“And you wisely decided to develop it. Good for you.” He turned to Anna. “I’d like to hear where you’ve been, Anna. All these years, amazing. How have you survived?”
“That would take a long time to describe,” she told him.
Walsh scowled. “I’m ready. You’ve come to me unannounced, surprising the hell out of me unannounced. Why be so glib?”
“You must understand that I have been trained from childhood not to share anything about myself with anyone. It’s very difficult to see you and immediately trust you with details.”
Walsh tipped his head toward Tate. “From what I see here, I bet you’ve broken that rule recently for one person.”
“I have,” she admitted. “For good reasons. Tate has been a huge help to me. But I am here because there are holes in my knowledge of the past. Big ones. It’s clear to me that I have to discover everything so that I can finally be free.”
Walsh shifted. “Good for you. But how many people can do that?”
Tate noted the hint of regret and resentment in the man’s tone. What the hell did that mean?
Anna narrowed her gaze at him. “My freedom means being free of fear. Free from harm.”
Walsh arched a brow. “What do you mean?”
She inhaled, looking frustrated with him. “You know how my mother and Christine died?”
His jaw went lax. “I do. I didn’t find out until a year or more later. I looked for you but you were gone.”
Anna put up a palm. “We’ll come back to that. Do you also know that their murderers were never caught?”
He nodded once. “I do.”
“Then you can understand my need to find answers and stop running.”
Walsh looked at Anna with sorrow written on his features.
She frowned at him. “I’ve come today to learn what your relationship was with my mother.”
“She was my kid sister. My only sibling.”
“What else?”
He sighed, undoing a button of his suit coat. “I loved her dearly. We all did. She was bright, beautiful, could have had any man she wanted, could have gone to college. Instead, she married your father against our parents’ wishes. She ran off with him. Created a living hell for us with his friends who were into every vice we could imagine and some we hadn’t. My father—your grandfather—died of a heart attack after one of your father’s associates hid from the police in dad’s construction office. Did you know that?”
“No,” she whispered. “No one ever told me.”
“And my mother? She lived with panic every time Kathleen came to visit with you two girls.”
“And you?” Anna asked. “How did you feel?”
“Me?” Walsh asked with slow sarcasm. “How did I feel? How did I react? I was two years older than your mother. Twenty when she got pregnant with Christine and married your father. Oh, okay. I can see you didn’t know that. Your father and his friends were persistent, ruthless, tainted everything they touched. Suddenly, because I was Kathleen’s brother and Sergei’s brother-in-law, I was labeled one of them. By the neighborhood. By the police. My reaction?” He huffed. “I’ll just reply with one question. Why do you think I live in Mexico?”
“You came here to escape my father?” she asked.
Walsh seemed to look right through Anna. “I did. Living with him in the community was bad enough, but after he was arrested, I had to get out. There was no rest from the contempt of those whom I knew were straight, and no safe haven from the harassment of your father’s cronies. After Kathleen and you girls were gone and our mother died two years later, I sold the family construction business. That was mid-nineties.” He spread his arms wide. “And here I am.”
“Safe from them?” Anna persisted.
He scoffed. “Who is ever safe from them?”
Tate sat forward. “Do they bother you here?’
Walsh slowly turned to rivet Tate with a fatalistic glare. “What do you think?”
Tate stared back at him. If Walsh was constantly pushing the cartels away, how did he survive so well without cooperating with them? And if he was cooperating with them, then Tate had to get Anna out of here fast. Before Walsh gave up his own niece.
“Don’t worry,” Walsh assured him in a clipped tone. “I buy their indifference for a hefty sum.”
“Good for you.” Tate glowered at him. “But there is one price Anna shouldn’t pay and I’m not willing to.”
Walsh searched Tate’s face and then Anna’s. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know,” Anna said with wonder in her voice, “that someone is stalking me? Has been for years?”
“No. Who would do that?” He seemed to be asking himself as much as the two of them.
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Tate shot back.
“How could anyone track you?” Walsh was incredulous. “Hell! I couldn’t find you! And I had private detectives try. The feds wouldn’t tell me. Not when I went to them after I found out about Kathleen’s and Christine’s murders. I begged them to tell me where you were but they refused. Why aren’t they protecting you?”
Anna only stared at him.
“Okay,” he continued after a long minute. “I see I need to do the talking here. I learned about the murders about a year after they occurred. I had a business deal going in Santa Fe and had an associate look Kathleen up in the Albuquerque phone book. She wasn’t listed. That’s when I hired investigators. They found nothing. It was as if you had dissolved in air. Then they found the reference to the murders in the papers. That’s when I went to the Marshalls Service and got turned out like yesterday’s trash.
“Kathleen was so adamant about me not contacting her,” Walsh said with sorrow in his voice. “I wish I’d tried sooner. But she and your sister were dead and you were gone.”
“My mother was trying to obey the rules of the Witness Protection program.”
Walsh frowned as he twirled his glass. “She did. But she hated it, you know.”
“I do. She said that often to Christine and me. She hated the choices she made and what the results were.” Anna inhaled. “Tell me why the three of us came here that one time to visit you.”
“You don’t remember?” He seemed puzzled.
Anna lifted her chin, her gaze locked on her uncle’s. “No. I recall only impressions of that day here, swimming in the pool.” Her head turned toward the veranda, the chimes and the pool in the front garden.
To Tate, Anna seemed to be sleep-walking through the past.
“Your mother came for a visit that turned out to be bitter-sweet. It had been years since we’d seen each other. Twelve almost thirteen. You were a teenager and the last time I’d seen you, you were a toddler. Your sister was a pretty girl, too. Funny and smart. You can’t know but after I heard Kathleen and Christine were gone, I told the feds I would take you here to live with me. I have no children. No family. My wife and son died in an auto accident about two years after your mother and sister were killed.” His voice trailed off to silence.
Anna leaned forward. “So my mother came to see you that time just to visit? That’s all?”
“No,” Walsh said, and took a quick sip of his drink, “she came for my blessing. She wanted to get married.”
Anna pressed a palm to her heart. “Oh, yes.”
“So you do remember,” he smiled, for the first time, like a doting uncle.
She tipped her head. “A little.”
“She wanted to marry a man she’d met in New Mexico. She arranged for him to come here separately and stay in one of the hotels downtown. She hadn’t introduced him to you or your sister yet and she thought him coming here would be a safe way to bring him into your lives.”
Anna swallowed. “Do you remember his name?”
“I do. Good man. Jose Alvarez.”
Tate cursed.
Anna gasped and clasped her hands together.
“What’s wrong?” Walsh’s hazel gaze darted from one to the other.
>
Anna rose from her chair and walked toward the window. “Had you known Alvarez before she introduced you?”
“No.”
Tate caught Walsh’s gaze. “Have you been in contact with him since that day?”
“Yes, he came here to me about three years ago. Said he wanted to work in Mexico. Construction in the States was slow. He needed work. The economy here was booming. Why are we talking about Alvarez?”
“Did you ask him about Kathleen Sellers?” Tate went on. “What he knew about her death?”
“Of course. We consoled each other. He loved her then. I could tell. And she deserved a good man after all she’d been through with Sergei.”
Anna faced her uncle. “Did you tell him about our father and the cartels? About us being in Witness Protection?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” Tate persisted. “Kathleen was dead.”
Walsh peered at Tate like he was a crazy man. “There was no reason. Nothing in it for me to bring up Witness Protection?”
“Why not?” Tate probed with a wave of his hand. “Didn’t he ask about the youngest daughter? Where she was? What had happened to her?”
Walsh slapped a hand on the arm of his chair, anger in his eyes. “He did. I told him she went to live with relatives.”
Tate winced. “So you gave him a job?”
“Many jobs,” Walsh corrected.
“Including referring him to Martinez construction in Tampico recently?”
“Yes.”
“Out of the blue?”
“No, he came to me a few days ago, said he wanted to work there. Heard they were hiring.”
Tate seethed. Alvarez asked to work at the Ryder construction site. It was no coincidence that he was there when Tate and Anna arrived. Which meant only someone who knew they were going there would try to ensure Alvarez was there, too. But the fact that Alvarez had gone to Tampico on purpose was now established. Who sent him?
Walsh glared at Tate. “I deserve to know. Why are we talking about Alvarez?”
“Because,” Tate said, “he’s dead.”
Walsh’s mouth dropped open. “When? How?”
Tate revealed the details of the attack and how he and Anna had repelled the three men. “Had you ever known Alvarez to be involved with drugs or guns or any kind of illegal trafficking?”
“No. But here in this country, you can never be sure. Clean today, not tomorrow.”
Anna walked toward Walsh. “Tate, I think it’s time to go.” She was crisp, forthright, determined.
Tate stood, proud of her to be able to deal with all this so sensibly.
Walsh got to his feet. “I hate to see you leave on this note. I’d like us to be friends.”
Anna smiled sadly. “I’ll think that over. Let you know if that’s possible. I do thank you for seeing us and telling us what you could.”
Tate took Anna’s arm.
Putting out her hand to shake Walsh’s, Anna looked up at him. “I appreciate your time and your interest.”
“Will you come back? We have much to talk about. Years to make up for.”
Tate saw tears line Anna’s eyes.
“Thank you, Mr. Walsh,” she said. “I hope so.”
“Blake,” he corrected her and grasped her hand. “Say you’ll come back.”
“I would love to, but I don’t’ know if I can.”
“No one will hurt you here,” Walsh assured her with desperation in his tone.
“I would hope not. I have one more question before we go.”
Walsh nodded. “Anything.”
“Did my mother ever leave anything with you for Christine or me? Anything at all she valued?”
“No,” Walsh said.
Anna’s features fell. She swallowed hard. “Well, then. That’s final.”
“Your mother didn’t give me anything for you. But my mother gave me gifts for you. In case, she said, I ever saw any of you again.”
Anna’s mouth parted and her eyes sparked. “Wonderful. What is it?”
“A box. Wait here. It’s in my safe upstairs.”
Chapter Ten
Anna stared at the contents of the cardboard box her uncle had given her. She’d laid them out on the bed in the master cabin long minutes ago. Her examination of the items left her confused, her stomach churning. Each item was so incongruous. So unrelated. A book. A jewelry box. An ancient paper photo album. She’d opened the box in hope she might recapture favorite memories, unbidden moments of joy. They’d been so few. But she gazed at the collection and pushed down disappointment.
She failed.
She rose up on her knees and threw the book across the room. What did she care for her mother’s faded copy of romantic love poems? What love had there in the world for her mother? What peace? Why save a book?
Yes, Anna saw the value of the blue velvet box with two gold lockets inside. Baby lockets, Christine’s and hers. Both with ringlets of hair. She’d save those.
But what in hell could she do with a photo album? Disintegrating, dog-eared pages flopped this way and that dropping out of the covers. Even the black corners holding in the pictures had lost their glue and the pictures spilled out all over the bed. The pictures cut her open, leaving wounds that yearned for the balm of different endings, happier ones.
What good was all this? Mementoes of a life she had forgotten. One that should be obliterated from her mind. And there was no list, anywhere.
Tate rapped on the door. “Honey, let me in.”
She’d shut him out of the room as soon as they’d come aboard earlier. She’d shut him out emotionally, too, on the long ride back from Monterrey to Tampico. She hadn’t opened the box there in front of the two men, but begged off, wanting to be alone when she viewed the contents. Now, she knew she’d made them speculate about the contents for nothing. The man who was her uncle had professed his hope to see her again, become closer. And he’d wanted to see what was inside the box. That made her suspicious of his motives—and guilty that she couldn’t accept him and his insistence on being blameless. She wanted to open the box without his presence. Besides, he couldn’t know she hoped for some list of cartel members inside. Tate had even argued that she should open it immediately so that they could show the contents to Blake and see if knew anything about them. Turns out, neither Blake nor Tate would have gotten what they wanted.
She certainly hadn’t.
She stared at the array of items before her. She shouldn’t have hoped for so much from her grandmother’s gift. She ran a hand over her hair.
It had been such a long day. They’d returned to Tampico after hours of driving from Monterrey. Thankfully, the Mexican coast guard guarding his yacht had concluded their forensic investigation. The lieutenant told Tate the evidence showed exactly what Tate and Anna had told them. They’d been attacked. And luckily, they’d been able to defend themselves. For an inquest, Tate and she would have to return to testify before the Mexican judge. But the lieutenant thought that would be a formality, brief and to the point. Tate had thanked the man for his kindnesses and speed in finishing their investigation. He told them they were staying in port tonight and that they would head them north to Houston tomorrow morning. Tate and she had come aboard and she had made a bee-line for the bedroom.
But none of the contents of the box changed anything.
She grabbed up a handful of photos and flipped them in the air.
“Anna. Come on, sweetie, show me what’s in there,” Tate beseeched her. “Whatever it is, we will do what we have to with it. Go to the authorities and—”
She sprang to the door and flung it open. “And do what with it, Tate? Give it to the Mexican government so they can give it to the cartels? Give it to the U.S. Marshalls or the FBI so that they can botch it all up again?”
He walked in and tried to take her in his arms.
She eluded him. “What’ll they do for me? Huh? Make another mess? Discover who I am now and try again? And fail?”
>
He stared at her, trying to smile, but only shaking his head.
She sat on the bed, drained of hope. “I won’t let that happen. I’ll find a way to survive without them.”
Tate sat next to her and tenderly took her hand in his. “You’re not going to run.”
“Of course I am. What else can I do?”
He shook his head. “Tell me what’s here.”
“Nothing.” she whispered. “Two baby lockets. A few photos.”
He urged her close and she felt the enormous strength of his body. He’d been a football pro, a man who’d won fame and fortune by his physical prowess and skillful playing on a wildly competitive field. She sank into him, wishing to god he could defeat what she was up against. Curling her arms around his shoulders, she pressed her face to his massive chest and wished she could remain here.
He picked her up and laid down with her on the bed, pushing aside old photos strewn over the linens. Cradling her close, he kissed her forehead and rubbed her arms until she quieted. He brushed her hair back from her cheeks and lifted her face so that she looked at him. “Whatever you’ve got here, we’ll go through it. Examine it. We’ll make certain that whatever is here we know its value.”
“There’s nothing,” she whispered. “After all this these past few days, after all these years of wondering if there really was a list, it’s true that there is just nothing!”
He hugged her and traced her lips with a gentle finger. “Okay. But we’ll find a way to set you free.”
She shook her head. He was an optimist. Whatever positive attitude she’d had toward her situation had just hit a dead end. She thrust her hand up into his satin hair. “Make love to me. No talking. Just love me.”
“I do.”
“I know you do.” She kissed him then with a desire for oblivion. But that would be so selfish to take from him and not give him the satisfaction of her own declaration of love. All her adult life, she’d had to think of the next logical thing to do, the most useful. She’d shied away from any relationships that became too close. Friendships with women were ones she’d managed well. Relationships with men were ones she’d avoided. But then that had been easy because she hadn’t met many men she wanted for more than a dinner or a dance or a weekend.
Tall, Hard and Trouble Page 8