The Candidate (Romantic Suspense) (The Candidate Series) (14 page)

Several of the older women started howling when they heard that. The old man keeled forward, clutching his chest. He prayed that the pain was a heart attack. Even that was better that than the slammer...

“Tell you what, Mr. Wainwright. What if I made you an offer you’d be a fool to refuse?”

 “What’s that?” Titus croaked out.

“Just sign here. This acknowledges your crimes, and the forfeiture of your property to authorities. In exchange, we escort you and your, er, ‘family’ here over the border.”

It was on the tip of Titus’ tongue to tell the asshole to go fuck himself, but he thought better of it. His glasses had been crushed in the barracks raid so he couldn’t read the paper placed in front of him. Still, he signed it anyway and handed it back to Smith.

The minute the pen left his shaking hand, he, too, was hustled onto the bus.

Nine hours later the bus should have arrived in the border town of Yuma, but it didn’t. Smith made sure of that. 

The bus would be found years later at the bottom of Lake Havasu, having fallen off the roadway above Parker Dam. It was presumed that the driver, one Titus Wainwright, had ignored the posted signs warning vehicles larger than passenger vans to keep off the narrow eight-foot-wide road. 

None of its thirty passengers survived the fall into the world’s deepest dam. 

Chapter 30

His captors called him
Catorce
. It was the not-so-subtle way in which they kept track of their prisoners. 

Those they hadn’t already disposed of, anyway.

He would always remember the last time he was called by his real name, Carlos Suarez Rodriquez: It was by the plump middle-aged female Customs official, as she scrutinized his passport, then, hustled him into an interrogation room, where he was held for some seventeen hours until, scared and confused, he readily signs the papers presented to him—

Not realizing that he has just signed his death warrant.

For the next seven weeks, Carlos’ home was a cell in the middle of the desert. Despite his isolation, Carlos soon realized that he’s not alone. This catacomb of cells held some thirty or so other young Venezuelans with similar backgrounds, all of whom are being submitted to the same ordeal as he: Savage beatings with electrical cords; sadistic threats from the merciless guards; and anti-Padilla rhetoric blasted over the intercom, twenty-four hours a day. Their diet consisted of an inedible gruel.

In no time at all they were all broken men.

Salvation came in the form of a priest, a Father Smith. In a calm voice, he implored their captors to stop all injustices, and for some reason, they listened to him. Fluent in Spanish, he prayed with the Venezuelans, got them to open up about their families and friends, their dreams and fears; inspired them to work with their captors in order to prove that they deserved to stay in the United States; moreover, that they should be fast-tracked to citizenship. Most of the men, Carlos included, were more compliant after that. Didn’t their captors realize that they already hated Padilla? The fact that they had left everything behind to be here was proof enough of that. Perhaps what they were going to be asked to do in order to gain their citizenship wasn’t so bad after all...

Yes, the
Venezuelaños
trusted Padre Smith. In fact, one of the men felt so comfortable with the Father that he divulged the escape plan of two others.

When the two men disappeared from camp, Carlos realized Smith wasn’t really a priest at all. 

By then it was too late. They were no longer men, but ghosts. They did anything and everything their captors asked of them. At their behest, Carlos even drowned one of the other
Venezuelaños
in a latrine trough. 

He was rewarded with three blankets to keep him warm, and a chocolate bar. 

And when five of the
Venezuelaños
were chosen to go with Smith, he knew that, soon, his own date with death was imminent. 

Chapter 31

Ben’s meeting with the Detroit union leaders did not go as well as he had anticipated, but it hadn’t been a total bust. Eight years of a Republican administration whose policies had done little to help its workers retain their jobs made them wary of what he had to say about Andy Mansfield’s
100 Percent Zero Emission Race
strategy to give a further boost to the American automakers’ market share, let alone trust that Andy could get the car companies to agree to it. 

The one glimmer of hope was that they’d rather have Andy as the Republican nominee than Talbot. So yeah, they were certainly open to some face time with Senator Mansfield, even a photo op in, say, late January, perhaps right before the Michigan primary. 

Or as one of the union bosses put it: “You keep doin’ what you’re doin’, you’ll keep gettin’ what you’re gettin’. It’s time for Detroit to shit or get off the pot.”

 A succinct, albeit colorful, metaphor.

The good news was that Ben was able to catch an earlier flight home. And since neither the senator nor his campaign staff was expecting him in the office until the next day, at ten at night it was still early enough to see if Maddy wanted some company. 

Yeah, all right: a booty call.

It didn’t occur to him to phone first. He’d come to know her work habits, her daily rhythm. Right now, he thought, she’d still be in the middle of soldering her latest project. She would not have eaten all day, and would certainly appreciate him scrambling a few eggs into an omelet for her.

Perhaps even show her appreciation in some ingenious way.

Ben offered his taxi driver a tip as big as the fare if he got him to her place in ten or less.

Eight minutes later they pulled up across the street from her front door. 

If he’d shown up even one minute later he would have missed seeing her out there, clenched in a passionate embrace with some tall drink of water. The two of them were sucking face so hard that in their rush to get inside and tear each other’s clothes off, to go at each other like two pigs in heat, she fumbled as she crammed the key into the front door lock and it dropped onto the stoop. 

It was too dark for any hope of seeing the bastard’s face as he bent down to retrieve it for her. But it was not too hard to imagine the look on hers as she oh so lovingly stroked the back of his head. 

That one move pierced Ben’s heart like none other.

“Yo, bud, the meter’s still running.” The taxi driver was oblivious to her betrayal, to Ben’s broken heart, until, through the rearview mirror, his eyes met Ben’s.

“I’m… not getting out. One more stop, please. Georgetown.”

The driver nodded. 

By the time Ben looked back over at the couple, they’d already made it inside. 

“Ride’s on me,” the driver said as he pulled in front of Ben’s place. 

Chapter 32

It was easy for Ben to avoid her calls when he was on the road. Now that the campaign was heating up, now that Clyde Dooley had fallen to the sidelines and it was just a two-man race going into the primary, he had lots of organizing to do, lots of strategies to implement.

Lots of excuses not to call back. 

At first the messages she left were casual. No pressure, no urgency, no inkling as to his state of mind, or lack thereof. By the second week of his boycott, she still kept it playful, but her questions were pointed, her tone concerned. “Hey, lover boy, what’s with the silent treatment? Was it something I said?...Please call. I miss you.”

By the week of Thanksgiving, she’d taken the hint. 

He saved all her voice messages. That way, when he needed to hear her voice, he’d play them back, one after another, to remind himself of her betrayal.

On Thanksgiving, Tess and Bess made turkey and fixings for all the lonely souls on the campaign team, which was practically everyone. What comes first, Ben wondered, the lack of a home life, or the obsession to win some cause? He guessed the former. 

Jesus, no matter how many wins we rack up, we’re still losers.

Andy and Abby stopped by with a homemade pumpkin pie. Seeing his boss’s wife made him ache for Maddy. 

“You’re looking too thin these days,” Abby murmured as she cut him a hefty wedge. 

He nodded, but didn’t say a word. He was afraid that, had he opened his mouth, he would have blurted out:
You were right about her. I wish I’d listened to you. Why couldn’t she be more like you? 

The rest of the afternoon he avoided Abby’s concerned looks as long as he could by feigning interest in the campaign gossip being bandied about the room. He tried his best not to make it obvious that he was avoiding her. 

Until Abby followed him outside. 

They stood there in silence for a long while, watching the pale pink afternoon light fade to deep lavender, until finally she came right out with it. “You hate me, don’t you?”

His eyes opened wide with shock. “Why do you say that?”

“You know why. Maddy.” She was staring off at the North Star, now puckering an indigo sky.

He didn’t know what to say about that, so he decided to tell her the truth. “I did hate you, once. But now I know you were right. If it makes you feel better, I can tell you honestly that I don’t feel anything at all.”

She looked at him with those woeful blue eyes. Then without a word, she placed her hand in his. 

He remembered the last time she touched him, how it filled him with longing. He held onto her hand as long as he could, or at least until he felt her shiver in the cold dusk breeze. 

Then he escorted her back inside. 

While the other guests ate pie and made small talk, he slipped out the door.

She was there, waiting for him, when he got home.

“I made pie. Pecan. Eat it at your own risk.” Maddy held it out to him with both hands—a peace offering with a burnt crust.

“I already ate. Abby made pumpkin.” He enjoyed the fact that she winced when he said her sister’s name.

She tossed the pie tin onto the table. Part of the crust fell off. Unfortunately, it was the part that wasn’t burnt. “Oh? So they’re in town. I thought they’d have flown down to North Carolina for the holiday, get in a few photo ops. A turkey shoot, maybe. You know, Andy’s a crack shot. So is Abby, for that matter.” It wasn’t idle chatter, but a taunt.

“How about you?”

“Me? I make love, not war. Or don’t you remember.” She crossed her arms at her waist. “Ben, tell me what’s wrong. What happened?”

“I saw him. With you. The Invisible Man.”

The look on her face went from disbelief, to shame, to sadness. “Ah. So now you know. Does anyone else?”

“Seriously, Maddy, who else would give a shit?” He was tired of the games. He wanted to smack her then toss her out the door.

Or make love to her.

“But I thought—” Seeing his lack of comprehension gave her some semblance of relief. “Look, Ben, I don’t know what you think you saw—”

“Maddy cut the bullshit.” He tried to keep his voice as steady as possible. “It was the night I came home from Detroit. You were in your doorway.
With him
. You were kissing.”

“I know when it was. That’s how long it’s been, between us.” Her eyes begged for forgiveness. “Yes, we were kissing. But I was kissing him goodbye.”

“Then why did you take him upstairs?”
Why did you stroke his head? Why do you love him, and not me?

“I wanted to...say goodbye.” A small smile dusted her lips. “I would have done the same to you, if I’d known it was our last night together.”

He grabbed her arm and yanked her to his side. “Quite a sendoff. Makes breaking up with you is quite a treat, I can imagine.”

Her palm hit him squarely across the face. She laughed cruelly as he reeled back in pain. “How’s that? I guess it makes it even easier, in your case.” 

She almost made it to the door when he grabbed her. He had her down on her hands and knees in no time. As his hand snaked up her skirt, she arched her back at the sensation. Soon she quit struggling against his fierce strokes. 

Knowing he would burst at any moment, he yanked up her skirt and straddled her. With each downward plunge, Maddy let loose with an ecstatic moan. Her vise-like grip on the head of his cock made him suck in his breath. Finally he couldn’t hold in his own groans. Their savage duet built to a crescendo as he surged through her. 

Spent, they tumbled together back onto the floor.

When finally he could speak, he said, “Did you really mean what you said, that it’s over with him?”

“Yes—yes! It’s over. He could never...love me.” She wasn’t facing him, but he knew, by the crack in her voice, that she was speaking the truth. 

No one could ever love you like I do.

She must of known it, too. Which was why she nodded when he whispered into her ear: “Don’t ever leave me.”

——————————

Venezuelan Eco-Terrorists Killed in Arrest Raid

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 11:14 p.m. ET, 12/23/--

Minneapolis (AP) — Five Venezuelan nationals, suspected of plotting a scheme to blow up Minnesota’s Mall of America on the last Saturday of the holiday shopping season, were killed in a shoot-out with United States Homeland Security forces in the community of Richfield.