by Jon Land
“No, sir,” Ben said, sounding as if he was using the word “sir” for the first time in his life.
“Same thing here. Somebody almost killed him with pills instead of bullets, and that somebody is the guy you bought the drugs from. Just give me a name and I’ll take it from there.”
“Mr. Masters…”
Cort Wesley twirled his head around to find the head of the Village School, Julia De Cantis, striding across the grounds toward the school track. He figured Ben Brussard would be uttering a sigh of relief over being granted a reprieve from the pseudo interrogation. Instead, though, the boy had pulled a phone from his gym bag and was scrolling through his contacts.
“Guy calls himself Cholo Brown. Here’s his phone number, sir.”
24
HOUSTON
“Get to class, Mr. Brussard,” Julia De Cantis said to the boy, her high heels clacking against the track’s surface.
Ben dropped the phone back in his gym bag. “Yes, ma’am.”
The head of the Village School waited for the boy to jog out of earshot before she looked back at Cort Wesley. She was wearing a fashionable skirt and form-fitting blouse that showed off her figure. Her bronze complexion was somewhere between Latino and Mediterranean, and Cort Wesley thought he recalled from her bio that she was the daughter of immigrants, though he couldn’t recall their specific nationality. Her front teeth were stained with lipstick, residue from her tongue and likely a habit bred of nerves. The sun made her skin look bright and shiny, a light sheen of perspiration rising up through the thin coat of makeup Cort Wesley figured came complete with sunscreen.
“I’d thank you not to address our students in a threatening fashion, Mr. Masters,” she said firmly, swiping her tongue across her upper lip and leaving a dent in the coloring.
“What makes you think I was threatening him?”
“Given your history—” De Cantis started, before he cut her off.
“Let’s talk recent history, starting with two nights ago when my son overdosed on drugs he ingested on school grounds.”
“I assure you that we’re conducting a thorough investigation into the matter.”
“Starting with where Ben Brussard got the drugs that almost killed my son?”
She didn’t respond.
“I didn’t think so. And I wasn’t threatening the boy, just appealing to his better nature. You don’t want to see me when I’m threatening.”
“If you had given me the courtesy of returning my calls, I would’ve provided an update on our investigation.”
“Not interested, if that doesn’t include the name of the dealer in question.”
“You should let the police handle this, Mr. Masters. And I’d respectfully ask you not to enter school property without checking with me first.”
Cort Wesley pitched his gaze downward. The track was a bright clay color, the lane markers freshly painted with white paint that was almost blinding. He could feel the heat radiating off the hard top, detected waves of superheated air dissipating like mist into the ether.
“Any of those calls include an apology, Ms. De Cantis?” he asked, looking back up again.
“I said I was sorry for what happened. I asked if there was anything I could do.”
“I don’t believe you ever said you were sorry that it happened at your school, under your watch. Where I come from, that makes you as guilty as Ben Brussard and whoever sold him the drugs that almost killed my son.”
“I assure you, Mr. Masters, Ben will be dealt with. To be frank, expulsion is a very real possibility.”
“Just one semester before he graduates? You’ll ruin his life, ma’am.”
Julia De Cantis suddenly looked as if she didn’t recognize Cort Wesley. “I’m confused, Mr. Masters. You don’t want the boy responsible for your son’s overdose to be punished?”
“He’s a good kid. Ben was the first to stand up for Luke when he told his friends he was gay. He made a mistake. It shouldn’t ruin his life when what you’re really trying to do is relieve your own guilt.”
De Cantis’s lower lip quivered. “I could have you arrested for trespassing.”
“Ben Brussard is a spoke in a much larger wheel. I imagine if you start expelling students who bring drugs or alcohol onto school grounds, you’d lose about a third of your student body. I know you want to make an example of Ben, but there’s better and fairer ways to do it than destroying his future. He owned up to what he did, ma’am, and that’s a heck of a lot more than I can say for most in a similar situation.”
Julia De Cantis’s eyes widened, suddenly curious. “How’s that exactly?”
“Let’s leave things there.”
“What’d you ask him, Mr. Masters?”
Cort Wesley started past her for the gate. “I better leave before you have me arrested for trespassing.”
“What did he tell you?”
Against his better judgment, Cort Wesley stopped and turned back around when he reached the gate, letting De Cantis see him study the track. “Maintenance did a real good job on this. Cleaned it up nice and neat. That’s what I’m going to do for you, too, ma’am. Clean this mess up all nice and neat. You cut Ben Brussard a break and I’ll make sure nothing touches the school. I owe you that much for all you’ve done for my son. We square?”
De Cantis looked as if she was about to nod, but then changed her mind. “No, Mr. Masters, we’re not square. I don’t want to be a party to whatever it is you’re going to do. I don’t want to hear about it, I don’t want to know about it, and I don’t want you tarnishing the school name in the process.”
Cort Wesley nodded, weighing her words. “A bunch of your seniors held a pill party to celebrate one of them getting into Harvard. I don’t think it gets much more tarnished than that, ma’am.”
25
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
With time to kill until Lennox Scully awoke from being sedated, to help him calm back down, Caitlin stopped at the Magnolia Pancake Haus, where she went occasionally with Cort Wesley. The Texas Ranger badge and the mystique about her conjured by the media normally led Caitlin to forego public places like this due to the unwarranted attention she drew. But the Pancake Haus was roomy and populated with enough tables that she normally could find one out of reach of prying eyes. Interesting how this usually led her to choose a seat with her back to the entrance, in stark contrast to the typical gunfighter mentality, a compromise necessitated by the place she too often had occupied in the twenty-four-hour news cycle.
She opened her phone and jogged it to Instagram, where she’d created a fake account because, strangely, so many criminals and suspects maintained pages on the site. She hesitated briefly, thinking of closing the app as quickly as she’d opened it, until Luke’s words chimed in her head.
Check out his Instagram page. You got bigger problems with him than me.
She hadn’t been able to chase Luke’s warning about Dylan from her mind, and she couldn’t stop herself from logging in and then going to his feed. Dozens of pictures from recent days at Brown University popped up, none of them particularly noteworthy, until Caitlin’s scroll reached photos from three days ago.
Her eyes froze on a single candid shot that was slightly out of focus, the kind of picture that gets posted randomly among a bunch of others. She felt her skin crawl and prickle with heat, and she was dialing Dylan’s number before she could stop herself.
* * *
“Jeez, Caitlin, do you know what time it is?” he greeted groggily.
“Just after nine a.m. in these parts. You sleeping in today?”
“Shit, I must’ve overslept. Is everything okay?”
She realized Cort Wesley hadn’t informed him about his brother’s overdose and decided this wasn’t the time to do so, not with something else on her mind.
“Is she there?” Caitlin asked instead.
“Er, who?”
“Put her on, Dylan.”
A pause followed, muffled words exchanged on the
other end, before a female voice replaced Dylan’s.
“What’s the haps, sis?”
Caitlin had known the young woman first as Selina Escalante, a pharmaceutical rep who’d picked Dylan up in a bar. But her real name was actually Nola Delgado and she was Caitlin’s half sister, thanks to a brief affair between her father and Luna Diaz Delgado, the most powerful criminal figure in all of Mexico and known as the Red Widow for good reason.
Nola Delgado had also stepped into the shoes of a legendary assassin known as el Barquero, named after the mythological ferryman, for her expertise in taking people to their deaths. They had met for the first time several months back, and the fact that Nola may have saved her life twice had little bearing on Caitlin’s orders that she never see Dylan again, Caitlin left recalling their first conversation:
Dylan’s been through a lot.
I get that impression.
He’s gotten hurt.
I got that impression, too.
And here we are, celebrating, what, the anniversary of your third night together?
Something like that.
I believe you get my point.
I think he’s looking for a woman like you. Someone strong as steel, who can’t get hurt the way his mother did. Who can stand up for herself, take no prisoners, and take no shit. Go toe to toe with him, no matter what.
We talking about me or you, Selina?
Both. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.
“Don’t call me ‘sis,’ Nola,” Caitlin said, suddenly chilled by cool air pumping through the air-conditioning vent directly overhead.
“That won’t make it any less true.”
“I’m guessing it was you who posted that picture of you and Dylan on Instagram. I’m guessing you wanted me to see it.”
“And why would I do that, sis?”
“To get a rise out of me.”
“In which case, it would seem I’ve succeeded.”
“You’re putting him in danger,” Caitlin said, through what felt like icicles breaking up in her mouth.
“He doesn’t need me for that, Ranger. He’s got you.”
“Go home, Nola.”
“America not a free country anymore?”
“Not when it comes to Dylan. One gunfighter in his life is enough.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I didn’t mean it as one.”
“My feelings for him are genuine, sis.”
Caitlin bristled again at being called that. “Is that why you posted that picture on Instagram for me to see? So I’d know your feelings were genuine?”
“Maybe I just missed you. Thought we could do Thanksgiving together, so you could tell me about my father, since I never met him.”
“He never even knew you existed, Nola, and I wish I could say the same.”
“In which case, you’d be dead.”
“You think I couldn’t have handled the shooters you gunned down?”
“Guess we’ll never know now, will we, sis?”
“Put Dylan back on,” Caitlin said, realizing she was getting nowhere.
“Hey,” Dylan’s voice returned.
“What are you doing?”
“Right now, putting my pants on so I can get to class. I’m late.”
“She’s using you, son.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“She show up at your door or call first to ask you to take her back?”
“I called her, Caitlin. And it was me who posted that shot of us on Instagram. I didn’t mean to, but I did. My bad.”
“And now you’re making it worse,” Caitlin said, wishing she’d never placed the call.
“Can Nola really come for Thanksgiving?”
“This isn’t a joke, Dylan.”
“I was being serious. Why do you hate her so much?”
“It’s not that I hate her, it’s that I don’t know her, and neither did you.”
“She’s your sister.”
“Half sister,” Caitlin corrected, “and you just made my point for me.”
“What’s that?”
“It takes one to know one.”
“As in killers? Difference being I’m sleeping with her, not you.”
“You don’t want the likes of Nola Delgado in your head or your life, Dylan. She should come with a warning label like you see on a cigarette box, that her company could be hazardous to your health.”
“Like you said, Caitlin, it takes one to know one. Look, I gotta go. Bye.”
The click left Caitlin staring at her phone, which immediately lit up with an incoming call. Hoping it was Dylan calling back, she was ready to answer it when she saw JONES lit up in the caller ID instead. She laid the phone on the Pancake Haus table, only to have it start ringing again right away. She ignored it for a time, then glanced at it and saw HEADQUARTERS.
“Can you squeeze a visit to the office into your busy schedule, Ranger?” Captain Tepper asked her.
“Any specific reason?”
“You’ll see when you get here.”
26
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
“Okay, muchachos,” Guillermo Paz said to the young charges gathered before him, “who wants to go first?”
A slew of tiny hands shot up in the air, forming a blur with their waving.
“Let’s go over the rules first.”
Paz didn’t believe in wasting time. So, first day on the job at Canyon Ridge Elementary, he’d set up an obstacle course in the cramped school gymnasium, using up all the space it gave him and making do with the limited equipment he’d found tucked away in a storage closet. He’d dragged the gymnastic parallel bars out, along with some orange cones, a tarpaulin, steel folding chairs, and two sets of stanchions, with the limbo sticks that belonged to them. He’d also lugged in some old truck tires he’d poached from a junkyard.
“This is a version of the obstacle course I designed to train my men back in Venezuela. Of course, when they were going through it, I was firing live rounds at them. Only winged a couple, which was far preferable to watching them fall in battle. Nothing’s more important than training, because it’s what keeps you alive.”
A small hand extended into the air.
“Yes, muchacha?” Paz said to a second-grade girl.
“What’s ‘live rounds’?”
“Real bullets.”
“You shot your friends with real bullets?”
“They weren’t my friends, they were my men. It was my responsibility to keep them alive, just like I’m doing with you.”
“We have to do this to stay alive?” a boy asked, sounding confused.
“We never know when the shit’s going to hit the fan, do we?”
“You said a bad word,” another little girl scolded.
“That’s right. Lo siento. I’m sorry. Now, watch me demonstrate how to run the course.”
A second boy raised his hand. “Can I go first?”
“After me.”
“I want to go first.”
“Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.’”
“Who’s Frank Benjamin?” the same boy asked.
“Benjamin Franklin,” Paz corrected, “and he was a very smart man. You ever hear of Abraham Lincoln?”
The boy nodded. “He was president.”
“That’s right. And he also said, ‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.’ What we’re doing right now, we’re sharpening the ax. Watch.”
With that, Paz effortlessly mounted the parallel bars, squeezing the slick wood with his hands and pulling himself along over a blue wrestling mat.
“First thing,” he explained, “you need to get across the water without getting your feet wet.”
“Where’s the water?” another kid asked.
“It’s the blue mat.”
“But it’s not wet.”
“Use your imagination. Albert Einstein once said, ‘The true
sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.’”
“Was he president?” the boy who knew about Abraham Lincoln wondered.
“No. He couldn’t be president because he came from Ulm, Germany, an immigrant like me.”
“I’m an immigrant too,” a little girl said.
“Good.”
“But I’m not from Germany.”
Paz dropped off the parallel bars, having cleared the imaginary water. “Then you drop down and crawl through the tube,” he said, doing just that along the makeshift tunnel he’d formed by wrapping the tarpaulin around four steel chairs on either side. “Then you bounce back up and hurdle this branch and duck under the next one.”
With that, Paz bounded over the lower limbo stick, then bounced up and rolled under the higher one set before it. Next, without breaking stride, he weaved through the orange cones and jumped into the center of one truck tire after another, four in all.
“Last thing,” he told his gym class, “you grab hold of the rope here and swing over the minefield.”
“Where’s the minefield?” a familiar voice asked.
“The basketball lane.”
“Oh.”
Paz followed his own instructions and dropped lightly off, back near his young charges. “See, that’s not too hard, right? Well, it might be the first time you do it, but that’s okay so long as it gets easier the next. Like Helen Keller once said, ‘We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.’”
Paz could see the kids fidgeting, eager to get started.
“Any more questions?”
Before any of them could answer, Paz felt a cold, shrill wind hit him like a battering ram, nearly toppling him from his feet. He looked toward the heavy gym doors that opened onto the playground, expecting a sudden tornado looming outside to have blown them open. But they were still sealed. Next, he felt a searing heat chasing the chill, following the same path through him. It left his skin unmarred but seemed to singe his insides and superheat his blood. He looked back toward his class to see the lot of them turned to ice that melted right before his eyes, leaving nothing but bloodred puddles atop the gym floor.