Next Time You See Me (17 page)

Chapter 12

M
y brain shuffled frantically between consciousness and dream: Mac and I, hand in hand, run into the untamed countryside of the Yucatan. Palm fronds are vibrant green. The sky is sheer, vivid blue. The air is light and warm. We are naked, our skin is cool. We
know
in the way that you know something in a dream that Ben is safe on the other side of the road, awaiting us. And the rest of it, starting with Hugh and Aileen’s murders to Danny’s arrest to Mac’s disappearance and suicide . . . the rest of it has been a terrible nightmare from which we have finally awoken.

We run.

Together.

Escaping the nightmare.

And then my mind careened to consciousness, back to the grievous reality of Mac’s body collapsed beside me. The reality that Mac was dead. I had come all the way to Mexico to find out if he might possibly still be alive—and now
he was dead
. His body lay in the dust, proof positive. I had satisfied my stubborn quest by fulfilling the worst possible end of my nightmare.

The mental anguish was unbearable.

But it would be over soon. Any moment.

Because I was next.

I closed my eyes and waited, forehead pressed into the ground, close enough to smell the elemental characteristics of the earth: eons of compounded minerals. Dust to dust. A return to nothingness.

Hurry.
Please.
Get it over with.
End this.

Footsteps shuffled a cloud of dust into my face. Someone crouched beside me. I felt my wrists being untied.

“Get up,” Diego said.

My mind defied his order but my body obeyed. I stood there, blinking. Mac was crouched forward in exactly the same position I’d just been in. He was perfectly still. I couldn’t see any blood but assumed it was because I didn’t want to see it. I knew about trauma: how your mind played tricks. I imagined I saw his back rise and fall with breath.

Diego squatted and began to pull apart the ties at Mac’s wrists.

The acrid stench of fresh blood drew my attention behind me. I turned around. And there was Felix, lying on his back in a spreading pool of blood that seeped from his head, half of which had been blown away.

As soon as Mac’s wrists were untied he sat up, flexing his fingers. His forehead was covered in dirt.

My mind spun in every direction.

Mac was alive
.

I was imagining this
.

It was real
.

“Get up,” Diego said. “Hurry.”

Mac brought one leg forward, planting his foot on the ground, then followed it with the other foot and stood laboriously. He took a deep breath. Looked at Diego.

“I thought you’d come around,” he said with the durable patience a father affords a child; his words forged in forgiveness.

“I never had a father.” Diego’s bravado had diminished to something close to humility. Suddenly he had shrunk from an angry god bent on revenge to a confused young man aching for elusive fulfillment.

“I never had you, either. But I can try to be your father now.”

“My entire life,” Diego said, “I’ve dreamed of you, but you never had a face. Now I know how to picture you.”

Mac smiled and tentatively reached out a hand. But Diego kept his distance, not ready, it seemed, to risk too much trust. Then, suddenly, he reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled something out, and thrust it into Mac’s hand. We both stared: It was Aileen’s engagement ring, crusted with dried blood.

Mac’s shaking fingers closed to a fist around his mother’s ring. In the darkness I could see the silver glint of his eyes watering, the draining of color from his face.

“
Go
.” Diego glanced at Felix’s body, which had attracted a swarm of flies. “I am going to bury him as you, and return to my mother.”

“You don’t have to,” Mac said. “You can come with us.”

Diego shook his head. “If I don’t return, it will be worse than if I do.”

Neither Mac nor I could argue with that: We had experienced the determination of Ana’s wrath. Diego would have to work up close with her to maintain her trust because without it he would be as endangered as Mac and I were.
Heaven has no Rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned
, William Congreve wrote in
The Mourning Bride
, a play an unusually lyrical professor had had us read last year in a course called Psychology of Madness. Well, if anyone was a bride in constant mourning, it was Ana to her first love, and it would be Ana to her son if she lost him, too.

“
Run
,” Diego said. “If I need you, I will find you.”

He went to the gaping van, hopped in, and rooted around for tools. He would need a spade to bury Felix. It would be easy enough to explain away Felix’s disappearance: He was a lackey and a junkie, not reliable on either count.

I reached for Mac’s hand and tugged him forward. “Let’s go.”

He glanced at Diego. I could tell he was confused, that he didn’t want to leave the young man. But I also knew that this brand-new son, for all his good intentions at the moment, could just as easily retreat to the brutality he knew best. He was taking an enormous risk on many levels by giving Mac the ring and letting us go. An insane risk, if you really thought about it. But there was no time to think. We had to get moving.

I tugged Mac’s hand again. “Come on,” I whispered. “He could change his mind.”

Mac nodded; he knew that anything was possible.

We ran together up the road as fast as we could. It was getting darker and the sounds of nighttime were gathering around us. My legs felt weak from having been tightly bound, now twice, and I felt a kind of exhaustion I hadn’t known existed. But as I ran, I imagined light, strength, and speed surging through my limbs. I pumped my arms to ratchet myself forward. My heart beat like a machine, thumping hard in my chest. Sweat poured down my face in the cool humidity. I was aware of Mac’s labored breathing beside me as he also pushed himself to his limit, propelling his body and mind forward—away from danger. And in his case, away from a child, a future he had detoured from once before without knowing it. The difference this time was that he knew he was leaving behind a son. I felt for him. But he was also running toward a son,
our
son . . . and a resolution to his parents’ murders. Now that I had found Mac, now that we had survived against the odds, I was determined not to let him slip away again.

When we had run for nearly a mile and had reached the main road, we both keeled over. We were drenched, panting.

“She’ll kill him,” Mac said when he caught his breath.

“You don’t know that.”

“She’ll give an order, it’ll trip down a chain of command, and someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing will kill him. That’s how it works. That’s why she’s so dangerous.”

“He seems smart, Mac. And he knows her much better than you do.
And he’s her child, she loves him
. He’ll handle her.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Suddenly I was overcome with powerful emotion, and I started to weep. “How did we get here?”

Mac pulled me into his arms and held me so tightly I could hardly breathe. We kissed deeply, passionately.

“I love you,” he said, crying now himself.

“I had so much trouble letting you go.”

“
Never
let me go.” He kissed me again.

Holding hands, we started walking along the edge of the road. Occasionally a car sped past, but not many.

“I’ve always had a good instinct,” I said. “I didn’t see you as a man who would bolt. And I didn’t see you as a suicide. Your story wasn’t, you know,
believable
, at least not to me.”

“I was a little worried about that. And I was right to worry. You shouldn’t have come here, Karin. For Ben’s sake. We were both nearly killed.”

“In twenty-twenty hindsight, I’d have to agree with you.”

“How is our baby?”

“Great. Ben’s great. He stopped asking for you after a while, it was terrible, but it was for the best.”

“I feel so awful about all of this, you have no idea.”

“I know you do.”

We picked up our pace. The road was intermittently lit and in the far distance I could barely make out a road sign, but not its color.

“Where do you think we are?” I asked.

“Don’t know.” He squinted at the sign. “I’m hoping we’re somewhere near the border.”

We walked and walked as the air grew cold. I shivered and Mac pulled me close, slowing us down but making me happy.
Here we were, together
. I still could hardly believe it. As we continued onward and the moon arced higher overhead, I began to think we would never arrive anywhere. It was the strangest sensation. And that sign seemed to get farther away the closer we got, as if it was nothing but a mirage.

“I’m so thirsty,” I said.

“You’re dehydrated. They had you in that hole for about thirty hours. I got there as fast as I could . . .”

He didn’t finish the thought: . . .
and if you hadn’t made such a fuss, we might have gotten away by car and been across the border by now, minus one harrowing close call
. We also wouldn’t have learned about Diego. I wondered if Mac felt he’d be better off not knowing, or if it was worth what we’d been through. He probably didn’t know how he felt yet; it was all happening so fast.

Far ahead, a pair of red taillights flicked on. Only now did I realize that a car had been parked near the sign. The taillights began to move, red ovals swerving onto the road. The car stopped, and then began moving backward.

“Do you see that?” I squinted in the darkness.

“I see it.”

We stopped walking a moment to watch. The car was now driving in reverse at accelerating speed.

“What the hell is going on?” Mac grabbed my hand.

“I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”

We both started to run.

Chapter 13

T
he car moved faster and faster. We stepped off the side of the road to put some distance between it and us, skidding down a sloped embankment.

At two hundred feet, still driving in reverse, the car angled in our direction with such specificity and intent, my bad feeling exploded into certainty: It was definitely gunning for us.

At a hundred feet, the car headed down the embankment.

We ran as fast as we could, letting go of each other’s hands, taking flight in opposite directions.

But the car kept coming, aiming for the center space between us.

And then, suddenly, it spun around and drove straight at Mac.

Insanely, I followed it—I couldn’t help myself. I picked up a rock and flung it at the rear window. It bounced off. I found a larger, sharper rock and heaved it with all my strength, and this time it made real impact. A web of cracks exploded across the back windshield.

The car skidded to a stop.

Both front doors flung open.

It was dark, I was frantic, and at first I couldn’t see who they were but there were two of them. From the passenger side came someone who was tall and loped forward with a masculine stride—a man. From the driver’s side came someone smaller and more slender, moving with a feminine blend of determination and grace.

The man headed for me.

The woman for Mac.

“Karin!” the man shouted. “
Karin!
”

The woman meanwhile called to Mac; her voice sounded familiar: “Hold it! Stop running!”

I heard Mac grind to a halt. Heard him panting for breath.

“What the— Are you out of your mind?” Mac yelled.

“You blew it!” the woman screamed at him. “We lost her!”

“I had no choice! Karin showed up! What was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, man, but you don’t ditch a job—
ever
.”

Her voice . . .
it sounded just like Jasmine
. What on earth would
she
be doing here? I slowed down, feeling dizzy. They were talking as if they knew each other. But Mac didn’t know Jasmine, and Jasmine did not know Mac. I met her
after
he disappeared.

“Whoa!” The tall man jumped in front of me, holding out his hands to catch my shoulders. “Hold on there!”

The headlights of the stopped car blazed in the opposite direction, creating a fog of illumination in which a man with curly blond hair and a thick trimmed beard stood, facing me.

“Who are you?”

“Come on.” He reached out a hand.

Off to the side, Mac and Jasmine were still arguing.

I backed away, turned, and started walking. Whatever this was, it didn’t feel right.

He grabbed my arm and stopped me. “We came to help you; we’ll talk in the car.”

“No,” I said, “we’ll talk now.”

His smile was a flash of white in the darkness, almost friendly, but his tone was all business. “I hear you, but you’re not the only one risking your life.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me, resisting all the way, to the car. Then he pushed me into the backseat and slammed the door. I felt a weird combination of safe and confused. As my brain slowed a bit, I began to realize that
Jasmine
was here. They had to be on our side. They had to have come to help us. But that was about the only thing that made any sense.

Mac stalked to the car, fending off more recrimination from Jasmine I could hear only parts of:

“We were
this close
to closing the deal.”

“. . . pull the thread on Soliz you pull the thread on a web . . . thousand miles . . .”

“When are we gonna get someone like you in there again?
Never
.”

What was she talking about?

And then Mac stopped her tirade by digging into his pocket and handing her Aileen’s ring. “Here. See? Don’t tell me that’s
nothing
.”

My mind took that in first like a wife, then like a cop.

Mac had just handed Jasmine the ring.
Why?

The ring would put Ana Maria Soliz away for murder, thereby also disabling her cartel. A double whammy. Two cases for the price of one.

I stared at Mac as he slid in beside me, wondering anew who he really was. He stared back and took my hand. I pulled it away.

“Close the deal on what?”

His hand followed mine and this time squeezed. “I didn’t lie to you, I just didn’t finish the story. Obviously, in front of Ana, there was only so much I could say.”

“Can you say it now? Or is this also not what it seems? Not that I have any idea what’s going on here.” The longer I talked, the angrier my tone grew; but the sound of my voice betrayed only a fraction of the depth of bafflement roiling inside me.

Jasmine slipped into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine. The man got in next to her. They glanced at each other, and before driving she paused to dig into her purse, nestled between the two front seats. She pulled out a pink billfold with an illustration of a kitten wearing a tiara, flipped it open, and flashed an ID card with her photograph sandwiched between a header,
U.S. Special Agent
, and a footer,
Drug Enforcement Administration
.

My mouth dropped open.

“What?”

The man then showed us
his
DEA ID: Special Agent Fred Miller.

“What’s going on here?” I asked. “How did you find us?”

“It’s an hour to the Merida airport,” Jasmine said. “Let’s get there and then we’ll talk.”

“Can I ask one question?”

“You already did. Matter of fact, you asked two.” She stepped on the gas, the engine roared, and we drove up the embankment onto the road.

“Are you DEA, too?” I asked Mac.

He looked at me, shadows dancing across his face. He didn’t nod yes. But he didn’t shake his head no, either.

F
ifty-seven minutes later we drove up to a guard station at the Merida airport and Jasmine flashed her ID again. In seconds we were cleared to bypass customs and go directly to a small plane waiting on the closest runway. The staircase was rolled away as soon as we were inside—it was a six-seater with a quartet of cream leather armchairs facing each other over two small tables and an area in the back crammed with surveillance equipment. It looked like someone’s luxury plaything that had been customized for surveillance, which fit the bill based on what I knew about the Feds and their covert operations; this was not a group that sought logo identification and so they tended to buy private planes and reinvent them on the inside.

The hatch was sealed and as we hurriedly buckled up, the engine whirred almost silently into action. The two pilots had us up in the air before I even realized we’d left the ground.

I sat in my window seat, watching the arteries connecting to the airport diminish to a spindly map of veins and then vanish altogether beneath cloud cover. Mac sat across the aisle, looking through his window. Jasmine and Fred sat facing us, ignoring the view, though I bet they had taken notice on their way in when their minds were wandering, figuring out how and where and when and in what condition they were going to find us. How
had
they found us? I didn’t know—but the amount of equipment packed into the back of the plane suggested they could find just about anyone they wanted to.

“Nice plane,” I said to Jasmine. “Is it yours?”

“I wish.”

“What am I thinking? Yours would be pink with gold-plated accessories.”

“Now you’re talking.” Refusing to take my bait, she smiled like the old Jasmine. Only she wasn’t the old Jasmine. She was someone I didn’t know.

Questions fired through my brain. And anger. The insult of having been duped by my husband and friend really stung.

“So, what—are you two partners?”

“Not exactly. Mine got reassigned and I was put on Fred’s case to work undercover, what”—she looked at Fred—“about a year ago?”

He nodded. “Just about.”

“What else am I wondering right now?” My tone hardened; I didn’t care. “Let’s see: Were you really just divorced? Are you really from Maine?”

“Listen, Karin—” Jasmine stopped herself with a huff of frustration, then tried again. “Everything we did together and everything I said was for real, just with some missing pieces. You’ve got to understand that we couldn’t tell you about this while it was happening.”

“There were serious security issues,” Fred added.

“That’s right,” Jasmine said. “Mac’s life was on the line.”

Mac looked at me, his exhausted eyes somber but alert. “You don’t know how hard it was not telling you.”

“As hard as it was thinking you were dead?”

“Actually”—his tone rose—“
yes
. If not harder. Karin, I feel awful about this in ways you might not even be able to imagine. It’s been a nightmare.”

The depth of his tone, the sadness of his face, pulled at my heart.

“Please, Mac”—I reached for his hand—“tell me
everything
. All of it. No more secrets.”

He undid his seat belt and swiveled to face me. “Do you remember back in August, that morning at home when you read me the article about my promotion?”

“When you were in the bathroom?”

“That’s right. And a little while later, the phone rang.”

I thought back: Mac had answered a call, said hello a couple of times, and the “unknown caller” had hung up. “I remember.”

“That was Ana calling from the Hotel Collins.”

“Ana.” It took a moment to sink in.

“That’s when she made herself known.”

“What did she say—
exactly
?”

“She said, ‘Dylan—I’ve been waiting a long time for you to repay me.’ And she told me where to find her in Miami. She had picked up a copy of the
New York Times
that morning, just by chance.”

“And you said nothing.”

“That’s right. I just hung up.”

“That’s it? You hung up on her? And she had your parents murdered?”

“No. She called me again later at the office. She told me I had a choice: I could meet her in Miami that day or Playa two days later. I told her to give me her address and I’d mail her the money I’d borrowed, with interest.”

I’d met Ana and knew that that was not the answer she’d been looking for.

“You didn’t borrow it, Mac.”

“Stole. The money I
stole
.”

“And she said?”

“She said I had to come in person,
or else
—that kind of thing.”

“What exactly did she say?” I needed to
hear
it, to
see
it unfold as it happened; I needed to banish all those months of wondering.

“Okay. She said, ‘You broke my heart.’ I said, ‘Ana, that was over twenty years ago.’ She said, ‘Some wounds don’t heal.’ It was like one of those soap operas. I didn’t really take it seriously. I wanted to repay her the money, since she’d found me, and I was uncomfortable that she’d found me, but . . .”

I got it. “You didn’t expect it to go that far.”

“Of course not. I told her I couldn’t come see her—”

“
Couldn’t
or
wouldn’t
?”

He thought a moment. “I think I said
wouldn’t
.”

Jasmine and I glanced at each other. She rolled her eyes. Plain refusal to a woman like Ana was never a good bet.

“She told me I’d regret it, but to me it sounded like more bad dialogue.”

“My
abuela
is addicted to those
novelas
on TV,” Jasmine said. “The badder the dialogue, the better the passion.”

“A woman like that tells you to come to her,” Fred said, “man, you tell her you’re on your way and you hightail it in the opposite direction.”

Jasmine sent him a sharp look. He shrugged his shoulders.

“Later that night,” Mac continued, “when you found me at the bar with Billy and told me what happened to my parents . . . only then did I understand how serious the situation was. I called Billy the next day—after you went back home to get Ben and your mom—and told him about Ana and our past, and he made a couple calls. Turned out the Feds had something going on.”

“And that’s when I came into it, and the rest is history,” Jasmine said.

“You went to Bronxville,” I asked Jasmine, “when they were planning the funeral?”

“We deliver.”

I looked at Mac and thought of his brother, Danny, who was sitting in jail that very moment, accused of a double homicide everyone here knew he didn’t commit.

“Danny and Detective Pawtusky—are they in on it, too?” I asked.