Authors: Elizabeth Lowell
He got out of the vehicle and gestured in the direction of the sidelines. Two men separated from the crowd and strode toward the Mercedes.
“Please,” Carlos said urgently, “stand with me to greet him. It is simple respect, something a judge understands, right?”
Reluctantly Grace got out of the car and stood an arm’s length from Carlos. One of the approaching men was a black-haired Mexican in clean, creased blue jeans, ostrich-skin boots, and a crisp white pearl-buttoned shirt. Around his neck hung a heavy gold chain holding a large, diamond-crusted medallion.
It was hard to guess the man’s age, except that he wasn’t young. He had too much sheer macho confidence to be under forty. He walked with a faint limp, like a retired rodeo cowboy with narrow hips and old injuries. His dark face had the strong, blunt features of the people who had lived in Mexico long before Cortés rode roughshod over the land. The man squinted in the shimmering, hazy light. His left eye was milky. He was no taller than Grace.
Understanding went through her like an icy spear.
I know him
.
Hector Rivas Osuna was head of the most powerful, most violent crime family in Tijuana. Grace had seen his face in newspapers and in U.S. post offices on the ten-most-wanted broadsheet.
No wonder Carlos is sweating
.
A
LL
S
AINTS
S
CHOOL
S
ATURDAY, 12:25 P.M.
T
HE MAN WALKING NEXT
to Hector was a younger, more polished version of the rough-edged crime lord. He wore a silk shirt, Italian slacks, and thousand-dollar loafers without socks. His hair was styled and blown dry. His skin was lighter, his body less beaten. He hid his eyes behind aviator sunglasses.
But the family resemblance was marked, right down to the narrow hips and swagger. Father and son, perhaps, or uncle and nephew.
“Who is the younger one?” Grace asked quietly.
“Jaime Rivas Montemayor,” Calderón said very softly. “He’s the heir apparent to the Rivas-Osuna Gang. The ROG. Very violent. Very dangerous.”
Grace didn’t answer, but now she understood why the federal policeman had been eager to cover his badge. He and his buddies were dancing to a tune called by either Calderón or the most corrupt crime boss in Mexico. Seeing Calderón’s nervousness, she was betting on Hector Rivas Osuna being the man in control.
Hector stopped a respectful distance away and bowed his head formally to her. “Your Honor.”
There was only the faintest trace of derision in his tone.
Grace nodded in return and kept her mouth shut.
“You tell about her son?” Hector asked Calderón.
Hector’s English was close to Spanglish, the border creole, rough but useful. As he spoke, he watched the banker with his good eye, tilting his head in a way that pulled apart the lids of his blind eye. It was obvious that he’d been injured—scar tissue puckered whitely in a ragged line all the way to his thick hair. Most men would have worn a patch to conceal the eye’s ruin.
Hector wasn’t most men.
“Not completely,
Carnicero,
” Calderón said. “I thought some of the details would be more convincing if they came from you.”
Carnicero
.
Butcher.
Grace was surprised that Calderón would use such a nickname to Hector’s face. She glanced beneath her eyelashes at the nephew. He was watching his uncle with an expression of distaste. Either Hector didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Hector looked at Grace again, examining her the way the Mexican customs inspector had, but Hector’s expression was more complex. Some traditional Mexican males were fascinated by powerful women, so long as that power didn’t extend south of the Tía Juana River. Apparently Hector was one of those men.
Grace couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.
“I hear you ver’ important woman, a judge,” he said to her. “That mean you smart, so pardon me if I speak plain. I am a plain man. Do you know me?”
Grace nodded.
“
Bueno
. Tijuana is my world,” he said calmly. “I make law. I enforce it.
¿Claro?
”
She nodded again.
“Your husband stole my money.
Mucho dinero
.”
Grace’s eyes widened and her stomach knotted.
“He don’t give that money to me,” Hector said, “I kill
el niño,
the son. Is simple.”
Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed it back down.
Hector straightened himself out of his slight stoop, stretching stiff muscles in the middle of his back.
Grace remembered reading somewhere that he’d been badly wounded in a shoot-out on the streets of Tijuana. Yet Hector still had a kind of primitive physical power, the kind of raw charisma that some criminal leaders possessed. A very few men like Hector had come through her courtroom, men who lived violently and often died the same way.
But never soon enough for the innocent.
Hector turned and gestured toward the field where play was winding down. “You saw?”
Grace didn’t trust her voice, so she simply nodded, feeling like a puppet whose strings were being jerked.
“
El niño,
he get small bump,” Hector said. “A warning, so you unnerstand.”
Her stomach knotted more tightly and her throat closed. She couldn’t have answered if her life depended on it.
It didn’t matter. Hector was still talking.
“The big
hombre,
the one that hit Lane? My nephew. He like to give pain.” Hector smiled, showing hard white teeth and a few steel ones. He gestured to Jaime Rivas. “This one, he think we hit your son more hard, make bigger unnerstanding.” Hector’s smile changed, thin and dangerous now. “Jaime no happy. He talk me into
el banco grande
with Calderón and Franklin. Jaime want to kill
el niño,
but I want
solamente
my money.
¿Claro?
”
Grace glanced at Carlos Calderón. He’d turned his back, plainly showing that he wasn’t any part of their transaction.
“Yes,” she said.
“
Bueno
. Two days.”
“Two days? For what?”
“To find
el cabrón
that is your husband.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Lo siento.”
Hector shrugged. “The death of a son
es muy triste
. Ver’ sad.”
Grace couldn’t believe what she was hearing. And she couldn’t afford not to believe it.
This can’t be happening
.
But it was.
“A request, please.” She spoke quickly, softly, with a steadiness that
came from a soul-deep certainty that she would die before she let this butcher kill her son. If that meant begging a favor from one of the most violent men in any nation on earth, then she’d beg. “I must be able to come to the school and see Lane at any time. Surely you understand why.”
“Seguro que sí,”
Hector said, smiling. “A mother, she must see her son. But today a few minutes
solamente
. Surely you unnerstand why.”
Grace didn’t miss the mockery in his last words.
A matter of power. He’s showing me that getting what I want is entirely at his pleasure
.
The Butcher
.
How did this happen?
“Yes, I understand,” she said tightly.
Jaime’s expression was disdainful, as contemptuous of his uncle as everything else in the world. Especially Lane Franklin, gringo son of a thieving gringo father.
“Thank you,” Grace added, throttling her fear.
“Don’ be sad,” Hector said, smiling almost intimately at her. “I learn much time ago always to offer a choice.
Plata o plomo
. Silver or lead. Smart people, they choose the silver.”
Grace drew a hidden breath and vowed not to show any weakness. “Do you understand that Ted and I are divorced? I didn’t control him when I was married. What chance do I have now?”
“My people say you have power. Use it to please me.”
“Power? Hardly. If I really were powerful, you’d be worried that I’d turn my supposed power against you.”
Hector laughed. “They want me in El Norte and in Mexico for murder and a thousand other crimes.
Sí,
I ver’ afraid of the law.” He laughed harder. “You smart, you work for me.”
Grace nodded and hoped her face didn’t show her fear. Or her hatred.
“You keep this between us,” Hector said, “or I kill the boy.
¿Claro?
”
“Very clear.”
Hector turned away.
“Did my husband know this was going to happen?” she asked.
Hector paused, tilting his head as he considered the question for a moment. Then he spoke to her with a combination of respect and mockery
that was uniquely his own. “I tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Is what you demand, Judge?”
She nodded.
“Franklin know,” Hector said simply. “Is part of our deal to have
el niño
in Mexico.”
Grace couldn’t hide her anger. She didn’t even try. “Does Lane know he’s a hostage?”
Hector frowned and shook his head. “I no scare children. Two days,
señora
.”
Grace started to ask for more time. A look at Hector’s bad eye told her to save her breath. His clothes might have been clean, crisp, fresh; his dead eye was a preview of hell.
“Sí,”
Hector said, smiling. “You smart woman.
Adiós
.”
The aging crime lord turned and strode away, his sour-faced nephew trailing behind.
As soon as they were beyond earshot, Grace turned on Calderón. She looked at him like she’d never seen him before.
“Is your son enrolled here?” she asked.
Calderón nodded.
“You put him up as a hostage?” she asked in disbelief.
Calderón looked at her blankly for a moment, then shook his head. “It wasn’t necessary, not south of the line. He would be as vulnerable on the street in front of our home as he is at All Saints. Besides, my son and I aren’t at risk. Hector knows I put a lot of my own money into the investment pool Ted stole.”
“How much money are we talking about?”
Calderón hesitated, then shrugged. “My own investment was five million.”
“And Hector’s?”
“Ten times that at least. Twenty times, possibly.” Calderón shook his head. “Jaime never told me the whole amount, but he was trying to sell it to politicians and
narcotraficantes
in both hemispheres.”
Grace did the math and felt like throwing up.
Fifty to a hundred million dollars
.
The referee blew a long, shrill blast on his whistle, echo of the scream throttled in her throat.
Lane broke away from the celebration of his team’s victory and jogged toward her.
Calderón looked at his watch. “I’m sorry, but…” He shrugged.
“Only a few minutes.” Grace took a deep breath and put a bright smile on her face. “You bastard.”
Calderón faded out of hearing as Lane ran up and gave Grace a hug that lifted her off her feet. He was taller than she was. Stronger.
His hazel green eyes and fierce grin were like Joe Faroe’s.
When did Lane grow so much?
Where did the time go?
How am I going to get him out of this velvet hellhole?
“We kicked butt,” Lane said in a deep voice that was also an echo from her past. “Did you see it?”
“I saw your butt get kicked,” she said, running her hands over his sweaty head and shoulders. The ripple of lean muscles on his arms surprised her.
He must be lifting weights when he isn’t studying
. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged. “Just a bump.”
The echo of Hector’s words made ice slide down her back.
“Coach—Father Rafael—told me you’d only be able to stay a few minutes,” Lane said. “Something about having to rush back home. Is it Dad?”
“Is that what Father Rafael said?” Grace asked carefully.
Lane swept his sweaty brown hair off his forehead with a gesture that was also from the past.
At least Joe wouldn’t have put Lane up as some kind of human collateral
.
I only knew Joe a few days, but I know that much
.
She wanted to blame Ted for being so unspeakably selfish, for not being able to see the wonderful boy who had grown up right under his nose, calling him Dad. But it was her fault. She’d been so busy with her own career that she’d let the marriage slip away.
Not that Ted had been eager to keep things together. He liked the fact that she was successful, powerful. He liked it because she didn’t have time to notice that he was never home.
Damn you, Ted. Even if I deserve this, Lane doesn’t. He’s the only innocent in the mess we call our lives
.
“Where’s Dad?” Lane asked.
Grace reached over and brushed his sweaty hair back so she could see his eyes more clearly.
“On the road,” she said. “Why?”
Lane looked away, not wanting his mother to see his disappointment. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Whenever he needed his father, he was somewhere else. Once, just once, Lane wanted his father to be proud of him, to be there when he needed him.
Like that’s ever going to happen
.
“No big deal,” Lane said, turning back to his mother with a smile. “He asked me something about computers and I have the answer now. But it will keep. I’m sure he’s got a lot on his mind.”
Grace bit back harsh laughter. “That’s an understatement.”
For a moment there was silence broken only by the distant sound of men’s voices as the crowd at the soccer field dispersed.
“Mom, I want to go home with you,” Lane said baldly.
“I want that, too.” Grace hugged her son close so that he couldn’t see her eyes. She didn’t want him to know how frightened she was. “But Mexico is run by men.”
“So?”
“All Saints won’t let you leave with anyone but Ted. And Ted…” She fought against tears and the screams that clawed at her throat. Gently she released her son and stepped back. “I don’t know where he is. I’m sorry, Lane. God, I’m sorry.”
He hated to see the shadows in his mother’s dark eyes, the tension around her mouth, her voice thick with tears.
“Hey,” he said. “No problem. When Dad checks in, just tell him that—”
“Your Honor,” Calderón interrupted quietly.
“I know,” she snarled. “I know!”
Calderón waited.
She hugged her son fiercely. “I love you, Lane.”
His arms closed hard around her. “Love you too.”
“Remember that.”
“You too.” He released her and stepped back, looking at her closely. “You okay?”
Grace’s smile flashed brighter than the unshed tears in her eyes. “I’m working on it.”