by Aitana Moore
David rubbed a desperate hand over his face. "La madre que la parió!"
It was almost worth being hurt, to see David so scared. Lee made a superhuman effort and sat up, removing her contact lenses.
With her real eyes she looked as levelly as possible at Miguel. "I'm FBI. And I've been watching your son for a while. If you kill me—" she cocked her head at him and smiled, as she gathered enough breath to add, "Well, you'll have murdered an American federal agent. How is that for scandal, Mr. Aguirre?"
TWENTY-TWO
The Aguirres must have a coterie of henchmen in different professions to do their bidding and dirty work. Miguel sent an order to Eduardo’s security people: they were to carefully vet the guests arriving and ask to see an invitation. Lookouts were to be posted on the road, in case caravans with law enforcement agents approached, and he was to be told at once if there was even the distant sound of a helicopter.
However, he also summoned a doctor for Lee, and the man didn't betray any surprise at seeing her on a bed with a wine opener stuck in her leg. He gave her an injection of morphine, and the pain abated. It was now more like the dull phantom of an ache than the feeling that she was being turned inside out.
Presumably the Aguirres would want to interrogate her — or keep her alive so that if the FBI descended on them, Miguel could avoid the worst of the trouble that would follow.
His decision would depend on plausible deniability. What should he do to contain the fallout from the murders and from Eduardo’s attack on an alleged FBI agent?
Paloma arrived and was apprised of the whole situation, but she looked at Lee with an icier intention.
"This is the work of your blue-eyed boy there," Miguel said, nodding at David.
"He didn't get the craziness from my side of the family," she snapped back. "This was your father's doing. That sick old goat."
"My father has a degenerative brain disease. Can you say the same for your son?"
"My son? As if he weren't yours?"
Their conversation took place in the room where Lee had been attacked and in Spanish. However, they had left the connecting door open, perhaps to watch her. Lee had pretended often enough not to understand the language, but the fact that they didn’t stop to consider that she might have been lying didn’t bode well for her.
David was silent, looking at the ground as if hoping it would swallow him, but Diego shook his head at his parents. "What does any of this matter? You don't seem to understand what has been happening here — four girls were murdered! Girls we knew! They were killed for no reason, and now Ashley is hurt and you're still wondering what to do?”
"Calm down, Diego," Miguel said. "There are a lot of important people at the party right now. This could ruin us all if we don't discuss it carefully."
"What is there to discuss?" Diego walked to the door in distress and looked at Lee. "She needs to go to a hospital!”
"Be quiet," Paloma said, "and let us think things through."
An expression of disgust filled Diego's face as he looked from his father to his mother; he wouldn't look at his brother. Perhaps he had finally understood that he ought not to have been ashamed of his own secret when there was real evil in his family.
"She needs to tell us who is coming," Paloma said. "We need to know what we're up against."
"Well, she isn't speaking," Miguel pointed out.
"That wine opener should have stayed where it was. We could have made her talk."
"Paloma!" Miguel cried. "Don't be so tasteless."
Tasteless. Lee almost laughed, but Diego had walked in to sit at the foot of the bed.
"I'm so sorry, Ashley. I didn't know, I didn't know!"
"Diego, be quiet or get out," Paloma ordered.
"You're all insane," Diego said, shaking his head again. He had tears in his eyes. "I'm not leaving her with you. The house is full of people, they will know if you try to do anything to her."
"They are our people," Paloma said. "Do you think anyone will believe her? She's just an American slut."
It was clear that Paloma was in favor of a swift and final solution: she wanted “Ashley” gone. She didn't mind a confrontation with the FBI; they would deny everything, and she seemed sure they would get away with murder.
Miguel wasn't as sure. He was Lee's best chance of survival, at least until James got there. She could see different scenarios shuffling behind his cyborg eyes. He wanted no scandal; he might keep his father under watch in Los Felices and send David somewhere, and no one would ever know what had happened at the ranch. But, unlike his wife, he suspected that might not be an alternative any longer.
"Just let things take their course, if you're so squeamish," Paloma told him. "You heard the doctor."
The doctor had said that Lee was hemorrhaging, and that he could not tell how bad her internal injury was. Her knee could also get infected, and she might die if she were not taken to a hospital.
"If she gets out of here alive, I’ll go to jail," David whispered.
"Shut up!" Miguel said with a threatening glare at him.
David rocked back and forth, as Diego watched him in shock.
Lee addressed Diego in English: "I'm not going to die. They'll have to shoot me or smother me. Or beat me like they did the other girls. They beat Luz to death, only a few days ago, probably in that room."
Miguel stepped in and pulled his son away. "Get out, Diego. You need to let us handle this."
"I said I'm not going anywhere." He was a slight man compared to Miguel, but he stood between his father and Lee.
It would be more efficient if he walked out and called for help, but who could he call? Paloma was probably right, and the governor of the state, the chief of police and other members of government at the party might just help the Aguirres.
Diego was just too used to the notion of the close-knit clan that would go through the doors of hell and beyond for each other. It was the lesson of a lifetime which he would need to forget in the space of an evening for a relative stranger. He struggled with a decision, unwilling to fully believe that the brother he loved was a psychopath, or that his parents were capable of cold-blooded murder.
"You have to take her to hospital!" he repeated.
"This can all go away," Miguel told Lee, approaching the bed once more. "We just need to know who you’ve been in touch with. Tell us that, and you'll be cared for. You'll be safe."
He didn't know that his eyes betrayed him; that the possibilities were still running there, in the background, and that Lee could see them. Her only chance was to leave them in doubt until James appeared. If too much time passed, she would die, but James was closer to her at every second — she could feel it.
Lee began to laugh, looking at the Aguirres with eyes that felt hot because of the morphine. She cackled at them like a witch.
He is coming. And he will make you sorry.
TWENTY-THREE
A great many cars had been arriving at Los Felices as Lee fought for her life. They were stopped by guards who politely but firmly asked to see invitations.
James watched men and women in evening dress walk to the entrance of the sprawling pink house ahead. It only had one level, probably to minimize the heat during the long summer months. When the guards stopped him, he handed them the envelope with a smile.
"And you've come alone?" a man asked him.
"Yes, my plus one never made it," James said. "But this is such a big car, may I park it on the side there?"
The guard nodded, motioning him forward. James had no idea where Lee was. Someone had called him from her phone and said nothing, and that had made him drive all the faster to the ranch in a Hummer he had rented at the airport.
The coverage at the ranch wasn't good, and it might have been Lee, trying to let him know all was fine. It might also have been someone else, and James had known better than to say anything when he had met with silence on the other side.
Thankfully, people who lived at the mouth of deserts wer
e used to big vehicles and their space requirements, and the lot had already filled with cars. He had permission to park the massive Hummer on the side of the house, where there seemed to be no one.
As he got out, he discreetly tucked Pete's gun inside the waistband of his trousers, under the elegant tuxedo jacket that he buttoned as he ran up the steps into the party. He hoped that the Aguirres had not understood that he and Lee knew each other; he meant to attend the celebration as a guest to see if she was there on Diego's arm, perfectly healthy and able to get away with him.
There was a chill in the night air as he moved around the inner courtyard, refusing the drinks offered to him by silent waiters. Women wore furs around their necks or shoulders. This was the desert, and the change in temperature from day to night could be extreme.
Lee wasn't outside, so he went on to the foyer of the house. Guests gathered in drawing rooms to either side of him, and he spotted Paloma Aguirre with a group of women to his right. He didn't have to stop and greet her, since they had never been formally introduced. To his left there was a room full of men, many of whom he recognized from the newspapers. A little further on, young people gathered, laughing and flirting. Diego was among them, but he stood in a corner, staring moodily into his drink; Lee wasn’t with him.
"I didn't expect you to come,” Diego said, widening his eyes in surprise as James approached.
"I thought I might as well see the Mexico I don't know," James said. "Haven't been north much."
Looking around, Diego remarked, "There are only rattlesnakes here."
James hadn't seen the Aguirre boy look as bitter before. He tried to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach as he observed, "You don't seem to be having much fun. Isn't your girlfriend here?"
Diego threw a quick glance toward the back of the house, and another glance at James that held a world of guilt in it. "She—she's not feeling well."
Fuck. What have you done to her, you miserable shit?
There was the slim chance that Lee had used an excuse to stay away from the main house and spy on the brothers, but James no longer believed in slim chances. And Diego's guilty eyes had shown him where to look for her.
"Well, I hope she gets better," James said.
He had begun to feel savage as he moved down the hall, where more people gathered.
"A-ha!"
Eduardo had appeared behind James. "So, you've come to my party!"
"I have.”
"You've come to look at my cattle, to see if it's better than the Maasai's?" The old man's eyes twinkled as he shook his guest’s hand. "Come to drink some blood?"
James nodded slowly. "Probably."
"And you've come alone? Ah, the ladies of Sonora are beautiful. Don't get lost, but get a little lost — you know what I mean?"
The old man patted his arm and moved away to greet other arrivals.
Grabbing a drink he didn’t want, James made his way down the corridor, looking at the artwork on the walls. He showed interest in the food he was offered, taking petit-fours but wrapping them in a napkin which he left behind.
A massive double door that led to another corridor was guarded by two men who were turning people away. What was so worth guarding?
It didn’t look like a ruse would get him past them, and James wasn't used to wasting time. Spotting a side door, he left through it. There was no one outside, just the silent, chilly night, and he moved quickly to the back of the house. When he turned the corner, he faced a long row of windows. The pink house appeared to never end, like the house that kept multiplying in his dream, but at least there were no forbidding-looking men standing under the windows.
If Lee were indisposed inside one of the rooms, or even if she were a prisoner, she would most probably not be in the dark; he needed to look inside the rooms that were lit.
A door opened, and two men came out. They were dressed like waiters and had stepped outside the kitchen to smoke. James waited till they walked back in, then ran beneath the windows.
One of the lit rooms turned out to be a library. He recognized Miguel's profile as he held the attention of a small group of men. The next windows were dark, and at the end of the row there was a dimly lit room. Inside it, a bespectacled man was buttoning his dinner jacket; he opened the door onto a bright corridor, closing it behind him. Another door led to the next room.
James’ eyes fell on a side table: there were bottles and syringes lined on it, as well as towels. But it was the waste-paper basket that made his insides freeze: it was full of bloody gauze. He knew it was Lee’s blood.
There was no time to think of anything but getting her out of the ranch. James tried the window, found that it was unlatched and lifted it, jumping inside. Silently he moved across the floor toward the bedroom. The doors were ajar, and there was a thug sitting on a chair by the light of a lamp. Lee lay on the bed with eyes closed. James waited to see if anyone else might appear from the bathroom beyond, then flipped a plastic bottle onto the floor.
"Quién está ahí?" the thug asked, after waiting for a moment. "Doctor?"
Thugs were usually stupid, or they’d be something else. The man walked out unarmed to investigate, and James hit him on the head with the butt of his gun and again more violently when the man staggered but didn't fall. Once he was on the ground, James controlled the urge to keep hitting him until he was dead. He unplugged a lamp and cut the cable with the scalpel lying on the table. As he tied the man's arms and legs, he told himself not to ask Lee too many questions because he would get angry, and anger would slow him down.
Stuffing a napkin into the thug's mouth, he rushed to the bed. "Lee? Lee, it's me."
At the sound of his voice, she opened her eyes; the irises were a lighter green than usual, and the pupils tiny. "Are you really here?" she asked after a moment.
"I am.” He smiled at her. "My sweet, can you get up?"
When he pushed aside the bed covers, he found her wearing a long woolen gown that probably did not belong to her. He looked around for shoes but could see none. There was clotted blood on her forehead. "Are you in pain?"
"No," she said, "because of the morphine. I feel a bit dizzy."
"It's all right. Take my hand."
He tried to make his request sound normal and urgent at the same time. She nodded to show she understood that they had to move fast.
The back of the house had filled with staff in the meantime, and some of them looked like guards. James couldn't take them all on. The corridor had become their only escape route. Holding Lee by the waist, he maneuvered her toward it.
They moved over the terracotta tiles without making a sound, but they might soon meet a waiter, a guard or one of the guests in their way. The library was just ahead, and Miguel's voice drifted out of the open doors. They would have to pass that door, and James was already reaching for his gun when Diego appeared. He stared at them with his mouth open.
There was no other choice but to start a racket. James had to shout as loudly as possible that the owners of the house were murderers, and that they had hurt the woman in his arms. He and Lee might be whisked away before anyone believed them, with some apology and false explanation given to the guests by the hosts.
But instead of sounding the alarm, Diego rushed toward them. "She needs to go to the hospital. Are you helping her?"
"What does it look like I'm bloody doing?" James asked between gritted teeth.
Diego's face revealed his relief. "Do you have a car? Where is it?"
"Right side of the house."
"This way, then."
Diego opened the door to a dining room and led them around a long table. The men outside the French windows stood between the house and the Hummer.
“We have to try,” James said.
Diego nodded and walked out first, ignoring the guards who stared at the three of them as they moved to the car. There was confused murmuring, until one of them called out. "Señor?"
"Get in the car," Diego told James. "If they come, I w
on't be able to help you."
James knew that "they" meant Miguel, perhaps David — and even Eduardo.
"It's all right," Diego told the guards. "I'm with them."
James put a discreet but firm hand on the butt of his gun and helped Lee climb inside the Hummer. Once he was in the driver’s seat and started the engine, the jeep gave a loud growl. He waited a bare moment before driving away, leaving Diego and Eduardo’s staff behind in a cloud of dust.
As he drove past the gates to Los Felices, James doubted that it would be that easy for them to escape. The family inside the pink house would know that he could make scandal finally stick to them.
He had become their enemy, and they no longer needed to hide their true nature. Neither did he.
TWENTY-FOUR
James had to drive north, to the United States. It would be insane to go further down into Mexico. Sonora was a big state, but the Aguirres must have a lot of people who counted in their pocket — people who could get the word out that the two foreigners were wanted, and that a big, fat reward was waiting.
Any sexual scandal would be bad enough for a conservative family like theirs; James didn't want to think of what they might do to keep the world from knowing their golden heir was a serial killer. On a dark night, out where they were, he and Lee could simply disappear without a trace.
Lee gasped, but she was only laughing. "They'll be shittin’ their pants right about now."
That was his Lee, finally sounding as Southern as she was, but they had done something bad to her.
"How hurt are you?" he asked, afraid of the answer.
"I'll survive."
"Do you have your passport?"
She sat up with some effort. "Where are we going?"
"To Arizona. I'll just drive there like a bat out of hell. We might make it in a little over an hour.”
"I don't have my passport."
It sounded like a bad thing to go to Arizona. "I need to get you to a hospital, and it can't be in Mexico. The Aguirres have a long reach.”