Saint (5 page)

Chapter Three

Maria nearly fainted with relief when Seth
Harris shoved his face into hers, his whiskey-smooth voice cracking like a
whip. “I told you to stay in the truck. Don’t you ever,
ever
, disobey me again.”

A rush of irritation spurted through her
veins. She was just about tired of him and his edicts. She peeled his hand away
from her mouth, glaring up at him beneath the dull glare of light over the
entrance to the bathroom. “What is wrong with you? You damn near gave me a
heart attack.”

He wasn’t interested in explanations.
Grabbing her hand roughly, he dragged her back to the truck and fairly threw
her inside the cab. By the time he’d pumped the gas and slid back into the
driver’s seat she was grappling with the haze of red in front of her eyes.

He held a hand up in warning. “Don’t say a
word. Until you’re back in Will’s custody you’ll do exactly as I say. And if
you had waited five damn minutes, I was going to ask if you needed to use the
facilities before we headed out.”

The facilities, Jesus. He was the most
arrogant, rude, condescending creature she’d ever met. When he wasn’t busy
predicting her imminent death, he spoke to her as if she had no more brains
than a fence post. “I’ve had just about all the attitude I’m going to take from
you, Mr. Harris. If you hadn’t puttered around so long in there, you would’ve
known I couldn’t wait. And I don’t need your permission to go to the bathroom.”

He leaned across the seat, crowding her
back against the door. She could feel the waves of fury and violence vibrating off
him. “You need my permission to breathe until I say otherwise.”

“Just who the hell do you think you are?”
Will couldn’t have known this guy was such a lunatic or he wouldn’t have left
her with him.

“Right now I’m the only chance you have at
staying alive ’til we reach Will. You might get away with taking unnecessary
risks when he’s around but things only play one way with me, my way. I don’t
care if you like it or not. Try me, and you’ll find yourself bound and gagged
for the rest of the trip. Do we understand each other?”

She met his hard stare for several seconds
and then nodded, grinding her teeth against each other in an effort not to tell
him what he could do with his decree. But she couldn’t see the sense in
continuing to argue with him, they both had the same goal now—to reach Will
Skaggs. The best thing was to avoid conversation altogether. Will had made a
grave mistake in thinking he could fob her off onto Harris. Seth Harris didn’t
want to be involved with her situation in any way. He’d made that clear from
the first moment they met.

Still, Will’s obvious desperation to gain Harris’
acquiescence nudged at her like a sixth sense. He’d driven cross-country—with
no way to contact Harris and certainly no guarantees—and let the man beat his
face into pulp, for God’s sake. He must have had a reason.

They drove through the night bristling at
one another like junkyard dogs. Finally, Maria couldn’t hold her eyes open any
longer—because really, how did she know she could trust this guy?—and closed
her eyes, intending only to doze. The next thing she knew Harris was shaking
her awake again, herding her into a small room on the ground floor of yet
another no-name motel.

“Where are we?” she asked, rubbing at her
grainy eyes.

“Just outside D.C. Take a shower,” he said,
shoving her unceremoniously toward the bathroom. “You look beat.”

She slammed the door in his face. She would
shower, but only because she wanted to.

The motel was shabby but the water was hot.
For long minutes she simply stood under the spray, letting the steam seep into
her tired body. Places like this didn’t offer the amenities, so she was stuck
using the generic soap to wash her hair. Even though it had seemed like an
extravagant, frivolous expense at the time, not a week had gone by since this
whole nightmare began that she wasn’t glad she’d had electrolysis done on her
legs and underarms. It was a stupid thing to be grateful for, but on days like
today it gave her something to focus on aside from the panic eating at her
insides.

When she emerged from the bathroom in a
cloud of steam, hair hanging in damp ringlets around her shoulders, she found Harris
was sprawled in a chair at the small two-person table that was missing a chair,
his long legs stretched out in front of him. “You think I’m a real hard-ass,”
he said.

On the table were several
cellophane-wrapped pastries he’d somehow managed to scrounge up and two cups of
coffee. The bastard hadn’t bothered to get her anything at that last stop—the
one where he’d scared five years off her life. She’d had nothing but a few
candy bars and a bag of chips since breakfast. So just this minute food
interested her far more than his platitudes. “You’ve made it very clear what I
think isn’t important.”

He shoved a pastry toward her. “Will
shouldn’t have brought you to me. I’m not in that line of work anymore.”

She peeled back the film, pinching off a
piece. “He said you have special skills, that you’ve done bodyguard work before
and you’re familiar with Juarez. I’m guessing that’s why he decided to ask for
your help.”

“He shouldn’t have told you anything.”

“He didn’t go into detail.”

“Will’s a good man,” Harris allowed. “He
follows the law and most times it works for him. This time it didn’t, so he
thought dropping you in my lap would be the answer. Since he was on a roll, did
he tell you why I kicked him out on his face?”

“No. Although, it hardly makes any
difference now does it?” She finished her roll and reached for another. “You’re
dumping the problem right back in his lap.”

“It’s nothing personal.” He sipped at his
coffee. “Once upon a time I would’ve taken the job.”

Once upon a time she had a little brother
who was smart and innocent and honest. Who now lay in a cold grave next to their
mother. “I don’t expect you to care about my safety or even about this case.
But Will came to you as a friend, for help, and seeing as how he knew you’d be
less than thrilled, I don’t think he would have done that if there had been any
other choice. He’s only trying to do his job, which Juarez is making more
difficult by the day. But then, I’m sure he didn’t know you were insane.”

Harris looked up at her, cradling his cup
in one large calloused palm. “How did you get mixed up with Juarez anyway?”

“I didn’t. My brother did. Juarez lured him
in with promises of money and fame. At first I thought it was too good to be
true, the money he was making, the expensive car he was driving. Jimmy never
would say exactly what his job entailed but he was gone all hours of the day
and night. My mother worried over it to the point of making herself sick, so I
started checking out Juarez with the contacts I had and found out he’s nothing
but a front for drug running. Maybe I would have left well enough alone if
Jimmy hadn’t turned up dead with evidence pointing to drug overdose and a deal
gone bad. I couldn’t get near Juarez, so I did the next best thing.”

“Please don’t tell me the journalist in you
was idiot enough to do an exposé.”

“I went undercover in one of his cronies’
homes, posing as a nanny. I got lucky, managed to tape a few meetings, gather
evidence he and his friends were paying off government officials, the coast
guard, border patrol, you name it. I took what I had straight to the DEA. Will
did the rest. He said they’d been after Juarez since he showed up here in the
States.”

He leveled a knowing look at her. “Is
revenge worth dying for?”

“It’s not revenge.”

“What is it?”

“Justice.”

His expression indicated he doubted her
motives. “Same candy, different wrapper,” he grunted. “Will doesn’t expect you
to make it to trial, that’s why he came to me. Did you think Juarez would
actually let you live that long?”

If his message was
you’re going to die,
why did he keep
hinting there was a way out through him? He couldn’t make his feelings about
her situation any clearer. “The trial is only a few months away. I can hang on.”
She could, dammit. For Jimmy. For Bethy.

“It doesn’t end when you testify, even if
Juarez goes to prison.”

She wasn’t going to think about that right
now. What mattered was putting Juarez away. For good. And his cronies with him.

“You’ll spend the rest of your life
running,” he went on matter-of-factly. “Looking over your shoulder every day,
wondering if the next person you meet is there to kill you.”

“So, I should just forget testifying and
let Juarez continue to import drugs into this country? I should turn the other
cheek and forget he used my little brother, an innocent boy as a cover? Forget
the millions of kids whose families and lives he destroys daily?”

“You want to be a martyr, that’s your business.
But putting Juarez in prison won’t stop him from importing the drugs. And it
won’t keep you safe. He has a network on the west coast that’s fast spreading
to the east. If it weren’t for the Mafia bosses he’d already have Chicago to
New York and Atlantic City. As it is, none of them will go against him on their
own. He’s too unpredictable. Their strength lies in banding together to hold
him at bay.”

For someone who’d been living in solitude
up in a mountain retreat he stayed well informed. “Then maybe Will should’ve
asked the Mafia to protect me.”

“Maybe,” he agreed dryly, draining the last
drops from his cup. “Stay put. I have to make a phone call.”

* * * * *

Seth pushed aside the nausea stirring in
his gut and used a pay phone in the lobby, wanting no record of any calls to or
from the room. He tried Will at home but there was no answer. Motherfucker. It
was too late to call his office and he could hardly leave that slip of a woman
alone. She was just barely holding it together as it was.

His plan, when he rolled out of bed this
morning, was to go through his morning ritual of running, sit-ups, coffee and a
light breakfast. He’d planned to spend the rest of the day fishing. What he
hadn’t planned on was that son of a bitch Will Skaggs showing up on his doorstep
after all these years with a package. He’d spent the last six years making his
life as plain and peaceful as possible. He was tired of war, weary of killing.
All he wanted was to be left alone on his mountain and to teach his students
that life was more than what they saw on TV or heard on the news. Will knew
that. And Will knew why.

The lid on the apocalyptic storm inside him
lifted for a moment and he glimpsed the darkness, the violence, the pain, felt
the hatred all over again for just a few moments before slamming the lid shut.

He couldn’t help this woman. Hell, he could
barely help himself. If he stepped over that line again there would be no
return. There would be no peace.

He had to find Will.

When he returned to the room she was lying
sprawled out on one of the beds, dead to the world. She wasn’t going to last
five minutes once the shit really hit the fan. Oh she gave the impression she
was strong and emotionally able to handle her life being at risk twenty-four
hours a day, but he knew better. She was already riding a dangerous edge. Her
hands shook. Tight lines edged her wide, sultry mouth. Uncertainty and a hint
of panic shone in her caramel eyes. Her movements were stiff, mechanical, as if
she were afraid to relax for fear it would all come out.

She had balls, taking on Juarez and
believing the system would aid her, he’d give her that. But he knew from
experience that a very thin line separated bravery and stupidity, difficult to
distinguish at times even in seasoned soldiers. Throwing yourself on a dud
grenade was stupid even as it took guts to do it while praying you weren’t
blown to bits.

He’d just wanted to go fishing. Instead he
was here in this fleabag motel, watching the sexy version of Pollyanna roll
around the bed in a pair of jeans that fit her curves way too well.

Promising himself Will would suffer for
this, he secured the room as best he could and took the other bed, sleeping the
way he’d been trained, able to come to full alert at the merest hint of danger.

* * * * *

Early the next morning, while the
package—because he was absolutely not going to think of her as a person—was
still sleeping, he was back at the pay phone. And his first call was to Will’s
office. “I need to speak to Will Skaggs, please.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman on the other
end of the line said, “Mr. Skaggs is not in at the moment. May I take a
message?”

“Is he due in soon?”

“No. He’s on vacation. Is there anyone else
who can help you?”

Vacation his ass. “Do you expect him to
check in periodically?”

“Who am I speaking with, please?”

“This is Harris’ Dry Cleaning. We have
several suits of Mr. Skaggs’ ready for pickup. I just thought I’d call and
remind him.”

“Oh. Well I’ll be sure to give him the
message if he calls in.”

Seth hung up and took a moment to breathe.
This was not happening. This was
not
happening. Skaggs, that bastard, had gone underground.