The road cut through the flat boring plains of Oklahoma. His left hand on the wheel, Shanghai felt on edge as he whipped down the seemingly endless asphalt highway.
He barely knew what he was doing when he swerved off onto a county road thirty miles south of Oklahoma City. He caught the next county road on his left. Twenty minutes later, he rolled up to a sagging trailer resting on concrete blocks in a yard full of junk. The weeds around the rusty hulk were waist high.
He sprang out of his truck, yelling, “Dirk!”
Not that Dirk answered.
Not that Shanghai was expecting him to. The door groaned on its hinges as he let himself inside.
The tiny living room with its threadbare couch was dank and cluttered, a little worse than his last visit. The black-and-white television was blaring a little louder, too. Newspapers lay on the floor as did whiskey bottles, boots and grimy socks, as well as a mountain of soiled underwear. Dirty dishes overflowed in the sink.
The trailer reeked so badly of rot-gut whiskey and sour food, Shanghai breathed through his mouth like he used to do when he was a kid and his daddy was on a tear. Dirk was nowhere in sight. Not good.
“Dirk! It’s me—Shanghai!”
Before clomping toward the back bedroom, Shanghai paused for a second to study the yellowing newspaper clippings of Dirk’s former glories that were tacked to the paneled walls. There were pictures of Dirk riding bulls and magnificent horses. In one giant photograph he wore chaps and his Stetson and stood beside other rodeo greats. There were pictures of Dirk with Roy Rogers and other Western movie stars.
Dirk had won seven gold medals. He’d been the best. The greatest. As charismatic as a movie star, he’d been Shanghai’s idol. Then Dirk’s luck had turned on him.
Had it been the drinking? Or his age? He’d started having wrecks, and each injury had taken longer to recover from. He’d gone through a lot of women. Slowly his addiction to booze had ground him down. The corner shelf, which had once held his trophies, was empty now, all the trophies having been pawned years ago.
Bills were stacked on the kitchen table beside the plastic shells of empty TV dinners. Shanghai thumbed through a few of the bills. All the utilities were way past due. Grabbing a fistful, Shanghai stuffed them into his back pocket. He’d pay them later as he had in the past. If he left the cash, Dirk would spend it on booze.
Shanghai stomped down the hall. When he cracked the bedroom door, he found Dirk’s long, bony body sprawled across a filthy mattress. The hollows beneath his eyes were black. The rest of his face was gray. His mouth seemed to have shrunk, and his buckteeth protruded more than usual. He wore a stained, tank-style undershirt and briefs. If he hadn’t been snoring, Shanghai would have thought he was dead.
“Dirk!”
Dirk blinked and smiled and then shut his eyes and rolled over. At least he wasn’t a mean drunk, Shanghai thought as he knelt and picked up the blanket on the floor. Without a word he laid it across his former idol.
Dirk began to snore again.
“Sleep well. Enjoy,” he whispered.
Dirk Campbell was one of the reasons Shanghai had gone into the rodeo.
Dirk had been a big star once.
Just like me now, Shanghai thought.
Way better than me.
When Shanghai passed back through the living room a few minutes later, the news was blaring. Octavio Morales’s swarthily handsome mug shot filled the screen.
“Seven people are dead in a Ciudad Juarez break, and the gun battle is ongoing.”
Shanghai went still as he listened.
“Early this morning seven guards were killed in a prison break attempt by Octavio Morales, notorious drug lord. It is feared Morales has escaped. Authorities say that this man is responsible, either directly or indirectly for more than twenty murders on both sides of the border. A reward is offered for his capture or information leading to his arrest.”
Clips of blood-soaked bodies on stretchers filled the screen. “Morales is armed and dangerous,” the newsman said.
There were pictures of Mia getting out of the helicopter. Then the reporter blabbed that she’d lived with Morales a year.
In disgust, Shanghai turned off the television.
Would the bastard come after Vanilla and Mia?
Adrenaline coursed through Shanghai. Despite his sudden hurry to get back on the road, Shanghai dug a one-hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket and slapped it in the center of the kitchen table where Dirk’s past-due notices had lain.
Then he started running.
“No! I won’t do it!” Mia said, pushing her teacup away.
Brave words. Hart, the man sitting opposite her, was with the DEA. How did one fight the DEA? Still, why had she offered him tea on the porch?
“You want to know something, Mr. Hart? You make me feel even more cornered than Tavio Morales ever did.”
John Hart smiled slightly as he scooted his chair back from the table. He had a plump, boyish face, a kinky beard and spiky red hair. Even though he had his good-ole-boy persona down pat, something about him made her uneasy.
“You’re very lucky to be alive. Tavio Morales must have formed a profound attachment to you.” He smiled again, his friendly blue eyes damning her for things she’d never done.
She felt her cheeks heat. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
“Nothing.”
Yet he did. She drew a tense breath. When he’d called her this morning, he’d said that it was urgent, pushing her until she’d agreed to meet him today. Now she wished she’d said no.
“I’m hoping I can make you agree to my plan,” he said, “once you know the facts about Morales. He may have been nice to you and seemed dashing, but he is a very dangerous man.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? I barely escaped with my life! I still feel afraid all the time. I wake up in the dark and think…”
“Do you want to be scared all your life? Or do you want to finish this? We can help you, Ms. Kemble.”
Longing to flee the porch for the safety of the barn and the comfort of her horses, she clenched her fingers together in her lap. Since her captivity, she hated feeling trapped more than anything. She was glad that they were sitting outside at least, that there were no walls closing her in with this man.
Still, the longer Mia sat across from Hart, the worse she felt. What was it about him?
Her mood was in sharp contrast with the peaceful, bucolic setting. A recent norther had brought rain. The air was cool for this time of year, and the pastures greener than usual. Fat black bumblebees droned in the flower beds. Farther out on the lawn, wild turkeys roamed. There were two shy-looking deer on the fringes of the mesquite trees, too.
Hart began to recite a litany of facts about Tavio’s prison break and trafficking operation, all of which she already knew.
“I—I don’t see how any of this affects me now.”
“He threatened you over the phone.”
“Once.”
“He’s out of prison!”
She didn’t want to think about Octavio Morales or what his escape might mean to her personally.
“Look, I told you no. I don’t know why we’re still talking.” She got up. “I have work to do in the barn and a little girl to see about.”
“Morales has to be stopped.”
“You want to use us as bait to catch Octavio Morales, and I said no.”
“If you cooperated, you’d help us put a large dent in his organization.” John sipped his hot tea. “He’s an evil man.”
“When I left Mexico, I just wanted to start my life over. That alone has been hard.”
“I know.”
“My father was murdered while I was gone.”
“I’m sorry.” Hart set his teacup in its saucer. “Ma’am, Morales operates in Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico.”
“He’s been in prison. Surely…”
“It’ll take more than a few weeks in the can to bring him down. He’s still in business.”
“I didn’t realize….” She sank back into her chair.
“On this side of the border, his tentacles reach from Texas and New Mexico into Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, California, New Jersey, Idaho, North Carolina, New Jersey, Michigan and no telling where else. He has up to five hundred individuals who are associates of his. He trades drugs for firearms, which is why his escape from the penitentiary down there went off like a well-planned military assault.”
“None of this really matters as far as my decision. I want to forget him. I want to get on with my normal life.”
“There’s more. He’s put up five hundred thousand dollars to have you kidnapped and brought back to Mexico.”
“Oh, my God.”
“What do you think your chances are down there with him or the Mexican judicial system?”
She stared at him.
“He’s got a hit out on Shanghai Knight’s life, too. The DEA is putting pressure on the Mexican government and on all those who have contacts with the Morales-Garza drug cartel to get those hits rescinded. Certain officials have helped us make several new seizures recently, but despite our best efforts, Morales’s offer for you and the contract on Shanghai’s life still stand.”
“I can’t believe…”
“Morales seems to be beyond even the Mexicans’ laws. He’s pissed at a lot of people, probably because his trafficking operation has suffered gigantic losses. But his number one target seems to be you. As I see it, you have no choice but to work with us.”
“And Shanghai?”
“We’re trying to find him. Morales sent a couple of goons to Dallas to kill him. Lucky for him, he sold his truck to a friend who knew how to take care of himself.”
“And Shanghai?”
“Supposedly he was headed to a rodeo in Nebraska. Only he never got there.”
Cold fear lodged in the pit of her stomach.
Mia’s tightly knotted hands in her lap ached. “I—I thought when I came home it was over.”
“Believe me, Ms. Kemble, Morales won’t quit until we get him. You’ve got to help us.”
“I—I don’t want any part of this.”
“You’re already part of it. Just read the newspapers. If we get him and put him away where he belongs, the public will lose interest. We have a lot of information on Morales and you. If you press…”
“Are you blackmailing me?”
“Why, no ma’am! I think you’re an innocent victim!”
“But you’re willing to use me….”
“We seem to have gotten off to the wrong start.”
“We certainly have.” Mia jumped to her feet to signal that their interview was over, at least as far as she was concerned.
He stood up more slowly. “I’m going to be away for the weekend, but you can reach me on my cell phone. If you change your mind, or if you need me or the agency for anything—don’t hesitate to call.”
John held out his card. When she didn’t take it, he set it on the table. “My pager number is on the back. Call!”
John Hart leaned back on the sofa of his camper smoking. He didn’t like having to scare the hell out of a woman like Mia Kemble. But what choice did he have? So he had to twist a few screws. He’d learned a long time ago if you were too nice to people like her, his job took longer.
She’d come around. They always did.
If she didn’t, she might blow two years of hard work. He was mortally sick of Operation Mex-Tex-Zero, the International Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force investigation into cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine trafficking on the border. He was sick of trying to coordinate with agents and analysts in the FBI, the IRS, other big agencies and various U.S. Attorneys’ offices. They were all assholes.
The whole thing was bullshit as far as he was concerned. What the hell had they accomplished? Victory over the drug lords? More drugs crossed the border than ever before.
He wanted Morales. Mia Kemble could give him Morales if she wanted to. It was his job to motivate her.
But for the occasional flare of his cigarette, his camper was dark. He’d parked off a lonely road in the middle of the desert in Big Bend National Park. He’d kayaked during the daylight hours, but now the kayak was out of the river and tied securely on its rack on top his truck. He’d eaten a couple of peanut butter sandwiches and had drunk three or four beers. He would have preferred to cook a steak, but he hadn’t wanted to risk a fire. Not out here all alone in the park away from everybody. Nighttime the park belonged to the smugglers. Not that he couldn’t handle a smuggler or two. He patted his big gun that lay beside him.
He was feeling good. Real good. The danger added just enough of an edge to keep him from feeling bored.
He bored easily. That’s why he’d gone to work for the DEA in the first place. He’d wanted to be a cowboy, a good guy who killed the bad guys. Nobody had told him that life wasn’t always that simple.
He didn’t like people much anymore—not the bad guys and not the good guys, either. Maybe there weren’t any heroes in the real world. After two divorces, his favorite thing to do was to come out here in his camper where he could look up at the stars and lose himself in the darkness and forget about the mess humans were making of the world.
He needed to make a change in his life—but what? No ready answer came to Hart as he smoked. Finally, without bothering to grab a pillow, he squashed out his cigarette and lay back on the sofa, his hand on his gun.
Within minutes, he was asleep. His fingers relaxed, and the gun slipped onto the floor. He didn’t hear it any more than he heard the smugglers’ horses’ hooves clanging on the rocks.
The handle of his trailer jiggled, and then flashlights blinded him. He jumped for his gun, but a booted foot kicked it across the floor.
A hard hand pushed him back down. Before he could cry out, Octavio Morales’s soft, husky voice detonated the cozy trailer like a bomb blast. “Sit down!”
The outlaw’s gold-plated handgun was aimed straight at his heart. When Octavio’s men lifted their machine guns eloquently and then began hollering at him in Spanish, Hart was sure he had seconds to live.
The men yanked his clothes out of the closet and emptied all his drawers on the floor. Then much to Hart’s surprise, Octavio waved them back.
“We talk alone!” Glowering, the smuggler threw himself down on the sofa beside him. “Tequila!”
“All I’ve got is a lousy can of light beer.”
“Light? Forget it then.” Octavio stuffed a pillow behind his glossy, black head and stretched out his dirty cowboy boots across a scarred table.
“Let’s talk,” he snarled as he ran a scarred, brown hand through his hair.
Hart was dizzy with fear.
“You and me—we can accomplish much—if we work together.”
“W—what do you want?”
“I need to clean up my operation. When I was in prison, bad people betray me. They must pay. You have cases you want to make, no? You want to make a big name for yourself up here in Disneylandia, no?”
Hart had been on the border ten years. “I wanted that in the beginning when I was young and idealistic.” He’d given up on it a long time ago.
“If I let you bring these big men in my organization down—” he held up ten fingers “—will you give me Mia Kemble?”
“I need specifics.”
Octavio listed ten men in his operation on both sides of the border he was willing to surrender for Mia.
“An American federal judge? You’re shitting me.”
“I want the woman. Think about it, no? You want to make big name for yourself, no? You want to be somebody?”
Hart said nothing.
“If you give her to me, I give you cops’ names. Big buyers’ names in the States. Judges. Attorneys.”
“If I hand her over, what happens to her?”
“None of your fucking business.”
Murder? He thought about those bodies on the stretchers after Tavio’s prison break. What was one more bloody body? This was war. There were always casualties in war.
Then he thought about her little girl.
The drug war is already lost, asshole. What are you doing?
“I can’t deny it’s what I’ve always wanted,” he said.
When Octavio held out his hand, Hart took it.
“I will make all our dreams come true, no? And next time when I visit you, we drink tequila, no?”
The morning was soft and gray as Mia walked along the beach holding one of Vanilla’s small hands while Lizzy held on to the other. Joanne had declined to come with them because she was driving to the border on a shopping trip. She’d been going to El Paso a lot lately, which seemed odd.
At Cole’s insistence, Kinky had come with them today, since he couldn’t come himself. The ranch’s coastline that edged the bay was remote. Occasionally thieves, vandals or rustlers roared across the water, beached their speedboats and made all sorts of mischief in distant pastures. Mostly they were kids. Still, now more than ever, Cole had said they needed to be cautious.
Thus Kinky stood beside Gus in the shade of the beach house. Both men had guns tucked inside the waistbands of their jeans. Mia was aware of them scanning the crescent-shaped beach, the bay and the road for any sign of strangers.
Not that anyone had bothered them so far. Still, Mia felt tense that such precautions were necessary. She kept worrying about Shanghai, who didn’t have a bodyguard. At least he’d finally called Cole from the road, so she knew he was alive. When Cole had told him to call his friend, Wolf, Shanghai had said he was on his way to Texas—south Texas. That had been two days ago.
“Swim!” Vanilla said, staring out at the waves and then up at Lizzy.
Even now Vanilla still favored Lizzy over Mia, and it hurt.
Understanding her sister’s feelings, Lizzy shook her head. “Mia will take you swimming.”
“Okay, but first I’ve got to take off my jeans,” Mia said gaily.
She kicked off her shoes and then her jeans and tossed them onto the sand. She wore a bikini under her clothes. At the sound of an engine, she looked up. A truck braked at the beach house, and a tall dark man alighted. The light was behind him, so she couldn’t see him all that clearly.
Shanghai? Ever since Cole had said he was on his way here, she’d kept thinking he might turn up any minute. Filled with hope, her heart soared when the man turned and waved at them.
As he ran down the sandy slope toward them, she felt a pang of acute longing. When he got closer, he didn’t look quite as wide across the chest as she’d first imagined.
“Cole!” Vanilla yelled.
Lizzy turned and waved wildly to her husband.
Mia’s chest ached, but she forced a smile as Cole joined them.
“Swim, Cole!” Vanilla held her hands up to him, preferring him now over Mia.
He tugged off his boots and socks and then swooped the little girl high in his arms. Settling her on his shoulders, he stomped out into the waves, not caring when the saltwater soaked his jeans.
The sisters stayed on the beach, watching them.
“I know it’s been hard…coming back,” Lizzy said.
“Yes.”
“It was difficult for me when I left Manhattan. But you’ve had to deal with all the bad publicity, not to mention the real threat that Morales might show up at any moment. What a mess it all is. Cole and Leo already had their hands full trying to run the ranch. There’s been so many family problems. It’ll all settle down. You’ll see.” She paused. “Did I tell you I’m writing a novel?”
“No.”
“It’s hard. Harder than I expected. Stories pop in my head, but when I try to write them down, it’s awkward getting words on a page.”
“You’ll figure it out.” Mia stared at Lizzy. Her face was softer and lovelier than ever before. Maybe because she finally had Cole and had begun writing. “You always loved to write.”
Lizzy nodded. Her platinum hair was tied with a pink ribbon at her nape in a ponytail that blew about in the sea breeze. Strangely today Mia felt no jealousy for her sister’s beauty and happiness. In fact she felt guilt that she’d ever caused her pain.
“I should have talked to you before I asked Cole to marry me. I was so upset about Shanghai, I was selfish. I thought you and he were through, but you weren’t.”
“No. Apparently not.”
“I made you unhappy, didn’t I?”
“In the short run, but you made me realize how I truly felt about him.”
“I’m glad something came out of my idiotic behavior. I feel like I’ve lost so much,” Mia said.
“Did I ever tell you that Sam got a hold of a diary that my mother, I mean…Electra, wrote?”
“Mother said something about that, but I’m eager to hear your slant.”
Lizzy had told her all about Electra, the world-famous photojournalist, being her biological mother and how difficult that had been for her to comprehend at first. It still was. Just like thinking about Uncle Jack as being her own biological father felt strange.
Lizzy was watching Cole in the surf and seemed distracted.
“A diary you say?” Mia prompted.
Lizzy turned to face her again. “A journal, really. Mother…er…Electra must’ve written it during her travels. We think Sam stole it when he murdered her in Nicaragua. He sent a copy of it to Mother to blackmail her. Then he stole it back, but we found the original in his truck. Mother…er, Joanne…gave it to me. I read it, several times. In fact, I read it again not too long ago.”
“And?”
“Electra and Daddy had two other daughters.”
“What?”
“I guess Mother skipped that part. I think she thought you were on overload.”
“If so, she was right.”
“Mia, I’ve got sisters. Twins. They’re a little younger than we are.”
Mia held her breath.
“Electra got into some kind of trouble, and Daddy went and saved her, but he got her pregnant again. And she wrote all about it. Right before I got married, I gave the journal to Leo and asked him to hire a detective to find my sisters.”
“What will that mean for the ranch?”
“Who knows? Still, if I have sisters out there, I want to find them.”
“But they won’t be my sisters,” Mia said. “Since your father and my father were brothers, we’re cousins.”
“I hadn’t thought it all out. You’ll always feel like a sister.”
“But biologically these twins are my cousins, not my sisters,” Mia said.
Lizzy sighed. “It’s complicated. Apparently Electra regretted giving me away, so she kept them. But then there came a time when she must’ve realized she simply wasn’t cut out to be a full-time mother.”
“And where are they now?”
“Nobody knows. Leo told me recently that his detective has made no progress.”
“Well, it will be exciting when he does.” Mia watched Cole and Vanilla jumping in the waves. “Imagine that.”
“Yes. It’s too incredible, isn’t it?” Lizzy said.
Vanilla turned and smiled at Lizzy as she was held high against Cole’s broad shoulder. Lizzy laughed and blew the little girl kisses with both hands in a dramatic show of affection.
When Cole returned, stomping back through the waves toward them, Lizzy ran out into the water to them. Watching them as she waited alone on the beach, Mia fought the fear that she’d never be first with her daughter.
When Cole reached Mia, he smiled. “I almost forgot…No, hell. To be honest, I’ve just been working up my nerve to tell you.”
“What?”
“Shanghai’s back.”
“You played in the water all this time and didn’t tell—”
“I just had coffee with him in Chaparral. He’s here to see Vanilla. He told me he was going to call you.”
A bittersweet pain twisting her heart, Mia tossed her head and glanced down at the beach. “Well, frankly, I don’t care if he never calls.”
“I think he’s scared to call.”
“I don’t care about your brother, okay! He’s got a girlfriend, remember?”
“He didn’t bring her along.”
Mia made a fist behind her back and dug her fingernails into her palm.
“What if I told you that he got himself thrown and that he broke every bone in his body? Would you care then?”
“What? He’s hurt? Where is he?”
“And that he’s hurting so bad, he’s limpin’ around like an old man twice his age?”
“Dear God! Where is he? You’ve got to tell me!”
“I thought you didn’t care.” Cole grinned. “He’s fine.”
“You mean he didn’t get thrown?” Her throat was still tight with fear.
“I was just fooling.”
“You snake!”
Vanilla wriggled out of Cole’s arms to the ground and began toddling back to play in the surf.
Forgetting Shanghai, Mia chased after her daughter. Catching her, she lifted her into her arms and ran with her into the warm water.
As Vanilla laughed and splashed the water happily, she looked up every second or two to make sure Mia was still watching.
Mia smiled down at her daughter every time. Only the tightness between her shoulder blades told her how tense she was about Shanghai.