Stranger Danger (2 page)

Santiago’s presence rattled her ever fragile
composure, and his story didn’t make any sense. “Okay,” she said after a few
moments of thought. “I get that you’re in trouble, but I don’t understand. Why
are you in danger?”

Without blinking, he said, “I can’t tell you that,
la muñequita
.
 
Or I shouldn’t.
 
It would just put you in danger, too.”

She’d forgotten many things, how sexy she’d always
found him, how beautiful his eyes were, and how much he could infuriate
her.
 
“You’re about to piss me off,” she
told him. “C’mon, share or I’ll kick you out. Tell me what’s going on. Are you
running from the law?”

He laughed without mirth, a dry, hollow sound.
“No, not exactly.”

Something stirred in her memory. “Last I remember
,
you worked for LAPD, so you’re a cop.
 
You’re a long way out of your jurisdiction,
Santiago.”

“Sara, please.
 
Don’t ask me things I can’t answer.”

She blew air from her nose to vent frustration.
“What do you want from me?”

“I need to hole up for a few days.
 
I’d like a shower and some sleep.
 
I haven’t slept in days, and I’m dead on my
feet.”

No wonder he looked haggard, she thought.
 
Under the dark bristles of his unshaven face,
Santiago was pale, his features drawn.
 
Despite her irritation with his unexpected appearance and his reticence,
Sara realized she still cared.
 
Blindsided by emotion, she stood and faced him.
 
“Do you feel all right?” she asked, her hand
creeping up to touch his cheek. “You look terrible.”

“
Estoy muy
consado
,” he replied. “
No mi siento
bien
. I’m not sick, though. Can I stay or are you kicking me out?”

Sara followed his bilingual answer and sighed. “Go
take a shower, Santiago. Do you have any clean clothes so you can change?”

“In my backpack,” he said. A faint smile flickered
across his lips,
then
vanished as rapidly as it came.
“
Gracias, la muñequita
.”

“
De nada
.”
 

They stared at each other, wordless, for a few
moments.
What am I doing?
 
I must be certifiably crazy. More important, what
has he done? What in the hell have I gotten myself into?
 
Sara had more questions than answers, but if
Santiago said he was in danger, then he was.
 
She’d help for now and see what else came later.

As if he could read her mind, he said, “I appreciate
this, Sarita, more than I can say.”

No one had called her anything but Sara in
years.
 
Sara, she reflected, was sensible
and responsible.
 
Sara English, widow,
florist, and designer had carved out a place in the small Arkansas town and fit
into the local landscape fairly well.
 
But Sarita, once Sara Straughn, lurked under the skin and retained a
little wildness.
 
She could be
unpredictable and impulsive.
 
Which one am I?
Solid,
dependable Sara or Sarita or neither one?
I don’t begin to know anymore.

 
“Are you
hungry? I can fix you something before I leave.
 
I run a little shop.”

“I know - Posies and Pretties, just off the
Bentonville Square. And, you own it, don’t you?”

He’d managed to surprise her. “Yes.
 
How do you know?”

In a very quiet voice, the kind she remembered could
hold menace or emotion, Santiago said, “I’ve been here for six months.”

His answer settled into her brain. “Six months?” she
said,
the level of her voice just below a shout. “Are
you telling me you’ve been in town for six months, half a year, and you don’t
come by to say ‘hi’ until you’re in trouble? What the fuck?”

Santiago met her angry stare without blinking. “If
I’d come before, you’d be in danger too.
 
Besides, I’ve been….”

“Busy?” she said in a mocking tone. “Tied up?”

“Undercover.” He dropped the single word between
them, as weighted and heavy as a pebble dropped into a pond. “I shouldn’t tell
you, but I’ve been in deep cover.”

Sara scrutinized his face, glared into his eyes, and
decided he told the truth.
 
Some of her
anger faded, but she remained irritated enough to ask, “How’d you know I lived
here?”

“I didn’t when I came.” He closed his eyes for a
moment and sighed. “I saw you one day, downtown.
 
Until then, I had no idea, although I
remembered you came back here, to the University of Arkansas and got married,
but I didn’t know where you settled down.”

When he swayed on his feet, unsteady, she grabbed
his elbow. “Sit down before you fall down on the floor.
 
Last I heard you were still with LAPD.
 
What happened with that?”

“I still am, sort of, not exactly.
 
It’s a long story.” He collapsed onto the
corner of the couch on the apparent verge of passing out.
 

“You can tell me later.
 
Let me fix you something to eat, a sandwich
or something.”
 
She’d always had trouble
denying the urge to nurture anyone and anything in her path.

“
Gracias
,”
he said.
“Later, maybe.
 
Right now I need to wash and sleep.”

He startled when her bird clock sang the hour in a
series of chirps and trills.
 
Eight
o’clock.
 
She should be at the shop,
turning around the ‘open’ sign in the window and getting ready for her first
customer.
 
“Do you want me to stay?” she
asked.
 
Catie would be parked behind the
shop, wondering where she was.

His brief grin appeared,
then
vanished. “If I did, it wouldn’t matter, but you can’t,” he said. “You need to
make everything routine, business as usual so if anyone’s made the connection
between us, nothing’s out of the ordinary.”

For the first time since his arrival, fear twisted a
knot within. “How bad is it?” she asked.

“It’s worse than you could
imagine,
la muñequita
. If you trust me, you’ll
go and be the same as any other day.”

Did she trust him? Sara pondered it and realized she
did.
 
Fifteen years made no difference,
despite his odd arrival.
 
“I do, so I’ll
try.
 
I’ll come home early, though—”

“Don’t.”

A frown tightened his mouth and put a line down his
forehead.
 
His eyes darkened so she
nodded. “Okay, I won’t.
 
I’ll get here
around five thirty or six.
 
I’ll probably
stop at the market to get some groceries.
 
But you’ll be here?”

“Si.
Adios, amiga.”

“Adios,
hombre.”

It was their old parting words, dredged up from deep
within.
 
He evoked a past she’d buried,
dug up ancient history, and when she answered with the familiar response, Sara
realized she’d just told him how very much she still cared.

Somehow, though, she thought he already knew or he
wouldn’t have come, no matter how great his need or terrible the danger.

Chapter
Two

Ten hours crawled past, each one slower than the
last.
 
Sara arranged flowers, fielded
phone calls, waited on customers, and chatted with Catie, her assistant and
friend, but her mind refused to focus so she faked normalcy.
 
Six birthday arrangements, three get well
bouquets, casket sprays and flowers for two funerals, a wedding order, and a
dozen assorted bouquets later, Sara thought she’d explode.
 
More than once, she almost called home but
didn’t.
 
Santiago wouldn’t answer even if
he heard the phone.
 

The last fifteen minutes of the day were the
worst.
 
She stared at the clock, willing
it to advance, but instead it seemed to stand still.

Her last customer lingered, unable to choose between
pink carnations and yellow roses.
 
By the
time she closed out the cash register, turned off the lights, and locked the
door, it was past five-thirty.
 
After a
quick stop at the supermarket, Sara’s progress slowed at every stoplight and
traffic snarled as others headed home.
 
Arms laden with multiple bags, she made it up the steps and managed to
unlock the door.
 
She stepped inside,
uncertain, and found the apartment dark.

Silence greeted her and for a moment, Sara thought
Santiago had gone.
 
Her eyes adjusted to
the gloom and she spotted him, curled up on the couch with his back to
her.
 
She listened and heard the soft
intake and outtake of his breath.
 
A
weird combination of relief and angst flooded her brain as she stepped out of
her shoes.
 
She tiptoed to the table and
put down the bags, then walked back to Santiago.
 
In the dimness she noticed markings on his bare
back and leaned closer. She made out two letters, a capital Gothic ‘M’ and a
capital ‘S’.
 
Her fingertips traced their
outline as shock morphed into anger then into full fury.
 
Sara didn’t need to read the two words
tattooed above to know what they said or meant.
 
‘
Mara
Salvatrucha’
.
 
Sara spit the
words out as if she spewed poison and turned on the lamp beside the couch.

Santiago reacted.
 
He rolled over and came to his feet, wild-eyed and wary.
 
He pulled a knife from the couch cushions
with speed and reached for her.
 

“Stop it, you bastard,” Sara cried. “You fuckin’
gang banger! Get out of my house!”

Her voice halted him.
 
Santiago blinked and sighed.
 
He put down the knife.
 
“Sarita, you have to listen to me…”

She wouldn’t.
 
She couldn’t. “I know what the tattoo means,” she said poured. “It’s the
gang, M13, one of the worst of all.
 
You
used to hate
Mara Salvatrucha
.
 
You saw what they did.
 
You know how they operate, how vicious, how
deadly, how cruel they are.
 
How could
you, Santiago? You were supposed to be one of the good guys, one of the best.”

Her fists pounded against his bare chest and he
caught her hands.
 
Santiago held them
with a firm but gentle grip. “
Basta
!” he said.
“
Cállate, la muñequita
.
You should know me
better than this.
 
It’s not what it seems. Yeah, I’m wearin’ the tattoo, but I’m not part
of it. I hate them even more than you know.
 
You used to trust me.
 
I still
have your back!”

Santiago’s voice rose with the last sentence, and he
delivered it with enough force to cut through her anger.
 
Sara hesitated, struck by memory.
 
He echoed one of the first things he’d ever
said to her and she paused, remembering.

She’d been sweet sixteen, a dangerous proposition in
East LA.
 
At the annual East Los Angeles
Classic, football homecoming, the rivalry between Roosevelt and Garfield high
schools was always extreme.
 
As a
Roosevelt girl, Sara had worn the school colors and a t-shirt emblazoned with a
Rough Rider, the mascot.
 
But her green
and gold clashed against the purple and white of the Garfield Bulldogs, and
fifteen minutes after walking into the bleachers at the stadium on neutral
ground, a bunch of Garfield kids surrounded her.
 
At first they smiled and laughed but after a
few minutes, they quit grinning.

“Give me your watch,” one of the boys said.
 
His lean face had reminded her of a wolf and
he spoke with a distinct Hispanic accent.
“The earrings, too,
chica
.”

“No!” Sara’s dad bought her the watch and she wasn’t
handing it over. “I’m not giving you my things.
 
Leave me alone.”

One of the girls in the group had mocked her,
repeated what she’d said in a falsetto tone.
 
Another joined in and Sara whirled around to slap her.
 
It felt good, but the last little flicker of
teasing had faded out of their faces.