Tall, Hard and Trouble

by Cerise DeLand

  This man had been her employer. No man she should have considered in any romantic way. And yet, he’d been so appealing professionally, ethical and kind. He’d appealed to her senses physically, fit and cut. He’d shown her in a heartbeat that he cared for her enough to track her, aid her and help her escape an attack. He’d been the kind of man a woman should love. The very man she did love.

  And one she could not hurt. Not by telling him how deeply she cared for him.

  He’d never let her go then. And she’d hate herself if she told him how she adored him—and he paid with his life.

  She pulled away.

  His eyes went dead. “Don’t do this, Anna.”

  She walked away. To the deck. To the night. And an existence of her own making. Tears dribbled down her cheeks.

  Tate Ryder deserved a long and prosperous life. Tied to her, he’d never have it.

  The finest act she would ever do would be to give him his freedom.

  He followed her out to the deck and put his arms around her. Holding her tightly to him, he put his lips in her hair. “Stay with me.”

  “I can’t, Tate. As soon as we get back to the States, I’ll be gone.”

  “The police will want information. You can’t just disappear.”

  “I’ll do what I must with them. But that’s all.”

  “And with me?”

  She turned in his embrace and gazed at him with tears in her eyes. She had no words to comfort him and so she went to the main cabin alone and closed the door.

  * * *

  Five days later, Tate stood in his living room and rubbed his bleary eyes. Grant was with him, picking his brain for any details they might have missed. His brother Cord sat listening.

  But Tate was not focused on their conversation. He couldn’t believe Anna had shut him out. But she’d been in shock, frustrated, exhausted, just like he was. The past week had been a roller coaster of disaster. He had understood her rejection of him and had a good idea she meant to dissuade him from any further contact. As if he could stay away from her.

  As if she could deny what was between them.

  He couldn’t let her. Wouldn’t let go. But she wouldn’t talk to him. She built a wall of silence around herself and would not let him in.

  The next morning, he’d brought them back to Galveston, ordered a thorough cleaning of his yacht and driven them home to Houston.

  He’d persuaded Anna to take an apartment in a local residence hotel. He’d put the rental in the name of his corporation and told her that, if she insisted, yes, she could reimburse him. As for the contents of her box from her grandmother, he’d told her he was taking it all to his condo.

  “For safe-keeping. No one is going to break into my place,” he’d told her.

  Reluctantly, she’d agreed.

  But she hadn’t stayed there. She’d checked out and left no message as to where she’d gone.

  Now he gazed at the items from her grandmother’s box. The book of poetry, the lockets and the frayed photos spread out before him on his dining room table meant so little to him. He hated that they did. Loathed that they did.

  “Looking at these pictures won’t make them real to you,” his brother Cord said.

  Grant stood beside him. “These people are going to remain a mystery to you. Only Anna would know. If she would know.”

  Tate swiveled a photo around toward himself. There was one of a man with his arm around a woman who looked remarkably like Anna, circa nineteen-eighty. Tate had figured out just by repeated examination which of the men was Sergei, Anna’s father. Tall, dark. With a broad smile, snake’s eyes and a wide mouth. Gruff, mean. What did Anna’s mother see in this guy? Whatever it had been, none of them had done well to know him.

  “Anything else on Sergei Sukov and his cronies, Grant?”

  “The feds have closed the lid on me. No more info on this. The fact that we haven’t found Anna yet makes it doubly worse.”

  Tate walked over to the window that looked out on the Houston skyline. He had left her at the residence hotel and before the next morning when he returned to visit her, she had cleared out. She’d taken the meager possessions and small luggage she’d brought with her to Mexico. She’d gone without a note of goodbye. She had what she needed. Her wallet, her credit cards, her gun, her fake driver’s license and her fake passport. With a good command of Spanish, she could be anywhere in Texas or Louisiana, Mexico or south of it by now.

  Meanwhile, he had drowned in four days of interviews with an endless stream of federal agents. He’d called on them and with Grant’s help, he’d navigated his way through endless explanations of the troubles here with Rodeo Man, the problems with Alvarez and the attacks on his yacht. It helped that the US agents appreciated the contacts and views of the Mexican authorities. The US agents were satisfied and on task to look for anyone associated with the Russian gangs and the Mexican cartels who were allied with them. With all Tate’s interviews seemingly over for the time being, he’d crawled into bed last night and slept like the dead for more than twelve hours. At dawn, he’d awakened with a jolt, his dream that she’d crawled into bed with him ending in a cold and bitter shiver of despair.

  Grant rapped his fingers on the table. “She promised to work with the police, but they still won’t tell me if she cooperated with them. We do know she rented a car two days ago in Tampico and that she turned it in in Monterrey. But then we lose her.”

  Cord snorted. “She’s good at this disappearing act.”

  She’s had years of practice. “I guess we’d should box up these pictures. She’ll want them. I know she will. She’s had no family for so long and these do show so many of them smiling.”

  “Come on, let me help you.” Cord picked up a few.

  “Hey, Cord.” Tate caught a glimpse of one picture at a different angle and clamped a hand on his brother’s forearm. He pointed a blunt finger at the person who stood between Anna’s father and another man, the three of them hoisting shot glasses of clear liquid. “Look at this.”

  “Vodka toasts?” Cord passed it off.

  “Right, but the shape of the face?” With Anna’s desertion, he had forgotten the one loose end in their interview with Walsh that remained. Who had informed Alvarez that Tate was coming to Mexico to look at the construction site? That could only be one person. “Who does that remind you of?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Anna drove her rental off the access road up Mona’s driveway toward her Texas Hill Country home. In the star-studded night, she squinted to see the spare lines of the ranch house that seemed to teeter on the sharp ridge. She’d wondered if she would remember her way there—let alone actually find the place. It had been four years since she’d visited. But she recognized immediately the one-story white stone structure in the remote hills where outlaws had once easily hidden from the law.

  “Finally,” she whispered to herself as she twirled the steering wheel to climb the road. Being on the run this time had taken more out of her than ever before. She was too old to live this way. Too heart-broken over what might have been if she’d found a list in that box. If she’d been able to stay with Tate.

  A tall slim figure stepped out on the wide front porch. Landscape lights flashed on, illuminating the whole side of the hill, a grimy black Range Rover in the drive-way and the white-haired woman in form-fitting jeans and a white shirt. “Who’s there?” called Mona, who obviously could not see beyond the glare of the floods.

  Anna climbed out of the tiny Honda and smiled up at the woman who peered into the driveway as if she’d been expecting the devil himself. “Don’t worry, Mona. I’m not a burglar. It’s Anna. I need to come talk to you.”

  Mona leaned farther over the railing. “Good lord. Anna! Where… What the hell are you doing here?” She shot a glance at the dirty Range Rover and returned to gape at her guest.

  Anna walked around to the passenger side of her car, grabbed her purse and suitcase from the front seat and closed the car door. She ne
eded help and Mona had aided her before. “Looking for help. Got any, I might have?”

  “Come on up here, girl!”

  At the top of the steps, Anna hugged her friend. “Thanks for this.”

  “Anytime.” Mona led her into the living area, a high-ceilinged expanse crossed with wooden beams, warmed by earth-toned leather sofas and chairs and a huge grey gray rock fireplace. “Leave your bag and purse here. Can I get you wine? Beer? Dinner? You look like hell, if I say so myself. What’s going on?”

  Anna put her purse on top of her luggage and sighed. “I’ll take that offer of wine and something to eat. Sandwich, maybe?”

  “You got it,” Mona said, her eyes moving over Anna’s shoulder for a second, then back to Anna as she motioned her into her kitchen. She pointed toward the bar. “Have a seat. Red wine okay?”

  “Wonderful.” Anna sank onto one of the bar stools and reached back to reassemble her straggly ponytail. “I’ve been driving for two days. Got across the border at Del Rio earlier today and came straight here. I just didn’t have any other idea of what to do.”

  Mona worked the cork in a bottle of wine. “Why? What’s going on?”

  Anna looked around and this time, she noted used glasses on the countertop and empty beer bottles. “I’m sorry. Have I interrupted something?”

  She glanced around the living area and kitchen, remembered the Range Rover in the drive that was not Mona’s and tipped her head toward the dirty dishes. “I can go.”

  “You will not.” Mona straightened, alarm in her eyes for a second. She poured and put the long-stemmed goblet in front of Anna. “Sit down and drink this.”

  Anna took a sip and then another, savoring the refreshment. Her eyes closed in the first relief she’d had in days. Slight, though it was. “I wonder if you will let me stay with you for a day or two. I need to sleep, figure out what I am going to do.”

  Stoic, Mona faced her across the granite counter. “Yes, you can stay. For as long as you like. Now tell me why.”

  Unhappy to tell her friend all that had occurred in the past week, Anna avoided her gaze and traced invisible lines on the base of her glass. “After Tate’s and Cord’s party last week, someone rammed my car.”

  Mona frowned. “Were you hurt? Did you get the guy’s plate?”

  “No. I wasn’t hurt.” Anna winced. Mona didn’t sound too concerned. Why not? “We did get part of the license plate.”

  “We?”

  “Tate. Tate followed me out of his condo and saw the accident. He saw the guy drive away, too. We have a partial on the license, but haven’t been able to find the driver or the car.”

  Mona scowled, her eyes examining Anna. “Tate’s been helping you?”

  Anna nodded. “And Grant Warwick, too.”

  Mona inhaled. “Really? Warwick. Mister Security for the Greater Southwest. Well. That’s good.” She drummed her fingers on the counter a second and then turned for toward her refrigerator. “Tate hired him, I would guess. Turkey sandwich, okay with you?”

  “Turkey’s good. So after the accident, Tate was very insistent that night that I get away.”

  Mona concentrated on toasting bread, removing a plate from her cabinet. “Why?”

  Mona was being awfully cool. As if she were unconcerned. “Because he was afraid for me.”

  Mona snorted. “Because he cares for you.”

  “You knew?”

  “Anna.” Mona put a hand on her hip. “Who didn’t?”

  “Me,” she said and swallowed back her remorse that she adored him and had to leave him. “He told me he loves me.”

  Mona snorted. “Is that right?”

  Anna shifted in her chair. “What’s wrong, Mona? You don’t seem to approve that Tate is interested in me.”

  “Took him a damn long time to admit, don’t you think?”

  “He was being ethical.”

  Mona arranged turkey, lettuce and tomato on bread. “He has a reputation as a man who loves women, no matter what their circumstances.”

  “I know that.” Was Mona jealous? “Did he come on to you?”

  “No. His self-imposed ethics wouldn’t let him.”

  “I see.” Anna was thrilled to hear that about Tate, but saw the resentment harden Mona’s blue eyes. “I’m sorry you were hurt.”

  Mona waved a hand. The one with the knife in it.

  Anna suddenly sat back in her chair. She felt vulnerable and could find only this one reason why her long-time friend wasn’t completely acting like one.

  “It was what it was, Anna.” Mona finished the sandwich by slicing it in two halves. “Here you go. Tell me what else happened that night.”

  “I sailed to Mexico with him. To the site.”

  Mona gathered up the remaining turkey, lettuce and tomato, yanked open the refrigerator door and plunked the items inside. All askew. She whirled to face Anna. “How was that for you?”

  A tingle ran up Anna’s spine. She pushed her wine away. Instinct had her gaze tracking across the Saltillo floor to her suitcase and purse where her Sig Sauer lay inside. More than twenty feet away. “It was wonderful. And terrible.” Wary of Mona now, she skipped over the Alvarez issue and went right to the core of the problem. “I’ve left Tate in Mexico. Left him permanently. His life. My job. I need to become another person. Once again.”

  Mona crossed her arms. “And you need my help to do that?”

  Anna nodded. “Once again.”

  The expressions that flowed over Mona’s face were ones Anna had never seen before. Anger. Despair. Detachment. A forced smile. “You want a reference to another forger?”

  Anna tried to look grateful and delighted, even while her gut was churning with nausea over Mona’s new attitude. “I need to start again. Away from Tate. Away from Houston.”

  “What do you need a new ID for? You must’ve gotten across the border okay otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I went through Del Rio instead of coming across at Laredo. They’re more lax at that bridge. But when I was in Mexico with Tate these past few days, things happened, Mona, that make it impossible for me to remain Anna Stephens.”

  Mona strolled forward. “What things?”

  Anna pressed her lips together. What could she tell Mona? Nothing. “I told you about my need to change names, the Witness Protection that failed my mother and sister and me. I learned in Mexico that I need to keep on changing my name. The reason I had to run in the first place, the reason my father’s associates wanted my mother dead and now me? Well, I still have no closure on that.”

  “And so you’ll run because you don’t want Tate hurt?”

  “Right. I can’t take the chance that they’d try to get something from Tate that he doesn’t know. That I don’t have.”

  “What is it you’re supposed to have, Anna?” Mona asked in a tender tone.

  Anna looked into Mona’s blue eyes, which at the moment looked soft and friendly. Yet telling Mona what she wanted might clarify why her friend was now so odd, so distant. “A list of names of my father’s associates. A list my mother made, he said. But there is no list. Maybe never was.”

  “You’re certain?”

  Mona’s question had an edge to it that made the hair on Anna’s arms stand up. “I am. I found a relative in Monterrey.”

  Mona tipped her head in question.

  “He had a box of items that my grandmother gave him to give to my mother or my sister or me if he ever heard from us again.”

  “A box?” Mona straightened. “Did you bring it with you?”

  “No. There’s nothing in it,” Anna admitted and saw how that deflated Mona like the prick into a balloon. “No list.”

  “What was in it?” Mona persisted.

  Anna gave a short laugh. “A book of poetry. Two baby lockets. An old photo album.”

  “Did you look through them thoroughly? Look at the pictures? Maybe anything written on the backs of them? What about the book? Did you rip it apart? The backing?”

&nb
sp; Anna kept shaking her head at every question. And at every one, she began to flex sparring muscles she hadn’t used in days. Fighting muscles she hadn’t used in weeks.

  “What about notes in the margins of the book?”

  Anna got to her feet. “I didn’t do any of that, Mona. Didn’t see the need.”

  Mona stepped forward quickly. “Sit down. Eat.”

  “No. Thanks. I think I’m done.” Done with you.

  “You can’t leave. You need my help,” Mona insisted.

  Anna stepped around her. “I think I should go.”

  “That forger you need? Where do you think you will find one who’s as good as the one I sent you to in Nuevo Laredo years ago?”

  “I’ll go back across the border. I’ll find one. They are so numerous.”

  “One who isn’t connected to Sinaloa? Or the mafiya?” Mona’s questions sounded now like taunts.

  Anna kept walking toward her purse.

  Mona grabbed her by the arm and tried to spin her around. “You need me!”

  Anna shook off her grip. “I don’t.” She took another step and slid her hand into her purse, her fingers grasping cool steel. “Take your hand off my arm.” She whirled to point the gun in Mona’s stomach. “Now.”

  Mona backed away. “I don’t understand. Why pull a gun on me?”

  “I’m getting bad vibes. Why so much interest in these things from my grandmother?” When the woman had no quick answer, Anna shrugged. “Thanks for the discussion. Back away.”

  “You don’t have to go,” Mona pleaded.

  “In fact,” boomed a big bass voice, “Anna is definitely not leaving.”

  Anna spun to her left. Two large men rushed her as they charged out of one of the doorways. She aimed for the knees of the first one and brought him down howling like an animal. The second one dodged in the other direction. Anna got off another shot.

  “Winged me! You bitch!” shouted that man.

  Mona lunged for Anna’s back.