Flash and Fire (23 page)

She had been aware that the young woman’s homesickness was getting worse, but she hadn’t thought it was getting to the point where Carla would just quit and return to New Mexico. After all, Carla had become almost part of the family.

Carla stared down at her plate, her face set stubbornly.

Amanda felt bone-tired. It hadn’t been a good week, by any stretch of the imagination.

Grimsley was more intent than ever on getting rid of her. Though she and Ryan Richards were co-anchors, Ryan was suddenly being given the bulk of the copy to read. Amanda took the snub with dignity, hoping to ride it out. But the situation was getting worse and she knew that she was quickly heading for a showdown with the station manager.

But if she was heading for a confrontation with Grimsley, Amanda had absolutely no idea where she was heading with Pierce. Undoubtedly nowhere.

Right now, Pierce wasn’t even around to give her a clue. She had deliberately avoided him for a week after they’d slept together. And then the beginning of this week had seen a possible coup in one of the eastern European countries that kept forming and re-forming. Shorthanded because of a flu epidemic, the station manager had sent Pierce to cover the story. That left Amanda with some breathing space, and far too much time to think and feel.

And if that wasn’t enough, there was Whitney. He was to be indicted soon on charges of fraud and stock manipulation. She’d done the story herself. Amanda had been to see him twice, offering to do what she could. But it was her father now who would do Whitney the most good.

She didn’t seem to be doing much good at anything lately.

In an attempt to make Carla change her mind, Amanda had invited the young woman out to talk over their problem in a restaurant that specialized in authentic Mexican cuisine.

It had only made Carla more homesick.

Christopher squirmed next to her. His attention was entirely focused on his lunch. He wasn’t eating it, he was squeezing it. Beneath his small fingers, refried beans were oozing out of the child-sized tortilla on his plate in both directions.

Amanda refrained from reprimanding her son. It would only call attention to the negative side of Carla’s duties.

Amanda sighed. “Carla, what can I do to make you reconsider?”

The wide shoulders lifted and fell helplessly. “I’m lonely,” she said. “I miss my family. There is no one here for me besides the two of you.” She bit her lip helplessly. “I haven’t met anyone.”

By anyone, Amanda knew that Carla meant a man. But it was hard to meet people when she was busy with Christopher most of the day and closeted herself with tapes of soap operas during the evenings.

Amanda tried to remember what it was like to be twenty. It seemed an eternity ago, instead of just eight short years. There was a world of difference between her approach to life and Carla’s. Carla never went out to seize what she wanted; she waited meekly for it to come to her.

“Maybe if you joined a health club, or took a course at night, or—“

“No.” Carla shook her head. “My mind is made up. I spoke to Eduardo.”

Eduardo was her oldest brother and the head of the family in Taos. Amanda knew he had never liked the idea of Carla moving out of the state to begin with. It had been Carla’s sense of romance that had prompted her to go against his wishes in the first place. And now her homesickness was forcing her to return.

“He will be coining for me at the end of the week.”

A week? Amanda knew she would never find anyone to replace Carla in that short amount of time. Besides, she genuinely liked Carla. “I—“

Amanda’s next words were cut off by the sound of an alarm suddenly going off. The clatter drowned out the conversation. Carla looked around for the source. It was coming from outside.

“What is it?” Carla shouted.

Amanda had one restraining hand on Christopher. He was ready to dash out and investigate things for himself. “It sounds like a police alarm.”

“That’s not a siren,” Carla protested.

“No, I mean the kind that goes off when there’s a robbery in progress.”

Through the window she could see people converging before the liquor store across the street. Amanda was already on her feet. For the time being, Carla and her problems were going to have to wait.

“Wait here,” Amanda said. “I’ll be right back.”

Shifting in the booth so that she was now next to Christopher, Carla watched through the window as Amanda joined the swelling crowd on the street.

Hurrying across two lanes of traffic that were already beginning to snarl, Amanda stopped short of the liquor store. She saw movement inside, but it was difficult to make out just who was in there and what was going on.

She turned to the person closest to her, a gnarled-looking old man in a Stetson. His entire middle was defined by a huge silver belt buckle. “What’s going on?”

He didn’t even turn to look at her. His eyes squinted as they seemed to bore through the window of the liquor store.

“Looks like a robbery.” The wonder of seeing a drama unfold a few feet away was mirrored in his weather-beaten face.

“I seen him go in,” the woman behind Amanda volunteered, “some tall, skinny kid with a big gun, like in that drug movie that’s playing.”

Amanda turned to look at the woman. She truly doubted the youth was brandishing a gun as he entered, but Amanda knew that people’s imaginations and their need to be important tended to make them flesh out details. “Was he alone?”

The woman’s entire face seemed to shrug. “I didn’t see nobody else.”

Amanda moved closer for a better look into the store. She thought she could make out a tall, thin figure waving something around. Most likely a gun. Besides the person behind the counter, there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the store.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?”

The barely restrained hysteria in the stranger’s voice made Amanda turn around. She saw a tall, blond man clawing his way through the crowd. He was clutching a bag with a grease spot on the side of it. His eyes, huge with terror, were fixed on the store.

“Oh my God. Doris! That’s my wife.” He pointed toward the liquor store with the bag. “My wife’s in there,” he cried out to no one in particular.

Several people in the crowd murmured sympathetically, others craned for a better view.

Amanda made her way over to him. She had to lay her hand on his arm to get his attention.

“Are you the owner of the store?”

“Yes, yes, I just went out to get us some lunch. She wanted roast beef.” His Adam’s apple moved jerkily as he swallowed. “I just left her alone for ten minutes. Just ten damn minutes.” He looked at Amanda, seeing her for the first time. “How could this have happened? This is a nice neighborhood.”

Sympathy brimmed within her. “Things happen in nice neighborhoods all the time. There’re no fences around to protect you.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He was staring at the store again, clutching the bag with both hands, squeezing it without even realizing that he was still holding on to it.

Amanda hurried back across the street to the restaurant. Carla was on her feet, holding Christopher’s hand as she stood by the entrance.

“What’s going on?” Her face, so lifeless only minutes before, was glowing with excitement.

“It’s a robbery. The owner’s wife’s inside. She must have tripped off the alarm and the gunman panicked. It looks as if he’s holding her hostage.”

Amanda took the purse that Carla had been holding for her and rummaged inside for a pad and pen. Finding both, she slung the bag’s strap over her shoulder.

“Here.” Amanda quickly wrote down the phone number to the news station. “I want you to call this number.” She tore off the sheet and pushed it into Carla’s hand. “Ask for Paul. Tell him to get out here as fast as he can with his camera.”

Carla stared at the paper she was holding. “Paul?” she echoed.

“Yes, Paul. Paul Rodriguez. Tell him we’ve got a robbery in progress.” She heard the siren abruptly stop and glanced automatically over her shoulder. But nothing appeared to have changed, except that there were more people in the street. “Got that?”

Carla nodded.

Amanda looked down at her son. The boy’s eyes were animated as the noise and excitement spurred him on. “And don’t lose Christopher.”

Carla’s hand tightened around the boy’s. “Don’t worry.”

“Mommy?” Christopher’s voice sounded a little uncertain as he looked up at her.

He was always getting lost in the shuffle, she thought with a pang of guilt. She dropped to her knees for a moment. “Mommy’s got a story to do, sweetheart,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t understand. But this was who and what she was, and eventually he would understand
that. “Stay with Carla.” Kissing him, she rose and hurried
back outside.

By now, the street was mobbed. Amanda saw the tall store owner and fought her way over to him. She tugged on his sleeve to get his attention. “Mr.—?”

He looked at her, his eyes dazed, like a man suddenly waking up to find himself in the middle of a war. “Anselmo.” He mumbled his name as if it were a strange word. As if nothing fit anymore, nothing was real. He stared at the store helplessly. “Diego Anselmo. I only left her for a minute.”

“I know you did,” Amanda said soothingly. “It’ll be all
right.” She hoped it sounded as if she believed what she said. She’d seen too many things go wrong to be overly optimistic.

He heard her tone, but not her words. Everything was becoming blurred to him. “She’s pregnant,” he sobbed. “Nine months. It’s our first. Oh God, what if—?”

His bewildered cry was lost as a siren wailed. But Amanda didn’t have to hear him. She knew what he was thinking. What if the situation caused her to go into premature labor?

A squad car approached, its noise cutting though the thick layers of people. They parted on both sides of the vehicle.

Amanda took the store owner’s arm and pulled him in her wake as she made her way over to the squad car.

The first officer out of the vehicle was a heavyset, dark-haired man in his early fifties. His puffy face was scarred with pockmarks from his youth and creased with lines. There was a small, jagged scar just above his left eye.

He scanned the street scene with eyes that were devoid of judgment, of feeling.

“Anyone see what went on?” He threw his question out into the mob. A dozen voices began to answer at once.

Amanda elbowed her way forward. Her voice rose above the others, clear and sure. “I’m Amanda Foster with K-DAL News.”

The policeman’s eyes swept over her. There was no recognition. If anything, there was a trace of dislike.

Another person who thought the news media were vultures, she thought, not fully blaming him.

“Never watch the stuff. I’ve got to live it eight hours a day. That’s enough.”

She wasn’t about to argue with him. She urged the store keeper forward.

“Mr. Anselmo owns the liquor store. He stepped out to buy lunch for himself and his wife.” Amanda nodded toward the store. “She’s inside. While he was gone, someone entered the store and tried to rob her.” She glanced toward the store. “He’s still in there.”

More policemen were arriving on the scene. Amanda saw them bringing sawhorses to barricade off the area.

“Just one guy?” the policeman asked Amanda.

“That’s what I heard.” The policeman began to walk to the front of the mob. Amanda hurried after him. “I caught a glimpse of him by the window. He looks like a kid.”

A shot rang out from the store, shattering part of the front window. People in the crowd screamed and scrambled to get out of the way.

The policeman scowled, pushing Amanda roughly back behind him. “A kid with a gun.”

The store owner seemed to come to life at the sound of the gunfire. “Doris!!” Screaming her name over and over, Anselmo ran toward the store.

A policeman tackled him, bringing him down just as another shot rang out.

Chapter Twenty Five
 

Pierce walked out of the assistant station manager’s office. Abrams’s accolades had barely registered. Pierce felt as if he hadn’t had any sleep in thirty-six hours.

He glanced at his watch. Thirty-eight would have been closer to the truth. He could usually sleep on planes. The nature of his work had forced him to develop the knack of being able to fall asleep almost anywhere, anytime. But on this last trip, it hadn’t been so easy. Amanda had continued to prey on his mind like an elusive mathematical puzzle that couldn’t be solved.

No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to block her image from his mind for more than a few minutes at a time. All through the flight home—hell, all through the flight to eastern Europe—he had thought about nothing except returning to Dallas and seeing her. Being with her. Making love with her.

Five or six times, while still in Europe, he’d even pulled out his cell phone to call her.
 

To say what?

That she was haunting him? That he, who’d never allowed anything to cloud his thinking, couldn’t rid his mind of her? That she seemed to cling to him like a thin film he couldn’t rinse away?

She would have laughed at him.

He’d laugh himself if it wasn’t so damn annoying. So he’d hung up and hadn’t completed any of the calls. He had brooded instead.

Always before, the anticipation of a liaison had far outweighed the pleasures of consummation. This time, it was different. There was no ensuing boredom or restlessness, no desire to move on. His gears were stuck in neutral.

After having her, he only wanted her more.

It was, of course, just an aberration. It was because she had turned out to be such a passionate lover. He’d be over her soon, just as he had gotten over all the other women. No one could lay claim to him; that was the way he wanted it.

Pierce had stopped off at the studio first, going there instead of home just to see if there’d been any new developments on his story while he’d been in flight. Abrams had been more than satisfied with his material and his on-the-scene reporting. Pierce had been the first to break the story that the rumors were false and that the prime minister of the newly formed tiny country was to be retained, along with his cabinet. The rumor of a pending revolution was just that: a rumor.