Flirting with Disaster

by Jane Graves

  Holy shit.

  Pills. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. What the hell . . . ?

  “They’re made to look like Lasotrex,” Lisa said. “A vasodilator.”

  Dave knew that counterfeit pharmaceutical operations went on all over the world, and Mexico was definitely a hot spot. If she’d found something she wasn’t supposed to, somebody could very well want her dead. If so, the moment she showed her face . . .

  Damn. His mission to get medical help for a delusional woman had just turned into something potentially more treacherous.

  “So what do you think now?” Lisa said. “Still think I’m imagining things?”

  “I think,” he said, “that we need to talk.”

  Lisa’s mind still felt fuzzy and disoriented, but maybe the sleep she’d had meant she’d be able to put a few consecutive thoughts together and tell Dave exactly why she’d asked him to come seven hundred miles into the middle of the Mexican wilderness.

  He sat down on the opposite bunk, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. He wore faded jeans, boots, and a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. He still had the same tall, well-developed body he’d had in high school, though the leanness he’d shown back then had given way to a more substantial build that made him look even more powerful. He had the kind of face women dream about—strikingly handsome, with strong features, deep, dark eyes and a sharp, mesmerizing gaze. His face was marred only by a few age lines, and the congregation of those lines at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth told her he smiled a lot.

  He wasn’t smiling now.

  “Give me the whole story,” he said, “and don’t leave anything out.”

  The whole story. Good God. It felt as if she’d lived a lifetime in the past couple of days. She sat up a little more, releasing a weary breath, her throat dry and scratchy.

  “It started,” she said, “when Adam Decker and I were getting ready to fly out of here on Friday afternoon. He’s one of the doctors who volunteer at the clinic. The clinic is closed on weekends except for emergencies, and that’s when we swap out the staff. I was going to take Adam back to San Antonio, then bring another doctor down here.”

  “San Antonio?”

  “I live there now. Adam does, too. The organization is based out of there.”

  Dave nodded for her to go on.

  “A storm was approaching, so Adam and I were hurrying to take off before it hit. Before we left the clinic, Robert gave me a defibrillator to get serviced in San Antonio.”

  “A device that shocks hearts back into action.”

  “Right. It was a portable unit, about the size of a small suitcase. I take a lot of medical equipment back and forth, so I didn’t think anything about it. Adam and I were hurrying toward the plane, trying to beat the storm, when lightning struck only about fifty yards away. Scared the hell out of me. I recoiled from the flash and dropped the defibrillator. The plastic casing cracked wide open. And guess what was inside.” She nodded toward the pills. “Adam said they looked like Lasotrex. But then he scratched the surface of one with a pocketknife. The blue exterior gave way to a white interior. He said if it was really Lasotrex, it would be blue all the way through.”

  “So they’re definitely counterfeit.”

  “Yes. Apparently this kind of thing goes on all over the world. Mexico, South America, the Orient, the Middle East. They manufacture fake pills for pennies, then transport them to other areas and sell them at retail prices. Adam estimated that there had to be least a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of them in that one bag.”

  “You say Douglas is the culprit. But what’s his motive? He’s a doctor. A guy like that has to have all kinds of money. What does he need with more?”

  “Actually, he doesn’t have a lot of money. He botched an appendectomy a few years ago that ended up killing a guy. He got hit with a multimillion-dollar malpractice suit that cleaned him out. Rumor has it that he was so negligent and the award was so big that nobody will insure him to practice medicine in the U.S.”

  “So how did he end up down here running a humanitarian organization?”

  “It’s not his baby. It’s his father’s. Bernard James Douglas is a respected heart surgeon. He began the clinic a few years ago, and then his health began to fail. So he put his son in charge.”

  “He doesn’t know what Robert is like?”

  “I think deep down he does. He just refuses to believe it. I think he’s hoping that someday his son will grow a heart.” She made a scoffing noise. “He’s got a long wait.”

  “I can’t imagine that a man like Robert would put up with being sequestered in a tiny Mexican town for very long.”

  “Are you kidding? He thrives on it.”

  “How so?”

  “People look up to him here. It’s as if God himself had dropped down from heaven to diagnose their illness or prescribe a drug. He tosses enough money around that shop, owners are happy to see him walk through the door. He plays poker with the sheriff and a couple of other guys every Friday night and usually comes out on the winning end, which means he probably cheats. And he has his pick of the local women for all kinds of recreational activities. Throw in a profitable counterfeiting operation, and he’s in paradise.”

  “Sounds like a real asshole.”

  “Actually, I haven’t had any problem dealing with Robert.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I told him once when we were cruising at ten thousand feet that either he could lose his condescending attitude or he could land in Santa Rios the hard way.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Without a plane.”

  For the first time, Dave cracked a tiny smile. “I see you haven’t changed a bit.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “Oh, it’s a good thing,” he told her, a smile still playing on his lips.

  Suddenly she had the strangest feeling, as if eleven years hadn’t passed at all and she was basking in his approval all over again.

  No. She didn’t need that. She wasn’t that lost, lonely kid anymore, the one who’d have sold her soul for a kind word from anyone. But still, there was something about the way he looked at her, as if he could see right inside her. At least in that way, he hadn’t changed a bit, either.

  “Tell me more about Robert’s connection to local law enforcement,” Dave said.

  “Well, as I told you, he’s really chummy with the sheriff, but there’s more. In a place like this, the moment anyone shows up with anything shiny and new, it has a way of disappearing. Participating in burglary and theft and carjacking is just an alternative lifestyle. That means the clinic should be ripe for the picking where drugs and equipment are concerned. Nobody touches it. In this town, I think the people who enforce the law and break the law are pretty much one and the same. And Robert’s probably got them all on his payroll.”

  “Which means he can run a counterfeiting operation with no interference.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How do you think Robert found out that you and Adam discovered the drugs?”

  “I don’t know. But there’s a possibility we were being watched.”

  “Watched?”

  “Yes. By Gabrio Ramirez. He’s a sixteen-year-old kid, maybe part of a local gang. His car was parked near the airfield when we were leaving.”

  “Were you suspicious of him at the time?”

  “No. Not really. He hangs out at the airfield a lot. I took him flying once. You should have seen his face when I gunned it down the runway, then pulled back and started to soar. He loved it. That day he even spoke English to me, when he pretends most of the time that he doesn’t know how. Ever since then, he shows up just about every time I take off or land. I think maybe he was hanging out just because he likes flying.”

  “Or he was keeping an eye on you.”

  She sighed. “Maybe. But I’d like to think that he’s just a good kid who needs a break. From
what I hear, his mother moved to the U.S. with him when he was just a baby. She died when he was ten. His only living relative was his brother, Ivan, so he came back here to live with him. Ivan’s got no obvious means of support but always has wads of cash. Around here, that spells gang.”

  “Which Gabrio could be part of.”

  Lisa sighed again. “Maybe.”

  “Did he see you find the drugs?” Dave asked.

  “I don’t know. He could have.”

  But she still didn’t want to believe that Gabrio had anything to do with the sabotage of her plane. Most of the time, he had the look of a boy with nothing but a dead-end life ahead of him, who despised where he was but wouldn’t admit it in a thousand years. She knew that look, because she’d worn it herself once. But she’d discovered that there was something about leaving the earth and climbing into the clouds that made just about anything seem possible. She’d thought maybe Gabrio had felt that, too. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  “So what did you and Adam do once you realized what was going on?”

  “We knew we didn’t want to deal with any Mexican officials, so we decided to take the drugs back across the border and hand them over to the customs officers at the commuter airport in San Antonio and tell them what we suspected. Since Robert was trying to smuggle them into the U.S., his network clearly extends there, so U.S. authorities would definitely get involved. But in the meantime, the storm hit, and we had to wait it out. Then right as it was clearing off, somebody showed up at the clinic. A man whose wife was in labor. Adam’s an obstetrician. There’s a midwife in town, but the patient was supposedly high-risk and in premature labor. Adam insisted she needed him, so he took me to the airstrip, told me to go on without him, then went to deliver the baby.”

  “How long did you have to wait for him?” Dave asked.

  “I didn’t wait. Adam said the woman lived at least an hour away and that he had no idea how long he’d be. He insisted that I take off for San Antonio without him.”

  Dave blinked with surprise. “But he was on that plane with you when it went down.”

  “No. He wasn’t.”

  “Douglas reported him dead right along with you.”

  For several moments Lisa just stared at Dave, dumbfounded. “But he’s not dead. He was never even on the plane.”

  “I imagine Robert knows that by now.”

  Lisa knew what that meant, and she felt a shot of apprehension. “I didn’t know the name of the woman he went to help. I had no way to warn him.”

  “This is Sunday morning. He left for that woman’s house on Friday afternoon. The chances of him still being there are slim. One way or another, something has already happened.”

  “What do you mean?

  “Maybe he came back, heard about your plane going down, speculated that it wasn’t an accident, and got out of town. That’s the best possible scenario.”

  “And the worst?”

  “He had no idea what was going on. And if Robert saw him and realized he was still alive, he was in big trouble.” Dave sighed. “Robert missed him the first time. You can bet he won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  Oh, God.

  Lisa felt a rush of total despair as the enormity of the situation crashed down on her. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Adam. Tears gathered behind her eyes, making them feel hot and tight.

  “Do you know this was his last trip down here?” she said. “In two weeks he was taking a chief of staff position at a hospital in Chicago.” She paused, feeling a choking tightness in her throat. “And now this.”

  Adam’s wife had died a few years ago under circumstances that would crush any man, but time had passed. He’d picked up the pieces and moved on. Why he’d chosen to give up the thing he did best and move to Chicago to take an administrative job she didn’t know. She only knew that she was going to miss him. These past two years, he’d been almost like an older brother to her, a person she could talk to, laugh with, confide in. Throughout her life, those kinds of people had always been in very short supply.

  And now she might be missing him forever.

  “Are you all right?” Dave asked.

  “Yes,” she said, fighting to hold her voice steady. “Of course.”

  “Lisa?” he said gently. “Was he somebody special to you?”

  “He was a friend.”

  “A good friend?”

  “I guess we’d gotten to know each other pretty well.”

  That was all she could say. If she told Dave just how much Adam meant to her, she was going to lose it. She turned away, gritting her teeth. Damn it. What force in the universe was it that dangled people in front of her like some kind of emotional bait and, as soon as she started to care about them, yanked them back and watched her crumble? Well, whatever it was could get its kicks somewhere else, because she wasn’t going to fall apart. She wasn’t.

  “It’s still possible he got out of here,” Dave said. “If so, then maybe he’s still alive.”

  Lisa nodded, knowing Dave didn’t really believe that. No matter how unlikely it was, though, she was going to be praying for it, on the off chance that there really was a God out there and he really did give a damn.

  “Where exactly did you crash-land?” Dave asked. “They said your plane went into a river.”

  “It got caught up on the side of a ravine. I made it out of the plane to a ledge beside it. That’s when the guys with machine guns showed up to obliterate what was left of my plane. It went into the river. Unfortunately, I ended up falling right along with it.”

  “But you hung on to your backpack.”

  “Yes. But not the parts of the defibrillator. I really wish I had those, too, but there was only so much I could grab on my way out of that cockpit.”

  “Then you found your way back to town to call me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think anyone saw you?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  Dave sat back. “Okay. The best thing we can do is get out of here and get back across the border. You’re going to show customs agents these drugs and tell them your story. I’m going to flash my badge and back you up. After that, I guarantee you they’ll be all over Robert the minute he steps foot back in the U.S.”

  “But as soon as I show myself, I’ll be a target. Robert still wants me dead.”

  “Once the story is out, he’ll be forced to leave you alone. If you end up dead, he’ll be suspect number one. He doesn’t dare risk that.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s the best news I’ve had since this whole mess came down.”

  “But we do have a problem. We can’t take a commercial flight, because we’d have to smuggle the pills through security at the Monterrey airport. That’s too risky.”

  “So what do you suggest we do? Cross the border by car?”

  “I’d rather hand the drugs over to San Antonio customs agents, just as you’d planned to. That would put us well within the U.S. border, and we’ll be talking to agents you’re familiar with.”

  “But that means we need to fly back,” Lisa said. “Unfortunately, my plane is at the bottom of the Mercado River.”

  “Can you rent a plane in Monterrey?”

  “There’s a commuter airport there. A couple of aviation companies. Rentals should be available.”

  “Then that’s our plan.” Dave checked his watch. “It’s nearly noon. We can be in Monterrey by three or three-thirty. With luck, somebody will have a plane available and we can head out right away.” He stood up, tossing his bag over his shoulder. “One quick stop in Santa Rios, and we’ll be on the road.”

  “Why do we have to stop?”

  “The car’s nearly out of gas, and there’s next to nothing between here and Monterrey.”

  “What if the wrong person spots me in town? Not likely, but Santa Rios isn’t all that big.”

  “No problem. You can ride in the trunk.”

  Lisa felt a surge of dread. “No. No way. Not the
trunk.”

  “Just until we get out of town.”

  “Nope. I don’t do small, closed-in spaces.”

  “It’s the safest place for you.”

  “I’m serious, Dave. I’m not getting in that trunk.”

  Finally he sighed with resignation. “Okay. The floorboard of the backseat, then. Covered up with this.” He picked up an old moth-eaten blanket off one of the bunks and gave it a shake.

  Lisa didn’t really like the sound of that, either, but riding under a blanket in the backseat beat feeling as if she were sealed inside a moving coffin.

  She stood up and grabbed her backpack. When she wobbled a little, Dave took it from her, lowered it back to the ground, then placed his hands against her shoulders.

  “Hey, take it easy, okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  But for a moment she wasn’t. As the events of the past few days overwhelmed her, she bowed her head and took a deep, steadying breath.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Lisa. I’m going to get you out of here. And then I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Robert pays for what he did to you.”

  “He attempted murder in Mexico. How can he be prosecuted for that in the U.S.?”

  “If a crime is committed by one U.S. citizen against another in connection with a conspiracy that began in the U.S., the law allows for prosecution even if the crime was committed on Mexican soil.”

  “So all we have to do is tie him to the counterfeiting conspiracy and they can go after him for attempted murder?”

  “Yes. We’ll get him, Lisa. I promise you.”

  The expression of determination on his face amazed her. That he was making her problem his problem amazed her even more. Suddenly she was swept away by the same force that had drawn her to him all those years ago, that steady, anchored feeling she had whenever she was around him, as if he was the foundation that could calm all the turbulence in her life.

  She remembered lying on the bank of that river after her plane went down, wet and exhausted, staring up at the starry sky and feeling more alone than she ever had in her life. Sure, she had friends, but they were people she wouldn’t even impose upon to help her move from one apartment to another, much less get her out of a situation like this. And her family. She would rather die a slow death in the Mexican wilderness than speak to any of them ever again.