The crowd of Kate fans clamored in sudden recognition. She jerked open the door and grabbed the surprised driver by the collar, hauling him out. “Catch!” she shouted to the fans, taking hold of the driver’s belt with her other hand and sending him sailing. Half a dozen fans tumbled down under his weight. Loup scrambled into the driver’s seat and locked the doors.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Miguel demanded.

  “No!” She felt for the clutch, struck by the realization that the steering wheel was on the opposite side of the cars she’d learned to drive on. “Pilar, everything’s backward and I can’t find the clutch!”

  “Don’t think it has one, baby.” Pilar was frantically programming addresses into her GPS.

  “Oh, yeah. That kind.” Loup put it in drive and hit the gas.

  The limo lurched forward. Kate fans scattered.

  “Got it!” Pilar said triumphantly. “Take a right onto the Strip!”

  “Okay!”

  The limo shot out into traffic, narrowly missing getting sideswiped by a tour bus. Miguel pitched sideways and swore.

  “Put on your seat belt,” Pilar advised him. “Loup’s a good driver, but her reflexes can make the ride… interesting.”

  “Plus everything’s backward!” Loup added.

  Miguel buckled his seat belt. “Where the fuck did you learn to drive, you fucking maniac? Bizarro World?”

  “No, Scotland.” She gunned it through a yellow light and switched lanes. “What’s going on behind us, Pilar?”

  Pilar craned her head around. “There’s no pursuit. We’re fading out of radio range, so I can’t tell anything else. Can you still get Bill?”

  Loup tried him on her earpiece. “Nope.”

  “Okay. We’ll check in with them later and make sure everything’s okay. For now, we’re on our own. Take a left at the next light. And slow down, we don’t want to get pulled over. On top of everything else, I guess we’re, um, kinda driving a stolen car.”

  “Some rescue.” Miguel slumped in his seat. “You two are fucking insane.”

  Loup pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, and you’re welcome, by the way.”

  A faint smile tugged at the corners of his wide mouth. He shook his head and looked away, trying to hide it, then glanced back at her, smiling more broadly. “It’s good to see you too, you little freak.”

  “Now that’s exactly the touching reunion I imagined,” Pilar commented.

  “Give me a break! I’m in shock.”

  “Hey, I was being serious.”

  FORTY-ONE

  They made it to the airport without incident and found the car rental agency. Loup and Miguel waited in the air-conditioned limo while Pilar went in to complete the paperwork.

  “Why’d you do it?” he asked her. “Seriously, this is just dumb, Loup. It was a stupid risk. You were out, you were free.”

  “Yeah, but you weren’t. And speaking of dumb… getting caught trying to cheat a big casino? Hello?”

  He scowled. “I didn’t fucking cheat! I banged the guy’s wife. I was just there to meet her for a fucking drink. He framed me.”

  Loup laughed. “You banged Mr. Skeevy’s trophy wife?”

  Miguel
’s scowl deepened. “I didn’t know who she was! She came on to me at the Palms. They set me up.”

  She laughed harder.

  “It’s not funny!”

  “Yeah, it kind of is, Mig.” She sobered. “Sorry. Are you okay? It looked like they were treating you okay. I mean, I didn’t exactly expect to find you playing video games with the bad guys when we busted in to rescue you.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I’m fine. The guards were all right; they were just doing their jobs. And it’s just as boring being a guard as a hostage. Guess things aren’t really all that different here than back home, huh? There’s always a big man and everyone else works a bullshit job for him.”

  “Yep. Only here it’s not you.”

  Pilar came out. “Loup, they need to scan your driver’s license. You guys catching up?”

  “Yeah.” She grinned from ear to ear. “Mig didn’t cheat at cards. He banged Mr. Skeevy’s wife and they set him up.”

  Pilar giggled. “You’re kidding!”

  “Enough!” Miguel pointed a thick finger at her. “I don’t need to hear it from you, sweetheart. And speaking of catching up, the two of you have a lot of talking to do. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the sight of you with that gun, Ecchevarria, and I have no fuckin’ idea what that business with the rock band was all about.”

  “It’s a long story,” Loup said, getting out of the limo.

  “Fortunately, we have about…” Pilar consulted her Dataphone. “Three days’ worth of driving ahead of us.”

  Miguel groaned.

  “Hey, if you hadn’t sexed up the trophy wife, we wouldn’t be here,” Loup reminded him. “Hope she was worth it.”

  He gave her a dour look. “She wasn’t.”

  As soon as the paperwork was finished, they moved the limo to the airport’s short-term parking lot to make it look as though they’d flown out of town, then set out on the road in the rental car. Loup took the first shift driving with Miguel crammed into the front seat beside her and Pilar navigating from the backseat. Once they hit a long stretch of highway, Pilar began making calls.

  “Hi, hello. This is Pilar Mendez. About your limousine…”

  “Mendez?” Miguel asked Loup. Behind them Pilar explained the situation with profuse apologies.

  “Um, yeah. We kind of have these illegal Canadian passports.”

  “This just gets better and better, doesn’t it?” He studied her. “So what’s your nom de guerre?”

  “Nom de guerre?”

  “What does it say on your passport, Loup?”

  She checked the speedometer and slowed down. “Guadalupe Herrera.”

  “It’s not gonna be enough to protect you, you know. The casino, this car…” Miguel gestured. “Your name’s on the invoice. They can track you down. It’s not like Outpost. They’ve got systems. Computer networks. Databanks.”

  Pilar ended her call. “Yeah, we know all about it. That’s why we’re staying in out-of-the-way places and paying in cash.”

  “Ooh, my, my. Aren’t you the crafty one?” he observed.

  She smiled smugly. “I am, in fact.”

  “She is,” Loup agreed.

  On her next call, Pilar checked in with Geordie Davies and confirmed that all was well with Kate. “They got detained and interrogated by security,” she informed Loup. “But they played dumb and claimed we used them. There really wasn’t anything Mr. Skeevy could do. He couldn’t exactly admit they were holding Miguel hostage and we stole him.”

  “So they’re okay?”

  “They’re fine.”

  She checked in with Senator Ballantine and informed him that they had Miguel Garza with them and expected to arrive in a couple of days.

  “Well?” Loup asked.

  Pilar winced. “He says we’re idiots. But he gave me the address of a safe house in Virginia.”

  “You are idiots,” Miguel commented.

  “Hey.” She gave him a sharp look. “Look who’s talking! Forget the trophy wife. If you’d stayed put, you’d be testifying to Congress in a week’s time, and we’d still be enjoying our European honeymoon.”

  “Or at least babysitting the band,” Pilar added.

  “Yeah, about that.” Miguel plucked at his T-shirt, glancing down at the image of Loup striking an iconic pose in her security togs. “You wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

  They made it to Pilar’s first destination by nightfall, crossing the border of New Mexico and turning off the highway to find a small roadside motel. By that time, Miguel had heard the entire story of their careers as secret agent bodyguards and their liaison with Kate. He was silent for a while, digesting it.

  “You okay, Mig?” Loup asked after they checked in.

  “Yeah.” He shook himself. “I’m in the middle of nowhere at the mercy of a pair of teenage lunatics who seem to think they’re living in a spy novel and I don’t even have a fucking toothbrush, but I’m okay.”

  “C’mon, big guy.” Pilar took his arm. “We’ll go buy you a toothbrush and whatever else you need, and find someplace to eat. I have a feeling if I try to feed Loup another energy bar, she’s gonna throw it at me.”

  There was a store on the outskirts of town that sold everything—a massive warehouse of a store with harsh fluorescent lighting and a lone stock boy wandering the aisles. They bought Miguel toiletries, clean clothes, and a cheap suitcase. He grumbled about the quality of everything.

  “God, you big baby!” Pilar said while Loup paid the bill. “Just be glad this place is open. Doesn’t look like they have a lot of customers.”

  “We’re one of the lucky ones, honey.” The tired-looking salesclerk smiled at her. “We’re still here.”

  “The pandemic?” Loup asked.

  The clerk nodded. “Rural areas like this, two out of three stores closed ages ago.” She handed her her change. “You travel safe now.”

  They had dinner at a roadhouse down the street from their hotel. Loup polished off an enormous burrito platter and a side of nachos. Miguel drank three beers with his dinner and began eyeing the female clientele in the bar.

  “Oh, no!” Pilar noticed his wandering gaze. “I don’t think so. That’s what got you into trouble in the first place.”

  “I’m just looking!”

  “Keep it in your pants for a few days, Mig,” Loup said in a practical tone. “C’mon! You’ll live.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, well, if that’s your advice, the next time you rescue me, you might wanna consider a less provocative outfit. I gotta live with the image of you dressed up as Satan’s French maid seared into my brain. And I’m trying to be a good guy and work the big brother angle, but it’s a little disturbing, you know?”

  Pilar smiled. “Mmm. It certainly is.”

  Miguel glowered at her. “Don’t even start. I don’t need to know what the hell goes on between you two.”

  “Oh, poor you.”

  “Yeah, poor me!”

  Back at the hotel, they retired to their adjacent rooms. In the hallway, Loup looked sharply at Miguel. “Promise you’ll behave? You won’t sneak out and try to get laid?”

  “Yeah.” He gave her a wry look. “I promise.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re thanking me?” Miguel shook his head. “You really are a little freak.”

  “Love you too.”

  He chuckled and went into his room.

  In their room after they’d washed up for the night, Pilar sighed and slid her arms around Loup’s neck. “Jesus, baby,” she murmured. “What a day, huh? What a long, fucking, scary day.”

  “Was it really scary?”

  “Yes.” Pilar kissed her, maneuvering her backward. “It was.”

  “I’m sorry.” They fell onto the bed, Loup on top.

  “I know,” Pilar whispered, wrapping her legs around her waist. “I do. I’m just really glad we’re both here and alive right now.”

  “Me too.”

  The cheap bedsprings
squeaked fiercely in protest. And through the thin dividing wall between the rooms, the sound of Miguel’s TV was audible.

  “Goddamnit!” Pilar clutched Loup’s ass, fingers digging into her flesh. “Hold still. You think he can hear?”

  “Do you care?”

  “No! Yes!”

  “Really?” Loup rocked her hips.

  Pilar caught her breath. “No!” The bedsprings squeaked and there was a disgruntled thump on the wall. “Yeah, okay, I do,” she admitted hastily. “Let’s play a game, huh? Who can make the other get off moving the least.” She tangled one hand in Loup’s hair, tugging it. “And you have to stay where you are. No doing that hummingbird thing with your tongue. That’s just not fair.”

  Loup smiled, one hand gliding between them. “I’ll win anyway.”

  “Cocky, cocky!”

  “Nuh-uh.” She shook her head. “ ’Cause you’ve got that spot…”

  “What about your ears?” Pilar blew softly into Loup’s left ear, licking her earlobe. “So cute and round, and oh, so sensitive…”

  Loup squirmed, but managed to achieve her goal. After that, it was all about her considerable manual dexterity.

  “Oh, that spot!” Pilar’s back arched, drawing another squeal of protest from the bedsprings. “Jesus! Okay, okay, you win!”

  There was a loud pounding that made the dividing wall shudder. Through it came the sound of Miguel’s muffled, irritated voice. “Cut it out, you goddamn fuck-bunnies!”

  “Don’t you dare stop now!” Pilar warned Loup.

  She smiled again. “Believe me, I wasn’t planning on it.”

  FORTY-TWO

  It was a long, long road trip.

  On the second day they got a call from Geordie Davies informing them that the band had been detained on arrival at the airport in Washington and questioned by federal authorities regarding the whereabouts of Pilar Mendez and Guadalupe Herrera.

  “So that’s it, then,” Pilar murmured. “We’re officially fugitives. And they’re threatening to yank the permit for the concert.”

  Loup concentrated on the road. “Does he think they’re gonna?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “It’s gotten too much publicity. He thinks they’re afraid it will create more if they’re banned from playing.” She was quiet a moment. “Loup, Geordie wants to know if you’re willing to do interviews now. He’s got all kinds of inquiries. But if you go public…” Her voice trailed off.