Paper Moon (36 page)

Caroline's mouth went dry. For one half of a heartbeat, she thought it was over. She tried reading the Mexican's swarthy face.

The deep lines furrowing his face relaxed. One corner of his pencil-thin lips twitched, a precipitous sign of what? Reprieve?

Argon made it a short one. “Put the girl in the trunk, Ricki.”

Trunk?
For the first time, Caroline noticed an aluminum case on the luggage cart, the kind that media equipment was often transported in. Or a child . . .

“Omigosh,” Karen sobbed, coming to the same sick conclusion.

“I c . . . can't get in there.”

“It's okay, baby, I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”

Blaine stood glued to the spot, but the steel in his voice left no doubt in Caroline's mind that Karen was leaving over his dead body.

Dear God in heaven, please . . . do something.

“Why?” Caroline cried out. “Why do you need her? Why can't you just go?”

“My boss, he picks up all his bases.” The assassin's convoluted metaphor would have been funny in any other setting. “And she will be our insurance until the goods reach the right person, no?”

Even if Argon did spare them, the chance they'd ever see Karen alive again was at best remote.

“Now,
señor
,” Argon continued, “I suggest that your next step be backward, toward the balcony with the lady and the other girl.

Otherwise, I will have to shoot all of you. It matters not to me.”

It really didn't. Caroline could see the man had no emotion in his black gaze. She exchanged a furtive glance with Blaine. His look spoke volumes of love and desperation, volumes that she returned with understanding. The decision was his.

Blaine contemplated the gun, every muscle in his body coiling tighter, awaiting his decision. Surely God hadn't given him a second chance with his daughter for it all to end like this. He had Caroline and Annie to think about as well. He was close enough to kick the gun from Argon's hand—if he still had the sureness of his old football days.

Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.

His thoughts tumbled to a halt at the challenge. Was Caroline's devotion about letting go and trusting the Holy Spirit meant for today . . . for this? He rebelled at the idea of acquiescing to Argon's demand, of turning his daughter over to the gun-wielding demon before him.

Or was this God's demand? Professing faith was one thing.

Putting it where his mouth was, where his loved ones' lives were, was another. The split-second decision took an eternity to make in Blaine's mind.

Dragging his first foot backward was like moving the Quebrada cliffs, but somehow he did it. Then the second. And another backward, and another . . . until he felt Caroline's hand on his shoulder.

God, I claim Your Word
, he prayed as Karen pulled away from bellman's grasp with a terrified “Nooo!” and ducked through the open bathroom door.

The sound of it slamming against the porcelain of the tub inside erupted in gonglike thunder. Ever so briefly, Blaine thought a gun had gone off in it. Head pivoting, so apparently did Argon. But it was neither the bathroom door, nor a gun. It was the slam of the hallway door striking the luggage cart. The cart careened into the gunman.

Caroline's astonished “John!” penetrated the adrenaline rush in Blaine's ear as he tackled the distracted thug.

CHAPTER
28

A far cry from the clean-cut college boy he'd been when Caroline last saw him, a disheveled and unshaven John Chandler plowed over the gunman—and Blaine—with the luggage cart just inside the door. Caroline hunkered over Annie with her body, cringing as the gun went off. It splintered the nightstand and flew from Argon's hand toward the pile of jackets, carry-ons, and cases by the bed.

There was no time to think, just act. Caroline pushed her daughter toward the safety of Blaine's room. “Go, Annie. Get help.”

With Annie out of harm's way, Caroline grabbed the teetering luggage cart as Blaine and Argon, half under it, scrambled to their feet. The cart toppled over on the bed, taking Caroline with it.

Argon lunged for the mountain of luggage and bags where the weapon had disappeared, but Blaine grabbed him, hauling him back. Cursing, the assassin reached inside his jacket.

Caroline saw the flash of metal reflecting the bright light cast in through the balcony doors. “Blaine, he has a knife!”

Holding off the luggage rack with one hand, she slung a pillow, missing Argon and striking Blaine full in the face. Not quite her intent, but it did take the brunt of the knife's slash intended for him.

John reeled backward from the bathroom into the closet, followed by the bellman.

As John struggled to his feet, Karen leapt on the bellman's back, beating his face with a still-spurting bottle of mousse. John dropped his adversary with a kick to the groin, followed by a sucker punch with the iron from the rack inside the closet.

“Caroline, get the gu—” Blaine fell into the other room, locked in a death dance with his armed opponent.

The gun. Caroline crawled over the pile of suitcases, tossing jackets right and left. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. As she moved aside her souvenir bag, a heavy package slid out, landing on her foot. Blinking away the stars of pain, she focused on the plastic bag containing the heavy granite dish she'd purchased at the pyramids. Taking up the weapon of chance, she rushed into the adjoining room. Argon straddled Blaine, the knife he wielded suspended over Blaine's throat. His face red with blood rush and strain, Blaine held it at bay . . . just.

Now or never, Lord.

Feeling a sudden kindred spirit with David as he let his stone fly at Goliath, Caroline swung for all she was worth. The thud as the dish struck Argon on the back of the head made her wince. The thug rolled to the side with the blow, landing on his back like a swatted fly. The knife fell on the carpet by his hand. Blaine scrambled to retrieve it and hauled himself upright on the side of the bed with labored breath.

“The gun?”

Caroline exhaled. “No time to look for it.” She held up the cudgel still swinging in its plastic sling. At Blaine's befuddled look, she produced the granite dish he'd teased her about. “My jewelry dish.”

“The bellman?”

“Karen blinded him with mousse and John clobbered him with the steam iron.”

Blaine's wary expression gave way to relief. “You call the police.

I'll look for the gun, just in case.”

The door to the room burst open. “
Policía!”

Armed police spilled inside, with Hector Rodriguez at the lead.

A simultaneous echo followed in the adjoining room.

Startled by the sudden invasion, Karen shrieked, “Daddy!”

Leaving Caroline glued to the spot in the connecting doorway, Blaine rushed to where his daughter stood frozen in terror next to a wounded John Chandler. “It's okay, baby,” he said, drawing her to him. “It's all over.”

The officers swarmed over the rooms, taking charge. Annie was allowed in after the unconscious thugs were cuffed and medics were called.

She ran straight into Caroline's arms. “Mom, are you okay?”

“I'm fine, sweetie.” In spite of her assurance, she was grateful for the support of the doorjamb at her back. “And proud of you. You kept your head.”

“All of you did.” Blaine gave her a taut smile. “You don't mess with my girls.”

Manny Santos dragged the ashen John Chandler to his feet from his sitting position on the floor.

“Do you have to cuff him?” Karen protested.

“He's a criminal, just like the others,” the Mohawk kid told her.

The bloody towel that John had clutched to his chest fell away, revealing the hilt of a knife protruding from his shoulder.

“Daddy, do something.”

“You heard the man, baby.”

Blaine held Karen back so that Manny could help the boy over to the bed. Caroline and Annie rushed to clear it of jackets and a carry-on case.

“Just stay here till the medics arrive,” Santos told him. “Don't try to remove it.”

“Daddy, please, say something.”

Blaine's jaw looked about to pop from the battle waging on his face. Caroline empathized. If John hadn't endangered them in the first place, he wouldn't have needed to rescue them.

But he didn't have to come back. He could have just run away.

Reluctantly Blaine must have come to the same conclusion. “If John hadn't shown up, we wouldn't have stood a chance. They'd have taken Karen.”

“He's still a thief among thieves, if not the actual one who stole the stamp,” Hector reminded them. He moved to the foot of the bed, crossing his arms. “So why
did
you come back, Chandler? We expected you to be in the States by now.”

“Rocha would have found me, no matter where I went,” John told him. “Besides . . . I found out I had a conscience.” His eyes sunken with pain and fatigue, the young man sought out Blaine.

“Maybe it was hanging out with all these religious folks, but I couldn't leave your daughter to Rocha's assassin, so I tailed Argon.”

He grabbed his lower lip with his teeth to bite back the resulting pain of his half laugh. “That was the last place they'd look for me.”

Had their kindness to John saved them all? Caroline's heart quickened with affirmation. All things were possible.

“Where's Javier Rocha?” Manny asked, more concerned with the justice on this side of heaven than on the other.

Weakening, John closed his eyes. “In South America by now, I imagine. He headed straight for the airport and the first plane south.”

The medics arrived, preempting further questions. Argon and the bellman were promptly carried out, while John was being stabilized. Gathered in a family cluster within the scope of Blaine's protective arms, Caroline and the girls watched. The medics left the knife in place, instead administering IV meds. As soon as they finished, John was moved to a gurney. Manny cuffed the wrist without the needle to the rail, securing the prisoner.

“I'll go with him to the hospital,” he told Hector. “You can finish up here.”

Karen drew away from her father. “Daddy, you have to do something to help him. You know all kinds of people.”

“They're just doing their job, kid,” John said, resigned to his fate.

“Daddy, we owe him,” Karen protested.

“For jeopardizing your life . . . and ours?” Cynical as he sounded, Caroline could see that Blaine was torn.

“But he didn't know it was going to work like this. He said so.

He told me he was sorry.”

“Save it, Karen. Your dad is right. I conned you. ” John looked past her at Blaine. “If anything, I owe your dad . . . and the others.”

Seeing surprise claim Blaine's face, he went on. “You reminded me that I had a conscience, man . . . and that all things are possible, even for a screwup like me. If I at least try to do the right thing.”

Gooseflesh pebbled Caroline's arms. “What was it we read just moments ago, about things being accomplished not by might but by the Holy Spirit?” she asked no one in particular. Moved by all that transpired for their good, despite their helplessness, she squeezed John's cuffed hand.

“Sweetie, you believe it. All things
are
possible with God. He loves you as much now as He ever did . . . and so do we.”

“Well, that's good, Miz C,” Manny Santos remarked with a sardonic smile, “because he's gonna need all the love God can give him in the hospitality of a Mexican calaboose.”

“But he's an American.” Karen tugged on Blaine's sleeve. “They can't keep him here, can they?”

Forgiveness didn't come as naturally to Blaine as it evidently did to Caroline. He wanted to see the boy who'd courted Karen's heart and endangered her life strung up on the nearest tree. That the process didn't work that way was becoming less of a factor than that blasted Scripture. Was John really moved by the Holy Spirit or because he figured to use his nobility to his favor? He could be conning them even now. Why should Blaine give him a second chance?