Hell on the Heart (24 page)

When Nicholae said nothing, Cezi swirled back to look at the dais. Poppy’s face was a thundercloud as he glared at the entire group gathered in the hall. Two people in the room were angry on her behalf. It gave her courage.

“There’s a college near Houston I’d like to attend. If I’m accepted, will the community pay for it?”

The old man rose from his chair, his hand griping the table for support. His back bent by the years, but the pride in his eyes and the kind smile on his face made her overlook his frailties’.

“Every year you wish to attend, we will pay for tuition, books, room and board. If you have extra expenses they will be covered.”

The caveat of the cards became clear. The roadblocks to her hidden dreams, the ones she kept buried deep inside, vanished. In her family’s eyes she would always be crippled. The thing she dreaded the most, being banished, was the one thing that would set her free.

Poppy scowled at the group, before adding. “The money will come from the community distribution fund, but particularly from the Romney family, the Davenport family and the Akil family. I’m ashamed of all of you.”

He stepped down from the dais, grimaced, but as his body straightened he once again graced his great granddaughter with a smile and gallantly offered his arm. “Walk me home, please.”

“Uh-huh.” Cain had been a snake. And the apple he offered was for her to get in the car, so he could show her a good time. Only he didn’t plan for her to live to share the joy.

“Family supports you, but a Shaman protects you. Who is the Shaman?” Poppy asked.

“My mother? Her voice was in my head the whole time.”

“That makes sense. A hunter will fix you in his sights, refers to the gunman on Friday night. While Cowboys surround the wagons, that was tonight. What’s the next part?”

For a man who’d just scolded his family, he acted like their behavior was completely expected. Why was that? And what was the next line?

“Your safety rides with the Indian,” Poppy prompted as though sensing she couldn’t remember.

Had this happened already?

“And the most important words of advice: In order to survive you must remain true to your heart even at the cost of sacred beliefs. It seems, my child, the testing has only begun.”

Lights burned at Uncle Luca’s home and while Cezi hadn’t been planning to stop, she needed to sort her thoughts. Her father had told her Rolf’s recovery went well, but she hadn’t seen it for herself. Right now, she wasn’t taking his word at face value.

Instead of heading to the front door, she skirted the outside of the house to the backyard and the second floor deck that opened to several bedrooms. Rolf’s was the last one. As usual his door was unlocked.

No lights. Closed blinds, but his scratchy gasps sounded painful.

“Rolf?”

He snorted and sputtered before relaxing into his shallow ragged breaths. She tried speaking his name again to no avail. A chair beside his bed meant other family members spent time in vigils. Cezi sank into the chair and clutched her cousin’s cool hand.

“I’ve hit new depths for screwing up my life and you weren’t here to help.” In the dark she poured out the details of a day she’d like to forget, except for the part where she’d had the best sex of her life with Stillwater.

But she’d managed to even mess up that. “Why’d you think I’d even consider an outsider?” As she’d uttered those words, Stillwater’s face had hardened into a mask she’d never get another chance to peak behind. She shouldn’t have found that devastating, yet she did.

In slightly over twenty-four hours, every man she counted on was out of the picture. For the first time in her life, she was truly alone.

Had it not been two am, Stillwater would have walked to town and found a motel room - anything to be away from the gypsies. His jaw ached from being tightly clenched. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted to punch something as much as now.

Instead he lay in the cozy bed of Czigany’s childhood home and watched the minutes tick by, while he debated how to handle the situation when his team showed up in the morning. For the third time in as many minutes, he flipped his pillow searching for a cooler side.

Her words rang in his ears. “Why’d you think I’d even consider an outsider?” And she’d looked straight at him when she’d spoken. Just in case he hadn’t gotten the message. Get over it, bub, you were a diversion. Nothing more than stormy afternoon fling. He wanted more. She didn’t.

“Please don’t say you’re sorry or that the sex was a mistake.” What a laugh. He’d totally misread her meaning. He’d never had to put himself on the line for a woman before, and he wasn’t good at it. But still, he’d done it and she’d kicked him in the teeth. Nice.

His phone, set to vibrate from the meeting, now buzzed and danced around the nightstand. “Stillwater.”

“SAIC Greenberg, FBI, El Paso. Washington wanted to keep you in the loop. You’ve been following a group of white slavers whose MO includes a private jet and a black limo?”

El Paso? “Yeah.”

“This evening across the border, a house about fifty miles southeast of here, detonated, killing eleven people. We think it was where they were holding your girls.”

“No. Five of the deaths were Mexican Police who triggered the explosion by bursting through a rear door to rescue a group of hostages.”

“The group was tied together and all wore pants, hoodies and masks. It has since been determined three were woman identified as cooks and housekeepers, two were male gardeners and one a handyman. Their families reported them missing.”

“Anything left of the house?”

“A pile of rubble. But the place had been cleaned out. According the wife of the handy man, everyone had been called in for the weekend to help pack up the furnishings with the promise of ‘mucho dinaro,’ paid in cash. The families also told us that girls came and went with regularity.”

“I’ll bet she’s the girl out of Chicago. It’d fit the time frame. A couple members of my team will arrive within a few hours and can fill you in on the details. Can you tell if they crossed the border?”

“Black limo driven by Elijah J. Kirgengard followed by a tan fifteen-seat passenger van driven by Paul Shriver crossed at nine-seventeen last night.”

“This sets us back another step. They’ll be off the radar for another couple of weeks while they set up in a new location,” Skeet said when Stillwater finished.

“True, but it also means they are running scared. Otherwise, why go to the trouble of destroying the house and killing the workers?”

“They have more to lose. What’s the first thing you’d do in this circumstance?”

Stillwater scratched his head as he thought about his answer. “For them, everything headed south when they met the gypsies. I’d be plotting revenge, big time.”

Cain held his breath and focused on identifying the voices in the room. His shoulder hurt, a sharp pain would impede him if he had to move quickly, but his brain’s lack of clarity worried him more.

Where was he? Nowhere he knew. Had he arrived here with friends or enemies?

“His color looks better.” That gruff Bostonian accent was easy to identify. Herod. Cain relaxed, but didn’t open his eyes. He wasn’t sure that he could. Each eyelid weighed a million pounds. Besides by playing possum he might learn something he didn’t know like why they weren’t in Mexico. The smell was different - less hot air. What day was it?

The bed eased with the weight of a warm body. “You wanted him to make that trip awake? He’ll begin to snap out of it in a day or two.” Adam. He should’ve known by the stench. With Adam this close, he was glad others were in the room, not that it would offer him any protection.

A rumbling electronic noise came up from the floor. “Eli, the guys are back from the store. Go down and give them a hand unloading.”

Now he knew for sure they weren’t in Mexico. This bedroom was over a garage. The garage in Mexico was detached.

Footsteps followed by a closing door. Eli was gone.

“You’re giving him another injection?” Herod spoke as a warm hand grabbed his arm and pushed up his sleeve. A cold wet cloth dabbed his forearm. Before he could brace himself, a prick followed and the hand dropped his arm.

“Less this time. He’s not coming out of it as fast as I anticipated, but I’m buying us time. Did you find any of his off-shore accounts?”

“I have a lead in the Cayman’s. I hope to know something in a couple of days.”

Cain’s head began to swim as color seeped out of his world. He concentrated harder on distinguishing each word. Cayman Islands. Accounts. His accounts. His three million dollars. Had he covered his tracks well enough? He thought so. Still it worried him.

The bed eased again as Adam stood. Someone shuffled stuff on the nightstand next to his head.

“The Mexico explosion made the paper.” Herod’s voice came from the direction of the far wall. “The FBI claims they know who we are.”

“Our buyers are running scared. We’ll lay low for a few weeks, while I look for another base of operation and another revenue stream.”

The pounding on Cezi’s door woke her from a sound sleep and a delicious dream. She pulled a robe over her camisole and groped her way to the front door. Annoyed she flung open the door, prepared to give the hapless victim a few words to remember.

Her cousin, Tomas, the youngest of Uncle Luca’s sons lounged against the door jam. He spoke before she could lambast him. “Just thought you’d want to know. The Indian split about an hour ago.”

John left for the second time without saying goodbye? An ugly pattern was developing. “Which car did he take?”

“None. Left on foot, walking toward town.”

What? This wasn’t a good sign. She stuck her fingers into the tangled mess of her hair, attempting, without success to comb through. Tomas snickered and she rolled her eyes in annoyance.

Was John leaving for good this time? She’d called this one. No matter how affectionate he appeared yesterday, she was another one-night wonder. Better to be annoyed with Tomas than wear her heartbreak on her sleeve. Imagine how fast that’d make the rounds.

You’re wrong.

When he whispered those words to her, what had she thought? Exactly what he wanted her to think. That their relationship, if one could go so far as to put a label on it, meant something to him. Yeah, it meant one more opportunity to double dip yesterday afternoon.