Cupid, Texas [1] Love at First Sight (24 page)

T
he park attendant was just opening the gate of the chain-link fence guarding the entrance to Cupid Caverns when Dade drove up on his Harley. He parked and stepped to the kiosk to pay the five-dollar admission fee and noticed the sign announcing the hours.

“Open 10
A.M.
to dusk. Monday—Saturday. Closed Sundays and all national holidays.”

Dade struck up a conversation with the red-faced, thick-waisted man with chin jowls that wobbled when he spoke. “Do people ever get lost in the caverns?”

“People get turned around now and again,” Wobble Jowls said. In spite of his jowls, he had a thin neck and eyes the size of marbles. “But we only have the front portion of the caverns open to the public. It’s got a well-lit path. Stay with the crowd and you’ll be fine.”

Dade glanced around at the empty parking lot.

“There’s a parade in town this morning. Others will be along soon.” Wobble Jowls passed Dade his receipt and a brochure.

“So there’s no way to see parts of the cavern where the public isn’t allowed?”

“Nope. It’s off-limits except to law enforcement or researchers who have special permissions.”

“No provisions for avid spelunkers?” Or ex-Navy SEALs on vision quests?

“None that I know of. You’d have to check with the town council.”

“So there’s no way someone could sneak into the caverns at night?”

“Don’t even try it,” the man said. “It’s dangerous. Not to mention you’d be breaking trespass laws. If you want to see deeper into the cave, talk to the town council.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.”

Dade entered the caverns. It was cool inside, a nice respite from the July heat. The slow, steady dripping off stalactites echoed in the large cavern. There was a smooth path that diverged in two directions.

He consulted the map. Following the left-hand path would take him to the cave that housed the Cupid stalagmite.

He headed in that direction, ducking his head as the cavern gave way to a series of smaller caves. Jagged stalactites jutted down like monsters’ teeth. The colors of the rock formations were an amazing blend of orange, yellow, brown, and green, a
Phantom of the Opera
world down here. It was just the sort of place where Red would feel safe.

Pausing near one of the lighted wall sconces, Dade read about the lore and history of the caverns. It was a fairly small cavern system, even including the part that was off-limits to the public, but it had a colorful and romantic past. Besides the legend of the Cupid stalagmite, there were rumors that during Prohibition, gangsters had smuggled liquor in from Mexico and hid it here.

A quarter of a mile into the cavern, he came upon the Cupid stalagmite inside a small cave all its own. A path wove in a spiral circle around the stalagmite, a dead-end cul-de-sac with Cupid in the center. The way Dade had entered the cave was the only route in or out.

The stalagmite was much larger than he expected. It stood over seven feet tall and almost touched the ceiling of the cave. Indeed, it looked like Cupid was standing on one leg, with the other leg bent at the knee as if he were running, a bow cocked in his arms, arrow ready to be flung into unwitting hearts.

Of course, Cupid didn’t really have a face. It was just a blob of stone formed from hundreds of years of steady drip-drip-drip, but it was easy to see how the town founders could be seduced into naming their little burg after the Roman god of erotic love.

“Pretty impressive, is it not?”

Dade whirled around to see Lars Bakke standing behind him. He’d been so absorbed with studying the stalagmite that he hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps.

Uneasiness rippled over him. “Yeah. Impressive.”

Lars peered around. “You all alone?”

Dade’s muscles tensed. “Yes.”

They stood looking at each other. Lars had his hands behind his back, and Dade’s uneasiness bloomed into full-blown suspicion. Something was very off about the old man.

“Nice statue. I see what all the fuss is about,” Dade said mildly.

“Ah yes, Cupid. The god of love.”

The hairs on Dade’s arms were standing at full attention and his gut squeezed tight. He moved toward the exit.

Lars sidestepped, blocking his way. “Where you going so fast? You just got here.”

“I’ve got somewhere to be. If you’ll step aside, I’d appreciate it.” He gave Lars his coldest stare.

“I’m sorry, Vega, but I’m afraid I just can’t let you leave.” Lars swung his arms around.

Dade glanced down, and he was not the least bit surprised to see a snub-nosed revolver clutched in Lars’s hand.

Chapter 19

Never give up on love.

—MILLIE GREENWOOD

“W
hat’s this all about?” Dade asked evenly as his mind raced.

Tanked.

Red’s Mayday message. Trust no one. Lars was the person his buddy had been trying to warn him about.

“Raise your arms and turn around slowly.”

“Let’s talk about this.”

“Arms in the air.” Lars raised the gun and pointed it in his face.

“All right.” Dade raised his arms and faced away from the Norwegian. Was the old dude going to shoot him in the back? Why?

“Walk forward.”

“We’ll be going around in circles.”

“Just do it.” Lars’s voice was pure steel.

Slowly, Dade raised his arms over his head and pivoted on his heel. His reflexes were faster than the old man’s, but Lars was twenty feet away and he could get off a shot before Dade reached him. Dade would bide his time, play along. Maybe he could find out what Lars had done with Red and why.

“Walk,” Lars commanded.

“Take it easy.”

“I know you’re a SEAL, so don’t try any crap with me. Don’t think for one second that I will hesitate to shoot you.”

“Calm down. This is a public place, Bakke. Someone could walk in here at any moment. We don’t want any innocent bystanders hurt.”

“Then you better start walking. Put your hands on the back of your head.”

Dade put his hands on his head and started walking forward; four feet and he was going to have to turn to follow the circular path or walk into the cave wall.

Lars made a scuffling noise behind him. It was all Dade could do not to glance over his shoulder and see what the man was up to.

A few seconds later, his question was answered when the cave wall in front of Dade started moving inward. He blinked. It was a secret door built into the cave wall, and camouflaging a hidden passageway. Bootleggers. It must have been bootleggers who built this during Prohibition.

“Move,” Lars commanded.

Dade stepped into the narrow, dank passageway. Was Lars going to shut him up in here?

“Keep going and keep your hands on your head. Do anything funny and I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

“What’s this all about, Bakke?”

“Shut up.”

Dade moved down the narrow passageway. His raised elbows brushed against the cave walls on either side. He could see a light beyond. He heard the secret door shut behind him. Was Bakke still back there? He stopped.

“Keep going.”

The passageway widened into a room. There was a second door on the far side of the room. Were there more secret caves and passageways beyond? At first glance, the room looked like an office. There was a table set up with a Mac computer and a printer, but a closer look told Dade this wasn’t just any printer, but a state-of-the art security ID printer. On the desk were baskets filled with drivers’ licenses and identification cards. Off to one side sat a bicycle-powered generator that provided electricity to the equipment.

It was not unlike the al-Qaeda setups the SEALs had found in the cavernous mountains in Afghanistan, except this one was far more sophisticated.

Slowly, Dade turned to face Lars. “You’re counterfeiting IDs. It’s you.”

Lars did not look the least bit contrite. “It’s very lucrative.”

“Where did you get the printer? That’s high-tech stuff.”

“Anything can be had for the right price.”

“Who are you working for?”

“No one,” Lars said. “I’m running this outfit myself.”

“All by yourself? Sorry, I’m not buying it. You don’t strike me as having the computer skills to pull this off. Besides, how do you ride the bike and run the computer at the same time?”

“I am pulling it off. I’m making twenty thousand a month, but I got a lot of expenses and the installment loans on my boat are a hundred grand each, so I have to keep at it until I can pay for my boat.”

“Supplying fake identification to teenagers?” Lars was a pretty damn good counterfeiter. Dade thought about the article he’d read in the June 19 issue of the
Alpine Gazette
. Had Red read the same article? Had his suspicions been aroused and he’d decided to investigate? “Among other things.”

“Supplying IDs to illegal immigrants?”

“That too.”

“Are you also providing fake IDs to potential terrorists?”

Lars shrugged. “Could be. I don’t ask their politics as long as their money is green.”

Dade couldn’t wrap his head around this. Natalie’s senior citizen boarder was running a counterfeit identification ring right here in Cupid, Texas? “But why?”

“Money. What else?”

“Money for what?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but the sailboat I’m having built cost a million five.”

“And counterfeiting is the only way you could do it.”

“Hey, try living on social security. You won’t have enough to buy cat food.”

“You look pretty healthy to me.”

“The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists, but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power. How naive the cliché that money is the root of evil!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s one of my favorite quotes of Eric Hoffer. It means money is a good thing and the more the better.”

“I’m not sure it means that.”

“Who are you?” Lars bellowed. “I knew Eric Hoffer. He was a great man.”

“Do you think he would approve of your counterfeit scheme?” Dade had no idea who Eric Hoffer was, but apparently Lars was quite enamored of the man.

“Hoffer believed in the concept of meaningful work.”

“And you consider this meaningful work?” Dade waved his hand at the basket of forgeries.

“Hoffer would say, ‘It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.’ ”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Of course it does. It makes perfect sense.”

Dade rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

“No, not ‘whatever.’ ” Lars’s glower deepened and rage infused his voice. “Hoffer was a genius.”

“Genius. Got it.”

“You understand nothing,” Lars ranted.

I understand you’re a friggin’ lunatic.

Dade’s mind spun with options as he tried to figure out how best to disarm Bakke without getting shot in the process. Bakke was wisely staying across the room from him. Dade’s back was to the second door. Maybe he could just make a run for the second door, see if he could escape that way, but what if the door was locked? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Would he be any worse off for having tried?

“Red didn’t stop taking his meds, did he?” Dade asked. “That must have been an old pill bottle I found that he’d neglected to throw away, and he kept his new prescription on his person. He didn’t wander off. He didn’t commit suicide. He stumbled across your little operation here.”

“Alas,” Lars said. “And now, so have you. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. I really did, because I like you. Then when you asked me for those newspapers I knew that you’d see the article about the counterfeit IDs, but I hoped you wouldn’t understand the significance.”

He hadn’t. It was the ad for the Cupid Caverns that had brought him here, not the news article.

“You came here armed and looking for me.”

“I followed you, yes. If you’d gone somewhere else, then all would have been well and I could leave you be, but oh no, you had to come to the caverns. Just like your buddy Red did.”

Dade moistened his lips. “How do you know that Red was my buddy?”

“Your little girlfriend gave you up.”

“What?”

“Natalie. She spilled the beans.”

Dade’s veins iced up. Natalie had told Lars who he was? And after she promised she would not reveal his identity to anyone until they’d had a time to formulate a plan. Betrayal bit into him. This was just like with that Afghan woman he’d tried to help.

Ah hell, no, this was worse. Given the culture of fear the girl had lived in, he should have expected betrayal from the Afghan woman, but from Natalie? The woman who claimed to love him? The woman who said she had his back? The woman he’d given his most prize possession to as a symbol of his connection to her?

Dammit, Natalie, you’ve ruined us.

It felt as if someone had jabbed a knife straight into the thick meat of his heart.

He snorted, shook his head.
Snap out of it. You need all your focus if you’re going to get out of this alive. Bakke knows if you leave here he’s going to prison for the rest of his life. He can’t afford to let you leave here.

“She was so happy over that tacky bracelet you gave her.” Lars shook his head. “Just glowing over the damn thing. Like it was solid gold.”

“Natalie didn’t tell you who I was?”

“No, she didn’t have to. The bracelet you gave her was the twin to the one Red wore. Red told me the story of the bracelet. He wore it all the time. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. The minute I saw it on her wrist, I knew who you were.”

All the air left his lungs. Natalie hadn’t betrayed him! He’d betrayed himself.

“Still, I had hoped we could have avoided all this. If you just hadn’t asked for those papers. Once you asked for those papers, I knew you were not going to let this lie. Loyalty and stubbornness. That’s your downfall, Dade Vega.”

“Where’s Red?” Dade growled. “What have you done to him?”

“He’s in a better place.”

Lars’s words were a sledgehammer to the heart. Red was dead? “You son of a bitch. You better kill me then, because if you don’t, I’m going to hunt you down and kill you.”

Lars looked regretful. “I was so afraid you were going to say that. Why did you have to say it like that? If you hadn’t said that I could just tie you up and leave you in here until I have time to clear out, but now, you leave me with no choice.”

“You’re not going to get away with it.” Dade gauged the distance between him and Lars. Fourteen feet. There was no way he could cross that distance before Lars got a shot off.

“Oh, but I am. In fact, my escape is in the works as we speak. Turn out your pockets.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Empty your pockets.”

Glowering, Dade turned out his pockets. His utility knife, penlight, cell phone, motorcycle key, and the key to his room at the Cupid’s Rest clattered to the floor.

“Ah, the room key. That’s very important. Last time I made the mistake of not getting Red’s room key. This time, your room is going to be cleared out lock, stock, and barrel, and your little girlfriend will assume you ran out on her after you had your night of fun. No one is even going to come looking for you.”

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Dade repeated through gritted teeth.

“Sure I am. Drifter biker. Soldier of fortune. Ex-SEAL probably had PTSD just like his buddy Red. You’ve got no family. No one’s going to give a damn when you’re gone.”

Dade was ready to lunge for Bakke’s throat, revolver in his hand be damned, when the door behind Dade opened. He spun around to face the newcomer.

It was Gizmo, the auburn-haired computer whiz who also boarded at the Cupid’s Rest. He was in on this with Bakke?

It dawned on Dade then that the Mexican woman who’d shown up the night he’d slept in the hammock on the deck at Chantilly’s hadn’t been looking for Red, but for Gizmo. He had red hair too. She’d been seeking counterfeit identification. No wonder she’d been so scared to find him there instead of a red-haired man.

Dade didn’t hesitate. He lunged for the kid, planning on using him as leverage, forcing Lars to put down the gun, but before he could reach him, Gizmo pulled out a stun gun and zapped him.

F
or over an hour, Natalie waited for Dade by the duck pond. By three o’clock she was starting to get worried. She tried to call the cell number he’d given her when he’d leased the room but it went to voice mail.

“Hi, Dade, did we get our wires crossed? I thought we were supposed to meet at the duck pond at two
P.M.
I’m going back to work. Call me when you get this or just come on into the lobby.”

When she hadn’t seen or heard from him by the six
P.M.
dinnertime, she started to get worried. She left a second voice mail for him. Then at seven, she left another. His motorcycle wasn’t under the portico, but she went to his room anyway, and knocked on the door.

“Dade?” she called. “Are you in there?”

There was no answer.

She knocked again.

When he didn’t answer on her third knock, she took the master key from her pocket and unlocked the door.

The room was completely empty, the bed tidily made. She rushed into the room, started opening dresser drawers.

Empty, every one of them.

She flew to the closet, flung it open.

Empty.

Numbly, she drooped onto the mattress as the realization hit. Dade was gone.

W
ater splashed on Dade’s face—
plop, plop, plop
.

He opened his eyes, stared into malignant darkness. Blackness. Complete blackness. Black as black as black can be.

Where the frig was he? He was lying on something hard and the water smelled dank and musty. He struggled to sit up, discovered his hands were bound at the wrist with zip ties.

Everything came flooding back to him.

The cave. He was somewhere in the far recesses of the caverns. Lars and Gizmo were forgers wanted by the FBI and Homeland Security. And he’d been stun-gunned.

Son of a whore.

Mostly, Dade tried to keep his cussing to a minimum. He’d been raised around foulmouthed junkies and he believed excessively vulgar language diminished a person. They’d made fun of him for it in the SEALs, sometimes calling him Preacher or even Titanium Preacher, and he’d accepted the teasing good-naturedly, but now he uttered every foul word he’d ever heard and then he made up a few more for good measure.

How long? How long had he been out and trussed up like a self-basting Butterball? Hours? A day? Longer? He’d better get used to it. The zip tie was not going to untie itself.