Strong As Steel

by Jon Land

  Caitlin cringed. “Ugh…”

  “It’s not true?”

  “That I’m strong as steel or that I’ve killed a whole lot of bad guys?”

  “Take your pick.”

  Caitlin opened the menu. “I’m thinking the T-bone.”

  “Bison burger for me,” Dylan said, closing his. “Will the two of you stop looking at each other that way?”

  But Caitlin and Selina remained locked in a stare that was even tighter than their handshake. It was finally broken when Selina turned her eyes on the menu before her.

  “I’m thinking salmon,” she said, without opening it.

  “Do they even serve that?” Dylan asked her, scanning his.

  “Everybody serves salmon.”

  “Selina wanted to meet you, Caitlin,” Dylan piped in.

  Caitlin pretended to be regarding her menu again, so as not to meet the young woman’s eyes. “Well, I hope she won’t be disappointed. I’ve never actually met a pharmaceutical rep before, but I hear it’s a great job to have in this day and age.”

  “It is,” Selina acknowledged. “So far, so good, anyway.”

  “So which one do you work for?” Caitlin asked her. “Pharmaceutical company, I mean.”

  “Dylan didn’t tell you?”

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “Well, I’m kind of freelance, working for a consortium of smaller pharmaceutical companies that aren’t budgeted for a dedicated national sales team.”

  “Sounds challenging.”

  “Until you figure that some of the most groundbreaking drugs ever were developed by companies nobody ever heard of until those drugs reached the market. Sure, there are challenges, not the least of which is the fact that only about ten percent of clinical trials result in regulatory approval. Imagine the same ratio when it comes to bullets.”

  “Except it only takes one hit to do the job,” Caitlin noted.

  “Same thing in my business. Small biopharmaceutical companies are becoming increasingly important as drivers of innovation in the development of cutting-edge drugs, to the point that the majority of drugs currently in development are in the hands of small biopharmaceutical companies. They range in size from virtual companies with no commercial products and no revenue to those with only a few commercial programs but a sharp eye on growth.”

  Dylan leaned in toward his father. “I told you she was smart, Dad.”

  “I’d hire you in a heartbeat, Selina,” Cort Wesley agreed.

  “To do what?”

  “You could sell a car to an Amish couple.”

  Selina reached onto the table and squeezed Dylan’s hand. “Anyway, small companies use a variety of approaches to address the challenges, including the use of new technical platforms, new formulations or technologies that enhance the actions of known drugs, and the use of trial designs that take advantage of the specific market they hope to enter. Some of the companies I rep for develop products that are spun off from or licensed from large companies, and others end up partnering with larger companies to add resources and experience. I don’t like when that happens,” she continued, aiming her words at Dylan, “because it means I might be out of a job.”

  “That’s not good,” said Caitlin.

  “Well, the food here sure is,” interjected Cort Wesley. “What do you say we order?”

  * * *

  “Just keep a clear head, son,” Cort Wesley said to Dylan, after their server slid away from the table. “You got some work to finish for me, remember?”

  Dylan rolled his eyes, started to blow the long hair from his face before remembering it was combed reasonably in place. “It’s one margarita, Dad. I think I can handle it. Give it a rest,” he said, tapping his father’s shoulder playfully.

  “Wanna make a stop in the ladies’ room, Ranger?” Selina asked.

  Caitlin looked toward Cort Wesley before responding. “Sure. Why not? First time for everything, I suppose,” she added, pushing her chair out.

  “You’ve never been to the ladies’ room before?” Selina asked wryly.

  “Not as a pair, no.”

  Selina grinned. “Like you said, there’s a first time for everything.”

  66

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  They had the restroom to themselves, as it turned out.

  “See?” Selina Escolante said, emerging from the stall. “Nothing to be scared of.”

  Caitlin feigned gazing about the polished tile floor and walls. “Looks different when you’re in here with someone else. Guess I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to do it before.”

  “Being that you’re living in a male-dominated profession.”

  “True enough, Selina, since male Rangers aren’t prone to inviting me to the bathroom with them.”

  Selina turned on the water and waited for it to warm up. “I’m lucky that way, given that the pharmaceutical industry is an equal opportunity employer—sometimes too much so.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Selina realized the water wasn’t going to get any warmer and pressed some fancy soap onto her hands from a nearby dispenser. “Well, let’s just say some accounts expect certain fringe benefits to close a big deal.”

  Caitlin’s gaze narrowed. “That’s hard to believe, in this day and age.”

  “Hey, nobody ever asked me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with. And, to tell you the truth, all this political correctness can be bad for business. You use what you’ve got, right?” Selina grinned, rubbing her hands beneath the automated hand dryer. “Especially the first few years on the job. You know what one of the women who trained me in the field said? ‘Sometimes you’ve got to give head to get ahead.’”

  “I was sexually assaulted as a college student,” Caitlin told her. “That didn’t put me too far ahead.”

  Selina Escalante swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”

  “No need, unless it was one of the companies you rep that manufactured the drug I got dosed with.”

  “Depends if it was Rohypnol, GHB, which is actually gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or ketamine, aka Special K,” Selina noted without flinching.

  “They never did identify it.”

  “What about the man who dosed you?”

  Caitlin washed her hands, just to have something to do. “Long story,” she said.

  Selina drew closer. “You’ve become, like, Dylan’s mother, haven’t you?”

  Caitlin looked at her in the mirror. “He tell you the story of what happened to his real mom?”

  “Along with how you saved his life.” Selina nodded. “You’ve done that a lot, saved people’s lives.”

  “I’m a Texas Ranger, Selina.”

  “But it’s not just a job for you, not like pushing the latest wonder drug on unsuspecting doctors and medical practice reps.”

  Caitlin eased her hands under the dryer. “Law enforcement’s all I’ve ever done, so I’ve never really compared it to anything else,” she said, over the machine’s voluminous rattle. “But am I like Dylan’s mother? I suppose I am. We’ve been in shoot-outs together. Some might say it doesn’t get any more maternal than that.”

  “At least in Texas.”

  Caitlin faced the young woman, standing between her and the door. “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?”

  Selina nodded stiffly. “Something like that.”

  “I believe you get my point.”

  They started for the door together, but stopped.

  “I think he’s looking for a woman like you,” Selina said. “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, th
at’s what I’m hoping.”

  Caitlin grabbed the handle but didn’t open the door. “He’s going back to college soon.”

  “He told me.”

  “By my definition, that makes him still a kid. Something a woman your age should keep in mind.”

  “My age?”

  “You told Dylan you were twenty-eight.”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “I think you’re younger than that, by a couple years anyway.”

  Selina smiled casually. “Comes with the job, Ranger.”

  Caitlin finally yanked open the door. “It’s Caitlin, ma’am.”

  “So how was it?” Selina asked, when they were on their way back to the table.

  “How was what?”

  “Your first visit to the ladies’ room with another lady?”

  Caitlin showed her palms. “Well, my hands are clean.”

  Selina held her hands up before saying, “Don’t worry, Ranger, mine are too.”

  67

  SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS

  Cort Wesley felt like going out for breakfast, not comfortable being home when Dylan and Selina started stirring. This was the first time he’d brought a girl home while Cort Wesley had been around. Her presence had the same effect on Caitlin, who opted against spending the night.

  There hadn’t been an opportunity for them to talk about whatever was bothering her about Selina Escolante. And the truth was, he was glad Caitlin had something else to focus on, since it kept her from noticing the difficulty he had working a fork with his right hand. Cort Wesley suspected her reaction to Selina was rooted in the same overprotective attitude he was prone to when it came to Dylan. One of the things that made him most happy about his son’s decision to return to Brown University was the fact that it would get him out of Texas. To say the time he’d taken off from school had been bloody would be an understatement. Dylan had almost gotten himself killed twice, once saved only by him gunning down another kid just about his age, although age didn’t figure into the M16 that kid was hoisting.

  Yup, next week couldn’t come fast enough, and Cort Wesley found himself hoping Dylan would lose Selina Escolante’s phone number before departing.

  He ended up at the nearest Magnolia Pancake Haus restaurant, a mainstay in the area since he was a boy. The place held a special association for him, given that his father and he had several times eaten breakfast here on the day of a job when it was called something else. Boone Masters had enlisted his son in his criminal efforts from the time Cort Wesley was twelve, and he had worked his way up from lookout to member of his father’s gang, which specialized in boosting large warehouse-style establishments, ridding them of excess major appliances, many still crated up. They were inside jobs, mostly, that came with lots of heavy lifting and not a lot of danger or anything even remotely approaching gunplay. Violence, when it did happen, almost exclusively involved fellow members of Boone Masters’s crew squabbling over respective shares or who sold out whom. Cort Wesley never sold out anybody, and his father figured that, as a family member, he didn’t deserve a share.

  The hostess brought him to a table for two, where he ordered coffee.

  “Anything else for starters?”

  “You have root beer?”

  “Yes.”

  “The real kind?”

  His question clearly confused her. “I’m not sure about real, but it’s good.”

  “I’ll take a large.”

  “Thanks, bubba,” Leroy Epps said, when she was gone.

  * * *

  Cort Wesley placed his phone on the table, pretending to work the keypad to make it look like he was texting.

  “Now, how about ordering me up one of those waffles with the whipped cream on top?”

  “Last time I checked, ghosts don’t eat.”

  Leroy’s red-streaked eyes glanced down at his root beer. “We’re not supposed to drink, neither, but that hasn’t been stopping you.” Leroy’s eyes sought him out across the table. “Your arm’s better, bubba.”

  “Not much.”

  “Sometimes a little is a lot.”

  “I couldn’t work an M16 right now, champ.”

  Leroy’s gaze narrowed on him. “Guns being the ultimate determining factor.”

  “I was just making a point.”

  “Most folks in your shoes would be happy if they could lift up their submarine sandwich with all the insides not falling out.”

  “Well, I’m not most people.”

  Leroy shook his head. “And you wanna know where that boy of yours gets his sauce from.… He’s a hoot, lemme tell you.”

  “Hopefully his girlfriend gets an early start this morning so he can get back to that job I gave him.”

  “He known her how long and she’s already his girlfriend?”

  “Kids today, right, champ?” Cort Wesley mused.

  “So what’s got you scratching your ass over it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You ask the Ranger? Takes one woman to know another, right?”

  “I think it’s the fact that Dylan’s going back to Brown next week.”

  “A good thing, right?”

  “For sure, champ, but I guess maybe I wanted Caitlin and me to be what he missed the most.”

  “I see that being still a fact.”

  “Let me put it this way: I guess I don’t like sharing him.”

  “On account of it means he’s growing up, bubba?”

  “He’s been grown up since he watched his mother get gunned down at the front door. Maybe I made the wrong decision by keeping us in that house, not moving on.”

  “As I recall, that was a matter of teaching your boys not to run from nothing.”

  Cort Wesley noticed maybe a quarter of the frosted glass of root beer had been drained, or maybe the foam had just settled. “You know what they say about the road to hell.”

  Leroy looked at him wryly. “Actually, I don’t. I be somewhere else altogether different, thank the Lord.”

  “Seen Him lately?”

  “No, sir. But I hear told He’s a root beer man too. Order up another and He just might make an appearance.”

  “Maybe next time, champ.”

  “And stop fretting on your boy.”

  “You get a look at the latest girl in his life?”

  “All the more reason to stop fretting on him, bubba. She’s a looker, all right.”

  “No doubt about that. But, I don’t know, something seems, well, a little off.”

  “Off?” the ghost repeated. “What’s that mean exactly?”

  “Caitlin kept eyes on her all night, from the time they got back from the ladies’ room. I’ve seen that look on her face before, usually when she’s expecting someone to draw on her.”

  “Then why you asking me? Ask her.”

  “I think I’ll do that, champ.”

  “After breakfast. Here come our waffles.”

  Cort Wesley turned around and, sure enough, his server was carrying a pair of matching plates, whipped cream and strawberries piled high atop a waffle as big as a tire.

  “Eat up fast, bubba,” Leroy told him. “You gotta get back on home to see what your boy came up with.”

  68

  SHAVANO PARK, TEXAS

  “Did we discuss my fee for this?” Dylan asked Cort Wesley, angling the laptop so his father could follow his explanation of what he’d found. “I forgot.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Can’t blame me for trying.” Dylan regarded him differently, his gaze fixing on Cort Wesley’s right arm. “The arm looks a little better.”

  “Feels better, too.”

  “Not a hundred percent, though.”

  “No.”

  The boy blew the hair from his face, only to have it drift back into place. “You afraid it’ll never come all the way back?”

  “Sure, just like I’m afraid I’ll get hit by a bus. There’s plenty that scares me. This is just the latest in a long line. Like I never used to think an
ything of the phone ringing late at night.”

  “What changed?”

  “You and your brother. Having a bum arm is nothing compared to the two of you,” Cort Wesley said, hoping that would get Dylan back to the subject at hand. “Tell me you found something, son.”

  “I found something, Dad, in the form of the translation you were looking for. Mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dylan said, turning back to the screen that displayed the inscription. “Aramaic is a difficult language to work with, because nobody’s spoken or written it in like eighteen hundred years. The good thing about that is it means that the language has kind of been frozen in time. The bad thing is it’s a difficult language to translate because there are so many dialects that possess only subtle differences but that can still change the entire meaning of a word or phrase.”

  “You learn all that at Brown?”

  “I didn’t know I had a knack for languages until I got there.”

  Cort Wesley closed his eyes briefly and shook his head in amazement. “Spanish and English are about my limit.”

  “You learned some Arabic back in Desert Storm.”

  “All forgotten now.”

  “Well,” Dylan said, pushing his chair in closer to his Mac, “you won’t be forgetting what I’ve got to tell you anytime soon. I’m pretty sure about this first part on these top two lines,” he continued. “Almost positive it says something to the effect of ‘He who died for his crimes and suffers in death.’” Dylan worked the keyboard, and that sentence appeared superimposed over the original Aramaic letters. “Of course, the translation reads left to right, while the actual letters run right to left, like Hebrew. You knew that, right?”

  “That it’s like Hebrew? Yeah, I did.”

  “That brings us to the final line, which, based on other, similar inscriptions I took a look at from the time, must be the date.”

  “Like a tombstone,” Cort Wesley surmised.

  “Except ossuaries like this one were normally stored aboveground, in crypts, mausoleums, or even caves, like I mentioned before. That was the whole point of salvaging the bones of the desiccated, because these burial boxes weren’t even a third the size of a coffin.”