Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (3 page)

Abbi’s parents
would occasionally leave, a few days at a time. They would say it was for their
work, Fred’s Boots Incorporated. Sometimes, when she was younger, Abbi’s nanny would
come and stay with her while her parents were gone. More recently, they had
arranged for Abbi to stay with family friends, the Pelletiers, if they would be
gone more than 24 hours.

This time they had
been gone for several days. It wasn’t the plan. The end of the school year came
and went without her parents around. Abbi kept up the pretense that all was
well, but meanwhile glimpses of scenes she couldn’t understand would flash in
her mind. Even very young children are able to pick up cues when something is not
right, whether they can comprehend it or not.

Abbi knew at an
early age that this business of boots and shoes only served as a deception. By
now, Abbi deduced that her parents worked for some government agency, analyzing
data from close range, not your standard federal issue agents. She thought some
would call them spies. Since her parents never confessed this to her, she didn’t
divulge her suspicions to others.

They did, however,
warn her that if she ever received a call from Shoe Clerk, she was to follow
the directions explicitly. And so, for years, the Abernathy family danced
around the truth. For years, Abbi knew that Shoe Clerk might someday call. Today
was that day.

 “Abbi, this is
Shoe Clerk. Go to your safe place immediately and lay low. Do not, I repeat DO
NOT, draw attention to yourself. Expect another call soon.”

Abbi’s pulse
started racing.

“Where are they?
Are they OK?” Abbi shouted into the phone.

Click.

After Abbi texted
her friend, she took off the dancing shoes and packed a few necessities. Before
Abbi left home, she ran to the backyard and opened up a bag of chick starter from
the shed. She scattered a couple of handfuls into the chicken pen where there
were about six little hens, not yet laying.

“This is gonna
have to do you until I get back,” Abbi said.

She checked the automatic
watering tank to make sure water flowed in when it was needed. A guinea hen
flew off the shed roof and landed in the pen, adding its constant squawking to
the conversation of peeping chicks.

“Take care of
them, Cackles!” Abbi said as she ran into the house. She didn’t see that she was
being watched at the chicken pen, but she felt it. Fully aware of her senses,
she felt the shiver of being watched. Abbi hurried back to the house. Out of
habit, she locked the back door and double bolted it.

Grabbing her
backpack, still heavy with gear from a recent rappelling she did with her dad,
Abbi ran upstairs to gather the few items of clothing she thought she’d need,
still expecting her parents to return in three or four more days. Abbi was almost
ready to go.

Suddenly, when she
walked past her mother’s office, something caught her eye, something she’d seen
before but now with new eyes. Some odd drawings her mother had left on the desk
had haunted Abbi since her parents left. Now she saw them as significant,
unlike anything Abbi had seen anywhere, and quite possibly a hidden message
from her mother.

Abbi sat down to
study the drawings, maybe twenty in all, picking up one after another. Most
were bold symmetrical designs, maybe Celtic or Mayan in nature. Some depicted
animals.

A box of empty folders
on the bookshelf behind the desk offered itself for her use. Abbi grabbed a
folder, put the drawings inside, and threw them into her backpack. Although her
mother wasn’t always tidy, Abbi wondered why her mother left these unusual
drawings out on the desk. It had to be intentional—to pull Abbi into them. Abbi
planned to get online at Louise’s to learn more about them and to find any
hidden meanings. She picked up the pack, heavier now with her laptop and these
drawings in it, and threw it over her left shoulder.

Satisfied that
something would come of this, Abbi set the burglar alarm, left the house and
hopped on her bike.

It wasn’t far from
Abbi Abernathy’s house to “Safe Haven” as her family liked to call Fairview, a
quiet community with gently rolling gardens and manicured lawns allowing easy
access to Washington, D.C., where many of the residents worked. Fairview had
become a secluded little village where people’s lives fell into a gentle revolving
cycle. Quiet. A place where nothing happened.

The short bike
ride to the Pelletiers was made even shorter when Abbi realized it wasn’t just
a feeling. She really was being watched. To throw off her follower, she decided
not to let pavement limit her possibilities. Cutting through yards and alley
ways, she made the trip to the Pelletiers in 15 minutes, record time. Abbi
threw her bike down in the driveway and ran. Before she could start pounding on
the door, Louise opened it.

“Hey, what took
you so long?” Louise asked as a joke.

Abbi brushed past
her and said, “Close it. Quick. Someone’s out there.”

Louise couldn’t
resist peeking out the door.

“I don’t see
anyone!” she said. Then she carefully locked the door while giving Abbi a look
of sarcasm, and, in case Abbi wasn’t sure, Louise’s voice carried it off.

“Is it your
imagination again, Abbi? Lowell’s coming home from college today. He’ll protect
us,” Louise said.

Abbi laughed and
let it go. Lowell, as pizza-faced and pudgy as his sister, probably wouldn’t be
a lot of help. But something told Abbi that the time would come when her
friends would prove to be very helpful.

“Louise, I found
some things on Mom’s desk. I think these are significant.”

Abbi heaved the
backpack off her shoulder and took out the folder.

“Take a look here.”

She opened the
folder and spread the pictures out on the hall table. Then she flicked on the
lamp to show Louise what she’d found.

“Nice drawings,
but I don’t see the point,” Louise said.

“There’s a message
here. I feel like Mom’s trying to tell me something.”

Louise again
looked at Abbi, but this time with concern.

“Are you eating
OK? Sleeping well?”

“Louise, I’m
fine,” Abbi said, touching the drawings with her fingertips as if to feel her
mother’s intention. “Never mind. I’ll look them up online. These mean
something. You’ll see.”

“Let’s get you
settled in. Then you can do all the online stuff you want. I cleared the top
bunk for you, and I made a little room in the closet.”

“Thanks! I shouldn’t
need much room. I won’t be here long.”

“OK. Just the same,
it’s there for you.”

Abbi hugged Louise
and smiled. Louise released herself from the hug and held Abbi by the
shoulders.

“You need to
relax, Abbi. Not everyone’s out to get you!”

The Pelletiers once
again opened their home to Abbi. She planned to help with household chores and
then dance as much as possible for release, staying inside, out of sight. Most
of all she wanted to unlock whatever riddle the drawings held.

Abbi went upstairs
to the room she would share with Louise. She hung her bookbag on the bed post
and pulled out her laptop. The first place she decided to look was images on
the Mayan calendar.

            Why Mayan, she didn’t
know, but the drawings reminded her of something she had studied in fifth grade
about the mysterious culture of the ancient Mayans—the hidden meanings in their
artwork.

Maria stepped
outside the cantina, stood on the front step, breathed deeply once and let it
out slowly. Then twice. She scanned the desolate street and its few parked cars.
She looked for a blue sedan with freedom waiting inside. There!

Suddenly running,
she reached the car in just seconds.

“I’m Miss Shoe. Hurry!
Get in!”

The driver wasted
no time taking off, spinning some gravel onto the cracked sidewalk. Maria tried
not to look back but saw Ramon rushing through the cantina door.

            “Already a rough day?”

            Maria studied her, wondering
how much this woman could know of the workings that went on inside that
cantina. She tried to figure out the trust factor.

            “Yesterday would have
been better. You have a badge?”

            Miss Shoe flashed the
inside of her lapel. Maria seemed satisfied.

            “I also have these,”
she said as she reached into her pocket. “That’s what took so long. They
weren’t ready yesterday.”

            Maria took the two
items: a driver’s license and a passport.

            “These aren’t me!” she
said. “Just my face. My name is Maria.”

            “They are now. Get used
to it. You’ll have a new identity.”

            “Christina? You’re
naming me Christina? I hate that name!”

            “Call yourself Tina. You
want away from here? You want to never come back? How much cash do you have?”

            “One hundred fourteen
American dollars and a few pesos.”

            “That may not get you to
your dad. I’ll spot you some.”

            Miss Shoe handed over a
clip of bills. “Here, Tina. Take this.”

            “Don’t call me that,”
the girl said as she reached for the money.

            “After you get there,
you and your dad will be leaving Texas. Go with him, wherever he takes you. Several
agencies, the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and even diplomats with the Mexican
Government and the U.S. Passport office, are working together to help you out
of this nasty trap. You’re making a clean break. Don’t call your friends. Don’t
tell anyone where you’re going. This wasn’t easy to arrange.”

Miss Shoe jerked
the steering wheel as she attempted to avoid some potholes. On this dilapidated
street, and at her high rate of speed, there were too many to miss.

“Can’t we go a
little slower?” the girl asked.

“Not really. If
they catch you, you’re dead.”

“Come again?”
Maria held the money tight to her chest, wanting to know how much was there but
stunned by what she just heard.

She knew the back
of Ramon’s hand. In fact, she knew more about him than she ever wanted to
admit, but would he kill her? And who was “they”?

“Really. That’s the
way they operate. One more thing, Tina...”

The girl
interrupted.

“I told you not to
call me that!” the girl said loudly and turned on the radio.

The woman immediately
turned off the radio. “I care about a lot of things. Whether or not you like
the name is not one of them.”

“Bitch!” the girl
said with a low growl.

“Would you rather
be called Carmelicious Candie? I can turn this car around.”

The girl stared at
her and stuffed the money into her handbag.

“Tina, and you’d
best just get used to that, we are pulling out all the stops to make sure
you’re safe. In return, you’re going to talk to us. Don’t hold anything back.
For starters, how old are you?”

Miss Shoe turned
on her phone’s voice recorder.

The girl
hesitated.

“What about my
boyfriend?”

“Are you insane?!”

“I want to know
about my boyfriend.”

“He’s not your
boyfriend. He set you up.”

“No, he didn’t!”

“He sold you!
That’s what he does.”

The girl winced.
That hurt.

“Didn’t you know
that?” Miss Shoe asked, suddenly looking at Tina’s face.

Tina sat silent,
trying to remember. How much did this woman know?

They were quickly
getting closer to Brownsville, approaching the Gateway border crossing. Before
her boyfriend disappeared, he made a video for Ramon, a nasty, abusive video.
She had hated him for that, but he said he was just doing what he was told and
that it would mean a lot of money for her. He said Ramon wanted it for the
clients so they could see the merchandise. Violence excited them, he had said,
and they would pay more. She didn’t understand what he was talking about.

As to the
violence, Ramon was worse, acting both from greed and his sick pleasure. She
bit her lip as she remembered with pain the belt that struck her when the money
she brought in was under quota. But sold? The girl didn’t know she had been
sold to Ramon. That meant he owned her.

She was ready for
a new identity. She didn’t want to see them ever again, not Ramon, not her
boyfriend. Miss Shoe offered the only chance Tina would get.

“Your age? We
already know you’re under age. Just answer the question. I need it recorded.”

“Fourteen.”

For forty minutes
they talked as the car continued on toward customs. The agent recorded every
word, every sob, every Hail Mary.

“At customs,
they’ll try to trip you up on a couple of things. One is your birth year. Check
your documents now and memorize your birth date. Some of the agents should be
there to help you across, especially the man you met last night.”

Tina did as she
was told.

“I guess I look
old enough,” she said. “Can you see this bruise?”

“Cover it with
your hair. Also cover that tattoo if you can, the one on your neck. No, wear
this scarf.”

“Huh-uh. It
doesn’t look like me.”

Miss Shoe kept
checking the rearview mirror. She was already speeding.

“Your tattoo is a
red flag. I’m guessing the tattoo artist was a butcher in his day job. Cover
it! Otherwise, you’ll have a ton of questions to answer. Now wipe your eyes.
You look lovely. Listen. Get this straight. You were here on vacation with your
parents but have to get to your college for summer session. Tell them your
parents are staying to celebrate their anniversary in Veracruz.”