Second Chance Hero
Second Chance Hero
By Liz Lee
©Liz Lee 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication: To Mel Schroeder, who encouraged me to follow my dream no matter what. To Belinda Wilson, who once again read every word one more time. And, as always, to Brian, my real life hero.
Chapter One
Rafe Hernandez hugged the teddy bear closer to his chest and nodded as his big brother spoke. “When we’re gone, you go to Ms. Palmer.
Vàmanos
. She knows someone who can help you and us. Disappear. Don’t talk to anyone but Ms. Palmer. Wait until afternoon. I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
And then Miguel was gone.
Rafe buried himself deeper to the ground. The dirt under the floor of his room was warm, dry and hard, leaving streaks on his Power Rangers t-shirt and shorts. He wiggled as close to the wall as he could, right up to a break in the foundation where he could peek outside.
The bright moon should’ve made the night comforting. But Rafe’s arms trembled as he held the bear tighter.
He
was coming and there was nothing to be done. Nothing but what Miguel said. Ms. Palmer would help. Please
Dios
.
The first cars drove over the gravel into his yard and Rafe closed his eyes. Prayed harder.
Above his head he heard a door open, heard one pop, then another as his
mamà
screamed curses at the monster, known but unseen. And then Miguel’s voice sounded above all the others. Loud, angry. “You promised.”
A laugh, low and angry echoed above and then his mother moaned low. “What do you want? Tell me. Anything.”
But the laugh continued on and on.
Rafe pulled himself into a ball, but he kept his eyes on the cars and when the black boots stepped out of his house, he saw the man wearing them. The man with the long black hair pulled into a ponytail and the scar down the right side of his face ending near his lip. The diamond in his ear and the sapphire ring on his finger glinted in the moonlight.
Degas. The monster of the night.
Two policemen with Degas talked about setting fire to the house but Degas shook his head. For a moment Rafe thought the man saw him watching and icy fear filled his veins. He couldn’t be caught. If he was, his family would be gone forever. He was their only hope.
For a moment Degas studied their house as if in thought. Finally the man spoke. His voice loud and clear in the starry night. “Let their empty house stand as a reminder to all in this neighborhood. Don’t cross me. You can’t win.”
Then they were gone. Along with Miguel and Momma.
Ms. Palmer was the answer. The only answer.
She had to be.
Lil Palmer erased the last red marker off her dry erase board and added the new assignment for tomorrow. Her students loved
Gatsby
. And she loved teaching it. She didn’t want to change the world. She just wanted to open it to these kids.
Unfortunately, they didn’t make it to school all that often.
She pushed her hair out of her face and sighed. She’d have to call the Hernandez family again. Solidad had dropped out of sight last week. Now Miguel. She’d had such high hopes. He was her top student.
She logged onto her computer and looked up the Hernandez number, wrote it down, ignored the voice in her mind—the one that sounded suspiciously like her mother—telling her she was wasting time in this Texas border town when she had a perfectly good trust fund waiting for her back home.
She picked up her cell phone, dialed the number and listened to it ring. Once. Twice. They didn’t have a machine. It was a miracle they had a phone.
Sometimes this job was impossible.
Miguel’s last essay sat on the top of her pile. His A+ the only one in the class. She dialed the number again but then stopped when a little boy stepped into her classroom.
Rafe Hernandez. Miguel and Solidad’s third grade brother. His face streaked with the red dirt that was everywhere around here. A tattered bear at his side. She closed her phone, set it on her desk and smiled. Not wanting to upset him more than he already seemed, she reached to the Double Bubble container on her desk—the one every kid on campus seemed to know about—popped the top and waited.
“Hey there, Rafe. Are you here to talk or just stopping by for some bubblegum?”
The little boy looked behind him, the sweat on his brown brow not at all unusual in the late fall heat. He bit his lip, again, not unusual. He tended to be nervous in this part of the building. The big kids’ building.
“Rafe. Do you want to come in?”
His big brown eyes met hers and then he turned to look behind him again. When he walked into the room, he closed the door with his foot, and as he moved forward, Lil frowned because Rafe Hernandez wasn’t just sweating. He’d been crying.
When he reached her desk, he leaned forward and spoke so low Lil barely heard him. “You must help me,
Senorita
Palmer. My family is gone. I am sorry to be here. But you have to help.”
Gone. Okay. That wasn’t all that unusual either. INS raided San Mario often. But she hadn’t heard anything about it and that was odd.
She reached out, touched the boy’s shoulder. Tried to find words of comfort. “It’ll be okay, Rafe. We’ll just….”
The little boy shook his head and looked up at her with his frightened eyes. “You don’t understand
Senorita
Palmer. They were taken. By the
policia
and the bad man from Mexico. I saw it all. If they find me now, they will kill me. You must help me. Miguel said you knew someone who could help us.”
The police? And a bad man from Mexico? Kill him? Lil’s heart dropped at the endless possibilities. She wished his words were nothing but a farce, but the terror in his eyes showed the truth. And she knew exactly what she had to do and who she had to call.
Boredom sucked.
David Martinez licked his finger then folded down the edge of the paper space shuttle he’d just about perfected and told himself his current desk jockey punishment was well worth it. When you worked for Andrews Investigations you kept your cool.
Truth was he hadn’t meant to ruin their last big bucks investigation, but when he’d seen Mr. Moneybags beating the crap out of his secret teenaged lover, he’d lost it.
One minute he’d been sitting in the car taking pictures, making sure the Mrs. cashed in big when she filed for divorce and the next he was out of the car ramming Mr. Moneybags’ face into the hood.
His phone rang and he picked it up to check the caller ID. The last person he wanted to talk to right now was his mother. She’d want him over for Thursday night supper. Her rellenos were great. But he had a date with the NFL Network and a six pack. No family tonight.
But it wasn’t his mother on the line.
It was Lil.
Blonde Babe, Hot for Teacher, out to save the barrio Lil Palmer.
Ah man. This could not be good. The last time he’d talked to Lil she’d made herself very clear. She was not interested in a good time. She was not interested in time at all where he was concerned.
He flipped the phone open, imagined her full lips. “Hello, Sweet Lil.”
That oughta get her.
But it didn’t.
“David. I need you to come to the school. Now.”
Odd girl, Lil Palmer. Her low, sexy voice made him smile. “What happened to
hasta la vista
?”
Pause. And then “This isn’t a game, David. Just…please, I don’t know who else to call. And be prepared. It’s not good.”
Click. Conversation over.
Ah damn.
David didn’t need complications. He didn’t need to get dragged into another one of Lil’s bleeding heart campaigns. But he just couldn’t say no to her. For whatever reason, he was going to do exactly what she wanted.
Again.
He clipped his gun in his shoulder holster because bad news with Lil could be anything from a litter of puppies dumped on the side of the road to a baby abandoned at the school to a drunk dad trying to beat the hell out of one of her students. He’d walked all three of those roads and had the chocolate lab named Scamp, the headlines and the scar over his left eyebrow to prove it.
He shrugged on his jacket, even though he was licensed to carry, and grabbed the keys to the beat up F150 he was driving until the GTO got out of the shop.
The bossman was not going to like this.
“I’m outa here. See you in a few.”
He laughed at the crash of the chair, the expletives, the reminder that the workday wasn’t over for another two hours. Ah yeah. He definitely needed an intervention of the Lil kind.
Hopefully he’d get something good out of it. Another night in her bed would be okay, but he’d settle for a kiss. Or hell, even a smile.
‘Cause Lil was an angel when she smiled. That was for damn sure.
A few minutes later, David walked into Lil’s classroom and relaxed. Lil and a kid. How bad could it be?
“Hey, Lil. Who’s the little guy?”
Poor boy’s whole body seemed to be shaking and the tear streaks on the dust-covered face of the boy she introduced as Rafe Hernandez had probably worked one hell of a number on Lil. But then Lil was an easy mark for half the kids in the barrio with her out-to-save-the-world-one-kid-at-a-time mentality.
Man, she still looked hot with that flowerdy teacher dress she was wearing and the way she had her angel-colored hair up in a ponytail showing off that sensitive neck of hers all set against the backdrop of her classroom with the chalkboard and posters and nice, big desk, cleared off of everything but her calendar. Yeah. She was migh-ty fine.
But he needed to focus on the reason she’d called.
He bent down, took the little guy’s hand in his and gave him the reassuring smile that put most people at ease and had been getting him his way for as long as he could remember.
“
Señor
Martinez. My brother told me Miss Palmer would call you.”
Strange. He looked up at Lil and she shrugged but that worried look on her face got a touch deeper. Then Rafe Hernandez rocked his world.
“The
policia
came to my house with Degas. They took everyone. I hid and watched, and I saw Degas,
Señor
Martinez. I saw him.”
Holy crap. Lil and her Do-gooder’s-R-Us mentality had just stepped in where she might never step out.
David turned and checked the windows. The swing rocking in the empty playground suddenly looked ominous. If this boy was telling the truth, they were in a whole heap of trouble here. He turned back to Rafe and tried not to freak the kid out.
“Tell me how you know it was Degas.”
No one saw Degas and lived to tell about it. At least he hadn’t been able to find anyone who had and he’d damn sure been trying.
The little boy held his trashed teddy bear even closer, but he didn’t pause as he whispered. “I saw his scar. It ran from here to here.” His voice trembled as he pointed from his ear to his lip. “I saw the ring.” Rafe held up his index finger and David winced. The king ring. The scar. The little boy had definitely seen Degas. How in the hell had the kid’s brother known Lil would call him?
“I thought maybe he saw me, but if he did, I would be gone too,
sì
?”
Oh
sì
, hell yes, damn.
Why oh why did Lil have to be a crusader?
“You can help us, right?” Lil asked.