Her Body of Work (18 page)

The Spanish endearment sounded creepy coming from the older man instead of Marco. For the first time in her pacifistic Swedish life she wished she’d had formal weapons training. She wanted to kill him with her bare hands. “You’re nothing but a low-life criminal.” Maybe if she enraged him, he’d get careless.

“Shut your mouth before I shut it for you.” He pulled off a six-inch length of tape and held it in front of her. “Before you condemn me, look at your boyfriend. He knew about at least three murders and even went along as backup for one.”

Marco interrupted, “Reina, I was deep undercover. I pretended to go along until I had enough evidence for an indictment. The killings happened in the Caribbean, where I had no way to stop them.”

“Who died?” Rey hoped to God it wasn’t an innocent police officer or soldier.

The older man shrugged. “Rival dealers. Scum. The last one forced underage girls to smuggle in drugs and
then sold them into prostitution. When my man Sánchez shot him, he was raping one of the girls.”

He turned to Marco. “Thanks to me, Flores, you understand street justice. It’s a good thing you won’t live long enough to go back to your straight-arrow job with the
federales.
”

“I’ll live long enough to see you behind bars.”

Rodríguez strode over to Marco and kicked him in the ribs. Marco flinched but didn’t groan. “No more tracking down and killing street trash.”

The drug lord grabbed Marco’s forehead, forcing his head up into a contorted position. “You have the succulent taste of blood on your tongue. You have the sweet stench of fear in your nostrils as someone begs you for his life.” His voice became a sibilant hiss. Marco’s face turned purple from the increasing pressure on his neck. “You can never go back. You have become what you hate.”

“That’s not true! He’s not like you!”

Rey shrank away as he dropped Marco’s head and walked toward her with the strip of duct tape.

“Not yet anyway. After all, Flores stopped Sánchez from shooting the girl. Said he wanted a piece of her first. I suppose you smuggled her to safety, didn’t you?”

“Far from the likes of you.” Marco’s voice was husky, but his color had subsided to his normal tan.

“Now, now, you of all people know I like my women nice and round and mature. Like your
mamá.
Like your girlfriend.” He turned to her and wadded up the strip of tape, his eyes glowing. “On second thought, I won’t tape your mouth. I can think of several
other
things to do with it.” He shoved her and she stumbled onto the chaise, perching on the edge.

“Keep your damn hands off her!” Marco rolled onto his side with a thud, muscles bulging futilely against his bonds.

Rey shuddered, thinking frantically. He’d given her an idea with his nasty innuendo. “How about a drink?” she asked brightly. Her mother had left a bottle of sleeping pills the last time she visited. Rey had just tossed them into one of her kitchen cabinets. Could she slip some into his drink? “I have whiskey, vodka and that Cuban beer with the Indian on the label.” Her voice trailed off as she remembered how she and Marco had shared a bottle of Hatuey beer right before they made love for the first time. They would share another bottle as soon as she beat that murderous bastard.

Her thoughts must have shown on her face because he laughed. “Forgive me my suspicious nature, but I must decline your hospitality. However, there is something I’ve been wanting to do.” He turned his attention to the vest pocket of his overcoat. She was dumbfounded at what he removed.

A long, fat cigar that looked like a stick of dynamite and would be just as deadly.

Marco groaned. “Those damn cigars of yours.” His voice was tight and worried.

“Damn cigars?” Rodríguez smirked. “I’ll have you know these are hand-rolled to my personal specifications by the fine workers of Cuba.” He trimmed the end of the cigar with tiny gold scissors and produced a heavy gold lighter from the same pocket.

“No, stop! You can’t smoke in here!” The odor of turpentine was strong enough to choke on. What was the
matter with the man? Couldn’t he smell the fumes? She looked at Marco. He shook his head.

“Ah, you Americans and your antismoking.” Rodríguez chuckled indulgently. “Afraid I’m going to pollute the air of your precious loft?”

“You polluted it by just coming here.” Rey couldn’t let him light that cigar.

His face hardened. “Or maybe you just want to get down to business. Find out what you’ve been missing.”

“Just let him smoke the damn thing, Rey. Mouth cancer is a painful death.” Marco flicked his glance between her and his enemy, obviously calculating something.

“Ah, but you’ll be dead long before me, Flores.”

Not if she could help it. “Oh, just smoke the damn thing,” she managed to say through a tight throat, imitating Marco’s flip tone.

“How kind of you to allow me one of the few gustatory pleasures I still have.” He bowed mockingly at her. “Unfortunately I lost my sense of smell years ago. Occupational hazard.”

“Cooking drugs in jungle labs will do that.” Marco jerked his chin, motioning to the chaise. It was a solid Victorian piece, the heavy hardwood frame covered in thick upholstery. Maybe it could block some of the explosion sure to come.

But Marco didn’t have any protection. All of her papers, canvases and paints were tinder for the flames. Marco would be unable to escape.

The bile rose in her throat. Time slowed as Rodríguez’s hand settled on his gold lighter. She saw every ridge on the striker wheel pass under the flesh of his thumb. The heavy wood dug into her back as she scoot
ed her feet under her. The flint sparked. For an agonizing moment Rey saw the turpentine fumes shimmer around the drug lord.

“Now, Rey!” Marco shouted. A flash of orange flame engulfed the man who called himself
El Lobo.
She threw herself onto the chaise and somersaulted behind it. She crashed hard on her right shoulder, her bound hands unable to break her fall.

The older man let out a long, hideous scream that raised the hair on her neck.

“Get out, Rey!” Marco’s beautiful face was reddened from the explosion, his hair and eyebrows singed. He rolled to his side and tried to scoot himself to the loft’s heavy sliding door.

She struggled to her feet, ignoring her painful shoulder. She tried to free Marco, but the tape had tightened from his struggles and she couldn’t find the seam. “Hold on!” She flipped him onto his stomach and grabbed his calves with her own bound hands. She was grateful that adrenaline and years of hauling heavy stone blocks gave her strength to lug his helpless body to the door. She threw open the door and dragged him outside. He gasped as his injured ribs bumped across the threshold, snowflakes landing on his reddened skin.

An animalistic howl rose above the fierce winter wind that whipped up the flames. She turned to see Rodríguez rolling in agony, beating at his fiery legs and chest. He lit a pile of sketch pads on fire with his frantic moves. If she didn’t put out the fire, he’d light her whole loft ablaze.

“Rey, you don’t have time! The bullets in the guns cook off when they get too hot!” Ignoring Marco’s
shouts, she fumbled for her small fire extinguisher and pressed the lever.

She sprayed the burning papers and turpentine puddles before turning to the man who’d held them prisoner and planned to kill them both. She couldn’t just leave him to burn to death in her home. Despite what he’d tried to do, no one deserved that. Well, maybe
he
did. But she wasn’t going to have any dead-guy vibes in her home. She sprayed him with thick white foam, emptying the extinguisher on his miserable carcass.

She heard the wail of sirens from the fire station three blocks over. Thank God. They could deal with the mess. She only wanted to free Marco and make sure he was all right.

“Flores!” A terrible croak stopped her in her tracks.

She turned and saw Rodríguez had pulled himself to his knees. He lifted his gun in one shaking hand and pointed it at Marco, who was perfectly outlined by the streetlight. Marco stared at his enemy, his body bracing for the bullet’s impact.

“No!” Rey screamed. The berserker blood of her Viking ancestors roared through her veins. She kicked his wrist. He screamed and dropped the weapon as his bones crunched under her toes. “That’s for trying to kill us!”

Oil paints on a smoldering canvas burst into flame, but she ignored it. She aimed a kick at his stomach. “That’s for hurting my sculpting arm.” The orange flames and the ancient bloodlust turned her vision red.

She pulled back her foot once more. “And that’s for Marco’s
mamá
and all the other women you hurt!” Her sneaker sunk satisfyingly into his balls as he screamed and toppled to the floor.

The firefighters rushed by her as she ran to Marco. The paramedics had already cut him free. He grabbed her in a desperate embrace, each wrist still encircled with silver duct-tape shreds. “Why the hell did you go back? I told you the bullets cook off!”

“I don’t even know what the hell that means!”

He closed his eyes for a second and kissed her hard. “It means they explode. You could have been killed.”

“Oh.” She shuddered, finally realizing how close they had both come to dying. She ground her mouth against his, her tongue tangling with his, inhaling his smoky scent.

The paramedic cleared his throat. “Hey, buddy, miss, we gotta check you both out. Not that you don’t look like you’re doin’ okay, but them’s the rules.”

Rey reluctantly let go of him but wouldn’t take her eyes off him, not even grimacing when the paramedic ripped the duct tape off her skin.

Some large men in dark suits ran up to Marco and started arguing with him. She tried to go to him, but the paramedic had her pinned down in the ambulance with a blood pressure cuff and an oxygen mask. She yanked off the mask. “Marco!”

He shrugged off the man in charge and hurried to her side. “Rey, these men are with DEA. They’re not happy that I skipped out on them a few weeks ago, so I have to go with them now.”

“Now? How did they even find you?”

“They followed Rodríguez to Chicago, but he gave them the slip. They had just about tracked him to your loft when all hell broke loose.”

“We could have used some help.” She gave the largest man an evil glance.

He came over to them. “Flores, if you don’t move your ass, we’ll cuff you and move it for you.”

“You leave him alone, you asshole.” She got off the stretcher, her knees wobbling. Marco steadied her.

Black Suit said, “I guess I don’t have to ask what you’ve been doing while you were on the run, huh?”

“Shut up.” Marco gave him a deadly look. “I said I’d go with you but only if she’s protected.”

“We’ll take care of her. Let’s go.”

Marco released her reluctantly. “I’ll call you as soon as I can. I love you, Reina.”

“I love you, too.” She stood alone on her street, emergency lights spinning sickening blue-and-red swirls on the neighboring buildings. The firefighters brought out Rodríguez on a gurney.

She turned away from the destruction of her home and let the paramedic wrap her in a scratchy blanket. “It’ll be okay, ma’am, you’ll see,” he reassured her.

She shook her head. It wouldn’t be okay until Marco came back and she was in his arms again.

R
EY WAS STRAIGHTENING
her desk. It always had to be clean before she began an important project. The clean space helped clear her mind. The disaster-restoration service had removed all the smoke and fumes from her working area and had scrubbed the mortar between her antique redbrick walls. The workers had even installed a central vacuum and ventilation system. She thought her father must have paid for it, because the insurance wouldn’t have covered the cost.

He and her mother had come home early from their extended vacation, fussing over her for the past several weeks. Rey’s mother had dropped her usual self-centered attitude and had focused on her daughter. After a few mother-daughter talks, Rey thought her mother finally understood how important her art career was.

And here was the next step in her art career—the block of marble for the Stuart commission. Fortunately the stone hadn’t been delivered until after the cleanup. She hated to think how the soot would have damaged its pure whiteness.

She picked up a head shot of Marco. No, make that Francisco, his younger brother. That mystery was solved. She pitched the photo into her wastebasket.

She had filed a few more invoices and thrown away some old invitations to gallery openings when she found the letter from the mortgage company approving her loan. Her hefty down payment as well as the new commissions that Evelyn had found had impressed the lender. According to her agent, there was no such thing as bad publicity. Several days of Local Artist Fights Off Insane Drug Lord headlines and TV stories had boosted her name recognition and the value of her artwork.

The letter read, “Congratulations for many happy years in your new home!” Funny, she wasn’t very happy, even though she had her new mortgage, had tons of work and even got a thank-you phone call from the federal attorney in Miami, sounding almost gleeful to have his case “settled out of court,” as he’d put it. She was also relieved that Rodríguez had the uncharacteristic decency not to die in her loft, instead succumbing to his injuries at the Loyola University Medical Center Burn Unit a couple hours later. She wasn’t superstitious, but who wanted to take a chance on evil spirits? And if there was evil in the world, that old bastard had been its embodiment.

But it had been a month since the other federal agents had rushed her lover away. She had feared for him until she’d found a short article on the
Miami Herald
Web site detailing how Marco’s testimony and evidence had brought down the rest of Rodríguez’s drug smuggling operation.

She hadn’t heard a single word from him since. If he couldn’t dial a phone by now, he probably never would.

The marble block sat on a tarp. Rey blinked back moisture. The stone dust must be irritating her eyes. She
got up from her desk and circled the marble, examining the pure whiteness faintly streaked with creamy brown mineral veins.

She remembered the explanation that Michelangelo had written to an admirer who had wondered how he did his sculptures: “I saw the angel in marble and chipped until I set her free.” She tipped her head, trying to see Marco in the untouched stone. He was no angel, but with his help she had chipped herself free from her fears. Fears about her past, fears about her art, fears about her own sexuality and passions.

And now it was time for her to chip her statue free and maybe chip Marco out of her heart. If her heart cracked in two, well, it wasn’t made of marble. It would heal. Eventually.

She chose her favorite cold-tempered two-inch steel chisel, kissed it for good luck, and raised the mallet for the first blow.