“Glad you’re here now,” Tate said and nodded toward the farthest glassed-in office of the chief investigator. “They’ve grilled us until we’re empty.”
“Multiple times,” Anna added, folding her arms. Relentless quizzing by the Mexican police and coast guard had her weary, frustrated and bursting with anxiety. The death of Alvarez—his very presence—on Tate’s yacht implied he must have known her mother. But to what degree? And why was he working at Tate’s construction site? Was that a coincidence?
I don’t think so.
She walked away from the two men toward the window and gazed out over the harbor, the sun striking the water in a glaring sheet and blinding her. She closed her eyes. Beneath her lids, she drifted to a scene she’d replayed all night and this morning. A scene that she couldn’t place. Except for the flower-shaped swimming pool, its walls an azure blue. The floor painted with a flower, a raspberry colored fuchsia. It was another brilliant day. Hot. Her sister was laughing. And someone was calling, “Jose! Jose! Show Anna how to float!”
Anna startled. Was that her mother’s voice she recalled?
She bit her lower lip, recognizing that she stood amid the dingy grey walls and drab olive-green furniture of the chief investigator’s office. Was she dreaming? Fantasizing? How could she be, if instinct told her she knew this woman’s voice? But if that were her mother, why did she not recall anything about the woman and that man Alvarez?
“Did they run any IDs on the men who attacked you?” Grant leaned against the edge of the desk.
“They have one of the men pegged from fingerprints,” Tate informed him. “John Baynard. Born in the Bronx and convicted of racketeering in New York in two-thousand-one. Served seven years of twenty. Was out on good behavior.”
Grant scoffed. “Name familiar to you Anna?”
“No,” she told him.
He scribbled something in his small notebook. “Anything else?”
“No idea from the Federales on the ID of the second man yet.” Tate focused on Anna. “The third man Anna knows. The one who approached her on our construction site.”
Grant consulted his notebook. “This is the one you told me last night goes by the name of Jose Alvarez?”
“Yes.”
“I ran him through our database back at headquarters and he has no record.”
Tate frowned. “Yet he winds up with two other jerks who attempt to hijack us or kill us? That doesn’t smell like innocence to me. Unless Alvarez is an alias.”
“Noted. Here’s what I have on him.” Grant nodded and set his liquid quicksilver gaze on Anna. “He does come from New Mexico. And he is an expert plumber and gasfitter. Seems his buddies say he did date a woman back in the nineties in Albuquerque who was a looker. Dark brown hair, hazel eyes. Dynamite figure. Widow who had two daughters.”
Anna shook her head. “If Alvarez knew my mother, why don’t I remember?”
She swiveled to face the harbor again, searching for a recurrence of that scene in the past in the fuchsia-adorned pool. Wanting to hear the woman’s voice call to Jose. Was her mind playing desperate tricks on her?
“What I need to know,” Tate interjected, “is how and why Alvarez got a job at our construction site. Our foreman told me yesterday that he hired Alvarez here in Tampico two days ago when he put out a call for workers. But it seems too coincidental that Alvarez would get a job here and then recognize Anna with me.”
“Even more hair-brained,” Grant added, “for him to hire on here assuming he might one day see Anna.”
Anna nodded. “True. Tate and I were never together until the other night when that goon rear-ended me.”
“More weird a question is how would Alvarez even know Anna worked for me?” Tate asked.
Grant mulled that a minute, then said to Anna, “Unless a lot of people are working together to find you. Bring you down from any vantage point they find.”
“That’s expensive and time consuming.” Anna lifted her shoulders. “Almost preposterous.”
“Not if you want something very badly,” Grant said.
“And not if you don’t care how many bodies you pile up to find what you want,” Tate continued.
Anna shut her eyes, aching from tension. “What else do you know about Alvarez, Grant? Where has he lived since New Mexico? When did he come here? Who has he worked for?”
“Came to Monterrey in two thousand and two. Took a job with a real estate development company named Corona Construction as a plumber and gas fitter. Owner is an American. Clean record on him. Very wealthy man.”
Anna had stilled at the mention of Corona Construction. An image of a golden crown with five points rose to her conscious mind. “The owner of Corona? What is his name?”
“Walsh,” Grant replied.
She faced Grant. “Blake Walsh? Tall, lean, built like a long-distance runner. Fifty, maybe.”
“From the picture I saw on the company’s website,” Grant replied, “I’d say bingo.”
Tate stepped toward her and took her by the wrists. “You know this man?”
“Blake Walsh,” she responded with as steady a voice as she could muster for having forgotten the glorious afternoon she’d spent in his house as a fourteen-year-old. A spacious home on a hill sprang to her mind’s eye. The memory was so vibrant as an August afternoon. She could feel the searing afternoon sun bake into her skin and the warm water of the pool where she’d swum for a few hours with her mother, her sister and others whom she could not recall.
“Blake Walsh,” she repeated his name to test the way it felt on her tongue, the way the sounds fell on her ears and into a portion of her heart where she had been warned never to look. Never to remember. “Never utter his name. To us. To anyone,” her mother had warned her and her sister as they drove down the mountainside back toward the Border.
Anna squeezed her eyes shut and saw those hours in a dazzling spectrum of happiness. She remembered the name, the details as they flowed back into her like an infusion of joy—and fear.
“Blake Walsh is a man my mother drove us to visit once for half a day one hot afternoon when I was a teenager. She told us as we left we were never to tell anyone we’d gone there. Never to tell anyone his name or any of the others who were there that day.”
“My God, Anna.” Tate looked floored. “Can you remember their names now? And why she took you there?”
“I don’t know.” Anna stared at Tate. Visions of the day swept through her like a strong tide of delight and despair. “To visit? To ask for help? I don’t know.”
Grant stepped forward. “Your mother must have known this man well.”
“Oh, yes,” she agreed readily, the connection between this man and her mother breaking into her conscious mind after years of blocking it out. “She knew him before we went into Witness Protection.”
Grant glanced from one to the other.
Tate ran a hand through his hair. “If your mother knew him before that, then not one of you was supposed to be there.”
“Exactly,” she replied with a coolness that came from the wash of her full memory of that afternoon.
“Still she deliberately broke the rule,” Tate persisted. “Why? Why after all those years of being someone else, protecting the three of you for so long? Why would she violate the rule of no contact with those she knew in her old life?”
Anna nodded, absorbed by the moments at the lavish hacienda on the mountain ridge. The tiles of tiny golden crowns with five points set into the base of the house, like a decoration. The pool surrounded by fuchsia bougainvillea and the path to the bathhouse lined with roses and orchids of every size and shape and color.
Tate fixed Grant with a harsh gaze. “What do you know about Walsh?”
“Preliminary says he is legit. But now I have reason to poke around more.”
“We need to go see him,” Anna told them.
Tate froze. “Do you have reason to believe he could be involved in these attacks on you?”
“I
don’t know who the man was in the Rodeo the other night, or who the three men were on the boat today, but I do know that my mother never took us anywhere on any vacation. Except this one time. She could have. She earned enough money. But I also know that soon after we went to Walsh’s house in Monterrey, my mother and sister were murdered. That’s reason enough for me to go see him now.”
“We’ll tell the police where we’re going,” Tate said. “Our visit will give them time to finish the forensics on my yacht.”
“I’ll deal with any details they need about you both,” Grant said. “Then we’re off.”
Anna tucked her hand in Tate’s, then glanced at Grant. “So I assume this means that both of you are coming with me?”
* * *
“The house is exactly as I remember it,” Anna told them when Tate paused their rental on the winding driveway up the mountainside to Blake Walsh’s hacienda. They’d spent the night in Tampico and started their drive north to Walsh’s home early in the morning. Leaning forward, she spotted the tiles of coronas at the base of the house. This was the place all right.
Down on the main road to town, Grant had stopped his car on the shoulder to await their arrival. Arguing with them, Grant hadn’t wanted to wait below Walsh’s estate while Anna and Tate met the man. But Anna had insisted. What’s more, she had insisted they be vague about telling the Mexican police exactly why they were going north toward Monterrey.
“We’re not suspects,” she said to the two men. “And every other Mexican law enforcement officer is in the payroll of the cartels. You both know this.”
She faced Grant, “According to you, Walsh has no record. But if he has any connections to criminal elements, I don’t think we want to spook him by toting along a squad of police.”
“I don’t like it,” Tate said. “But I’ll do it. We have a bigger worry that Walsh won’t let us in. Or if he does, we might not like our reception.”
She didn’t agree. “I doubt he’ll hurt us. Trust me.”
Looking at the house now, she had fewer doubts about coming here. Her precise memories of it, the déjà vu awareness that swelled inside her told her she knew exactly what she was doing.
“We’ll be fine, Tate.” She threw him a small smile. “I have to meet Walsh.”
They made their way up the carefully tended stone sidewalk to the veranda of the house. Overhanging the sharp precipice of the hillside, the veranda swirled around the hacienda in gentle curves. Wind-chimes hanging from the rafters of the porch tinkled in the breezes. The musical welcome sparked new memories in Anna. The sounds alternately refreshed her and terrified her. She knew the reasons for the refreshment. But any rationale for the terror eluded her, hiding in the warrens of her recollection of a past she had been told to forget. Told to never claim.
The heavily carved dark wooden front door was huge, hinged in black ironwork. It was exactly as she recalled it. She lifted the huge brass knocker and let it drop.
A woman’s voice called out a welcome to them in Spanish.
Tate took Anna’s elbow. “Do you know who this is?”
She shook her head. “The maid, I presume.”
“Buenos Dias.” A short, dark-haired lady smiled at them as she pulled open the door and wiped her hands on her apron. She took a look at them as if assessing them. “Hello. How may I help you?”
“We’re here to see Señor Walsh,” Tate answered. “Is he in?”
“No, no,” she replied with a conciliatory expression. “He is in his study in a meeting. Are you here to join them?
“No, gracias, Señora,” Anna told her. “We will wait.”
“Come, sit.” She beckoned and led them into a parlor filled with massive brown leather sofas, crimson oriental rugs and bright Mexican artifacts of red and gold. “Lemonade?”
They refused and sat in two adjacent chairs, taking in the opulence of the house, the sound of the breezes through the chimes and the birds that from somewhere in the house seemed to sing with the wind.
Anna glanced at Tate, mutely praising him for his devotion to her. Through all this chaos, he had remained with her. Never flinching from the horrors of it. How many men would do that for a woman? How many would have the courage? The stamina? The desire?
She stopped fidgeting. Was it unfair of her to involve him in her mysteries? Was she a fool to want to be free of her past? To live a normal life? She did want all that, but not at the price of hurting Tate. Or seeing someone else hurt him.
Her attention sprang to the sound of men’s voices and multiple footsteps from above and outside. Tate nodded toward one corner of the house where a set of steps descended from an upstairs room. Three men emerged and two bid their farewells to climb down the stairs to their cars. The sounds of auto engines revving and pulling away had Anna looking at Tate. The two visitors had gone.
A minute or so later, they heard the maid tell Señor Walsh he had more visitors. A man and a woman.
Anna’s gaze was glued to the circular staircase. She could hear him make his way down to meet them, his footfalls light but perceptible on the stones as little by little he was revealed to her. A tall man. Expensively dressed. Gray suit. Crisp shirt. Tie.
“My god,” Walsh murmured as he got within twenty feet of them and halted to stare at her.
Anna’s reaction was physical. Her stomach ached. Her head pounded. She opened her mouth. But she rose to her feet, summoning all she practiced of meditation and centeredness to fill her body with calm.
She absorbed the aura of Blake Walsh. It’s what she’d needed from the second she heard his name. She let her visions of the past consume her. Let her memories reach and meld. Let her heart pause. She strode toward him and stretched out her hand to introduce herself. “Mr. Walsh. I am Anna Stephens.”
“Anna,” he mouthed and a grin split his handsome mouth. “Anna Stephens, is it?”
She noted his eyes, the same cat’s shape and hazel color as her mother’s. And hers. His stature, too, was the same as she remembered from her visit here. Only his shock of gray hair had changed in the intervening years. His hair was now white at the temples.
He reached out to gather her in his arms.
She stepped backward.
Tate advanced between them, protective as ever. Anna didn’t have to look at him to know Tate was at a loss as to what was happening here. She didn’t blame him. She was riding with the current herself, piecing together ancient impressions with fresh insights each new second.
Walsh shook his head. “I should expect this. You won’t let me embrace you,” he challenged her, insult and surprise in his sharp tone.
“Should I?” she shot back. Anger rippled through her, but so did sorrow. Let him explain himself.
“You know who I am,” he declared in a baritone that resounded in her heart.
“I do,” she confirmed. “You are my uncle. My mother’s brother.”
Chapter Nine
Tate grabbed a breath.
Her uncle! Christ, he’d watched her put together pieces of this puzzle, but the fact that Walsh and Anna were related was the most astonishing. Who the man was, what he did here in Mexico, how and why he’d moved here were all questions that sprang to Tate’s mind. But what the hell his relationship had been with his deceased sister was the biggest question. And they’d have to slog through some nasty shit before they could reach that answer. More intriguing would be any indication that Walsh knew Alvarez, years ago or now. Tate figured he’d have to push to learn that.
“We’ll talk.” Walsh indicated that they should resume their seats. “Please. Sit down. We’ll get reacquainted.”
Tate watched this reunion between uncle and niece both of whom acted as if they were two wooden marionettes. Walsh was all smiles, accommodating, the perfect host, the affronted but affectionate uncle. He clearly wanted to resume old familiarities. Anna folded her hands together, keeping her physical and emotional distance. Tate watched her assessing the man and knew she was looking for clues to W
alsh’s true nature.
She was probably asking the same questions Tate did about the man. Was he all shrewd business man? One of few Americans south of the border who earned a more than comfortable living on the up-and-up? Was he other things? A family man? With a wife and children? Tate sat and listened to the sounds of the house. All quiet. Unusual.
Meanwhile, Tate was bursting to get beyond the painful formalities and to something he could sink his teeth into. One thing for sure. He didn’t trust Walsh. Hell, he didn’t trust anyone near Anna. He had every reason to grab her up and get out of here. But if he did, they wouldn’t be any closer to resolving Walsh’s involvement in yesterday’s attack by Alvarez and his two pals.
“Drinks?” Walsh was attempting to be a polite host and an interested relative. “I think the occasion calls for it.”
Anna stared at him and arched a brow. “Yes, thank you.”
“Mr. Ryder?”
Tate said, “Sure.”
Walsh worked in awkward silence, only the clink of utensils and the swirl of liquids piercing the stillness. He finished pouring his mixture into margarita glasses and topping them with wedges of lime, handing one to Anna. “The two of you are vacationing in Mexico?”
“No,” Anna told him. “We’re here on business.”
He offered Tate his drink. “What kind of business? Do you work in Mexico?”
“I have interests here.” Tate took the glass, sipped and placed his drink on the nearby table.
Walsh pursed his lips. “Ryder. I know your name.”
Do you? Tate was intrigued that Walsh would open a subject that could directly lead to implicating him easily, quickly in Alvarez’s activities. “How so?”
“You and your brother are beginning a new venture here in Mexico. Along the Gulf coast, yes?”
“We are. A resort and spa.”
“You bought the land?”
Tate smiled. Son of a bitch. Walsh had lived outside Monterrey for at least two decades, according to what Anna told him, and he owned a development firm. This meant he knew that land in Mexico was subject to very strict purchase and sales laws. “No. My brother and I inherited the land from our grandfather.”
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