Chapter One
The snowy-white tulle of April’s veil rustled as she climbed out the window. Her satin shoes landed in the moist dirt with a squishy sound. She yanked the frothy concoction from her head and stashed it behind a bush.
She took a deep breath and peered around the corner of the house, her curls falling over one shoulder. The stretch limo gleamed in the morning sun of New Mexico, and she shivered. The car looked more like a hearse now—her hearse. Who said New Mexico was the land of enchantment?
Narrowing her eyes, she chewed the strawberry-flavored gloss off her bottom lip. If she fled in the limo, it could be tracked, but at least it would solve her immediate problem of no funds. She considered creeping back through the house to retrieve her purse, but she valued her life too much—at least someone did.
How far could she get barreling down the highway in a stretch limo? Way too conspicuous—sort of like this wedding dress.
She patted the lace bodice of one side of her dress to make sure she still had the strange wooden disc she’d found in Jimmy’s desk, and then drew out her cell phone from the other side. She tapped the icon for the car app loaded on her phone and smiled at the little dots on the map—her saviors.
She called up a car, and then strolled to the front gate, although her feet itched to break into a run. This couldn’t be a clean getaway, not with Jimmy’s security at his beck and call, but nobody suspected a thing at this point. She could play the blushing bride for another ten minutes. Hell, she’d played at being in love with Jimmy for the past six months.
Oscar, the guy working security at the front gate to Jimmy’s estate, jumped to his feet. “Getting cold feet, April?”
“Just jonesing for a smoke. I know how much Jimmy hates cigarettes and I’m trying to squeeze in a few before I quit for good.” She pinched the low neckline of her gown between her fingers and adjusted it. “You have one I can bum?”
Oscar’s gaze followed the movement, his eyes widening for a second. “I—I do.”
“That’s what I’ll be saying in an hour. I’d really appreciate it...and I’ll step outside the grounds so Jimmy won’t know a thing.” She put a finger to her pouting lips. “You know I’m good at keeping secrets, don’t you, Oscar?”
Oscar’s face reddened, obviously remembering the time she caught him rummaging through Jimmy’s desk, and he scrambled for a cigarette in his front pocket. “I know that, April, and I appreciate it.”
He shook a cigarette free from a crumpled pack and held it out toward her.
Sliding it from the pack between her index and middle fingers, she said, “Thanks. Got a light?”
He flicked his lighter, and she leaned in to touch the end of the cigarette to the flame.
She waved the cigarette at the gate. “I’ll just slip outside to enjoy it, and if Jimmy happens to smell it on me... I didn’t get it from you.”
“Of course not, thanks.” He lunged for the gate, probably happy to get her out of his sight before she could get anything else on him to report to his boss.
Holding the cigarette in one hand and the skirt of her dress in the other, she stepped outside the gates of Jimmy’s compound. She traipsed down the drive to the street, her breath coming in short spurts. Her gaze shifted from side to side. She’d better not bump into any guests arriving early for the nuptials—Jimmy’s guests.
Once she turned a corner and got clear of Oscar’s sight, she dropped the cigarette and crushed it under the toe of her shoe. Then she pulled out her phone again and texted Adam. The wedding is off. Don’t come near the estate. Don’t go near Jimmy.
The phone buzzed in her hand, and she answered the call from the app car on its way. “Hello?”
“I’m about a block away in a blue Honda. Big houses here. Can I get in the gate?”
“I’m outside the gate. I’ll be waiting on the sidewalk. Hurry.”
“Uh, okay.”
Two minutes later, a Honda pulled up to the curb. April checked the license plate, compared the driver to the picture on her phone and jumped in the back seat. “Go!”
The driver’s bugged-out eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “Where am I going?”
“The nearest bus stop. Wait.” Her fingers creased her satin skirt into folds. How could she buy a bus ticket? She had no money. No wallet. No credit cards. She’d be a sitting duck at any bus stop for Jimmy and his so-called business associates. Now she understood why he always had an entourage. Idiot.
“Keep driving.” She pounded the back of the driver’s headrest. “I’m thinking.”
“Are you running away from your own wedding or something?” The driver adjusted his glasses and punched the accelerator.
“Yes.” She reached into the front seat and grabbed his arm, turning his laugh into a snort. “What’s your name?”
“Jesse.”
“Jesse, I have a deal for you.” April tugged at the diamond ring on her left hand. “I’ll trade you this ring for your car.”
Turning his head, he squinted at the ring cupped in her palm. “Nice rock, but I can’t do it. I need my ride to make money. This is the only job I have.”
She slumped back in her seat. She could pawn the ring for cash, but that meant she’d be wandering around Albuquerque in this damned dress.
“My friend Ryan might be down, though.”
“Really?” She shot forward again. “Where’s Ryan?”
“He lives about ten miles from here. He’s trying to sell his car, and he might take that piece for it instead of cash.”
“Perfect.”
She waited until Jesse hit the highway. Then she buzzed down the window and chucked her phone outside. She wouldn’t be able to contact Adam anymore, but Jimmy couldn’t trace her whereabouts.
Thirty minutes later, the trade with Ryan went smoother than she expected, and he even threw in a hundred bucks, cash, to seal the deal.
She rolled up the money and wedged it into her new car’s cup holder. She scooped the wooden token pressed against her breast from the bodice of the dress and dropped it in the other cup holder. Running her hand across the dashboard, she yelled out the window. “No GPS?”
“Does that car look like it has a GPS?” Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets. “No refunds.”
“I’m not looking for a refund.” She cranked on the engine of her new vehicle. “Just point me in the right direction for the 25 south.”
Jesse strolled to the car. “You going to Mexico?”
“Maybe.” She leveled a finger at him. “You remember the rest of our deal, right?”
“Yeah.” Jesse’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his skinny, razor-burned neck. “If anyone asks, I picked you up and dropped you off at a bus depot in the city.”
“That’s right. The 25?”
Jesse gave her directions and she sped off, leaving the two young men gaping in her rearview. After her first burst of speed, she eased off the gas pedal. She didn’t have her driver’s license with her, and Ryan’s name was on the car registration. She didn’t need any trouble. Her impulsiveness had gotten her into enough trouble.
The car had enough gas to get her out of Albuquerque and almost down to Hatch Valley, just over the halfway point to Juarez. She could lose herself in Mexico, do a little investigating, too, even though it sure seemed as if Jimmy had contacts south of the border.
She wouldn’t be the first of her family to disappear in Mexico.
After about three hours on the road, April pulled into a gas station just out of Hatch and dashed into the convenience store. She grabbed a diet soda and smacked thirty bucks on the counter.
“As much gas as this will get me on pump number five, less the cost of the drink.”
The female clerk nodded, eyeing her from the top of her poofy hairstyle to the tips of her satin shoes, peeking out from the hem of her wedding dress. “Are you going to the wedding or coming from it?”
“On my way. It’s a beautiful day to get married, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.” The clerk popped her gum and rang up the purchase with her long, violet fingernails.
April pumped the gas, waved to a little girl giggling in the car next to hers and plopped onto the driver’s seat, gathering yards of billowing material inside after her.
She continued south, heading for Las Cruces. Just another ninety minutes or so, and she’d be across the border. She didn’t have any ID with her, but that never stopped people in the know from slipping into Mexico undetected. Her gaze shifted to the side, taking in the signs for the 10 west and Tucson. One hour to Mexico. Four hours to Tucson.
“Ah, hell.” She veered toward the ramp that would take her to Arizona.
She had enough gas. The weather couldn’t be beat. She didn’t know anyone in Mexico. And when could she ever resist Clay Archer?
CLAY ARCHER SWATTED at the fly buzzing around his face and gritted his teeth as the sound of the young Border Patrol agent’s retching finally subsided. He’d been there, done that. No shame.
The agent, Rob Valdez, straightened up, wiping his arm across his nose and mouth. “D-do you think the head’s in the tunnel?”
Clay spit onto the desert floor. “We’ll find out soon enough. You wanna go back to the truck and get some water?”
“No.” Valdez squared his shoulders. “I gotta see what’s in the tunnel.”
“You might not like what you see.” Clay squinted through his sunglasses at the mound of sand and dirt that marked the end of an underground tunnel between Arizona and Mexico.
“I gotta get used to it. You’re used to it.” Valdez rubbed his eyes and replaced his sunglasses and hat, flicking the stiff brim with his finger.
Clay took a step closer to the headless woman at his feet, one arm flung to her side, the other crossed over her body, the fingers of her hand curled. His nostrils flared as he crouched beside her, avoiding the blood-soaked dirt with the tips of his boots.
He reached for the woman’s hand, cold and stiff across her lifeless body, and pried open her fingers. Between his own thumb and forefinger, he pinched the object clutched in her hand and pulled it free.
“What is it?” Valdez hovered over him, the smell of vomit, sweat and fear coming off his body in waves.
“Do not upchuck on the body.”
“I’m done with that.” Valdez took a few steps back, as if not sure of his own statement.
“It’s a calling card.” Clay held up the housefly carved from wood, almost as realistic as the ones swarming the dead body. He waved it in the air.
“Las Moscas.” Valdez glanced over his shoulder as if expecting members of one of the most murderous drug cartels in Mexico to come riding up on ATVs. “Why would they do this to one of their own mules? And a woman?”
The pile of dirt at the tunnel’s exit shifted and one hand clawed its way out of earth like a scene from a horror movie. They didn’t need movies—they had their own, real-life horror.
Clay stepped around the young woman with care as if she were sunbathing in the desert instead of missing her head. By the time he reached the tunnel, it had already spit out half of Nash Dillon’s body.
Dillon scrabbled out the rest of the way, empty-handed. He yanked the mask from his face and coughed. “Nothing. No head. No drugs.”
Valdez let out a noisy sigh. “Agent Archer found something in the dead woman’s hand.”
Dillon raised his brows as he brushed the dirt and debris from his green uniform.
Clay cupped the wooden carving in his palm and held it out to Dillon. “This is the work of Las Moscas.”
“Not surprised.” Dillon tipped his head toward the woman. “Only a few reasons why I can think of that the cartel would kill one of its own mules—she double-crossed them, screwed up somehow or started working for us.”
“She’s not one of ours.” Clay held up his hands, the wooden token held between two of his fingers. “As far as I know, we’ve never used a woman.”
“Don’t lie, Clay.” Dillon clapped his hat back on his head and wiped his designer sunglasses on the hem of his shirt. “The DEA uses wives and girlfriends when they can get them on board—or when they’ve been wronged by their drug-dealing spouses or tire of the lifestyle.”
“That’s DEA, not Border Patrol.” Clay squinted into the harsh desert light. “We’ve got company.”
The two other agents swiveled their heads in unison toward a caravan of trucks and SUVs accompanied by a cloud of sand and dust.
“Hope there’s a coroner’s van among those trucks.” Dillon stamped the dust from his boots, jerking his thumb toward the body. “They need to get this young woman out of here. Give her a little dignity, regardless of the mess she made of her life.”
The trucks and law enforcement personnel brought a flurry of activity with them. The local PD in Paradiso wouldn’t conduct the homicide investigation, as it was too small to have a homicide division—not that the department didn’t see its share of murders along this stretch of the border.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department would take over the thankless job of investigating the murder, but as usual with drug crimes, there would be no evidence, no witnesses and a bunch of nameless, faceless suspects.
Clay studied the men and women going about the business of investigating a headless corpse in the desert, and he took a swig of water from his bottle.
“Crazy business.”
“What’s that, Archer?” Espinoza, a homicide detective for the sheriff’s department, looked up from his phone and squinted at Clay.
“Nothing. Just thinking about the insanity that goes on in this town.”
Espinoza spread his arms wide. “Paradise, right?”
“Yeah, some clueless gringo even got that wrong, didn’t he? Paradiso doesn’t even mean Paradise in Spanish.”
“Wrong name—” Espinoza kicked at a pile of sand “—and wrong description.”
Clay and the other Border Patrol agents packed it in, and left the scene to the coroner and the homicide detective. On the way back to his truck, Clay poked Dillon in the back. “You taking some time off?”
“Heading to a rodeo in Wyoming. Can you hold down the fort?” Dillon swept his hat from his head and tossed it onto the passenger seat of his truck.
Jerking his thumb over his shoulder, Clay said, “Unless we find the head or the drugs, especially the drugs, there’s not much for me to do on this one.”
“The drugs will be on the street by the time I come back.” Dillon nodded toward the new agent, hanging back, the green around his gills matching his uniform. “You think he’ll work out?”
“He’ll be okay.” Clay leveled a finger at Dillon. “I remember your first dead body. You didn’t do much better.”
Dillon scooped his hair back from his forehead and flashed his white teeth. “I guess you’re right.”
“Don’t break that pretty face riding one of those bulls.” Clay turned and strode to his truck with Valdez waiting by the passenger side.
“You getting in or staying out here?”
Valdez’s eyes bulged briefly. “Just didn’t want to sit in the truck without the AC. Is that it for the day?”
“That’s it for my day. You’re gonna go back to the office and write up this report. Make sure you check in with the sheriff’s department to see if you can add anything before you send it to the Tucson Sector.”
They both climbed in the truck, and Clay cranked on the air. They’d gone several miles before Valdez turned to him, clasping his hat in his lap.
“Do you think they’ll find the head? What do you think Las Moscas did with it?”
Clay raised his stiff shoulders. “I don’t know. Don’t think about it too much, kid. It’ll make you...”
Clay drilled the desert horizon with narrowed eyes. He didn’t finish his warning to Valdez because he didn’t know what it made you. What had it made him? Bitter? Hard?
He blew out a breath. The work hadn’t done that.
A half hour later, Clay pulled his truck into the parking lot of the Paradiso Border Patrol Office—one of several offices in the Tucson Sector.
For the most part, the residents of Paradiso chose to remain blissfully ignorant about the dangers at the border. The violence of the drug trade didn’t affect them directly, so they were able to carry on with their daily lives—despite people meeting bloody ends several miles down south.
Livestock, lettuce and pecans had been kind to the folks of Paradiso. Its close proximity to the tourist trap of Tombstone hadn’t hurt, either. They lived in a bubble. There hadn’t been a murder within the city limits since...Courtney Hart.
Clay left Valdez in the office and swung by Rosita’s to pick up a burrito on his way home.
As he slapped his cash onto the counter, Rosita put her hand on his. “We heard news of a body at the border.”
Once the Paradiso PD was involved, news traveled fast. He couldn’t blame them. The residents had a right to know—whether they cared or not.
“Unfortunately, that’s true.”
“Drugs?” Rosita’s dark eyes shimmered with tears, and a knife twisted in Clay’s gut.
Rosita’s youngest son had gotten hooked on meth—it hadn’t ended well.
“Yeah, probably a mule.”
“A girl?” She clasped her hands to her chest. “We heard it was a girl this time.”
“A young woman, yes. Ended up on someone’s bad side.” He shoved the money across the counter. “Keep the change, Rosita.”
“Is there a good side when it comes to drugs?” Rosita swept up the bills. “Thanks, Mr. Clay.”
He waved and reached for the door, stepping aside for a couple of customers coming in for dinner. He tossed his bag of food on the passenger seat and took off for home.
His house lay outside the collection of the newer developments that had sprung up in response to the pecan-processing plant. He preferred a little space between him and the next guy.
As he turned down the road that led to his house, he loosened his grip on the steering wheel and flexed his fingers. He swung into the entrance to his long driveway and slammed on the brakes to stop behind an old, white compact sporting New Mexico plates.
His muscles tense, he reached for his weapon wedged in the console and waited in his idling truck. The individual Border Patrol sectors were small enough that the bad guys could discover the identities of the agents if they had a mind to. He held his breath as the driver’s side door of the car swung open, and a...bride stepped out.
Clay whipped the sunglasses from his face and hunched over the steering wheel. Damn, that was no bride. That was bridezilla—April Hart in the flesh.
Leaving his weapon in the truck, he shoved open his door and placed one booted foot on the dirt and gravel of his driveway. He unfolded to his full height, straightening his spine and pinning April in a stare.
She tossed a mangled mane of blond hair over one shoulder and offered up a smile and a half-raised hand. “Clay, it’s good to see you.”
Did she expect him to rush to her and sweep her into his arms? He folded those arms across his chest in case they got some crazy notion to do just that on their own. He dipped his chin to his chest. “April.”
She dropped her hand and tugged on the top part of the dress that clung to her slender waist and rose to encase the swell of her breasts. “I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here...in this dress.”
“You took a detour on the way to our wedding two years ago and you just found your way back?” His lips twisted into a smile while a knife twisted into his heart.
“N-no.” She clasped her hands in front of her, interlacing her fingers. “It’s a long story. Can we talk inside?”
“Do you ever have any other kind of story?” Before she could answer his rhetorical question, he dipped back into his truck and swept his bag of food from the passenger seat and holstered his weapon.
He slammed the door of the truck and stalked up his driveway, brushing past April in her wedding finery.
The gravel crunched behind him as she followed his footsteps. “Someone left you a present. It was here when I drove up.”
A round, pink-striped box sat on the corner of his porch. Clay tilted his head to the side, his pulse ratcheting up a notch. Nobody left him presents—especially the kind in pink boxes.
“You have your hands full. I’ll grab it for you.” April barreled past him, the crinkly material of her gown skimming against his hand.
A spike of adrenaline caused him to make a grab for her dress, but she slipped through his fingers. The story of his life.
“April, wait.”
“That’s okay. I got this.” She reached the porch and grabbed the ribbon on the top of the box. “This is heavy.”
She lifted the box a few feet in the air. Then the lid came off and the bottom of the box hit the porch with a thud.
April’s scream reverberated in his ears as the severed head bounced once, splattering her white dress with blood, and rolled off the porch.
Copyright © 2020 by Carol Ericson