“It doesn’t matter if you can see him,
princesa,
” Rafe said absently, keeping his eye on the cabdrivers as they passed. “I can see him.”
“You guys have some sort of secret code, don’t you.”
Rafe laughed shortly. “No. But we grew up together. You get to where you can communicate pretty well without having to say much. Very useful in our business.”
They entered the terminal. It was not air-conditioned, and felt warmer inside than it did outside. Olivia was grateful for her summer dress, orange though it was. She still could not see Bobby, though, and that fact gave her the funniest little tickle on the back of her neck. She’d had that tickle before…oh, right. Well, maybe she did have women’s intuition, after all.
“Where is he?” she whispered.
“You don’t need to whisper, Olivia.” He looked around. “There’s no one here.”
“Then why doesn’t he come out?”
“Because that’s not the plan.”
“Then what is the plan?”
Rafe sighed. “I know you like to know everything, Dr. Galpas. But try to curb that impulse just this once.”
“Fine. But what if there aren’t any flights to Tijuana today? Then what?”
“Then we make a new plan.” Rafe read the departure schedule above the Mexican Airlines counter. “But there is a flight out, this afternoon.” He glanced at his watch. “Three hours from now. Are you hungry?”
“Uh, yes. I am.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
She dug in. This man had been dragging her all over Baja for two days now. She didn’t want to go another step without knowing where she was going.
“Wait a minute. What about my ticket?”
“We’re not going to buy it until the last minute. If Cervantes or anyone else is looking for you, it’s too easy for them to check with the airline agents. If they know you’re holding a ticket for the 2:45 flight, they’ll just wait around here until you show up to get on the plane.”
“But if the plane is sold out?”
He raised his eyebrows. “What do you suppose the chances are of that?”
Olivia looked around the sleepy little airport. There were only half a dozen or so other people in the whole place: two ticket agents behind a counter, a slow-moving older man cleaning out ashtrays in the lobby, and a small knot of tourists enquiring, in very loud English, about their lost luggage, which had somehow ended up in Guadalajara. It occurred to Olivia that the taxi drivers would have a very long wait for a fare.
“And if it’s sold out, we just wait for the next one. Or you go out on the 4:24 to Cabo San Lucas, then take a flight from there tonight. They run planes back and forth to Tijuana all the time down there.”
“You’re not concerned by this?” she asked him. “You’re not concerned that we have to hang around for three more hours like sitting ducks, while Ernesto is looking for us?”
“Concerned?” He felt a petty satisfaction that some of Olivia’s fears had transferred away from him, at least partially, and onto Cervantes. Whether she wanted to admit it or not. “Are you concerned?”
She opened her mouth. Nothing came out at first, she was so astounded by his relaxed attitude. Wasn’t this the man who brooded over every little thing? “What if he finds us?”
“Then he finds us. We’ll deal with it then. I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t tracked us down already,” he added calmly.
“Oh, God.”
“Look, Olivia, there’s nothing more we can do. We’re at the airport, we know when the flight is, we’ve ditched the Land Cruiser and we have new clothes.” He smiled. “What else is there to do but to have lunch?”
“Worry. Obsess. Plan for contingencies.” She met his mild stare. “Okay. I guess you’re right.”
He gave her a patient smile. “I can rise to the occasion when I have to.”
They bought tacos from one of the small travel trailers that worked every town in Baja. It was parked just outside the east entrance to the parking lot, awaiting the airport workers and cabdrivers and occasional intrepid tourist that made up the bulk of its business. Olivia and Rafe stood under the scrawny awning of the trailer and ate from paper sacks.
Olivia finished a second hot-sauce-soaked taco and peered into the sack. “Is that it?”
Rafe grinned. “Want more?”
“No. I was just wondering if you were going to take any back for Bobby.”
“Don’t worry about Bobby’s stomach. He always manages something.”
“What are we going to do until 2:45?”
Rafe took her by the hand again. It was starting to feel very comfortable, holding hands with this woman every time they took more than two steps in any direction. He wondered how long it would take him to forget the feel of her small hand in his. He frowned. Fifty, sixty years ought to do it.
“We’re taking a
siesta,
” he said, and tugged her toward the trees.
“A
siesta?
” she asked incredulously as, once again, her sandals filled with dirt. She hopped along awkwardly behind Rafael, trying to kick the dirt from her shoes at every other step.
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” Rafe said.
Olivia stopped dead in her tracks. “What?”
Rafe yanked on her hand until she fell in behind him again. He was glad she couldn’t see his flash of a grin. “That’s an old Mexican saying.”
“It is not,” she muttered. “Any more than ‘a certain rapport’ is. I think you and Bobby watch too much American television. You’re losing your culture.”
“This looks comfortable.”
“It does?” Olivia looked around. Nothing but sandy dirt and scrubby trees. “I can’t believe you expect to take a nap out here.”
“Safer than inside. And cooler.” He scouted for a low spot on the other side of the embankment that circled the parking lot. “Here’s a good spot.” He hunkered down, pulled her to her knees next to him.
“It’s dirty,” she said, not even bothering to object to being yanked to the ground. Again. Perhaps she was developing a tolerance, the way people did to malaria. “What about my dress?”
“It’s mostly sand,
princesa.
It’ll brush out.” He let go of her finally, crossed his arms beneath his head and lay back. The rise of the embankment provided cover from anyone looking for them from the direction of the airport parking lot and terminal.
Olivia stared down at him. “Are you really going to sleep?”
“Unless you want to fool around,” he said. He opened one eye, looked up at her astonished face, and closed it again. “No, I suppose not.”
“We’re out in the open, here, Rafael.” She snapped her head back to watch a plane descend almost on top of them. The noise made her ears ring.
“Not really,” he said, after the plane hit the runway. “The trees hide us from above, the embankment hides us from the terminal, and unless someone decides to come by and water these things, I doubt anyone is going to be walking by.”
“What about Bobby?”
Rafe opened his eyes and gave her a brief glare before closing them again. “Stop worrying about Bobby. He doesn’t need a mother.”
“Fine.” She chewed on her lower lip for a minute. “Do you have your watch set so we’ll wake up?”
“No.”
“Will you wake up?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“That’s not funny. I have to get back to the States. What if someone tried to call the motel in Aldea Viejo and found I never came back after Ernesto’s party?”
“I don’t think that motel has a phone,” Rafe said reasonably. “Besides, what would they think if they did know?”
“I guess they’d think I stayed with Ernesto,” she offered quietly, after a minute.
Rafe made a sucking sound with his front teeth. “There you go,” he said tightly.
Olivia drew her knees to her chest. “I probably would have,” she said. “Eventually.”
“Stayed with him?”
“Married him.”
Rafe took the blow like a man. It was, after all, no more than he’d expected of her. But his hands went to fists behind his head. He’d have shot them both before he’d have let Olivia marry that dirtbag. “Lucky for you I happened along, then.”
Olivia shot him a wry look, though she knew his eyes were still closed. “Yes, you’ve been very lucky for me,” she said blandly.
Rafe didn’t answer. His breathing had evened out, but Olivia knew he wasn’t asleep. Didn’t really think he intended to sleep. She knew his methods well enough by now to know they were merely killing time as safely as possible before her flight.
As he had for days now, he was keeping her safe. Baffling, but true. She wished she could figure it out. Take the data in front of her and make sense of it. It was what she did best. What she lived for.
She hugged her knees, listened to people talking as they spilled out of the terminal behind her. Their voices were a low hum of mixed English and Spanish, and she decided the little plane must have come in from the border. She hoped some of the passengers took taxis into town; their driver had looked like he could use the money.
“Rafael, why are you doing all this for me?”
“All what?”
“Getting me here, buying my ticket home. If what you’ve told me about Ernesto is true, you’re saving my life.”
“You saved mine.”
“Oh. That’s true.”
“Besides—” he began, then abruptly stopped.
“Besides what?”
“Nothing.”
“Besides
what?
”
Rafe watched her. A couple of hours more and she’d be gone. He’d never see her again, and she’d spend the rest of her life thinking he was a drug runner and a lowlife. He didn’t think he could live the rest of
his
life with that.
It was foolish, telling her the truth, but he’d done many foolish things since he’d run into Dr. Galpas two nights ago. He’d kissed her, had breathed in the scent of her, had lain on top of her so every impression of her body was molded to his, never to be forgotten.
“Besides,” he began again. “Since we actually made it to the airport, and you’ll be leaving soon—”
“We weren’t supposed to make it to the airport?”
“Yes, we were supposed to, but there were many mitigating factors that could have prevented us. Anyway, since we’re here—”
Olivia peered at him in the shadows the trees made. “Mitigating factors?”
“Will you pay attention? I have to tell you something.”
“But mitigating factors? What kind of smuggler are you, anyway?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Rafe said somewhat impatiently. No wonder the woman became a scientist. She asked questions about everything. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“Who are you?”
His jaw worked for a minute while he lay before her. Oh, dangerous waters, these. In more ways than one, he was just beginning to realize. For his mission, and his heart.
“It may be a little hard to believe.” He sat up slowly, pushed his hand through his hair. “I’ll tell you what I’m not, first. I’m not a—”
He didn’t finish his sentence, because Bobby slid down the embankment almost on top of him. Rafe was on his knees before Bobby even came to a stop.
Olivia stared at them both, stunned by Bobby’s sudden appearance.
“They’re here,” Bobby said, breathless.
“Where?”
“In the terminal. In the parking lot.”
“How many?”
“What are you not?” Olivia asked Rafe. She knew she should be somewhat concerned about the reappearance of Ernesto Cervantes in her life, but she really wanted to know what Rafael had been going to say. It seemed vital he tell her what he was
not.
They ignored her. “Eight guys and Cervantes,” Bobby said. “They came in two vehicles. One guy’s guarding the cruisers, the others have split up through the airport. One guy’s searching the parking lot.”
Rafe and Bobby hit the dirt and slithered up the embankment. “Uh, Rafael?” Olivia called in a loud whisper. “Before you do anything rash, you were saying something before—?”
Rafe wasn’t listening. He was busy scrutinizing the parking lot and the front of the terminal. “Where’s his backup?” he whispered.
Bobby shrugged. “Guess he didn’t call anybody in.”
“Dammit.”
They slid backwards down the embankment.
“Why is that bad?” Olivia asked in a low voice, looking from one man to the other. They certainly seemed serious. Even Bobby. Perhaps she should pay attention to the matter at hand. “Isn’t it a good thing he didn’t bring any more police in on this thing? That’s fewer people to contend with.”
She didn’t stop to consider why she wasn’t scrambling up that embankment herself, flagging down the boys in khaki and flinging herself headlong into Ernesto Cervantes’s burly arms.
“Normally, we’d be happy with that,” Bobby answered. “But we got you, now, Doc.”
“Me? What do I have to do—? Oh, I get it.” A shudder lifted the hair on the back of her neck. “He doesn’t want me to talk to any other police officers. You two he can shoot as drug runners from his district. Me, he’d have a tougher time explaining away.”
Bobby tapped her temple with a blunt index finger. “You’re not as dumb as you look, Doc,” he said.
“Thanks.” She turned to Rafael. “Now what do we do?”
“So you believe us, Doctor? About your shark out there?”
Olivia pulled her lips between her teeth. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to depend on these two, how much she’d come to trust them. “I guess I do. Though I’m sure to regret it.”
Rafe grinned briefly. “I’m sure you will, too.” He looked her up and down, consideringly. “I kind of regret that dress, myself,” he said. “The dirty white one would have been better.”
“For what? What are we going to do?”
“Well,
princesa,
first thing we’re going to do is ask you the basic question every man asks a woman sometime in his life.”
Her throat went dry. “Which is?”
“You ever stolen a car?”
Chapter 9
O
livia’s palms were sweating. So was her neck. She thought it very likely that she was sweating in the roots of her hair. She had never been so terrified in all her life.
She was creeping along behind a known criminal, a drug dealer, on her way to steal a taxicab so they could get away from a man who, for all she actually knew, really was a law-abiding peacekeeper. A man of character and principle who was only concerned with justice and her well-being.
Only, he wasn’t. Rafael had told her he wasn’t. Rafael—who’d seduced her in less time than it usually took her to pick out her work clothes in the morning, who was as dangerous a man as she’d ever known, who didn’t appear to give a damn about justice or anything else that didn’t put money in his pocket—had told her Ernesto Cervantes was a terrible person who would happily kill her. And she had—reluctantly, unwillingly—come to believe him.
Her life, she decided, was wildly out of control.
Rafe came to a sudden halt at the edge of the parking lot. The trees partially concealed them, Olivia knew, but it would only take one glance from the felonious-looking man standing next to Ernesto’s dusty Land Cruiser to end this whole mad plot.
She began to tremble, and found, to her horror, that she was completely unable to swallow. She put her free hand—Rafe was holding the other one, as usual—to her neck and clawed frantically.
Rafe looked down at her. “Stop that.”
“I can’t swallow,” she rasped. “I think something’s wrong with me.”
“Steady,
princesa,
” Rafe whispered. “It’ll be over in a minute.”
“That doesn’t comfort me.”
He squeezed her hand. “Come on, Bobby,” he urged under his breath. “Come on.”
Olivia heard an odd grinding sound, then the faint
ping
and
crash
of metal against metal—like pots and pans banging together—She turned her head just in time to see the taco trailer go over on its side, making a horrific racket. She stared, wide-eyed.
How in the world had he done that? Of all the diversions she’d imagined Bobby creating for them, turning over the taco trailer was not one of them.
Rafe, unbelievably, chuckled. “Good boy,” he said. He yanked Olivia abruptly forward. “Come on.”
They ran like mad toward the taxi stand, while Ernesto’s lookout and the parking lot searcher started toward the taco stand to investigate the sudden, strange disturbance. The taxi driver was walking numbly in that direction, as well. As diversions went, Olivia supposed it was an excellent one. No one seemed to be able to believe their eyes. One madman was running in circles around the overturned trailer, screaming imprecations and brandishing a long pair of metal tongs as if they were the sword of David.
There was, of course, no sign of Bobby anywhere near the ruckus.
There was one cab left. It belonged, Olivia saw, to the hapless driver who had brought them in. As Rafe shoved her in the driver’s seat and climbed in after her, she made a mental note to write down the number of the cab so she could make some sort of reparation after she got home for the fares he was bound to miss. She groaned aloud. Rafe’s lifestyle was racking up quite a bill.
“Keys,” Rafe muttered, reaching under the steering wheel. He laughed again as the engine roared to life. “God, I love Mexico! Hold on.”
Tires shrieked as Rafe shot out into the now nearly empty parking lot. As they whipped past Ernesto’s pair of thugs and the astonished, slack-jawed taxi driver, Olivia closed her eyes and shrieked a little herself. Rafe had very nearly run over all three of them.
He careered the wrong way out the front entrance, just as gunshots exploded behind them.
“Open your door,” Rafe shouted at her.
Olivia obeyed without thinking, shoving the door open with her shoulder, as Rafe abruptly slowed the car. Off balance, she slid to the floor, her head almost connecting with the blurred rush of pavement.
Rafe grabbed her ankle. “I told you to hang on,” he yelled, as she struggled to right herself.
“You told me to open the door,” she screamed back.
Bobby, laughing like a loon, was running next to the car. With one leap, he was inside and slamming the door shut behind him.
Olivia lay sprawled at his feet, her butt on the floor and her limbs sticking up in four different directions.
“Hey, Doc,” Bobby said. “You need a hand?” He hauled her back up onto the seat.
“Get her head down, for God’s sake,” Rafe snarled at Bobby. He took a quick glance in his rearview mirror. “Okay, they’re after us.”
Bobby promptly shoved Olivia’s head between her knees. “Stay down there, Doc.” He fumbled around her hips. “There a seat belt in this hunk of junk?”
Olivia grabbed her knees and tensed every muscle in her body. The car was bouncing crazily up and down in exact counterpoint to the sharp turns Rafe was taking toward downtown La Paz. She thought, somewhat hysterically, that she’d add a little extra in her check to the cabdriver for new shocks. Even wedged as she was between the two men, she was in imminent danger of ricocheting right through the roof of the cab. Bobby kept his hand on the back of her neck, forcing her to stay low. She was grateful for it when she heard the back windshield shatter into a million pieces. She felt glass patter on her back and saw it hit the floor.
“You gotta love those old windshields,” Bobby commented conversationally. “They just break right out. Easier to see through that way. I hate the ones that just crackle. Safety glass, I think they call it.”
Rafe didn’t answer. He sped past a slow-moving produce truck, then accelerated through an intersection without slowing down. Olivia heard the squeal of brakes behind them, then a peculiar, bursting sound.
“Oooh.” Bobby sucked a breath through his teeth. “Watermelons. That’ll be tough to clean off the road.”
“Hold on,” Rafe mumbled unnecessarily, and took a right turn on what Olivia would have sworn were only half the wheels usually required for that kind of maneuver.
She closed her eyes. The floor was starting to blur in front of her eyes. “I think I’m going to throw up,” she said quietly.
“Do you get car sick, normally?”
She stared at him. He was examining her face with casual curiosity as they screamed headlong into the middle of afternoon La Paz in a stolen car, with the sheriff of Aldea Viejo and eight of his henchmen in hot pursuit.
“No, not normally,” she said, hoping he caught the sarcasm. She’d hate to have to point out the obvious. She’d really rather spend her last minutes on the planet throwing up her trailer tacos and praying for forgiveness for whatever the hell it was she thought she’d been doing the past three days.
“Huh,” Bobby said thoughtfully. He felt her forehead. “Maybe you have the flu.”
Rafe performed another violation of both the motor vehicle code and the laws of physics. “Yes, maybe I have the flu!” Olivia hollered in Bobby’s face. “Do I have a fever?”
Bobby grinned at her. “I don’t think so. Do you feel hot?”
“I feel slightly hysterical,” she yelled.
“Maybe you should see a doctor.” He angled his head so he could look up at Rafe. “Can we stop at a clinic?”
Rafe didn’t so much as glance down at them, hunched together under the dash. “No.”
Bobby looked back at Olivia. Their faces were inches apart, and Olivia could see the twinkle in Bobby’s eyes. She could have killed him for it. Then again, she didn’t feel like throwing up anymore.
“He says we don’t have time to stop now, but maybe in a little while.”
“Thank you,” Olivia said through gritted teeth.
“I just hope I don’t catch it,” he said, shaking his head. “I
cannot
afford to get the flu right now. My job is just crazy.”
“You are completely out of your mind, aren’t you,” Olivia asked, staring at him.
“What do you mean?”
Olivia gave him a long look, then turned her head back to the floor. “Never mind.”
Bobby sat back up, grinned over at Rafe, who paid him no attention whatsoever. “Your girlfriend is going to barf,” he said cheerfully.
“She’ll have to do it in the car,” he muttered distractedly, focusing intently on the road ahead of him. He’d lost the two Land Cruisers a street back, but he expected them to pop up again at any moment.
He slowed the car considerably as they reached the outskirts of town. There were pedestrians everywhere. And even if the sidewalks had been empty, the narrow, confusing streets of La Paz were no place for a car chase. Someone was going to be killed, and the way Rafe’s luck was going, it would not be Ernesto Cervantes. Rafe jerked the cab into a tight alleyway, brought it to a screaming stop.
“Everybody out,” he said, and shoved open the driver’s door, his gun already in his hand. He took hold of Olivia’s wrist and hauled her out of the car. She fell into him.
“Are we stopping?” she said, white-faced and wide-eyed.
Rafe examined her face intently for a second. “Do you need to vomit?” he asked.
She blinked at him. “No.”
“Then, come on.”
And again, they ran. If her life hadn’t been in danger and she hadn’t been shaking with fear every other minute, the past three days would have constituted an excellent workout, she thought as she was pulled through the streets. She only wished she’d worn better shoes.
She didn’t ask where they were going this time. It really didn’t matter, as long as they eventually ended up someplace where she could stop for a minute and let the fight-or-flight adrenaline bleed off and her system settle.
Funny, that’s all she wanted now. The meaning of her entire life compressed into a single desire. She just wanted to feel safe again. She didn’t want to be chased, she didn’t want to listen for the sound of running feet or gunshots behind her, she didn’t want to look over her shoulder.
She no longer yearned for anything so impossible and abstract as to go home. She knew in her heart she’d be trapped in Baja until she died; she accepted that. She just didn’t want to have to run another step.
But she did. Because Rafe had her hand in his and she realized she would have followed him anywhere. He and his cousin were the only people she could trust in all of this madness, the only ones who could provide her the safety she required.
They’d risked their lives a half-dozen times in the past forty-eight hours to keep her safe. Or to keep her from Ernesto, anyway. Olivia instinctively knew that was the same thing.
Rafe and Bobby could have hidden in those desert hills for weeks and never been found. They hadn’t needed to steal one of Ernesto’s Land Cruisers to drive her to La Paz. They hadn’t needed to be at the La Paz airport, sitting ducks for the police and Ernesto’s men. They hadn’t needed to dump over a taco trailer and steal
another
car and drive like lunatics so she would be safe. They could have faded into thin air. She’d seen them do it.
But they hadn’t faded into thin air. They’d done everything they could to keep her alive. Criminals or not, she wouldn’t leave them now for the world. Her survival instincts had thoroughly overridden her common sense.
They stopped running when they hit the streets, and Rafe and Bobby tucked their weapons back into their waistbands. The three of them tried to blend in with the strolling tourists and the busy townspeople. They ducked through stores, going in the front, heading out the back, doing everything they could to disappear.
It was not enough, Rafe knew. He caught a glimpse of one of the Land Cruisers as it slowly patrolled a side street, the driver and passengers—not Cervantes this time—squinting intently into the faces of passing pedestrians.
Rafe stopped dead at a shop window, when the vehicle turned onto the street where they were walking. He watched the reflection of the cruiser as it slipped past, keeping his body between Olivia and the street. Bobby had gone into a crouch the instant Rafe had stopped, ducking his head, blending into the scene. Olivia stood frozen with dread, expecting any moment to feel Rafael’s big body shudder at her back as a bullet ripped through him.
“Where’s Cervantes?” Rafe muttered, as the vehicle turned down the next cross street.
Bobby rose casually, shrugged.
Rafe pushed his fingers through his hair. “We’ll have to hole up again.”
Bobby sucked on his teeth. “Day after tomorrow’s the nineteenth,” he said enigmatically.
“I know what day it is,
vato.
”
“What does the date matter?” Olivia asked, her voice trembling. She wanted to go again, get out of the open, but neither man was making any move. So she stayed still, trapped between Rafe and the storefront, while he and Bobby talked to each other without taking their eyes off the reflection of the street.
“We have to be back in Aldea Viejo before the nineteenth,” Bobby said. “We’re intercepting a shipment.”
“You know,” Rafe said in disgust, “why don’t you just tell her the national soccer scores while you’re at it?”
Olivia had turned her head, was staring at him in horror. “You’d go back? For a shipment of drugs, you’d risk your life?”
“That’s what I do,
princesa.
”
“Oh, my God.” She looked at him for a moment more, then broke from his grasp and began walking, alone, down the street.
She didn’t finish a third step before she was whirled back around to face him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to the police.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I am, Rafael. You two are obviously too stupid to protect yourselves, much less me. I’m going to the police. I can’t imagine every single one of them knows and cooperates with Ernesto.” She tried, unsuccessfully, to wrench her arm from his grasp. “I’m sure I’ll be safer there than I am with you two lunatics,” she said as patiently as her roiling stomach and her pounding heart would allow. “I’ll just give them your description and your last known whereabouts, and they’ll come by and arrest you and save your stupid lives for you.”
“Olivia, you’re not going to the police,” he said, his expression stern. “And I am not going to stand here on the street with you and argue about it.”