On the Loose (15 page)

“Honey,” he said her name, reaching for her. “Come here, baby.”

She lifted her head, and he pulled her up his body, angling himself over her, and he kissed her, taking her mouth again and again, his fingers finding the soft, hot center of her arousal and playing with her.

Her response went straight to his head, and his heart, and his groin. God, she felt so perfect in his arms, and the longer he played with her, the more ready she felt to give him what he wanted. She had one hand in his hair, holding him close, and the other wrapped around his biceps, holding him tight, telegraphing her need for him not to stop, not yet, not until...until—

Her groan echoed in his mouth, her body stiffening. Moment after endless moment, she gave it up for him with soft kisses, and softer bites, and his name on her lips.

“Smith,” she sighed, her body pulsing and moving against him, needing to be closer, and closer. “Oh, Smith.”

He knew.

He knew exactly what she needed.

Fitting himself to her, he thrust, and this time, when the rhythm became irresistible, pulling him on harder and harder, he gave in to it, entering her again and again, until he felt so damn “melded” he came apart inside her.

Geezus. Yes. Always, always, yes.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

Campos Plantation, Morazán Province, El Salvador

From where she sat in her chair by the fireplace, Lily Robbins watched the biggest drug dealer in all of Morazán Province talk on the phone and pace his office.

“Bring the convoy in the east gate and take them to the warehouse,” he was saying. “They can unload there. I'll send Jake over as soon as he gets rid of the CNL.”

Yes, please,
she prayed. Let Jake get rid of the CNL—
Señor
Jake, the guy from the good old U.S. of A. The man's accent and the way he looked were unmistakably American.

Campos was more of a mystery. She'd hardly taken her eyes off him since the moment she'd walked into his kitchen and still hadn't figured him out. Quite literally, she had never seen any one like him.

Never.

“Ask the commander to keep them contained, Tomás,” he continued. “Tell him I'm trying to avoid a confrontation with the CNL just now, and not to let anyone wander away from the building. I'll get there as soon as possible.”

Long dark hair sweeping back off his face, deep-set, forest green eyes, his features finely chiseled, high cheekbones, firm mouth, elegant nose, a faint shadow of beard stubble along his jaw—he could have been ridiculously beautiful for a man.

Three things saved him from such a vacuous fate.

The dangerous grace of his movements—and it wasn't just the shoulder holster he'd quietly shrugged into, or the semiautomatic 1911 he'd smoothly holstered under his left arm. He embodied economy of movement. He paced with languid purpose, his long strides taking him from his weapons safe, to the cell phone he'd picked up from a row of phones on his desk, to the bank of televisions he was turning on, one at a time, between two floor-to-ceiling bookcases housing the works of Shakespeare and Milton, Blake, Rilke, and Whitman.

The biggest drug dealer in Morazán was a highly educated man, or possibly, he merely owned a lot of very good books. Lily wondered if she would ever really know.

The intensity of his gaze saved him from vacuous beauty. In the short hour of their acquaintance, he had been both charming and commanding, the difference between the two so slight as to be almost nonexistent and noticeable only by the subtlest of shifts in his gaze, from direct and forceful, to merely unavoidably direct. He truly was nearly impossible not to watch. Not because of his strikingly handsome looks, but because, like everyone else around him, how would she know what to do, if she didn't watch him?

Everybody watched him—his servants, the guards, the other man who had been in the kitchen, the one named Jake. They watched his eyes for questions, and his hands for gestures. The questions were theirs to answer. The gestures were theirs to obey. Since the minute she'd driven into his compound, every glance, every action, every word, had swirled around him, the center of the universe, Alejandro Campos.

The absolute fact of his absolute sovereignty kept her firmly in her chair, waiting and reminding herself that Sister Julia believed in this man, believed he would save Lily from Garcia without throwing her to some as yet unknown, even more vicious wolf.

But there were rebel soldiers at his gate. Lily could see them on one of the television screens, along with CNN on another, and views of other parts of his compound on the others, and she wasn't at all sure how much of a bargaining chip she might become in order for him to get the rebel soldiers away from his gate. Or worse, he'd mentioned a meeting with Garcia tomorrow. She had to get out of here by then, somehow, some way. If Campos didn't sell her out tonight, she swore she'd figure out some kind of plan for tomorrow.

Or, no doubt, as she had walked into the lion's den, the lion would figure something out for her.

She wondered, fleetingly, if Sister Julia suffered from some sort of saintly dementia where everyone was seen in a good light, even Salvadoran drug lords with green eyes who did not look particularly Hispanic.

He stepped back to his desk and entered a few keystrokes on his computer's keyboard, then closed the cell phone and slipped it into his pants pocket.

He did look particularly exotic in a black silk shirt, cream-colored linen slacks, and a pair of expensive black leather dress boots. His belt was black, narrow, and adorned with an ornate silver buckle. He was tall, elegant, assured, and undoubtedly dangerous, and only one last thing saved him from vacuous beauty. Not only saved him, but destroyed any illusion or potential claims of perfection: the scar. For all that she was staring at him, she was trying very hard not to stare at his scar.

It ran along the left side of his face, from above his temple, down to his jaw, a troubled line of white—an old scar, long healed, that looked as if someone had meant business. It followed his hairline too closely for it to have been the result of an accident.

No. He'd purposely been cut, and she didn't even want to imagine the circumstances under which the deed had been done. He was a drug dealer. She'd read horrible things about drug dealers in the newspapers and news magazines, things everybody heard and hoped would never happen to them or anyone they loved.

Take a sabbatical,
she'd told herself.
See the world.

Well, here she was, all right, seeing the inside of a drug lord's private office, and he owned Rilke. Whether Campos read the poet or not, she was impressed, and probably not nearly as frightened as she should be.

The scar alone was a warning of violence, but Lily's capacity for panic appeared to have a limit, and she'd used almost all of it in the last two days, hiding from the CNL in St. Joseph, taking the risks of filming, pushing herself to be a witness to the violence of Teresa's beating and the young soldier's wrenching death, and to the death of the pilot.

A bone-deep shiver went through her and had nothing to do with being wet and cold. It was pure emotion.

There was no Academy Award in her future, and no more naïveté. The illusory veil of security had been lifted. Possibly, the only safe place for her tonight was right where she was sitting. Campos's office felt safe. Against her better judgment, he felt safe, if only because he was so calm in the midst of all the chaos and what was, without a doubt, the wildest rainstorm she'd ever seen.

Rain slashed against the windows, making the panes shake. Lightning flashed far away in the dark sky, revealing towering levels of clouds and the wild swaying of trees in the wind.

Yes, she felt safer inside, but she still wished she'd tried a little harder to hold on to Garcia's .45, hidden it better in Sister Bettine's habit, maybe hidden it in her canvas bag. She'd let herself get backed into a corner, where a stranger held the key to her safety, and that was a colossally huge mistake, one she needed to learn from and make sure never happened again. If she died from this ill-advised escapade, she was only going to have herself to blame, which wasn't much comfort.

“Ms. Robbins,” Campos said, turning away from his computer and the bank of television sets and walking toward her, “your camera, please.”

The other thing she needed to learn was how to keep her mouth shut. Babbling a little bit in Albuquerque had never gotten her in trouble. Babbling in El Salvador was a very bad idea.

She reached in her canvas bag and pulled out her brand-new video camera, a gift to herself on the first year anniversary of her divorce, and handed it over.

The pilot's death, that's what he wanted to see. He'd gone very still when she'd said she'd gotten it on film. Perhaps the pilot had been working for Campos when he'd been shot down, some rough-and-tumble mercenary down on his luck, running drugs for a Salvadoran kingpin. The American, Jake, was definitely rough-and-tumble. He looked hard, like a soldier for hire. Of all the hundreds of mistakes she'd made in the last week, she wouldn't make the one of thinking she could count on him for anything other than what his boss commanded. A shared nationality was the only thing the two of them had in common.

It took Campos a few minutes to figure out a connection between her camera and his television, with the final configuration including his computer. Once he had it up and running, he picked up a remote and came back to sit by the fire.

One thing became immediately clear. She was an idiot.

He watched the beginning of her rough footage in silence, her whole heartfelt introduction of herself, including a ridiculous stream of educational honors, and the even more heartfelt, and under the circumstances, even more painfully ridiculous introduction of her film and the vital importance of bringing “The Struggle for St. Joseph's Children” onto the world stage.

Yes. She'd actually said “world stage.”

A lesser woman would have expired on the spot.

Lily endured.

“Sister Bettine would have appreciated your sincerity,” Campos said, casting her a quick glance as the introduction wound to an end.

Well, she didn't know what to think of that. Kindness wasn't exactly what she'd expected.

He fast-forwarded through the initial interviews, then slowed the film for Sister Bettine's death, watching it in real time.

“She was a strong woman,” he said, without taking his gaze off the television screen.

“Yes. I wish I could have gotten to know her better.”

He let out a soft laugh. “If you knew Bettine for five minutes, you knew everything. You knew she loved her church, and her school, and her orphans, and you knew she would always stand firm against anyone or anything who tried to bring them harm.”

Yes. Lily had known what the good sister had loved.

At Bettine's prayer, her last words, he crossed himself, the gesture fluid with years of practice, appearing almost unconscious.

He fast-forwarded again to the pilot's death and ran it over and over and over again.
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

The words had been a challenge, a final assertion of self from a man who knew he had reached the end. They were the only clear words in the scene, even when Campos increased the volume.

“Do you know what the soldiers are saying?” he asked. “Could you hear them?”

“No.” Their voices had been low with menace.

He ran the scene again.

“Did you talk with the pilot before he died?”

“No. Not exactly. I asked him if I could get him anything, but he didn't answer. He just...just held my hand.”

“He held your hand?” Those dark, forest green eyes slid a glance in her direction.

“Yes. The sisters and I were in the chapel when the soldiers brought him in. I...I went over to him, while Sister Rose ran for her medical kit.”

The scene had been chaos. She and Sister Teresa had rushed to help the injured man—but the soldiers had been having none of it. Brandishing weapons and shouting orders, they had frightened Sister Teresa into a near faint. Lily had been a little harder to get rid of, if only because the moment she'd dropped to her knees next to the pilot, he'd grabbed ahold of her hand with both of his—fiercely, with more strength than she would ever have thought possible for someone who was so horribly scraped up and bloody.

Her hand still hurt, he'd held it so tightly—until one of the soldiers had broken his grip with the butt end of an AK-47.

She'd heard him groan.

Another shiver went through her and curled in her gut.

In those few moments when she'd been by his side, the pilot had given her something, passed it off his wrist and onto hers with his right hand while he'd held her hand with his left. The pass had been smooth, the macramé bracelet of a dying man coming to rest around her right wrist within seconds of when she'd first reached him. She'd hardly been aware of the transfer, he'd moved so quickly, so surely. The soldiers had not noticed, and then they'd torn her away from his side.

Her hand went around her wrist, covering the bracelet, feeling the thick, rough knots of hemp.

“They wouldn't let us help him,” she said. “So we hid in the sacristy, and I...I got out my camera.” She'd filmed through a small pane of glass in the sacristy's door, catching the scene and the man's dying words. “Did you know him?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“What was his name?” It had bothered her, not knowing his name, after being the last kind face he'd seen.

In answer, Campos merely shook his head.

Lily understood. In the world of drug kingpins and crashing pilots, names were secrets, not social tender.

She let out a breath and looked back at the television. He was running the scene again.

“What are you looking for?”

“Whatever is there,” he said. “You're sure this man said nothing to you?”

“Nothing.” Not a word. There had only been the look in his eyes, pain and resolve, utter, determined resolve. To what end, she didn't know. But he'd given her his bracelet, and she'd watched him die, and she was loath to part with it.

A subdued ring tone sounded, and Campos pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Campos,” he said, and listened.

The bracelet had no value, she was sure. It was knotted string, nothing more, but she wouldn't keep it long, just until she got home. Once she was safely back in Albuquerque, she'd be able to take the bracelet off—until then, it was her talisman, her good luck charm.

“Good work, Jake,” he said after a few moments. “Our convoy is in the main warehouse. I'll meet you there.”

He hung up the phone and gestured at the far screen.

“The CNL is leaving.”

She looked up, and sheer relief flooded through her, making her weak. She sank back into the chair, the towels he'd given her clutched to her chest. The trucks were turning away from the gate.

Thank God.

Sister Julia had been right. Alejandro Campos had not only been able to save her from Diego Garcia, he'd been willing.

“You will be safe here in my home, Ms. Robbins, for as long as you care to stay, and when you are ready to leave, I'll arrange for a flight back to Albuquerque, my compliments.”