Cry No More (23 page)

Susanna made a note on Milla’s chart, smiled, and said, “If I can wrangle any free time for lunch, I’ll give you a call.”

Milla smiled in return; then Susanna and the nurse left the examination room to let her get dressed. As soon as they were gone, her smile vanished. Worry nagged at her. Since they’d returned from Idaho, Diaz had been prowling Mexico. On two nights he’d shown up at her condo, scruffy and snarly, lean from the hunt. A wise woman would have stayed far away from him when he was so lethally edgy, but Milla had decided that where he was concerned, she wasn’t wise at all. Both times she’d fed him, put him in the shower, and washed his clothes. Both times he’d let her, though he’d watched her with narrowed, feral eyes that made her knees go weak, because she knew he was biding his time. And both times, as soon as he was out of the shower, he was on her before the towel hit the floor.

After his sexual appetite was slaked, he was usually hungry again. Whatever he was doing, he wasn’t getting enough to eat. She would make him a sandwich and they would sit at the table while he ate and told her anything new he’d learned, which was precious little. Still, she at least felt that those tidbits were solid information, not a smoke screen.

“The word I get is that Pavón has been working for the same man from the beginning,” Diaz had said the last time she’d seen him, four days before. “They smuggled babies; now they smuggle body parts. But the information on the street is thin; they’ve done a good job of scaring the hell out of everyone.”

“Did you find Lola’s children?”

“The oldest, a son, was killed in a knife fight over fifteen years ago. Lola hasn’t seen her youngest in eight years, but I’ve tracked him to Matamoros. He’s a commercial fisherman, and was out in the gulf. He’s supposed to be back three days from now. I’ll be there waiting for him.”

When she’d awakened the next morning, she had lain there for a moment, so . . .
content,
feeling him there beside her, that it frightened her. Almost as soon as she woke, he seemed to sense it and stirred, pulling her close before his eyes were even open. He was relaxed with her, she thought—as much as he ever relaxed, anyway.

She slid her hand over his chest, feeling the hair rough under her palm, the warmth of his skin, the strong, steady beat of his heart. His morning erection rose, inviting her touch, and obligingly she slipped her hand beneath the cover to envelop him. “I can’t believe this,” she murmured as she kissed his shoulder. “I don’t even know your first name.”

“Yes you do,” he said, frowning. “James.”

“Really? I thought you made that up.”

“James Alejandro Xavier Diaz, if you want the American version.”

“ ‘Xavier’? I’ve never met anyone named Xavier before. What’s the Mexican version?”

“Pretty much the same. Ouch!” he said, giving his rusty laugh and dodging when she darted her hand to pinch him in a very tender place. It always melted her when he laughed, because he did it so rarely.

While she had him weakened with hysteria, she slithered on top of him, positioned his penis, and slid down to take him tenderly inside. He took a deep breath and let his eyes close, both hands going to her bottom and kneading. Milla adored morning loving, when she was still sleepy and lethargic, when time didn’t seem to matter and in a way climaxing didn’t either. It was enough, almost, to just lie there and hold him with arms and body. Almost. Eventually she had to move, or he had to move, and it was as if that first stroke broke the bands of self-control. She rode him hard and fast, and when her climax shook her and left her collapsed on his chest, he rolled over with her and took his own satisfaction.

After breakfast he was gone, and she hadn’t heard from him in four days. The first week of October was almost behind them. Was he all right? Had he found Lola’s son?

After Milla left, Susanna went into her private office and called True. “I just saw Milla. We’re still safe; she doesn’t know anything about Diaz. She thinks it was bad information.”

True was silent; then he cursed luridly. “She’s
met
Diaz, you fool! They were seen together last month in Juarez.”

Susanna’s blood ran cold. “She lied to me?”

“If she denied knowing anything about him, she did.”

“But why would she do that? We’ve been friends for years.”

True snorted at that. Friends? God save him from friends like Susanna Kosper.

“Maybe she suspects
you
,” he snapped. “Maybe Diaz is closer to us than I thought.”

For once he didn’t have the chance to hang up; Susanna dropped the receiver into its cradle and sat staring at the phone as if it were a snake. She’d always thought Milla, while admirable in so many ways, was a touch naive. Now she wondered if
she
wasn’t the naive one. Was Milla playing her?

Panic rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. She’d worked too hard to let things fall apart now. She had to do something, and she had to do it fast.

22

Diaz entered the smoky cantina and found himself a place against the wall, partly shadowed, where he could watch the patrons come and go. The music was loud, the metal tables were crowded with empty bottles, and the urinal consisted of a barrel in a back corner. Two prostitutes were doing a lively business; the Mexican farmers and fishermen were relaxed and having a good time, singing along with a folk song, giving one another numerous and enthusiastic toasts, which called for more bottles, which called for more toasts. The
cantinero
, the bartender, looked like a man who kept a loaded shotgun close to hand, but in the convivial little cantina Diaz doubted he needed it very often.

Running Enrique Guerrero to earth had taken a lot of time and patience. Diaz thought he’d probably chased him over half of Mexico. But he’d finally caught up with the little fucker, in the port city of Veracruz, in this crowded, aromatic cantina where he felt safe, surrounded by all his
compadres
.

Lola must have warned him, Diaz thought, or his friends in Matamoros had. Enrique had run. Now why would he do such a thing, unless he had something to hide? Watching him, Diaz figured he had a lot to hide. Enrique was one of those furtive weasels who watched the people around him and, when they were too drunk to notice, relieved them of some of their cash. He was slick, but the cantina was dark and smoky, and there was some serious drinking going on; a five-year-old would have had some success doing the same thing. Enrique was drinking, but not much, which gave him a huge advantage. Still, not a few of the
campesinos
carried machetes; it was their weapon of choice, and hacking at one another was almost a national sport. Enrique was risking more than a black eye if he got caught.

Diaz wasn’t drinking at all. He stood very still, and most people never even noticed him. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone. He just watched Enrique, and waited for his chance.

Because he wasn’t drinking very much, Enrique didn’t have to make any visits to the barrel in the corner. If he had, Diaz could have moved up behind him and gently escorted him out the nearby door that led into the
callejón
, the alley. In this crowd, no one would have noticed or given a damn even if they had. So Diaz waited, moving deeper into the shadows, his attention never wavering.

Dawn was only minutes away when Enrique stood and slapped his pals’ backs, trading loud and hilarious insults if the drunken laughter was anything to go by. Probably he’d lifted all he could reasonably expect to get; it was a good gig, because when everyone sobered up, they would simply think they’d had a very good time and spent all their money.

When Enrique opened the door, the fresh air outside didn’t even make a dent in the almost palpable wall of smoke that filled the room. Diaz moved without haste from his post, timing his arrival so he stepped through the door right behind Enrique. No one seeing him would have thought there was any purpose at all to his leaving right then, because his gait had been leisurely.

As soon as the door closed behind him, he had his hand over Enrique’s mouth and his knife point sticking just under his ear as he dragged the weasel into the darkness of a narrow alley.

“Talk, and you will live,” he said in Spanish. “Fight, and you will die.” He removed his hand from Enrique’s mouth. Just to make certain Enrique got the point, Diaz gave him the point, about an eighth of an inch. It stung like hell and blood began pouring, but Diaz had taken care not to cut anything major.

Enrique was already slobbering with fear, promising anything, everything, whatever the
señor
wanted. Here, he had money—

“Don’t move your hands,
cabrón
.” Diaz dug the knife point in a little deeper. With his other hand he did a swift search and relieved Enrique of the blade he’d been trying to pull out of his pocket. “I don’t want your friends’ money, just answers to a few questions.”

“Yes, anything.”

“Your mother sent me. My name is Diaz.”

Enrique’s knees wobbled. He let loose with a number of colorful curses at Lola, who, even if she’d heard them, likely wouldn’t have cared. Diaz figured there wasn’t any love lost between mother and son, or she would never have told Diaz how to find Enrique. Essentially, Lola cared about no one but herself, a trait she had passed on to her son.

“Ten years ago you were living with Lola when she was caring for the stolen babies.”

“I know nothing about the babies—”

“Shut up. I’m not asking about the babies. Who did Arturo Pavón and your uncle Lorenzo work for? Did you ever hear a name?”

“A
yanqui
,” Enrique babbled.

“Not his nationality,
cabrón
; his name.”

“No . . . no name. All I heard was that he lived in El Paso.”

“Is that all?”

“I swear!”

“I’m disappointed. I already knew that much.”

Enrique began to shake. “I never saw him. Pavón was very careful to never mention his name.”

“But was Lorenzo as careful? Or did Lorenzo like to brag?”

“He bragged,
señor,
but it was empty noise. He knew nothing!”

“Tell me some of the things he said. I’ll decide if it is nothing.”

“That was a long time ago; I don’t remember—”

Diaz made a
tsk
ing sound. He didn’t move the knife at all; he didn’t have to. Terrified beyond reason by that regretful
tsk
, Enrique shuddered and began to sob. The strong odor of urine wafted up.

“Do you remember when Pavón lost his eye, stealing a gringo baby? The mother clawed out his eye, tore it from his head. Surely you remember that.”

“I remember,” Enrique said, weeping.

“Ah, I knew you didn’t have amnesia. What is it you have recalled?”

“Not about the man in El Paso, I know nothing about him! But that baby, the gringo baby . . . Lorenzo said the woman doctor helped them.”

The woman doctor.

Milla’s friend Dr. Kosper had delivered her baby, and had kept in touch all these years. She even lived in El Paso.

A big piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

The eviscerated victims hadn’t been butchered; their organs had been neatly removed, indicating some surgical skill was used. A damaged organ had no value. An undertaker could be doing the organ removal, but a doctor was the more likely choice.

Who was the one doctor who had lived nearby at both the little village where Milla’s baby was stolen and the border where the bodies were being found?

None other than Susanna Kosper.

He had to warn Milla.

By the middle of October, Diaz still hadn’t returned and Milla was so worried she couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything. Had anything happened to him? Mexico was, by and large, an extremely friendly and hospitable country, but like every other country in the world, it also had a very rough element. She would have bet on Diaz against almost anyone, but even the most efficient predator could be outnumbered and overwhelmed. He wasn’t proof against a high-caliber rifle, either.

When she wasn’t sick with worry, she was furious. Didn’t he have any idea how it would make her feel to have someone else she cared about just disappear? There was no comparison between Diaz and Justin, of course, except for their ties to her heart. Her son and her lover: surely she couldn’t lose them both in such a cruel way, with no closure, just pain and emptiness and uncertainty. When Diaz did show up again, she’d give him a piece of her mind he wouldn’t soon forget, and if he didn’t like it, that was just tough. He could sever their relationship if he wanted, but as long as there
was
a relationship she refused to be treated like nothing more than a sexual convenience whenever he got around to visiting.

She had tried his cell phone number several times without luck. He was either unavailable, according to the canned message, or not in a service area. If he had a voice mail option with his service, he hadn’t activated it.

She kept busy. Unfortunately, Finders kept busy. There was a rash of runaways and kids being snatched, as well as the inevitable hikers getting lost in the mountains. The reason didn’t matter; if feet on the ground were what mattered, Finders provided them. In just one week, Milla flew from Seattle to Jacksonville, Florida, to Kansas City, then San Diego, and finally back to El Paso. She was exhausted when she got back, but the first thing she did when she got home was check her answering machine for messages. There were plenty of them, but none from Diaz. She didn’t think he’d called on her cell phone, either, but the caller log feature had totally stopped working and she had no way of telling if she’d missed a call or not.

Come to think of it, she’d had no calls on it at all for a couple of days. She hadn’t thought anything of it because she’d been on so many different flights, and she had always called the office as soon as she could. She’d had no trouble making calls, but what if she couldn’t receive them?

She picked up her home phone and called her cell number. She listened to the ringing in the earpiece, but the cell phone in her hand did absolutely nothing.

In disgust she hung up and tossed the cell phone back into her purse. First thing in the morning she would drop it off for repairs and pick up a loaner, or even buy a new one if necessary. She couldn’t bear thinking that Diaz might have tried to get in touch and that stupid phone wasn’t working. Did he have her home phone number? She couldn’t remember ever giving it to him. Surely, though, if he’d needed to get in touch with her and couldn’t get her on the cell, he’d have called Finders and left a message, or called Information and got her home phone number and left a message here.

Where in hell
was
he?

Her home phone rang and she snatched up the receiver. Maybe—

“
Señora
Boone.”

“Yes, this is she.” Milla didn’t recognize the voice. This reminded her of the call back in August, telling her where she could find Diaz. But the voice wasn’t the same; she was certain of it. The first voice had been lighter, smoother; this voice was coarse, and the accent was different.

“You are interested in Arturo Pavón?”

My God. Milla swallowed hard to contain the sharp rise of excitement. Please, please let this be some real information and not another false lead, she prayed. “Yes, I am.”

“He will be in Ciudad Juarez tonight. At the Blue Pig Cantina.”

“What time?” she asked, but the caller had already hung up. She checked Caller ID; it said, “Unavailable.”

Desperately she called Diaz’s cell phone again. After three rings the canned voice said the customer was not in a service area.

She checked the time: four-thirty. Because this past week had been so busy, the office staff was scattered over the country. Brian was in Tennessee. Joann was in Arizona. Debra Schmale and Olivia were both sick with a vicious stomach virus.

She knew better than to go alone. She didn’t know what kind of place the Blue Pig was, if it was a regular cantina, in which case she wouldn’t be welcome in there, or if it was a club where women
were
allowed without it automatically being assumed they were prostitutes. She couldn’t see Pavón going into any of the more exclusive clubs; no, if he was there, then this was a regular cantina. For her to step foot inside one of them was to invite big trouble.

She racked her brain, trying to think of someone who was both available and capable.

Only one name surfaced.

Diaz had told her to stay away from True Gallagher, and she assumed he had a good reason other than just being territorial. He’d said that before they became lovers, as more of a warning than anything else. She should have asked specifically why he mistrusted True. But other than Diaz and Brian, he was the only man she could think of who would be capable in a situation like this.

She realized that it didn’t matter. Diaz wouldn’t have said what he had without reason, so she had to trust him. Just as soon as she saw him she’d find out exactly what he had against True, but until then she had to rely on her own sense of trust, and that lay with Diaz.

There had to be someone else. The problem with concentrating on work and on her quest to find Justin was that her social life was limited; she knew a lot of people, but none intimately, and in circumstances like this she needed someone she knew she could rely on.

Then she drew a quick breath of relief. There was one other, if she could just get in touch with him: Rip Kosper. Quickly she looked up his office number; of course he didn’t see patients in the office, since he was an anesthesiologist, but he and his partner had an office for handling the paperwork and billing, and taking messages.

He hadn’t yet left the hospital, the woman who answered said. Milla said it was urgent, gave her name and number, and the woman promised to page him. While she waited for him to return her call, Milla ran upstairs and changed into jeans and sneakers.

More than an hour passed before Rip called. In that time Milla paced, tried Diaz’s cell phone three more times, and forced herself to eat a sandwich. The caller hadn’t given a time, so this could well be an all-nighter.

“Milla?” Rip sounded concerned when he finally called. “What’s wrong?”

“I need someone to go with me into Juarez tonight,” she said. “My regular crew is either gone or sick, and this isn’t something I can do by myself. Can you go with me? I know this is way out in left field, but you’re the only friend I can think of.”

“Sure, no problem. Where and what time?”

She told him which bridge to meet her at, and when. “You’ll need to change clothes, if you can. The cantina we’re going to will probably be on the rough side.”

“All
riiight
,” he said with relish. “It’s been a while since I’ve done any cantina crawling.”

“Oh, one more thing: I have no idea how long this will take. It could be all night.”

“I have a light schedule tomorrow anyway. Nothing until almost noon. I’m good.”

“Thanks, Rip. You’re a doll.”

“I know,” he said smugly.

An hour later they walked across into Juarez. Milla had previously used Chela’s services only if they were leaving the border zone, but under no circumstances would she ever willingly be near Pavón without being armed, so she had placed a call to the arms dealer and arranged to meet her. “Do you know how to use a pistol?” she asked Rip when they were on the Juarez side.