Pursuit (5 page)

It had to be soon because Nurse Ratched would be coming in to measure his blood pressure and temperature and give him an antibiotic jab in about fifteen minutes and Matt wanted to be on his feet when she came in. It was a matter of pride—pride and, yes, his goddamned manhood. Men stood on their own two feet.

He sat and contemplated the floor for long minutes, studying the waxy green linoleum as if all the answers to the questions that had puzzled mankind for centuries could be deciphered in the dark green streaks veining the floor. He barely recognized himself. He wasn’t an impulsive man—in fact, back in the day, he was known for his patience and selfcontrol—but by the same token, once he’d taken a decision to do something hard, he immediately took action, and he didn’t stop until he’d seen it through. He was patient but he was also pigheaded.

Sitting here bare-assed on the side of the bed with his bare feet dangling from the bed, Matt didn’t recognize himself.

Just do it.

Bracing himself on his hands, he scooted closer to the edge of the bed, the open white coat opening even farther, but who the shit cared? His buddy in the next bed had his eyes closed, and it sure as hell wasn’t anything Nurse Ratched didn’t see every day. Didn’t wipe every day, to his shame. He slid closer and closer to the edge until his feet touched the floor, the first time his feet had touched anything but sheets in four months. Matt closed his eyes for a second and sent up a swift soldier’s prayer—
just let me get
through this next part and then I’ll be good
—and stood up. And fell flat on his face. No matter that he’d locked his knees and had visualized like crazy standing up, his legs simply wouldn’t hold him, not for one second. He went down like a felled tree, and was splayed facedown on the floor.

It hurt, but that was okay. Pain was okay, he’d always had a high tolerance for pain, and, anyway, pain meant you were alive.
Pain is your friend
was drilled into SEALs daily. So he could deal with the pain. What he couldn’t deal with was the humiliation of being sprawled on the floor with no idea of how to get back up. He turned his head sideways and looked up at his bed. As high as Mount Everest and just as unscalable.

Matt braced his hands beside his head and tried to lift himself up, but he couldn’t do it. Simply couldn’t. He pushed with his arms until they trembled with fatigue, until sweat poured down his face and back, until his breath came in hot, painful pants. He rested for a moment, hands still braced, still in the position for push-ups. Fifteen years ago, a lifetime ago, on his first day of BUD/S, the instructor, a nasty old son of a bitch called Blackie, screamed
Drop you motherfuckers!
to the recruits so often Matt could still hear him.

That first day on the grinder, he’d cranked out 450 push-ups together with the other recruits. He’d vomited that night, and the palms of his hands were raw and bleeding, but by God he’d done it. He’d been young and healthy and strong, at his own personal peak. Matt could hardly remember that young man, so strong and healthy. Gone, together with his career. What was left was a large husk of a man—no, not a man—a
thing
. A thing that couldn’t even get itself up off the floor. He burned with humiliation at the knowledge that Nurse Ratched was going to come in and find him on the floor, bare-assed, unable to help himself in any way.

A drop of salty liquid from his face fell to the linoleum with a faint
splat
. He didn’t know whether it was sweat or tears, and he didn’t care.

San Luis

Baja Sur, Mexico

March 3

He had died and come back to life. Just like her.

The woman who had once been Charlotte Court watched the big man make his slow way across the beach. Like her, he was a pitiful broken thing. A tall, big-boned man, he was covered in scars and burn marks. He was emaciated, the broad shoulder bones sticking out cruelly, the skin tautly stretched over his big rib cage, the ribs brutally outlined. He limped, each step slow and painful.

She was on her terrace in her own little refuge. She’d arrived three days before and had slept for twenty-four hours straight. Without nightmares for the first time in what felt like forever.

San Luis, Baja Sur. It had found her, she hadn’t found it.

She had run out of gas and steam here at this perfect little town. A cheerful jumble of painted wooden shacks and adobe houses by the sea, populated by friendly Mexicans and enough expatriates so she wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. The Americans were aging hippies, artists, beach bums, retirees. Laid-back and tolerant. No one asked questions, no one showed any curiosity at all about what she was doing there. It was very possible a few were runaways like herself.

San Luis had several small grocery stores with luscious fruits and vegetables, a number of cantinas serving excellent food, and several art supply stores. Everything she needed. Plus miles and miles of uninterrupted sandy beach.

Get out of the country,
had been her first thought that morning in Kansas.
Mexico. Or
Canada.

The Midwest was in the grip of the coldest winter since 1931, as all the newspapers trumpeted.

Mexico, definitely. She needed sunshine like she needed air. Her very bones were chilled. Easing through the bottleneck at the border crossing had been excruciating. The border guard had nearly given her a heart attack when he’d spent long minutes scrutinizing Moira Fitzgerald’s passport. There’d been another terrorist alert and the guards were spotchecking the cars coming through. Charlotte could feel the blood oozing into the packing gauze. She had on a white tee shirt she’d bought in a package of ten from a supermarket outside Chicago, to be worn under a cheap scratchy sweater. She’d taken the sweater off without thinking. Soon, the blood would seep through the gauze, staining the tee shirt. The guard would surely notice. Her shoulder throbbed. The blood would be showing any minute now.

Charlotte was used to schooling her face to impassivity so she knew she looked relaxed, even bored, while under the cotton tee shirt her heart was racing. Nervous sweat trickled down her temples but she didn’t wipe it away. The guard would just assume she was the usual
gringa
who couldn’t deal with the heat.

He was leaning with one arm on the sill of the driver’s window, studying her passport, then looking intently at her.

The woman in the passport photo, Charlotte’s maid Moira, didn’t really look like Charlotte. The face in the passport was round and Moira had light brown hair. Charlotte’s face was slender and she was blonde. But police officers were used to women changing their hair color and losing weight. To a not-very-attentive eye, she and Moira shared a look—young, healthy, attractive, well-groomed.

Charlotte couldn’t smile to make herself look more like the woman in the photo. Simply couldn’t. She didn’t know how to anymore. So she sat very still behind the wheel of the SUV, staring straight ahead while the guard decided her future.

“
Guapa
,” the guard murmured, handing her the passport back.
Beautiful.
She relaxed the sweaty death grip on the wheel by a fraction.

He was flirting.

Charlotte’s breathing slowed, and panic loosened its hold on her brain. She turned her head. She should smile at him, flirt back a little. It would be expected, after all. A harmless little exchange between a man and a woman who would never see each other again. He was an attractive young man, with glossy black hair, healthy olive-toned skin, and sparkling dark brown eyes.

She couldn’t flirt, couldn’t smile, couldn’t do anything but simply look at him. After a long moment, he stepped back and gave the roof of the car a slap, indicating she was free to go.

She shot out like a bat from hell, heart racing, driving for nine hours straight through the desert until she was so exhausted she found herself weaving across the center line at dusk. She had to stop or she’d kill herself. She turned off at the next town, San Luis, nestled along the rim of a long, curving bay.

And the miracles started happening.

San Luis was lovely at dusk, the dying sun’s rosy light gentle and kind to the many ramshackle buildings. As the big red disk of the sun slipped beneath the Pacific, Charlotte stopped in the main square overlooking the beach.

cantina fortuna, a wooden sign read outside an adobe tavern.

Yes, please,
Charlotte thought.
I need all the luck I can get.
The cantina was run by a boisterous Mexican family, overlooked by the all-knowing black eyes of a short, stout elderly lady. She took one look at Charlotte, and without a word, sat her down on a bench and started bringing food. Tacos, bocadillos, burritos, albondigas. At first, Charlotte had looked at the heaps of steaming, fragrant food in despair, her stomach clenching.

“
Comes, mujer
,” the elderly lady said gently, and put a fork in her hand.
Eat, girl.
Charlotte dug into the tastiest burrito she’d ever eaten, taking tiny bites at first, uncertain how her stomach would react.

It reacted enthusiastically. She hadn’t had a warm, home-cooked meal in what felt like forever, simply grabbing what junk food she could while on the run. The elderly lady sat across from her, watching her eat, until a family member came up to say,
Ayudame, abuelita
.
Help me, grandma.
Charlotte’s high-school Spanish was suddenly there, in her head, as if it had been waiting all these years to be of help. The
abuela
came back at regular intervals; she would check Charlotte’s progress through the food, grunt with satisfaction, then leave again.

When Charlotte finally sat back, so stuffed she couldn’t eat another bite, the
abuela
carted out a huge platter of tropical fruit. Mangos, guavas, pineapples, passion fruit, and papayas. Charlotte could smell the fruit from across the room, sweet and tangy. It all looked so luscious, but her stomach protested.

“Thank you.” She looked up at the little old lady. “But I simply can’t eat any—”

“For later,” the lady replied in surprisingly good English. “Or for breakfast. You’re going to have to stay the night in San Luis,
es verdad
?” She nodded at the dark window. “It is night now. The next town is a good hour’s drive away. You’re too tired to drive. You’re going to want a room for the night.”

Charlotte hadn’t even thought that far ahead, but she realized that the old lady was right. She’d loosened the tight grip on herself that had allowed her to keep going. There was no way she could drive tonight. Already she could feel the waves of exhaustion coming at her and knew she was close to collapse.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I’d love a room for the night. If you know of one.” The town had seemed too small for a hotel, but maybe there would be a small pension or a bed-andbreakfast.

“How long do you want to stay?” the woman asked.

Charlotte looked around. The place was so warm and welcoming. She felt so at peace here, with the dim sound of the ocean’s waves a backdrop to the friendly clatter. Charlotte looked into the old lady’s dark, kind eyes and blinked back the tears. She’d been running for so
long
.

“Forever,” Charlotte whispered, before she could stop herself.

“
Bueno,
” the abuela said crisply. “Get your luggage and follow me.”

Charlotte’s legs felt like rubber as she got up from the table. Her head swam, and she had to hold on to the back of the chair for a moment. A stout arm around her waist steadied her. Charlotte forced her knees to stiffen. “
Gracias,
” she murmured. The old lady nodded and let go.

Charlotte’s car was right outside. The old lady didn’t blink when all Charlotte got out of the car was a cheap rucksack. It contained some toiletry items she’d bought at a drug store, a nightgown, a clean change of clothes, and the cash she’d taken from her aunt’s house in Chicago.

The old lady walked up a flight of stone stairs by the side of the cantina, then turned to the right, along a packed-earth strip too narrow for cars. Another flight of stairs and she was opening the door to a house with a large tiled terrace in front. It looked out over the ocean, a huge, black, heaving expanse on the horizon. The woman flipped a switch by the door, and Charlotte blinked at the gemlike colors.

“Enter,
mujer
,” the woman said gently from inside.

Wonderingly, Charlotte stepped in.

The house was small and simply furnished with wooden rustic furniture. A hand loom was in the corner, the fruits of that loom lying on the floor, over the back of the small couch, hanging on the walls as tapestries. All in bright bold Aztec designs. A narrow arch led into another room, a potter’s room, with a throw wheel in the center. Bright blue wooden shelves filled with exquisite ceramic plates, each different, covered one entire wall. In an instant, Charlotte’s soul lifted. It was an artist’s room, a place of creation. The whole house looked as if its owner had just stepped out for a breath of fresh air.

“This house is lovely. Who lives here?”

“It belonged to a good friend. Janet. She lived here for ten years. She died last month. It’s been empty since then. Now you can live here if you want.”

The tears were threatening again, but she couldn’t allow herself the weakness. The first tear to fall would become a flood. So Charlotte opened her eyes wide to keep the tears at bay, a trick from childhood, and said softly, “I’d love to stay here.”

“
De acuerdo
.” The old lady moved briskly around the small house. “The bedroom is through there, there are clean sheets and towels in the closet, and there is still some coffee and supplies in the kitchen. I’ll have my grandson bring the fruit over right away so you can have it for breakfast.” She put her rough, stubby hand on Charlotte’s arm.