SHARON SALA
CUT THROAT

At this writing, it is almost the end of 2006, and my mother, at age eighty-six, is still with me. We are together again, under one roof as we first began, only the roles have been reversed.

Today I care for her, and I can say with wholehearted honesty that it is my blessing to be able to do so.

She taught me everything I know in this life that is good and right. She is always behind me, backing up my decisions, comforting me as I meet each test life dumps at my feet.

I am one of the blessed ones, and I know it.

I never had a moment of doubt in my life that she didn’t love me, or that she would somehow let me down.

It is through her faith that I have grown to be the woman I am today—a woman centered in life, a woman confident that, no matter what, I will survive what life gives me and, in the end, overcome.

It is with great honor that I dedicate this book about strong women to the strongest woman in my life—my mother, my friend.

To Iris Shero Smith.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Prologue

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

Gunfire echoed through the empty rooms of the abandoned house, making it seem as if a dozen shooters were involved, not just the two men who were exchanging fire in what had once been a luxurious den.

Suddenly a bullet slammed through an old, rusty barrel near the brick wall of the fireplace, igniting the few inches of gas still inside. Bounty hunter Wilson McKay saw the flash of ignition a second before the room went up in flames. He was on his feet and running when the blast from the explosion threw him out the door and onto his knees. He got up quickly and kept on running.

Solomon Tutuola was already ducking for cover when the room exploded. The force of the explosion threw him through a pair of windows at the south end of the house and out onto the ground.

One moment he and Mark Presley had been in a run-and-gun fight with some tall, spiky-haired guy with an earring in his ear, and the next thing he knew, the house in which they had been hiding went up in smoke.

For a few seconds Tutuola lay faceup outside, staring into the sun, all but immobile from the force of the blast. He drew a shallow breath, then another and another. Suddenly a white-hot shaft of searing pain brought him to a sitting position as shock subsided and agony took its place. Groaning and shaking from the shock waves, he rolled over onto his hands and knees, and began crawling away from the burning house, dodging fiery debris, convinced that the skin was melting off his face. He passed out about a hundred yards from the house, unaware that Mark Presley, the man he’d chauffeured into Mexico, had been captured and the two bounty hunters who’d come after him were long gone.

When Solomon came to, hours later, it was late afternoon and he was in more misery than he’d ever felt in his life. He heard the soft sounds of a four-legged animal trotting around his head, then his feet. He opened his eyes, horrified to find a coyote nosing at his heels, while a trio of buzzards circled overhead.

The roar that came out of his throat sent the coyote packing. Solomon staggered to his feet, then turned around, staring first at the smoldering embers of the hacienda, then down at his hands. Blisters had formed on the burns, then burst, mixing with the dirt on which he’d been lying. His entire body was shaking from the intensity of his pain. It wasn’t until he tried to blink that he realized he couldn’t see out of his left eye, and when he lifted his fingers to that side of his face, he screamed.

“Son of a bitch!”

The flesh that came away at his touch was blackened and bloody, and there was a part of his head that was completely devoid of hair. As best he could tell, the entire left side of his face and head had been seriously burned. He needed to get to a doctor, and fast. If he didn’t die from the pain, he was damn sure going to die from infection.

Cursing and screaming with every step he took, Solomon made it to his car. The keys were still in the ignition, and Mark Presley’s luggage—a large duffle bag and a wheeled overnighter—was still on the backseat.

Without wasting time wondering what had happened to Mark, he started the car and headed for Nuevo Laredo.

By nightfall, he was in the hospital, under sedation. The bags were locked in the trunk of his car. His car keys were in his burned pants, hanging in the tiny closet with what was left of the shirt he’d been wearing. Every few minutes, a nurse came into his room, checked the saline solution laced with morphine being pumped into his body, making sure that he wasn’t losing more fluids than were being replaced. For all intents and purposes, Solomon Tutuola was teetering on the verge of death.

One

Six weeks later: Dallas, Texas

The faint cry of her neighbor’s new baby was barely audible from where bounty hunter Cat Dupree was sitting in her apartment, and yet, for some reason, it was all she could hear. She’d blocked out the thunder of her own heartbeat and was ignoring the sick, helpless feeling that had taken root in the pit of her stomach. Her entire focus was on the wanted posters plastered over the walls of her office—that and the baby’s continuous wail.

Her laptop was sitting on top of a file cabinet by the door. The GPS program that was running showed a map of Mexico and a blip that, for the past thirty-six hours, had continued to move steadily westward. It was her worst nightmare come to life, yet she chose to ignore it for the faces on the wanted posters.

After all these years, the faces were as familiar to her as her own, and yet none of them matched the face of the man who, since childhood, had haunted her dreams. The man who had killed her father and left a six-inch scar along the base of her throat. The same man she’d seen only a few weeks ago and had been certain—so certain—was finally dead. She glanced back at the laptop and winced. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Wind rattled the windowpanes behind her, signaling the oncoming storm heading for Dallas. Rain was imminent, but the temperature was in the high thirties, which meant no accompanying ice or snow. After the ice storm they’d endured during Christmas, a simple rainstorm was welcome news. As the wind gusted again, she shivered, then folded her arms across her chest and hunched her shoulders, thankful for the central heating in her apartment. As she did, her focus shifted to the wanted poster tacked above the doorway.

The poster of Justin “Mad Dog” Bailey was the first she’d hung more than fifteen years ago. He’d been singled out as worthy of posting for the simple fact that he had tattoos all over his face and body, one of the identifying features of her father’s killer. She’d known immediately that he wasn’t the man she was looking for, but she’d had to start somewhere, so she’d tacked him up. She tunneled her fingers through her hair. Her head ached, and the muscles in her neck and back were miserably tight, but that was of no importance to her. It was revenge that had driven her to where she was in life, and it was revenge she needed. Her gaze slid to the next poster.

Edward John Forrest. Edward was too young to have committed the attack on her family, but she’d felt compelled to hang his booking photos anyway, and so it had begun. Over the years, she’d acquired an impressive collection.

As she stood, she realized the neighbor’s baby had quit crying. Either someone had poked a bottle in its mouth, or it had finally given up and fallen asleep. The silence was oddly uncomfortable. Now there was nothing to sidetrack her awareness of that damned laptop and the map on its screen.

Frustrated by her lack of willpower, Cat glanced up again, squinting slightly as the light glared on the monitor, blurring the geography through which the blip continued to move. Even though she couldn’t see it clearly, she knew it well.

It was Mexico—the place where she’d run her best friend’s killer to ground.

She glanced back at the wanted posters all over her office walls. After Mexico, they were redundant, because there she’d come face-to-face with not only the man who’d killed her friend Marsha, but the tattooed man she’d spent half her life looking for. His name was Solomon Tutuola, and while, for the third time in her life, she had unexpectedly lived to see another day, she had been under the assumption that Tutuola had not. Then this damned blip had resurfaced, taunting her with the possibility that her assumption had been wrong.

Feeling defeated, she moved slowly toward the doorway, then paused under Mad Dog’s poster and reached up. The paper crackled as she slipped a fingernail beneath the edge. For some reason she hesitated, discovering it was more difficult to remove than it had been to put up.

Finally she pulled it down and dropped it into the trash, then reached for another one. One by one, she pulled them down, until the walls were completely bare and the trash can was full to overflowing. She emptied it, then began dumping the stacks of posters on the floor into another bag.

Almost an hour passed before the task was finished, and then she finally allowed herself another look at the laptop. The blip was motionless. Whoever was carrying the bugged property that was showing hot on the laptop had stopped for the night.

She grimaced. The bastard was getting more rest than she was. Frustrated, she looked back at the filled trash bags littering the floor and sighed. Those images had been such a part of her life, it seemed strange that she didn’t need them anymore.

Last month she’d finally put a name to the face of the man who’d killed her father.

Last month she’d watched the house he’d been in blow up and then burn.

Last month she’d been certain he was dead.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

The motionless blip was like a taunt—a “come and find me if you can” dare that she couldn’t ignore.

Cat sighed. It was time to see if the devil was dead, or if—as she feared—he’d resurrected himself. But before she absented herself from Dallas again, she had to tell her boss, Art Ball. Just because she had an agenda, that didn’t mean he could put his bail-bond business on hold for her. There would always be bail jumpers to find. She just wasn’t going to be the one doing it for him—at least not for a while.

And then there was Wilson McKay. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do about him. She refused to admit that he deserved any kind of explanation of what she was up to. Just because they’d had sex—unbelievable sex—didn’t mean she owed him anything. And just because he’d helped her bring in Mark Presley, the man who’d killed Marsha Benton, that didn’t mean she had to keep him updated on the rest of her life.

Part of her wanted to blame Wilson for this uncertainty. When the house where Presley and Tutuola had been hiding out down in Mexico caught on fire, she’d captured Presley, then wanted to go back to make sure Tutuola was dead.

But Wilson had stopped her.

The fact that she would most likely have died if she’d gone back into the burning house was beside the point. When she was being honest with herself, she knew there was no one to blame. But she couldn’t live with herself until she knew for sure if her father’s killer had survived.

Tomorrow she would call Art and then head south to the border. She had to know who was behind that blip. If it was some Mexican local who’d come across some of Mark Presley’s bugged property, then so be it. But if it was Tutuola, then her job still wasn’t done. As much as she dreaded another long road trip, she was satisfied with her decision. Within moments, Cat walked out of her office and headed for her bedroom to pack.

It had been almost a week since Wilson McKay had seen Cat. When he was rational, he told himself to just let her go. It was obvious she didn’t want anything from him except the occasional round of sex. He should have been happy to just take what she gave out with a thank you and a pat on her butt. Any other woman and he would have. But not her. She’d gotten under his skin in a way no other woman had done and, despite everything he believed in and every instinct he had that told him to let her go, he just couldn’t—which explained why he was on his way to her apartment unannounced, with a pizza and a six-pack of beer.

Traffic was heavy on the bypass, but nothing out of the ordinary for Dallas on a rainy Saturday night. The smell of pepperoni wafted under Wilson’s nose as he took the exit leading to Cat’s apartment building, while the constant sweep of windshield wipers kept the view clear. His radio was tuned to a country station—its style matched his mood and the dark and stormy weather. He needed a Cat fix—at the least, a long session of kissing and cuddling, at the most, a long night with the wildcat in his arms. Just the thought of how it felt to bury himself deep inside her made him ache with want. She was a handful between the sheets, always giving back as good as she got. He had yet to understand how a woman with that much passion in bed managed to stay so cold and distant from everyone she knew. He suspected it had to do with all she’d endured at such a young age, and because of that, he just wasn’t willing to give up on her—yet.

The glow of headlights from the heavy flow of traffic was refracted by the rain, while the constant swish of wipers gave the night streets a garish appearance. Wilson thought of the comfort waiting for him inside Cat’s cozy apartment and refused to consider the fact that her welcome might not be as warm.

When he pulled into the parking lot and circled her building in search of a space, he couldn’t help but notice that the lights were on in her apartment. Now it came down to the crunch. She was home, but would she welcome him in or send him packing with a sharp word and a glare from her cold, blue eyes?

He parked, grabbed the pizza and beer, and headed for the door. He would know soon enough how warm his welcome would be.

Cat was on her hands and knees in the back of her closet, searching for the matching boot to the one already sitting next to her suitcase, when she thought she heard the doorbell ring. Frowning, she rocked back on her heels and listened again.

There!

This time she heard the chimes clearly and frowned.

“Who in the—”

Wilson.

She knew without a doubt that it was Wilson McKay. He was the only person who visited her and the only one she knew who would come without calling. Probably because he figured she wouldn’t answer the door if she knew he was coming, and she almost didn’t answer it now. Despite her instincts telling her to leave him standing there, she headed for the living room, hating herself for the spurt of excitement she was feeling. She didn’t really have time for this, but ignoring him might raise more suspicion than if she just let him in and got it over with. At least, that was what she was telling herself as she reached the front door. A quick peek through the peephole was all she needed to see that her guess had been right. It was Wilson—and to her disgust, the sight of him made her pulse skip.

“Hey,” she said, as she opened the door.

Wilson breathed a sigh of relief. She was in a good mood.

“Hey, yourself,” he said, and before she could dodge him, he leaned in and kissed her square on the mouth.

Her eyes were flashing as he pulled back. He couldn’t tell if she was pissed or enjoying the passion he’d put in the kiss.

“Have you eaten?” he asked, offering the pizza.

Cat inhaled deeply, surprised by the hunger pangs she was feeling.

“No, and for that reason only, you can come in,” she said, then lifted the pizza box from his hands and headed to the kitchen, knowing he would follow.

“I should have called,” Wilson said, as he set the six-pack of beer on the kitchen counter.

Cat set the pizza box down and turned to face him.

“Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. Truth had served him well thus far in life. He figured he might as well continue the process.

“I figured you would tell me no.”

Cat frowned. She hadn’t expected his honesty. Now she had no choice but to respond in kind.

“You would have been right,” she said.

Despite a stab of regret, he grinned and shrugged.

“So I saved us both some guilt and anxiety. Do you want your beer in a glass or straight from the can?”

Cat thought of the trip she was about to make and decided against anything alcoholic. Without answering, she handed him a glass, then filled one for herself with ice and Pepsi and laid out two plates.

Wilson reached for the roll of paper towels. He tore off a couple of sheets to use as napkins and then got a shaker of red-pepper flakes from the cabinet where she kept her spices.

Cat was torn between admiring his good looks and being a bit intrigued with the tiny gold hoop earring he wore in his left ear. As usual, his hair was a style in progress. He wore it in a buzz cut that always seemed to be a week past needing a trim. There was a small scar beneath his right eye and enough of a bump on his nose to know it had been broken more than once. His shoulders were broad, his legs long and muscular, his belly hard and flat.

Cat was well aware of how fit he was beneath the denim and leather, and was thinking of what would come later—after pizza and beer. She wouldn’t lie to herself and pretend she didn’t want him, because she did. They would have sex. Wilson McKay was damn good at it, and she wasn’t a fool. No sane, single, red-blooded woman would turn down a roll in the hay with someone who exuded sex appeal like Wilson McKay. But the moment she thought of having sex with him, she remembered the half-filled suitcase and the chaos in her bedroom.

Shit.

“Uh…Wilson…go ahead and sit down. I’ll be right back.”

She flew out of the kitchen and down the hall without looking back. When she got to her bedroom, she stuffed things back in drawers, tossed others in the bottom of her closet and shoved the half-filled suitcase under her bed. She gave the bedspread a couple of brief yanks to smooth out the wrinkles and then went back to the kitchen.

Wilson was standing right where she’d left him with a curious expression on his face.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Who? Me? Yes…I’m fine,” she muttered, and then pasted a big smile on her face, grabbed a piece of pizza from the box and took a big bite. “Yum.”

Wilson arched an eyebrow.

“Yum?”

“Have some,” she said, and pointed to the box.

Wilson knew something was going on, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to talk about it. Finally he stifled his curiosity and sat down, picked up a piece of pizza and took a bite. He chewed, then swallowed.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, and toasted her with the slice. “Yum back at’cha,” he said as he took another bite.

Cat grinned in spite of herself. When Wilson McKay wanted to, he could be intriguing—even endearing. Still, there were rules in her world he kept trying to break.

They finished the pizza without serious conversation, but when they began cleaning up, Wilson excused himself briefly to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t until he was coming back down the hallway that he happened to glance into her office and saw the bare walls.

Shocked, he stopped, then stepped inside.

He’d seen the office as it had been before, the walls papered with wanted posters. Now there was nothing left but nude walls peppered with pinholes, and he knew what that meant. Through an odd stroke of fate, in running down her best friend’s killer, she’d found another, as well. He thought of the walls Cat Dupree kept up between her and the world, and wondered how much thinner they were tonight with the absence of those posters.

The banging of a cabinet door reminded him where he was, and he knew that Cat would view his curiosity as meddling. He slipped out of her office as quickly as he’d entered.

“Did I stay gone long enough to avoid doing dishes?” he asked, as he sauntered back into the kitchen.

Cat arched an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“Good,” he said, and slipped a hand around her waist and pulled her close.

As their bodies connected, Cat sighed.

Now it began.

She turned until they were facing each other. “I suppose you think we’re going to have sex.”

Wilson’s eyebrow arched as a muscle suddenly jerked near the right corner of his mouth.

“I don’t have sex with you.”

Cat’s eyes narrowed sharply. “Damn it, Wilson, don’t play word games about—”

He put a finger on her lips. “I make love to you, Catherine.”

She slapped his hand away. “While I, on the other hand, have sex.”

“Semantics,” he muttered, then fisted his hand in her hair and pulled gently, tilting her lips to his mouth.

She felt his anger as she slid her arms around his neck; then the kiss deepened, and his anger morphed into lust. That, she could follow.

A low moan slipped up her throat, but when it emerged, it sounded more like a growl.

“Damn you,” Wilson whispered, and cupped her backside. “Grab hold, or I swear to God that the sex you have with me is going to happen right where we’re standing, with your pants down around your ankles.”

Cat jumped, wrapped her legs around his waist and slammed her mouth against his. She moaned again, but this time because she tasted blood—her own.

Wilson pivoted with her held tight in his arms and strode down the hallway to her bedroom.

“You make me crazy,” he muttered, as he dropped her flat on her bed.

“Shut up and take off your clothes,” Cat said, as she sat up and began undressing.

Wilson’s eyes narrowed angrily. First she didn’t want him here, and now he wasn’t getting to her fast enough? If he had a functioning brain, he would turn around and leave her naked and wanting. But the thought left his mind as she sat up, pulled her sweater up over her head and tossed it on the floor.

He grunted. To hell with pride and dignity.

Within seconds, his clothes were in a pile on the floor and he was standing at the side of the bed.

Cat rolled over onto her hands and knees and crawled over to him, then rose up and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Wilson tunneled his fingers through her hair, then put his arms around her.

“Witch,” he said roughly.

Cat sighed. She loved the feel of him—the hard muscles beneath smooth, warm skin—and she loved the way he made her feel. But she wasn’t going to admit—ever—that she loved the man himself. She locked her fingers around the back of his neck and pulled until she fell backward, pinned to the mattress beneath the weight of his body. At that point she wrapped her legs around his waist again, and this time, she held on.

“So I’m a witch now?”

“Hell, yes,” Wilson said, as he stared down at her, ever conscious of what awaited him in her bed.

“Then…hocus-pocus, Wilson. Time to disappear.”

He grabbed both her wrists, pinned her arms above her head, then thrust into her without warning, taking satisfaction in the shock, then desire, he saw on her face.

“No more you. No more me. Just us. How’s that for a little magic?”

“Doesn’t feel so little to me,” Cat murmured, and rocked upward.

Wilson gritted his teeth and stifled a groan, then gave back as good as he got. He drove into her without tact or finesse, and took her to a climax so hard and fast that she choked on a scream.

Cat felt as if every bone in her body had just crumbled to dust. She had never—never in her life—been satisfied so completely in such a hit-and-run fashion.

“Oh, man…oh, Wilson…that was…that was…”

“That was for you,” Wilson said. “That was sex.”

He cupped her face with both hands, lowered his head and brushed his lips across her mouth.

Cat inhaled softly.

He swept his lips down the side of her neck, then kissed the valley between her breasts before circling her nipple with the tip of his tongue.

Still reeling from the aftershocks of her climax, Cat was shaken by the sudden urgency she felt to have more.

“Wilson…I—”

“Shh,” he said, and then lifted his head and stared down into her eyes. “You wanted sex. I gave it to you. Now this time is for me. This is what it means to make love.”

Before she could answer, he covered her mouth again, stealing the breath from her body and the good sense from her soul. She would have panicked over what he’d just told her, but he left her no time to think—only feel.

He didn’t leave an inch of her skin untouched as he moved across her body with his hands and his lips. Twice Cat tried to take control of the situation by urging him to take her, and twice he refused with a soft whisper, then a sigh.

“Uh-uh,” he said, and slid his hands beneath her hips and lowered his head.

When he began circling her navel with his tongue, her heart rate accelerated. But when she felt the tip of his tongue sliding down her belly to the juncture of her thighs, she moaned. This was an intimacy involving trust—something she had never had with a sexual partner, something she had never allowed.

Even though she refused to admit there was more between them than a mutual appreciation for sex, she did know he wouldn’t hurt her.

Her muscles began to quiver as the pressure began to build.

“Oh…oh, God, Wilson…”

Wilson had intended this as a means of showing Cat the difference between lust and intimacy, but the urgency in her voice and the way her body was trembling was like a drug he couldn’t quit.

Suddenly he felt the muscles in her body winding up, tightening and tightening toward the inevitable climax. It was the sign he’d been waiting for. He rose up, then slid over and into her body.

The sensation was shattering, and it was only beginning. He took her slowly, burying himself deep, then pausing to savor the sensation. Then Cat moaned, and the sound pushed him over the edge. He rode the feeling as long as he could, and when the orgasm hit, he went with her, coming undone in her arms. When it was over, he lay spent and shaking, unable to move.

A short while later, he glanced over at the windows. Raindrops glittered on the outside of the glass, but it appeared that the storm was over.

Cat moved.

He thought he heard a soft sigh, but then she rolled off him and got out of bed.

“Do you want some coffee before you go?”

His eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared. He sat up and then swung his legs over the side of the bed, staring at her in disbelief.

“Before I go?”

Cat glanced at him, then looked away, well aware of how this sounded, but it was his own damn fault. He was pushing her into corners where she didn’t want to go.

Wilson stood, towering over her as he paused at the foot of the bed. Then he grabbed his clothes and started putting them on as quickly as he’d torn them off.

“Hell no, I don’t want any coffee, Catherine. I couldn’t possibly want anything more from you other than the fucking we just had.”

The word was rude, but no ruder than she’d been with him.

“Okay, then,” she said, and turned and walked into the bathroom.

When she came out, she paused in the middle of her bedroom, listening to the silence, and knew he was gone. But when she glanced toward the bed, her heart slammed against her chest with a hard, painful thud. She stared until her vision blurred and her throat was thick with tears. Taking a deep breath, she leaned over and picked up the money he’d thrown on her mattress.

A hundred dollars—in twenties.

She didn’t know what the going rate for a whore might be, but he’d made his point.

“Damn you,” she muttered, then drew a slow, shuddering breath, refusing to admit that he’d gotten to her.

Angry with herself, she threw the money into a drawer and then dragged her suitcase from under the bed and finished packing. Her steps were slow as she headed for her office to check her laptop. The blip was motionless, which was good, but according to the map on the screen, it was in the middle of nowhere.

Too tired and too hurt to think about it anymore tonight, she shut the laptop and took it back to her room. Within minutes, she was in bed, with the alarm set for six o’clock. She closed her eyes, trying desperately to sleep, but it was useless. She couldn’t forget the hurt she’d seen on Wilson’s face or the fact that she was the one who’d put it there. Then she rolled over on her side, thumped her pillow angrily and, with a skill she’d honed over years of disappointment and despair, blanked everything from her mind and went to sleep.

Two

Still reeling from Cat’s rejection, Wilson went straight from her apartment to the office. By daybreak, he had a good lead on Paulie Beach, one of his bonds who’d failed to appear, and was packing to go get him. As always, he wore a bulletproof vest under his shirt and his badge on a chain around his neck. There was a can of mace in one pocket of his coat, a Taser in the other, a pair of handcuffs clipped onto the back of his belt and his handgun in a shoulder holster.

Beach had been arrested for B & E—breaking and entering—his third strike for the same offense. That should have been a warning to Wilson, when he’d agreed to bond him out, that Paulie wasn’t the type of man who learned from his mistakes.

Wilson grabbed the file he had on Beach and was walking out of the office as his secretary, LaQueen Baldwin, was coming in.

LaQueen was six feet and two-hundred pounds of Jamaican beauty, and had an opinion about everything, including Wilson’s single state. She had worked for him for four years, was the best secretary he’d ever had and reminded him of that fact on a daily basis.

Even though he never talked about his personal business, she knew all about his fascination with Cat Dupree. She knew when they’d been iced in together during Christmas and when he’d taken off to West Texas in the middle of the night to help Cat after she had discovered her best friend Marsha Benton’s body. She knew when Wilson followed Cat Dupree to Mexico to aid her in catching Marsha’s killer, and, after one look at his face this morning, she knew Wilson McKay was not in a good mood, and she promptly attributed it to Cat.

“Good morning to you,” she said briskly, as he held the door back for her to enter.

“Yeah, it’s a doozy,” he muttered, as he pointed to her desk. “I left you a note.”

LaQueen glanced toward her desk, then back at Wilson.

“Yes. I see that. However…since you are still here, and since I have arrived at this marvelous establishment to devote the next eight hours of my life to it and to you, you may tell me in person just where it is you might be going.”

Wilson caught the tone of her voice and realized he’d pushed one of LaQueen’s buttons, which figured. During the past twenty-four hours, he hadn’t gotten much of anything right with women.

“Paulie Beach was a no-show at court a couple of days ago, and the phone numbers I had on him are disconnects. His mother’s going to lose her house unless I can find the bastard. She cried for ten minutes before finally admitting she might know where he’d gone. I’m going to go get him.”

LaQueen’s lips parted into a smile. She nodded approvingly as she patted him on the arm.

“Ummm…that is good! You go find that sorry excuse for a son and lock him up. His momma hurt enough when she gave birth to him. She don’t deserve to lose her home over the pain he’s causing her now.”

Wilson grinned in spite of himself. LaQueen did have a way with words.

“I’ll do my best,” he said. “Sorry if I was abrupt.”

LaQueen arched an eyebrow. “So. Is that what they are calling it these days?”

Wilson’s smile slipped. “Calling what?”

“You called it abrupt. I call it a bad night with a woman.”

Wilson snorted lightly. “Am I that transparent?”

LaQueen frowned. His pride was damaged. She didn’t intend to make it worse.

“If you might be going past a deli on your way back to the office, I would appreciate a bite of something sweet.”

Wilson grinned in spite of himself. “A sweet for a sweet lady…hmm, yes, I think I can do that.”

LaQueen nodded, then gave him a royal wave as she sailed past him toward her desk.

“Be off with you then. You’re letting in the cold air.”

Wilson’s grin widened as he pushed the door shut, then headed for his SUV. She was maddening, but she really was the best damned secretary he’d ever had.

Paulie Beach was a user. He used people and drugs and situations to slide through life with as little effort as possible. For the second time in his life of crime, his mother had put her home up as collateral to bond him out of jail. Only this time, he’d skipped out on his court date, knowing full well that he would be on his way to prison again if he showed. It bothered him some that his mother was in a bind, but so was he. He couldn’t afford to go back to lockup. He’d left too many enemies behind.

Wilson pulled around behind the Western Trails Motel and parked. According to Paulie’s mother, who’d finally decided her son wasn’t worth losing her home for, he’d called her from here the night before last. Wilson didn’t know if he was still in residence, but he was going to find out soon enough.

He got out and headed for the office. The woman behind the counter glanced up as he walked in, then stood a little straighter when she got a better look.

“Need a room?” she asked, and fingered a loose bleached-yellow curl.

He flashed his badge. “I’m looking for Paulie Beach. Is he still in room 216?”

Her smile turned into a frown. “We’re not supposed to give out—”

Wilson leaned across the counter. “Lady, the man I’m after is willing for his mother to lose her home rather than show his ass in court. I’m not in a very good mood, so don’t start making excuses for your clientele. You and I both know most of them rent by the hour, so if you want me to notify some friends in vice that you’re running a little something on the side, just say the word.”

Her expression shifted to one of defiance, but she didn’t mince words.

“Yeah, he’s still in there, but if you bust somethin’ up when you take him down, you’re payin’ for it.”

“And by the same token, if you call and warn Paulie I’m coming up, I’ll come after you for aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

She blanched, then held up her hands and stepped back as Wilson left the office.

He quickly moved into the shadows of a stairwell, glancing up to the second-level balcony and the long row of motel-room doors. The cold air, mixed with the warmth of his exhaled breath, was marked by small, cloud-like vapors. Despite the chill, he could smell something rotting from a nearby garbage bin and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

As he started up the stairs, he saw the corner of a maid’s cart and knew she was already on her rounds, cleaning rooms. He didn’t think Paulie was armed, but he couldn’t take a chance on getting an innocent person hurt. Once he reached the second level, he hurried down to the open doorway where the maid was cleaning and flashed his badge.

“Stay inside,” he said quickly.

The woman’s fear was evident as he closed the door between them, then hurried down to 216.

The curtains were pulled, and there was a thin layer of frost on the windows. He stood to the side of the door and listened, but heard nothing, no one moving around. Too cold to linger, Wilson knew there was only one way to rouse Beach and only one way out of the room.

Wilson made a fist and pounded on the door, but got no response. He pounded again, this time louder and longer.

“Get lost!” someone shouted from another room.

“Paulie! It’s Wilson McKay. Get your ass out here now.”

There was a long moment of silence; then Wilson heard footsteps hit the floor. He put his hands on his hips and stared at the curtains, knowing that Paulie would look out. When he saw the curtains move, he yelled again.

“Open the door, Paulie. You jumped bond on me. I’ve come to take you in.”

Paulie Beach’s expression was a mixture of surprise and anger as he stared at Wilson in disbelief.

“Like hell,” he yelled, as he let the curtains fall back in place.

It was all Wilson needed to see. Impatient and cold and ticked at the world in general, he kicked the door with a vicious blow. It flew inward, revealing Paulie in the act of pulling on his pants.

“Son of a bitch!” Paulie yelped, and bolted for the bathroom.

Wilson caught him by the back of the pants. “Shut your mouth,” he said, as he grabbed the man by the arm and shoved him facedown on the bed.

He snapped on handcuffs and dragged him back up on his feet while Paulie cursed and argued.

Wilson wasn’t in the mood to listen.

“Just shut up, Beach! You’re one sorry bastard, you know that? What the hell were you thinking…pulling a no-show in court and putting your mother in danger of losing her house?”

“Piss off,” Beach muttered.

Wilson grabbed Paulie’s shirt, coat and shoes, and dragged him out the door.

“Hey! It’s cold out here. Give me my shoes, damn it. You can’t take me—”

“Yes, I can,” Wilson said.

The little maid was peeking out past the door when Wilson dragged Paulie Beach out of the room and onto the landing.

“He’s checking out,” he told her, and then pulled Paulie down the metal stairs, taking satisfaction in the fact that the little bastard wasn’t wearing any shoes.

He dropped Paulie off at the jail, spent a few minutes listening to the jailer talk about his first Christmas as a father and tried not to hate the man’s guts. It wasn’t the jailer’s fault that Wilson’s personal life was one big mess.

Then, as if fate wasn’t through messing with him, he met Art Ball coming in as he was on the way out. All it did was remind him of the female bounty hunter who kept tearing a hole in his heart. Still, he managed to be cordial without making an ass of himself and asking about her. It wasn’t Art’s fault that Cat was a loner.

Once inside his truck, he jacked the heater up to high, taking comfort in the flow of warm air on his feet, and headed out of the parking lot.

Remembering his promise to LaQueen, he picked up a sack of doughnuts from a deli counter as he filled up with gas, then headed back to the office.

While Wilson was plying his secretary with doughnuts and coffee, Cat was pulling out of a drive-through ATM. She had three-hundred dollars cash in her pocket, a suitcase with several changes of clothes and a pair of tennis shoes, besides the boots she was wearing. There was a to-go cup of coffee in the cup holder on her dash and a small sack of fresh hot pretzels on the seat beside her. Every now and then she took a bite, savoring the crunch of salt between her teeth, as well as the warm, chewy bread.

The rain from last night had passed over, leaving gray but clear skies. The grass in the center median of the interstate was brown and soggy, and there were still a few puddles in the road indentations.

Her cell phone was in the seat beside her, but she’d turned it off. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. The only person who knew what she was doing was Art, and only because she’d had to come clean with him to keep from getting fired. He hadn’t been happy with her news, but he understood how Cat’s mind worked. He had the number to her cell phone, and her promise that she would call him at least every other day, so he would know she was all right.

Once again, Cat was the predator, after her prey.

Solomon Tutuola was not the same man who’d driven Mark Presley into Mexico. The burns on his face and neck had been serious and, though they were finally healing, they would leave scars. Most of the hair on the left side of his head was gone and, from the consensus of the last two doctors he’d seen, it wasn’t going to grow back. There was a large portion of flesh underneath his chin and on the right side of his neck that had burned deep enough that the tattoos he’d had since his eighteenth birthday were gone. The healing flesh was red and tender, and the web-work of scarring was visible there, as well. The last two doctors he’d seen had recommended he be sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to their burn center. It was one of the finest in the country, and Solomon was in serious need of some rehabilitation. However, Solomon had his own reason for ignoring their advice, and he’d found it in Mark Presley’s big duffle bag.

It was money.

One-hundred-dollar bills banded in five-thousand-dollar stacks—hundreds and hundreds of them. More money than he’d ever seen in his life. He’d given the bound bills a quick count, then quit counting after he’d gone past a million dollars.

Originally, when Presley had contacted him for a ride into Mexico, he’d had no idea why Presley was on the run, nor had it mattered. His focus had been on the money he was going to get for the job. But if he’d known Presley had been carrying this, he would have killed him outright, taken the money and saved himself a world of pain. He would also never have met up with that damned long-legged woman who’d been after Presley. She’d been like a bulldog. Every time they thought they’d lost her, she would reappear. He had no idea what her thing was with Presley, or what had happened to any of them after the explosion. For all he knew, the man who’d been shooting at him had burned up in the explosion, along with Presley and the woman. He certainly hoped so. He couldn’t remember seeing any other vehicles when he’d come to and taken himself to the doctor, but it didn’t mean one hadn’t been there. He’d been so far gone that he could have driven past his own mother and not known it.

Then he’d found the money in Presley’s luggage, and he’d begun to look at his misery and pain in a different light. There was enough here for him to retire, which was exactly what he intended to do.

For the last couple of days he’d been heading west, with no particular location in mind. It wasn’t until yesterday evening that he’d realized he wasn’t far from Agua Caliente, a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere. He’d been there before, years earlier, and had hooked up with a woman named Paloma Garcia. He didn’t know if she was still there, but he was going to find out. He needed a place to rest up, and her hospitality would be just what the doctor ordered.

Today was Paloma Garcia’s birthday. She had been born in her little house thirty-two years ago today. It was no surprise to anyone in Agua Caliente that she was no better off now than her parents had been when they were alive. No one there was.

She had no means of income other than the colorful serapes she wove and sold to her uncle, who periodically took them to Mazatlan during tourist season for resale.

She woke with no sense of anticipation as to what this day would bring other than that she was officially a year older and still unmarried. The man she’d been seeing had left town over a month ago for the border. She had no idea whether he’d made it into the United States or not. All she knew was that he was gone and she was, once again, alone. Her reputation in the little town had been colored by her careless lifestyle with too many men, and while she refused to consider herself a puta, most of the residents looked upon her as one.

She wet a cloth to wash the sleep from her face, then gave herself a sponge bath, bathing from the metal washbasin on a small table beneath her bedroom window. She dressed with no special care, choosing an old but comfortable red dress with colorful embroidery around the neck and sleeves. Her long black hair was her best feature. She enjoyed the heavy weight of it between her fingers as she made a braid, then tossed it over her shoulder. Her movements were slow and thoughtful as she walked through the tiny adobe house to the kitchen. With no electricity and no utilities, her cooking was done over a small fire that she built on the floor in the corner of the room. As she put some coffee on to boil, she laid a couple of tortillas she’d made yesterday onto a flat stone by the fire to reheat, then filled them with some leftover beans. She dipped the bean tortilla into a mole sauce between bites, and ate while considering what she would do today.

Her uncle had just picked up a dozen of her serapes last week, so there was no urgent rush to begin another. As she ate, she peered through a crack in the wooden shutters she had yet to open, judging the time by the height of the sun in the sky, and decided it was just after eight in the morning.

Today was not only her birthday but market day. Maybe she would treat herself to something special—maybe a melon—or maybe not. She didn’t feel much like celebrating.

As she was finishing her meal, a knock sounded on her door. Frowning, she took a last sip of coffee before getting up to answer it. The second knock hit the door even as she was opening it.

When she saw the man standing on her doorstep, her eyes widened in disbelief.

He smiled.

She gasped, then fainted.

Solomon was pissed. This was not the reception he’d imagined from Paloma. He picked her up, kicked the door shut behind him, then carried her to her bed. As he carried her through the three tiny rooms, he realized nothing had changed.

A small chalk statue of the Virgin Mary still sat in a dirty alcove someone had long ago chipped out of the thick adobe walls. The walls themselves were patched in a dozen places and badly in need of whitewash. There were two chairs and a tiny wooden table in the kitchen, two chairs and a wooden bench in the front room and, in her bedroom, a single bed and some pegs in the walls where her clothes were hanging.

She owned one pair of shoes, which she was wearing. When Solomon laid her down on her bed, both shoes fell off. His nose curled in distaste as he saw how dirty the bottoms of her feet were. It seemed as if the years had not been kind to Paloma. The woman he’d known would never have let herself go in this way.

There was a wet cloth wadded up in the bottom of a metal basin. He picked it up and then laid it across her forehead.

Within moments, she began to rouse.

“What…? Who…?” She sat up, then gasped.

“Don’t go all wacky on me again, woman. I’ve come too far and I’m too hungry to play nursemaid again. Besides…I’m the one in need of help here.”

Paloma’s heart was hammering so hard she could barely hear herself think. She recognized the voice and the face—at least part of it. They belonged to a man she’d hoped never to see again, yet here he was, looking more than ever like the demon he was.

“Solomon…is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me,” he snapped.

“What has happened to you?”

He didn’t like being reminded that his face looked like something from a horror movie.

“I had a little accident,” he said, then cupped himself suggestively and added, “but it didn’t affect what matters most. It’s been a long time since I’ve had me some ass. Do me first, then I want something to eat.”

Paloma swallowed nervously. The last thing she wanted was to put her mouth anywhere on this man’s body, but denying him wasn’t wise. Not if she wanted to keep herself in one piece.

She took the wet cloth from her forehead and laid it aside as she reached for his belt buckle.

“Remember how I like it?” Solomon said, as she unzipped his pants and then reached for him.

“Yes, Solomon, I remember,” Paloma said, and then nervously licked her lips before taking him into her mouth.

The faint scent of urine wafted up to her nostrils. She struggled not to vomit as he grabbed her by the back of the head and pushed himself down her throat.

She choked.

He slapped the back of her head to remind her to tend to business, then let go of every thought but how good her wet, warm mouth felt on his hard dick.

It wasn’t the way Paloma had planned on spending her birthday, but she made a quick mental adjustment and concentrated on the task at hand. It was decisions like this that had kept her alive this far, and since she planned on having many more birthdays, she saw no reason to fight back.

Three

Cat spent her first night on the road in what Art would have called a no-tell motel. As she was checking in, she couldn’t help but remember the last time she’d been this far south of Dallas. Then it had been an all-out race down highways and interstates, trying to catch Mark Presley before he left the country. Retracing the journey felt surreal. Even though she was once again trailing a blip on a computer screen, this time she was uncertain as to who was behind it. Bottom line, she needed to make sure the devil she’d thought was dead had not resurrected himself.

By the time she parked and got to her room, she was exhausted. The furnishings were about twenty years out of style but clean enough. Once inside, she locked the door behind her and sat down on the side of the bed, wearily taking in her surroundings. There was a black velvet painting of a bullfight on the wall above the headboard of the bed. The bedspread was pink-and-green cabbage roses larger than the size of her head, and upon closer inspection, she could tell that the carpet wasn’t actually carpet at all but artificial turf. Cat scooted the soles of her boots against the surface and then grimaced, well aware that walking barefoot wasn’t going to be cushy. Her belly grumbled hungrily, but she was too tired to go looking for a place to eat. Instead, she washed her face and hands, lay down on top of the bedspread and rolled over onto her side. Just to rest. Just for a few minutes.

The next thing she knew, it was two in the morning and she was still in her clothes. She rolled out of bed with a groan. After a quick trip to the bathroom, she kicked off her boots and undressed in the dark. Too tired to look through her suitcase for her pajamas, she crawled back into bed naked, this time beneath the covers.

And she dreamed.

He was behind her. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her neck.

“Wilson…I—”

When he lifted the hair from the back of her neck, she choked.

“Shh,” he whispered, as he cupped her breasts and pulled her close against him, then rolled her nipples between his fingers.

Heat shot through Cat so fast she gasped, then staggered.

“Is that good, baby? Do you like that?”

All she could manage was a groan.

When his hands went south, Cat shuddered, then closed her eyes and let herself go. Wave upon wave of unbelievable pleasure began to build, adding to the aching, white-hot pressure already deep within her. Cat wasn’t accustomed to letting anyone control her body, but she couldn’t find the words to make him stop. The feeling was so good it was frightening, and when she heard Wilson groan, she knew she wasn’t the only one affected by their lovemaking.

A minute passed, then another and another, while Wilson’s hands and mouth marked a trail of heat all over her body, leaving her almost blind with need. Then, between one breath and another, she began to burn and Wilson sensed it. Before she could think, he dropped to the side of the bed, pulling her with him until she was sitting in his lap, riding his erection.

She wanted to turn around—to watch his face while they did it—but she was coming so fast she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want it to be over, but she needed it to stop. And then she screamed.

Cat woke up with a jerk just as the orgasm rolled through her. Breath caught in the back of her throat as she grabbed onto the sheets. A moment passed in a wave of confusion as she tried to orient herself within the starkness of an unfamiliar motel room—along with the place she’d just been in her head.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she said with a groan, then rolled over and sat up in the bed.

She’d left Wilson McKay behind for a reason, only it seemed he wasn’t as easy to ignore as she’d planned. The digital clock on the bedside table clicked over onto six o’clock just as she glanced at it. It was early, but after that dream, there was no way she was going back to sleep.

Still weak and shaky, she pushed herself up and off the mattress and staggered to the bathroom.

It was a plain, inconspicuous room about the size of a small closet. The dripping showerhead had left a rusty streak down the side of the tub, which should have been a warning for what was to come.

Deciding that the wisest thing to do would be not to look into corners too closely, she unwrapped the tiny complimentary bar of soap, then palmed it as she stepped into the shower. She pulled a clean washcloth down from a small shelf, then turned on the water. When she had it adjusted to the warmth she wanted, she pulled up the shower button on the faucet and then gasped when it sputtered rusty water in her face before emitting a somewhat steady stream.

“Fucking perfect,” Cat muttered, as she washed the rusty gunk from her face.

A short while later she emerged from the shower and dressed in a warm, comfortable turtleneck sweater and a pair of jeans. She packed, then headed out the door, leaving her room key and a couple of dollars on the bed for the cleaning lady. The air was chilled, the sky gray and overcast. She pulled the collar of her coat up around her neck and hunched her shoulders as she hurried toward her SUV.

Breakfast came from the drive-through of a doughnut shop, along with an extra-large cup of coffee. Cat ate with one hand while driving with the other. By the time she was finished, her dark blue sweater was dotted with bits of sugar glaze. She brushed the sugar from her clothes onto the floorboard, washed down the last bite of doughnut with the last of her coffee, then took out her cell phone. There were two messages, both from Art, one telling her to call and let him know she was okay, the second complaining that she hadn’t returned his first call. She grimaced, then shook her head as she laid the phone back down on the seat. Art was a good friend, as well as her boss, but sometimes he treated her like a helpless girl and not the self-possessed woman she really was. She would call him later when she was further down the road. Right now there was nothing to tell.

The laptop she’d come to rely on was on the passenger seat, powered up and running. Every so often she would glance down at it, just to make sure the blip she was following was still where it had been the night before. It was. It was not lost upon her that this whole trip could turn out to be a bust. The blip could be nothing more than a leftover bug that her friend Pete had placed in a piece of clothing or a pair of shoes belonging to Mark Presley. After she’d taken Presley into custody outside of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, anyone could have come across his belongings. She had no way of knowing what had burned in the fire and what had survived. Someone could have come along and claimed the discarded clothing, unaware that some of it had been bugged. One way or another, she would soon find out.

About an hour south, she began to be aware that the traffic in front of her was slowing down. When she drove up over a hill and saw that there’d been a wreck, and that for now both lanes of the highway were being shut down, she frowned and pulled off to the shoulder.

One highway patrolman was stopping traffic. Another was down in the ditch with the wrecked cars and a tow truck. She eyed the situation carefully, then put her vehicle back in gear. While the patrolmen were otherwise occupied, she shifted her SUV into four-wheel drive, wheeled around the parked vehicles and drove onto the center median, bypassing the line of cars and the wreckage. When she was clear of the pileup, she drove back onto the highway and continued her trip south.

Wilson had nightmares all night and, in one way or another, every damn one of them related to Cat Dupree. His first phase of sleep revolved around Cat ordering him from her house. That nightmare evolved into a good two hours of being lost in a maze and hearing Cat screaming for help, but being unable to find her.

He got up before daybreak feeling like he’d been run over. The last time he’d been this bummed about a woman, he’d been all of thirteen and learning to come to terms with the fact that his pretty, eighteen-year-old neighbor was probably never going to return his affections. Back then, a big breakfast of blueberry pancakes had gone a long way toward curing the heartache. Unfortunately, it would take more than his mother’s cooking to assuage the pain that loving Cat Dupree had left behind.

By the time he got out of the shower, the streets outside his apartment were already beginning to fill with traffic. As he went to the kitchen to start the coffeemaker, he glanced out the living-room windows, judging the weather by the thin wisps of clouds and the gray, overcast sky. Whatever was going to happen today wasn’t going to be good. He could feel it.

He poured his first cup of coffee, thinking of how his mornings used to be when he was a kid back home. The kitchen had been warm and full of noise and great smells. His mom would be standing at the stove cooking bacon or pancakes or something equally tasty, while keeping her rowdy, growing family down to a dull roar.

In comparison to that, his place was a mausoleum. He turned on the small TV he kept on the corner of a kitchen counter just so he could add some voices to the silence, even if the news they were broadcasting was less than heartwarming. As usual, in a city the size of Dallas, the night had not been kind. Someone was dying, while others were already dead. He listened just long enough to assure himself that the suspected perps were none of his bonds, then opted for food.

But when he went to the fridge to get some eggs, he saw a half-empty bottle of beer on the lower shelf and, once again, lost focus. His heart kicked painfully against his chest as he stared at it—remembering.

It had been in his fridge for at least two weeks, maybe more, but he knew who it belonged to. It was Cat’s. She had been drinking from it to wash down a bean-and-beef burrito when he’d taken it out of her hands, picked her up in his arms, then carried her to his bedroom. The ensuing session of lovemaking had been gut-wrenching—a mixture of passion and lust that he wished to hell he could forget. Frustrated with himself for being such a loser, he emptied the beer into the sink. The desire for food was gone. If only he could rid himself of Cat’s memory as quickly as he’d dumped that bottle, he would be a lot better off.

“Christ Almighty,” he muttered, then threw the bottle in the trash. “How in hell do I get past this?”

Frustrated with himself for letting a woman get under his skin to this degree, he turned off the coffeepot, ignored the ache in his gut and went back to his bedroom to dress for the day.

Solomon Tutuola sopped up the last of the beans with his last bite of tortilla, then eyed Paloma as he licked his fingers.

“Got any more?”

Paloma frowned as she shook her head. This food had been meant to last her at least through tomorrow. He’d eaten it without thought for her situation.

“No more,” she said, frowning as she glanced at his teeth then looked away. It seemed unnatural to file one’s teeth like a wild animal, but, as she remembered, Solomon was as close to an animal as any human could be.

Solomon frowned. The pain pills he’d taken earlier were beginning to wear off, and what wasn’t hurting was itching. He glanced around the simple dwelling, frowning even more as he looked back at Paloma herself. Years ago, when they’d first met, she’d been a curvaceous woman with dark, flashing eyes and a rowdy laugh. The woman before him had run to fat, and the displeasure she was feeling was reflected on her face. He was tempted to say to hell with her and take his leave. But he still needed to rest, and he needed some help doctoring his healing wounds.

“I’m going to sleep now,” he announced, and rose abruptly.

“But the day is just beginning,” Paloma said.

Solomon glared at her. “Then maybe I need some entertaining to keep me awake in this no-place of a town.”

“No one asked you to come here,” Paloma muttered.

Solomon slapped her.

“Don’t backtalk me, woman. You’re not pretty enough to get away with it anymore.”

Paloma’s chin lifted. She might not be pretty anymore, but age had given her something else—something she’d been lacking when she’d first known him. Backbone.

“You don’t talk about pretty to me, Tutuola. Your face looks like your heart…dark and ugly.”

Solomon grabbed her by the throat and squeezed.

Paloma glared back at him.

Suddenly he shoved her aside and strode from the room. She watched him go, then turned and left her house as abruptly as he’d left her kitchen.

Solomon heard her leave and thought nothing of it. She was of no consequence to him other than furnishing a free place to rest. He popped some pain pills, downing them without water, and lay down on her cot. Within a few minutes, he’d fallen asleep.

Paloma was not as easily assuaged. Still, the crisp, coolness of the morning air was calming as she stormed from her little house out into the dusty streets. She paused in her front yard, glancing back one last time at her doorway, then doubled her fists and headed south to the casa of Maria Sanchez. Maria was a witch, and Paloma needed a sure cure for the devil who’d darkened her doorstep.

Cat was less than an hour from the border when she glanced up into her rearview mirror and saw a police car bearing down on her with lights flashing.

“Crap,” she muttered, and checked her speedometer. She wasn’t speeding—much.

Rolling her eyes at yet another delay, she tapped on her brakes and began slowing down to pull off onto the shoulder. As she slowed, the cruiser caught up with her, then passed her at a high rate of speed. Her foot was still on the brakes as she watched the taillights of the patrol car disappearing over a rise.

Breathing a quick sigh of relief, she glanced down at her laptop, then pulled back onto the highway and turned on the radio, tuning it to a satellite station that played oldies from the eighties. The next few miles passed with a song from Boy George, then one from Michael Jackson. But when Mike and the Mechanics came on with an oldie called “All I Need Is A Miracle,” she frowned and turned it off. Her hopes of a miracle had died when she’d found Marsha’s body. She knew better than to hope for another one. She drove for about a mile without consequence; then everything began to happen at once.

The eighteen-wheeler about a quarter of a mile in front of her was suddenly heading for the ditch. The church van that had passed her a couple of miles back swerved onto the center median, as did a pickup truck and a small compact car. She couldn’t see what they were dodging, but something had to be wrong. Either there was a roadblock from another wreck or something more—something potentially deadly for the people on the road.

Seconds later, another vehicle ahead of her swerved, and as it did, she finally saw what was causing the panic. There was a northbound car coming fast—but in the southbound lane.

She tapped on the brakes and began slowing down. It wasn’t until she realized there was a phalanx of Texas Highway Patrol cars barreling up behind the northbound car that she realized the enormity of the situation. Someone was on the run from the cops with no care for the innocents heading south. When she saw the windshield of a patrol car suddenly shatter, she realized that the occupants of the car were shooting at the cops in pursuit.

Slamming on her brakes, Cat pulled over to the side of the road, killed the engine, then grabbed her handgun from the glove box. She got out of her SUV on the run and took cover on the passenger side.

As the chase came closer, she heard a series of rapid gunshots and winced when the windshield of another patrol car shattered. The patrol car fishtailed, then swerved into the ditch, barely escaping being rear-ended by the cars giving chase behind it.

Bracing herself, she went down on her belly at the rear of her vehicle, using it as cover while waiting for the fleeing vehicle to draw near. Seconds later it was on her, with the police cars only a few yards behind.

Her first shot hit the left front tire, her second, the left rear. There were two loud pops as they blew in quick succession, then a cloud of smoke and the scent of burning rubber as the driver tried to keep the crippled car on the road.

Helpless, without control, the car quickly fishtailed, then slid onto the center median, rolling several times before coming to a stop upside down.

Cat heard tires squealing as the patrol cars began stopping. From where she was lying, she could see the smoking car upside down, with the tires still spinning.

She got up slowly, laying her gun on the bumper of her car and raising her hands as she stood.

“I’m unarmed! I’m unarmed!” she shouted, as two officers came at her with guns drawn, shouting for her to drop her weapon.

The other officers converged on the wrecked car before the passengers had time to crawl out and run.

Cat stepped out from behind her car.

“My weapon is on the bumper,” she said, well aware of what was coming next.

“Hands on the back of the vehicle! Legs spread! Do it now!” one of them shouted, while the other began patting her down. When the handcuffs went around her wrists, she winced.

“Some thanks,” she said, as the handcuffs clicked.

The patrolman in front of her frowned as she began to speak.

“My name is Cat Dupree, and I have a permit for the gun. It’s in the glove box. I thought it was prudent to stop this crazy bastard before someone got killed, but if I messed up your race, boys, I’m real sorry.”

The officer who’d patted her down asked her to repeat her name.

“Cat Dupree. I work for Art Ball Bail Bonds, out of Dallas.”

The officer’s eyebrows arched as he opened the wallet he’d taken out of her pocket.

“You’re a bounty hunter?”

She nodded, then tilted her head toward the wrecked car.

“How long have they been on the wrong side of the highway?”

The patrolman sighed wearily.

“Too long.”

Cat frowned. “Someone get hurt?”

“Yeah. The guard at the bank they just robbed and a woman and two kids about six miles back.”

Cat stifled a shudder. “Bad?”

“As bad as it gets.”

“Lord,” Cat said, watching as the cops began pulling two men out from the overturned vehicle.

The patrolman escorted her to his car, put her in the backseat and then went about the business of checking her credentials. A few minutes later he opened the door, helped her out and took off the cuffs.

“Sorry. Procedure,” he said, and dropped the gun into her hands.

“No problem,” Cat said, absently rubbing at her wrists as she took her pistol, walked back to her SUV and put the gun back in the glove box.

It was at that point that she realized there was more going on than what was happening on the ground.

“Damn news crews,” the highway patrolman muttered.

Cat glanced up. A helicopter with a Channel 4 logo on the side was hovering overhead.

“Smile pretty,” the cop said. “I can guarantee they got all of this on tape.”

Cat frowned, then looked away. “Well, crap,” she muttered.

“Exactly,” he said, then glanced into her SUV and saw the laptop and the program running on it. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Bounty.”

He arched an eyebrow, then looked back at her and grinned.

“Damn, lady…you don’t even give them a fighting chance, do you?”

“Not if I can help it,” she muttered, then put her hands on her hips. “Are we through here?”

“Yeah. We have your info if we need more from you later.” Then he smiled. “Watch your back.”

“Always,” she said.

She was opening her door when the cop added, “Hey…by the way…thanks.”

“No problem,” she said, then with one last glance up toward the hovering helicopter, got in and drove away.

Solomon was still sleeping when Paloma returned, carrying the items that Maria Sanchez had given her in a basket, along with a chicken she clutched under her arm. The chicken clucked nervously. Maria walked into her bedroom, frowning as she saw Solomon stretched out on her little bed. The mattress was sagging almost to the floor, and he’d gone to bed without covers or removing his shoes, leaving a dark, dirty streak on the bedclothes.

“Animal,” she muttered, and set the basket down on the floor, then took the chicken out from beneath her arm. Without hesitation, she grabbed it by the neck and twisted violently, quickly separating the chicken from its head. It flopped about on the floor beside the bed, splattering blood and gore in its death throes.

Solomon woke up as Paloma was taking a cross out of the basket.

“What the hell’s going on here?” he shouted.

Paloma continued her spell by sprinkling the contents from a tiny bag Maria had given her onto the pooling blood beneath the now-quivering carcass of the chicken.

When she began to chant in a singsong voice, Solomon realized what was happening. He was as cold and vicious as a man could be, yet Paloma had unknowingly hit upon his Achilles’ heel. He was superstitious to a fault, and now he went into a panic at what she was doing.

“Stop! Stop!” he begged, and bounded off the bed, only to find himself blocked from the exit by the blood and carcass of the chicken.

Paloma completed her chant, emptied another tiny bag on Solomon’s feet and then looked up at him. The challenge was in her eyes. Solomon crumpled beneath her gaze. His heart was hammering so hard he could barely hear his own voice, and his legs were trembling to the point that he had to grab at the wall to stand.

“What have you done? My God, woman…what have you done?”

“You came into my home, availed yourself of my body with no thought for my feelings, took my food without invitation and threatened me with harm if I did not do as you wished. You want to know what I’ve done? I want to know what the hell you were thinking.”

Solomon’s eyes were wide, his expression one of shock. He kept looking at the floor, then back up at Paloma.

“What did you do to me?” he begged.

She lifted her chin as she met his gaze head-on.

“You will never hurt another woman as you’ve hurt me, that I promise you. Your manhood will fester, then wither. Running sores will cover your body. Worms will devour you as you lie in your grave.”

Solomon dropped to his knees and began to beg.

“Please…please, no, no…Paloma. I’ll leave. I’ll leave right now. I didn’t mean to offend you. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Take away the curse, I beg of you. Take away the curse.”

Paloma threw back her shoulders, taking strength from his weakness.

“It’s too late. I’m a poor woman, and the damage to my person and my place has been done.”

Solomon’s eyes suddenly widened. He held up his hands in a beseeching manner as he scrambled to his feet.

“Wait! Wait here! I’ll pay for the damage. I’ll pay for shaming you.”

His pants were blood-soaked, dotted with herbs and feathers, as he pushed past her and ran from her house. Thinking that he was running away, she was surprised when he came hurrying back. He thrust something into her hands and then began backing out of the house, still begging.

“That will take care of the damage I’ve caused. Take it with my good wishes…just take away the curse. I’m begging you, Paloma. Please, take it away.”

Paloma forgot her sense of injustice when she realized he’d handed her the money—more money than she’d ever seen at one time in her life.

“Will you?” he begged. “Will you take away the curse?”

Stunned by the amount of money she was holding, she was momentarily silenced.

Reading it as another refusal, Solomon thrust another stack of money on top of the first one.

“Please!” he begged.

Paloma’s heart was pounding as she clutched the money to her breasts.

“Get out,” she said.

“Yes, yes, I’m going, I’m going.” He began backing toward the door, his arms outstretched. “The curse. Please, Paloma…the curse.”

“I will remove it…but only when you’re gone.”

He tried to draw a deep breath of relief, but it sounded more like a sob.

“God…oh, God…thank you, Paloma. I’m leaving now, and I wish you a long and happy life.”

“Get out,” she repeated. “Get out and never come back.”

“Yes. Yes, I’m going,” he said, and then turned on his heel and made a run for his car.

Before Paloma could move, she heard the sound of his engine starting. By the time she got to the window, all she could see were the taillights of his car.

She looked down at the money, then back up at the rooster tail of dust he was leaving behind him, and grinned.

“Fool,” she muttered.

Then, realizing she was standing in full view of the streets with an armful of money, she suddenly backed up, slammed the shutters shut and ran to the little niche in the wall where her Madonna figurine was placed. She picked up the figurine, then lifted the shelf on which it was sitting, revealing a large opening in the wall beneath. With one quick glance behind her, she stuffed her money into the hole, then replaced the shelf and statue.

The scent of fresh blood was strong in the air, along with the foul smell of chickenshit. Still, she couldn’t blame the chicken. If someone had wrung her neck as she had the chicken’s, chances were she would have messed herself, too.

She went back into the bedroom, eyed the chicken she’d just killed, then picked it up and carried it out back and buried it near the corner of her house. Then she went back inside, poured some water into a basin and began cleaning up the mess.

She was going to have to wash her sheets along with the walls and floor, but it was worth it to be rid of Tutuola and his evil ways.

Four

Three times during the day, Wilson caught himself about to dial Cat’s number. The first time he chalked it up to habit. The second time, he decided it was a habit he needed to break. The third time, he actually dialed the number and didn’t come to his senses until he heard her voice on the answering machine. He was so startled that he actually stammered what started out to be an apology until he realized he was talking to a recording.

“Damn it to hell,” he mumbled, then disconnected and dropped his cell phone back in his pocket. He stomped out of the restaurant where he’d been eating lunch, slammed his butt into the driver’s seat of his car and then hammered his fists on the steering wheel in mute frustration.

After a few moments the hopelessness of his situation passed, leaving him with an empty, helpless feeling. He sat within the silence of his vehicle, watching the sun go down on Dallas, and for the first time wished he’d never met Cat Dupree. A dark gray sedan pulled into the parking space beside him, interrupting his thoughts. He took one look as what appeared to be a happy family of five got out and headed toward the restaurant, then he leaned forward, started the engine and drove away.

LaQueen had locked up and was already gone when he stopped by the office, although the lingering scent of her jasmine perfume was a faint reminder of her presence.

He picked up his messages, taking note that, for once, there were no failures to appear to deal with. He sat down at his desk and started returning the calls, leaving some messages of his own, then left some paperwork on LaQueen’s desk to be filed in the morning. He was getting ready to go home when his gaze settled on a picture hanging on the wall. He stared at it until the edges blurred and his eyes burned with unshed tears.

Home.

It had been a long time since he’d thought of his childhood home that way. For him, home was his apartment in Dallas and the place in that picture was where he’d grown up. But it was his unreturned feelings for Cat that reminded him of how shallow his life was here. He’d been at this job, in this city, for the better part of his adult life, yet if he left tomorrow, there would be fewer than a handful of people who would even note his absence. For whatever reasons, he’d neglected his personal life, choosing to chase bail jumpers and the almighty dollar. It was more than humiliating to accept that he’d found someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with who wasn’t even willing to spend an entire night with him.

Cat was still on his mind as he reached across the desk, picked up the phone and punched in a series of numbers. When he heard the first ring, he began a mental countdown of the number of steps it would take someone to get to the phone sitting on the old sideboard in the hall. His answer came on the fourth ring, and unconsciously, his tension eased as he heard her voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom, it’s me, Wilson.”

The lilt in her voice was proof of Dorothy McKay’s delight in hearing from her oldest son.

“Wilson! How good to hear your voice, son. What’s up?”

Wilson smiled to himself. It was typical that she would get straight to the point.

“Not much…just the same old thing. How are things there?”

“Oh, you know…your dad’s arthritis is an ongoing complaint, and your brothers and sisters keep me busy chasing grandbabies.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. Did Charlie’s boy, Lee, make the basketball team?”

Dorothy laughed. “Oh sure…you know Lee. He’s more like you than his own father. When he sets his mind to something, he doesn’t stop until he’s done it.”

Wilson sighed, trying not to think of how he’d missed the boat in this thing called life.

Alice heard the sigh and, like the mother she was, knew there was more behind the phone call than just “checking in.”

“Wilson.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong?”

He flinched. As long as he could remember, she’d always known when something was wrong before she ever heard the words.

“Nothing’s wrong, Mom. I just called to say hi. Oh…heck, I’m still at the office and my other phone is ringing. I’d better go. Tell Dad I called, okay?”

“Yes, I’ll tell him,” she said, then added, “I love you, darling.”

Wilson closed his eyes. “I love you, too, Mom. Take care.”

He hung up, ignoring the fact that he’d lied to her about another call, then locked up and headed for home.

It was dark by the time he reached the parking lot of his apartment building. The temperature had dropped to freezing, and the security light where he normally parked was out. He got out, tripped on an empty beer bottle someone had thrown out, then managed to regain his footing. Cursing the lack of light and the person who’d tossed the bottle, he headed for the building.

There was a puddle of something in the corner of the elevator as he got inside, and from the faint scent, it was probably spilled beer, which just added to his mood. Sidestepping the mess, he reached his floor and got off with his head down, heading for the door at the end of the hall. Once inside, he slammed it, automatically locking himself in, bent over to pick up the mail that had been dropped through the slot, then stalked through the rooms, turning up the thermostat as he passed it.

He showered, grabbed an old T-shirt and a soft pair of sweats, and headed for the kitchen, going through his mail as he walked. Nothing but bills, which he laid aside. Maybe something hot for dinner would change his mood. After heating a can of soup and downing a sandwich, he called it quits. Food was in his belly, but he still felt the emptiness.

He put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, then turned out the light in the kitchen. He moved into the living room without intent, glanced toward the darkened television screen, then instinctively walked to the windows and pushed the curtains aside.

Night in a city was a world of its own. A different set of citizens emerged to walk different streets. Darkness could be a friend, sheltering the weary from a long, endless day, or it could be something to fear, knowing that there were shadows through which the eye couldn’t see, leaving a person vulnerable in so many ways. For Wilson, the darkness just intensified the isolation in which he lived.

It was something deeper and older than time that made him look toward the west—toward the part of the city where Cat lived. He stared at the blinking lights and moving traffic until the lights all blurred together, and while his head said no, his heart still said yes.

At that point his phone rang, pulling his focus from the window. He walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver.

“Hello.”

“Wilson, it is me, LaQueen. Are you watching your television?”

Wilson frowned. LaQueen never called him at home, and certainly not to ask what he was watching.

“No. What’s wrong?”

“Turn it on to Channel 4 and see for yourself.”

She hung up as Wilson was reaching for the remote. He hit the power button and watched as the screen came to life. It took a few moments for him to catch up to what the storyline and film they were showing was about. He was still trying to figure out why LaQueen thought a police chase on I-35 was something that would be of interest to him when suddenly what the journalist was saying sank in.

…identified as Cat Dupree, a bounty hunter out of Dallas. It was mere happenstance that she found herself facing the chase coming toward her, but it was guts that made her react as she did. According to Lieutenant Hooper of the Texas Highway Patrol, Ms. Dupree, without thought for her own safety, shot out the tires on the vehicle the thieves were driving, stopping them from causing further harm.

Unfortunately, Ms. Dupree didn’t come along in time to save the three occupants of a car the thieves had forced off the road earlier. They had already been pronounced dead at the scene by the time Ms. Dupree stopped the fleeing suspects. However, the occupants’ deaths resulted in the addition of charges of vehicular manslaughter to the federal charges already pending for bank robbery. Still, the Texas authorities, while grateful to Ms. Dupree for her assistance, want to reiterate that in no way do they advocate citizens involving themselves in police situations.

Wilson didn’t know he’d been holding his breath until he felt a sudden need to inhale. When he did, a curse came with it.

He knew exactly where that incident had occurred. It was less than thirty miles from the Texas-Mexico border and, while it could be nothing more than a coincidence that she was back on the same trail they’d taken when they’d gone after Mark Presley, his gut told him different.

He hit the mute button, then grabbed the phone book and flipped to the yellow pages, looking for the number to Art Ball Bail Bonds. Whatever Cat was doing, Art would have to know.

By the time he made the call, his thoughts were racing. He was still trying to come up with a way to question Art without making a fool of himself when Art answered the phone.

“Art’s Bail Bonds.”

“Art, it’s Wilson McKay. Where the hell is Cat?”

Taken aback by the intensity in Wilson’s voice, Art spoke before he thought.

“Going to see if the man who killed her daddy is dead.”

Shocked by the answer, Wilson was momentarily speechless.

“Did you see her on the TV?” Art asked. “Ain’t she a pistol? Just like her to be in the middle of something like that.”

Wilson shuddered, then swallowed past the knot in his throat. “Why would she want to go back to Mexico?” he asked. “The house he was in exploded. No way did he survive something like that.”

“She seemed to think different.”

Wilson stood up and walked back to the window. She wasn’t even in the city. She was gone, and he hadn’t known it. “Did she say why?” he asked.

Art hesitated. The shock of Wilson’s call was passing, leaving him concerned that he’d probably given away more than Cat would have liked. Still, she hadn’t told him not to tell. Not exactly.

“Well, she didn’t go into details or anything, but I got the impression that it had something to do with a computer and a map.”

Wilson groaned. That damned program she’d had on her laptop that they’d used to track Presley. If there was movement on it, she would naturally assume that Tutuola wasn’t dead. She’d wanted to go back and see, but he had stopped her. Now she was going on her own. It shouldn’t matter. He shouldn’t give a damn what she was doing. She was never going to think about anyone but herself.

But it did matter.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from her?” Wilson asked.

“No, even though I left a couple messages on her cell. She said she’d check in, so when she does, want me to tell her to give you a call?”

“Hell no,” Wilson said. “I’ll give her that message myself.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Thanks for the info, Art. Sorry if I seemed a bit abrupt. It was just that it was a shock to—”

“You don’t have to apologize to me for caring about her. I do, too, for all the good it does.”

“Yeah,” Wilson echoed. “For all the good.”

Art disconnected.

Wilson did the same, then dropped the phone onto the sofa. For a few moments he couldn’t think. He wanted to scream—to rage at the stupidity she’d exhibited by going off on some wild-goose chase like that without telling a soul where she was going. Then he slammed his fist into the wall, oblivious to the pain in his wrist and the dent he’d put in the drywall. It wasn’t that she hadn’t told anyone where she was going. It was that she hadn’t bothered to tell him. If he needed any further proof that he’d been living in some fantasy world where she was concerned, this would be it.

He sat down with a thump, then leaned back and covered his face with his hands. The shock and pain of what he’d learned was turning into anger. The longer he sat there, the angrier he got. An ambulance raced past his apartment building with sirens screaming on the way to someone else’s disaster, but it felt like the disaster was his.

He kept remembering the first time he’d seen her, coming out of a burning apartment building with a bail jumper over her shoulder. After that, there was the night he’d found her staggering in the police parking lot, sick as a dog from some bug and about to pass out. Then, when Marsha turned up missing, it had been Cat’s persistence that had led the police to Marsha’s body, as well as to her killer, and Wilson had been with her all the way. He’d seen her stand as strong through that hell as any man—maybe even stronger—and all through it, the passion between them had simmered. When they’d finally made love, it had been more than lust for Wilson. He had known, almost from the start, that she was going to be something special to him. But he and Cat had been on separate pages when it came to their futures. He’d made love to a woman who was stealing his heart. She’d just had sex with a willing participant. When he’d “paid” her for their last session of sex, he’d promised himself it would be their last contact.

Now this.

He couldn’t have her in his life and remain sane. He needed his head examined for caring about what she was doing, but what she’d done was dangerous, and, God help him, he couldn’t live with himself if she got herself killed and he did nothing about it.

Suddenly his anger peaked. He grabbed the phone. Art had said she wasn’t answering her cell, so he was leaving his message on her home phone. When he dialed her number this time, it was no mistake. He listened to the rings, then took a breath when he heard her voice on the answering machine. As soon as the message beeped, he started talking.

“You made the news tonight. I’d congratulate you on your heroism, but at the moment I’m too damned pissed at your stupidity. I talked to Art. I know what you’re doing. And, just so you know, I’m not calling to meddle in your damned business. However…going off alone like this to chase a fucking ghost isn’t just stupid, it’s dangerous. You got lucky when you found Marsha’s body. It gave you a chance to bring her back and give her a proper burial. So you brought one killer to justice. Good for you, Dupree. However, if this bastard you’re chasing happens to still be alive, it might do you well to remember that when he killed your father, he also cut your damned throat. You survived him once. You might not be as lucky another time. I don’t know why I care. I wish to hell I didn’t. And just for the record, woman, if it hadn’t been for that piece of film on tonight’s news, I wouldn’t have the slightest notion of where in hell to look for your bones. It’s obvious you don’t give a damn about me, yourself or anyone else. I wish to hell I could return the favor.”

His hands were shaking when he hung up. He sat there for a moment longer while his vision blurred and his belly burned. Then he pushed himself up from the sofa.

The apartment was in complete darkness, lit only by the nightlight in the hall and the faint glow of a security light outside the kitchen window. He stood within the shadowy silence, barely aware of the night sounds from the city beyond. All he could hear was the steady thump of his own heartbeat echoing in his ears.

Cat had opted to spend one last night in Texas and then cross the border in the morning, but when she’d come back from the gas station where she’d gone to make a pit stop and fuel up, what she’d seen on the laptop had changed her mind.

The blip that had been stationary for so long was, once again, on the move, but it had changed directions. It was no longer headed toward the coast but had begun moving in a northwesterly direction. Nuevo Laredo was just across the border, but after that it was mostly small villages and a lot of sand and cactus and mountains in the direction the blip was now moving.

She didn’t think of the dangers she could be putting herself in by driving through the desert at night. The only thing on her mind was catching up with whoever was carrying some of Mark Presley’s property. If it turned out that this trip amounted to nothing, well, she was willing to feel like twelve kinds of a fool just to know the truth.

It was still daylight when she crossed the border, and since bounty hunting was illegal in Mexico, she politely lied about her reasons for entering the country, confident that her weapons were well-concealed under the fake bottom of her console. The fact that she was wearing her tightest sweater and her hair was down and windblown had been distraction enough for the border guards. In fact, they’d even had her exit the car while they did a quick search. Cat had occupied herself with some exaggerated stretches, tightening the sweater across her breasts even more. She knew the guards were watching her, so to add to their interest, she did a couple of deep knee bends, which nicely tightened her blue jeans over her backside.

At that point, one of the guards called out to her.

“Señorita!”

She turned, purposefully arching her back as she looked at him over one shoulder.

“Yes?”

He smiled, then held the door open for her.

“You are free to go. Have a safe trip.”

She flashed him a quick smile as she slid behind the steering wheel.

“Thanks so much,” she said.

“De nada,” he replied.

She was still smiling as she drove into Mexico.

The sun had gone down hours ago. More than once, Cat had thought about pulling off to the side of the road, crawling into the back of her SUV and sleeping until daylight, but she hadn’t done it yet. Part of her reasoning was that, even if she stopped, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. And even though she was driving on a well-defined road, it wasn’t well-kept. The potholes were only slightly less startling than the armadillos and coyotes she kept dodging.

It was sometime after midnight when nature finally called loudly enough that she had to pull over. With nothing remotely resembling a gas station or a diner at which to stop, she chose the nearest cactus. After grabbing a flashlight from the glove box, she aimed the beam all around, making sure there were no snakes nearby before undoing her jeans.

A minute later she was zipping up her jeans and about ready to head back to her car when she heard something that didn’t fit in with the night sounds of a desert. She held her breath, waiting to see if she could hear it again, and when she did, a chill ran up her spine. Unless she was mistaken, she’d just heard a baby crying, which made no sense. According to her maps, the nearest village was about twenty miles south.

Still, she listened, trying to convince herself that it must have been an animal—one that just sounded human.

Then she heard it again, and this time, the wail was accompanied by another sound—the yipping of a pack of coyotes.

The implications of those two sounds together was frightening. Cat grabbed her flashlight, then ran for her car. She started the engine, then swerved off the road on which she’d been traveling and headed slowly out into the desert in the direction from which she’d heard the sound. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be far. She just had to make sure she didn’t drive off into some arroyo and get herself stuck.

As she drove, the rougher ground caused the beams from the headlights to bounce up and down, giving her nothing but brief glimpses of the landscape. Once she braked and hung her head out the window to see if she could hear that same haunting cry, but either the engine was too loud or the sound had stopped. One thing was for certain, her presence had scared away the coyotes. She didn’t hear them anymore.

Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she ducked back into the car and accelerated slowly. Just when she thought she’d imagined the whole thing, a flash of red and yellow caught her eye. As she turned toward the color, she quickly realized it was a blanket—covering a woman.

The woman was lying on her side, facing the headlights of Cat’s car.

She wasn’t moving, which any normal person would have done if they’d been faced with headlights coming toward them.

Cat’s stomach lurched as she hit the brakes and slammed the car into park. She got out on the run, trying not to think of how she’d found Marsha’s body by the color of the coat she’d been wearing. Within seconds, she was on her knees beside the woman, feeling for a pulse.

There was none.

She reached for the blanket, her hand shaking, then pulled it back and shined the flashlight—into the face of a baby, who was looking right back at her.

It wasn’t until the baby closed its eyes against the glare of the flashlight that she realized it was still alive.

“Oh God…baby…poor baby. Poor little baby.”

But when she tried to pick it up, the mother’s grip—even in death—was so fierce that Cat couldn’t pull the baby free. By now the baby was wailing again, but the sound was so weak, it was scary. Cat had no way of knowing how long they’d lain like this—or how long it had been since the baby had been fed. Finally she managed to pull the mother’s arms away and gather the baby up into her arms.

The scent of urine and feces was strong as she headed for her car. She opened the back hatch of the SUV, using the flat surface as a changing table, and began a quick check of the baby.

It was a girl. Except for almost certain dehydration and an incredibly dirty diaper, she could see no obvious bruises or injuries. She didn’t know much about babies, but this lethargy couldn’t be good.

She tossed the filthy diaper out into the darkness, then began cleaning the tiny child with some of the antiseptic hand wipes she kept up front. Within moments, the baby began to shiver. Cat stripped off her own sweater and, using it like a blanket, covered up the child. She knew the little girl was in need of food and clothing, but short of giving up her sweater, she had nothing. Praying that the mother had the foresight to have been carrying supplies, she made a quick run back to the body.

The headlights were still on, keeping the tragedy in the spotlight. Cat wanted to scream, to cry and rage at the injustice of what was before her, but there was no time. The baby’s survival might depend on what she could find.

At first she saw nothing, but she wouldn’t give up. She couldn’t believe that a mother would be out here, this far from anything, without food and water for herself and the baby.

She crouched with her back to the headlights and searched the darkness with her flashlight. The scent of death and the desert were strong in her nose as she swept the small beam out into the night. Within seconds, she saw what appeared to be a large bundle a few feet away. Lunging toward it, she grabbed it, then ran, dashing past the headlights to the back of her car. She laid the bundle inside, near the baby, and opened it up. Within seconds, a scorpion crawled out from the folds, its upturned tail curled threateningly as it moved.

“Son of a bitch!” Cat yelped, and swept the scorpion and the entire bundle out of the car and into the dirt before anything else could crawl out.

The sweater she’d laid on the baby was now down around its feet, and the night air on the little girl’s fragile skin was chilling her moment by moment, reminding Cat that she didn’t have time to be squeamish.

She stomped the scorpion into the dirt, grinding it beneath the heel of her boot, then went down on her knees, using the flashlight to search for what she needed. To her relief, she found a handful of disposable diapers. It had been years since she’d diapered a baby, but it did not deter her. The chore had been part of her life while living in foster care. After a few missteps, she finally figured out how to make the little tabs stick and the task was done. The diaper sagged sideways, but it stayed put. Her hands were shaking as she went back to the bundle. When she found a handful of baby clothes, she breathed another sigh of relief. After giving the clothing a vigorous shake, she dressed the little girl in a small T-shirt, then wrapped her up in a clean baby blanket.

A brief sob slipped out from between clenched teeth as she put her sweater back on. For a few silent moments, she stared down at the baby, knowing that her efforts could be too little, too late, and tried not to panic.

The baby’s eyes were closed, but her little hands were beating the air as she wailed against the hunger and discomfort of her situation.

Cat felt helpless. What now? Oh. Food. That was it. The baby was surely hungry.

She went back to the bundle. When she found some cans of condensed milk and a plastic baby bottle, she silently praised the dead mother’s foresight. Cat had no time to wonder where the woman had been going or how she’d died. Her whole focus was on saving the baby from dying, too. She stared at the cans of milk, knowing it was going to save the baby, but how? The little she knew about feeding babies involved diluting the milk, but to what extent?

The baby squeaked again, raising Cat’s anxiety.

“Hey, little girl…give me a minute. I don’t know what to do with this stuff,” she muttered, then brushed her finger against the side of the baby’s cheek. As she did, the baby moved toward the feeling with her tiny mouth wide open.

“Okay, honey, I get the message,” Cat said, and got down to business.

She popped the top on the can and poured until the bottle was about a third full.

“Water, water, I need water.”

Unaware that she was talking aloud, she ran around to the front seat and got her water bottle from the floorboard. There was no time to worry about measurements as she filled the bottle the rest of the way full. She gave it a quick shake, then gathered the baby up in her arms, crawled into the back of the car and pulled the door shut.

The engine was still running.

The heater was still on.

The headlights were still burning.

Cat’s heart was pounding as she cradled the baby up against her and pushed the nipple against the baby’s mouth.

Again the tiny lips parted in that life-affirming motion, urgently seeking the sustenance that meant life.

Cat watched in awe, seeing how the baby’s tongue curled around the nipple, watching the tiny nostrils flare in an effort to breathe and drink at the same time.

At first it seemed that the baby was too weak to suck, and Cat didn’t know what to do. But the baby persisted and, when the first trickle of milk slid down her throat and she swallowed, Cat shuddered. It wasn’t until the baby settled into a steady, sucking motion, that Cat began to relax.

She listened to the lip-smacking, sucking and swallowing sounds of a feeding baby and tried not to think of the dead mother only a few feet away. The weight of the tiny child was next to nothing in her arms, but the weight of responsibility was huge. For the first time in her life, Cat wasn’t focused on her own agenda.

Ghost hunting had just taken a huge backseat to a little girl’s fate. She hadn’t been able to save the mother, but she would save this little girl’s life if it was the last damn thing she did.

Cat sat in silent awe as the baby emptied the bottle and didn’t even know she was crying until tears dripped off her face down onto her hands.

Five

The bottle was empty, and the baby was asleep. Cat had put what was left of the opened can of milk in her small ice chest, along with the empty bottle. Well aware of the urgency of the situation, she knew she had to get help. Just because the baby was momentarily satisfied, that didn’t mean it hadn’t suffered something that could precipitate a health crisis.

But for the first time in her life, she’d fallen in love, and for Cat, it was a whole new set of distracting emotions. For every breath the baby took, she took one, too, until their respiration was in sync. When a tiny milky bubble formed on the baby’s pursed lips, she didn’t know that she was pursing her own lips, as well. When the bubble popped, Cat watched, entranced by the perfection of the baby’s dark eyebrows knitting above a perfect little nose.

Cat took a deep, shaky breath, knowing that, once upon a time. her own mother would have sat like this, watching her breathe and looking for herself in a baby’s tiny face.

It wasn’t until she saw a pair of dark shadows moving past the rear end of the car that she remembered the mother’s body—and the coyotes.

Damn scavengers. In a panic now that she’d delayed the inevitability of dealing with the body, she leaned over between the headrests and laid the baby down on the backseat. When she was satisfied that the child was comfortable and safe, she rolled back to her knees, popped the hatch and jumped out with her handgun drawn. She saw the tail of a coyote disappearing into the darkness and started to shoot, then remembered the baby. The sound would surely wake her, then she would cry, and if that happened, Cat would most likely cry with her.

So she pulled the hatch shut, then circled the SUV, frowning as she realized the coyotes had already been at the mother’s body. The red and yellow blanket had been pulled off to the side, and there were bite marks on the flesh. However, with the blanket off, Cat was pretty sure she knew how the young mother had died.

Snakebite.

The skin was all red and swollen around a pair of puncture marks about six inches above her ankle.

The sight made Cat a little nervous, and she began to look around more carefully to see where she was walking, not wanting to end up like this poor woman had.

She looked down, trying to figure out what would be the best way to move the body. Ants were crawling in and out of the woman’s nose and mouth. She wanted to throw up. Instead, she gritted her teeth and went after the blanket the coyotes had pulled away.

The woman was small, barely five-feet tall, so when Cat spread out the blanket and rolled the woman’s body onto it, the only part of her still hanging off the blanket were her feet. Using the blanket as a sled, Cat pulled the body all the way to the back of the SUV, lifted the hatch door, then looked down.

Decomposition wasn’t pretty, but it came eventually to every living thing. Cat’s jaw jutted angrily as she bent down, brushed away most of the ants, then began rolling the body up in the blanket.

“Sorry, lady. Life sucks. Death isn’t any better.”

Gathering all her strength, Cat picked up the body and laid it into the back of the SUV. As she brushed sand and ants from the front of her clothes, she glanced out into the darkness. From where she was standing, she could see light reflecting on the eyeballs of the watching coyotes. Their silence was ominous. But for the safety of her vehicle and gun, she would have been at their mercy, just as the mother and baby had been.

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