New Growth (Spook Hills Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

Callie leaned towards him and said with more firmness than
usual in her voice.
 
“John Henry’s severe
alcohol problem impacts everyone around him.
 
You defended
me,
and I appreciate
it. ”

“What will you do?” Mathew
asked
,
trying not to sound too hopeful that Callie might leave her husband.

“Fly back to California next Sunday.
 
If John Henry fails to enroll in a sobriety
program, I’ll try to talk him into going.”

“If he doesn’t?”

“I will stay a week and keep trying.”

“If he still fails to commit to sobriety?”
 
Even though Mathew knew he was pressing a
little hard on a sensitive issue, this might be his only opportunity to find
out how committed Callie remained to her husband.

Callie stared at the distant coastal range.
 
She straightened her back and said in a
small, tight voice, “I will pack, come back up and file for divorce.”

“If he goes for treatment, you will stay with him?”

“Provided he sticks with the program, yes I think I
should.
 
Susannah needs a father.”

Mathew gazed at her dubiously.

“He was witty and charming, even quite scholarly.
 
The university passed him over several times
for
promotion.
 
W
hile he is tenured, he is not on a
path to become the head of his department, which remains his goal.
 
If he gets and stays sober, perhaps he will
start researching and writing
again and
his career will regain momentum.”

Mathew stopped, checked on Harry and Cleo and turned to
Callie, placing his hands on her arms.
 
“Where is Callie in all this?
 
What does Callie want?
 
What are
her ambitions?”

When Callie ducked her
head,
Mathew
let his hands drop back down.
 
The warm
August air floated around them while he waited for her to answer his questions.

“I wanted a doctorate in art
history
to acquire the credentials to work in a museum,” Callie said in such a quiet
voice Mathew almost missed the words.

“What happened?” he asked, walking nearer to hear her words
as she spoke.

“I became pregnant with Susannah.
 
John Henry’s first wife left
him,
and he married me.
 
Having to marry one of his students derailed
his career or at least that is his perception.”

“He never lets you forget.
 
Is a career in art history still your objective?”

“Now I’m torn.
 
I love
vineyard work too.
 
More than anything
Susannah comes first.”

Mathew stopped again to face Callie.
 
He wanted to hold this woman with her
troublesome husband and make her life better.
 
Even though he condoned divorce, he interpreted a marriage commitment as
sacrosanct for the duration of the marital vows.
 

“Susannah should perceive you as a
beau ideal
or a role model, as well as her mother.
 
You can and should follow your dreams as long
as you remain committed to Susannah and you make your time with her
special.”
 

Callie’s eyes glistened in the softening light.
 
She shivered a little, even though the
evening retained the warmth of the day.
 
Mathew put an arm around her as they turned to meander back down the
hill to the house.
 
Having her lissome
body snuggled against him created stirrings in his heart
and in
his groin.
 
He forced himself to suppress the arousal
caused by her closeness.

“I’m here for you as a friend, Callie.
 
Amicus
est
tanquam
alter idem
.”

“A friend is almost another self,” Callie said, translating
for him.
 
“You like Latin, don’t you?”

“Latin is the root of many English words,” Mathew said, “and
I find words fascinating.
 
I like the way
certain words sound and how my tongue forms
them.
 
I enjoy discovering their
derivations.
 
Our language is so rich that neglecting words saddens me.”
 
He paused to open the front door for Callie
but before she could enter the house, the corgis burst inside the way they did,
with a triumphant sense of their significance at any gathering.
 

Enjoyable revelry enhanced their dinner when Mathew opened
three masked bottles of local wine and challenged each person to ascertain the
winery and vintage.
 
After Rick
botched
identifying one of his award-winning
wines
, the meal collapsed in a disarray of
hilarity.
 

Over dessert Ivy and Steve described their adventures in
Norway and then they put on Norwegian music, performing a folk dance learned on
their travels.
 
A big
couple for dancing, Steve towered over everyone at 6’5” with
a solid build.
 
Ivy stood a graceful six
feet with a curvy figure.
 
Like
Steve,
she kept herself trim and in shape. They
ending their dancing by falling into each other’s arms merry with laughter when
they collided during a twirl.

Mathew found himself fondly watching Callie as his friends
danced and wondered if she ever had opportunities to be as light-hearted as Ivy
this evening.
 
What that gentle woman
suffered and might still go through with John Henry, he shuddered to
imagine.
 

His dream persisted for finding an intelligent, caring
person to grow with him.
 
He wanted
intimacy interwoven with love.
 
Even
though she remained with her husband, Callie reached a little-touched place in
his heart.
 
Free of John Henry, Callie
could blossom into the fuller woman buried inside of her.
 
Even if she left him, how long would she need
to heal from the intimidation and verbal abuse of her narcissistic
husband?
 

On
Monday
Cruze
woke with a start.
 
The sun moved high in
the sky, flooding his little house with bright light.
 
Y
esterday
was a worrisome
day,
and he only found
sleep towards dawn.
 
For the first time
in his life, his twin brother did not contact him on their birthday.
 
They were born forty-four years before as
Cristo and Cruze Fuentes.
  

As the first-born Cristo had arrived about fifteen minutes
ahead of him and from that
moment,
he
became the leader.
 
Ever since Cruze
remembered, Cristo greeted him on their birthday with a celebratory
salutation.
 
Yesterday
his cell did not ring.
 
Once his brothers had bought Cruze out of their drug business and
related ventures, they had agreed on no interactions between them until Cristo
and Eduardo found a way to exit what they called Fuentes Enterprises.
 
Cristo had insisted upon one exception – that
he might still wish his twin brother a happy birthday.
 
Cruze made sure to charge his
phone,
and
he
warmly anticipated his brother’s call.
 

Back when
he
wanted to
begin a new life, Cristo had grown angry with him.
 
Perhaps his resentment festered over
time, and
Cristo
now did not want to talk to him even on their birthday.
 

After a
shower
Cruze
checked the phone again.
 
Nada.
 
No calls.
 
No texts.
 
His phone sported
enough bars for quality communications, but no word came in from Cristo.
 
Cruze wanted to keep his hideaway
undetected.
 
Should he wait a few days or
should he go
over
the mountains today and
into France or somewhere else to read his emails?
 
Cristo’s silence scared him, for his siblings
and for
himself.
 

He tugged on a clean chambray top with faded jeans and
walked
into the kitchen
to make
coffee.
 
Was Cristo mad at him or had an
underworld deal gone sour?
 
Had the
Mexicans become more aggressive about taking over the Fuentes’ business
ventures?
 
Had the FBI found a trail to
Eduardo or Cristo?
 
Could the persistent
big agent have picked up the threads of the case against the elusive El Zorro
Astuto,
as they used to call themselves
collectively?
 
Might another gangland
boss have taken Cristo out in a power-play, leaving house-bound Eduardo
stranded in New Mexico?

Cruze thought
about their
steps
to remain anonymous.
 
No one
knew their real identities or even that three brothers existed.
 
They had taken care to ensure each trail
remained untraceable.
 
They never gave
out their real names, not even for a driver’s license or a passport.
 
They had changed IDs frequently.
 
How could anyone trace them?

He poured himself a mug of coffee, took out a thermos and
filled it too, adding cream and sugar to both.
 
The milky liquid swirled around his spoon like eddies in a muddy
stream.
 
As he stirred and then sipped
some coffee, he thought about Cristo and Eduardo.

His younger brother, Eduardo, had supplied the brains for
their initiatives.
 
More than anything
Cristo and Eduardo had wanted a wealthy lifestyle.
 
As they grew up, Cristo had served as the
face of the operation to the world.
 
He
had negotiated the deals.
 
He
was the tough guy, but unlike most bruisers
Cristo was smart.
 
He had hired actors to
impersonate him, allowing the Fuentes to appear in several places at one time,
keeping their real locations secret.
 

He
had always
functioned as the big brother to Cruze and Eduardo.
 
The movement and repackaging of narcotics had
become a contest to Cristo where
he
could
outsmart their underworld associates, the cops, the DEA and even the FBI.
  
Cristo had played well and boldly.
 
Only Eduardo could talk him into more
conservative
paths to achieve the ends they
wanted.

And himself?
 
He had
moved the product from Point A to Point B without detection.
 
He had handled the cash after Cristo did the
collections.
 
He had worked as a shadow
to Cristo and covered his back.
 
Nevertheless
since grade school, Cruze had
harbored
a desire
to be an artist or
craftsman.

Together they had gone from nothing to almost billionaires
through their role in the drug trade.
 
They had handled the logistics of taking poppy-based byproducts from the
source to where they had repackaged the bales into small lots for street
distribution.
 
Most of the traffic they
coordinated went from Colombia to Mexico to the United States.
 
They had avoided commerce with the pushers
and with the users, only supplying the larger dealers.
 
They had operated as the middlemen who moved
and traded big lots of heroin.
 

He walked outside, breathed in the warm mid-day air, sat
down on the steps and speculated about how someone might have traced his
brothers to the house in New Mexico. After considering his options, he elected
to drive to Madrid and fly to Zurich.
 
From there, he could make calls and try to find out if his brothers were
alright.

After going back into the house, Cruze emptied the coffee
mug, washed it and snatched up the small duffel bag he kept packed for times
like these.
 
He used a pry bar to tug up
a broad
floorboard for access to the safe
cemented into the ground.
 
Two new sets
of IDs, corresponding credit cards, a stack of Euros and another cell phone
would be sufficient.
 
If compelled to
run, he had other money and identification
squirreled
away in Amsterdam, Istanbul, Budapest and Rome.
 
He closed and locked the safe, then tacked the floorboard back in
place.
 

Walking across the yard to an outbuilding housing his dusty
four-wheel-drive
VW, he strode past his
glass-working center with reluctance.
 
He
wanted to keep this place of refuge for his glasswork because this was his best
home since his childhood.

The VW started up with a little cough of dust.
 
He eased the SUV out of the yard and headed
left, taking a seldom-used dirt road which ran away from the village and over
the mountains.
 
Was he fretting needlessly over a missed phone call?