Chapter 5
“What?” Shepherd drew back, marshaling his senses. What the hell was it about this woman that made him lose them? Yeah, she was hot. But it wasn’t that. Okay, it wasn’t just that. It was her toughness. Or her tenderness. Or her… Hell, he didn’t have a clue what it was. “Your sister’s missin’?”
He watched her draw a breath, watched misery drench her striking features. Or was it all a ploy? An act perpetrated for reasons as yet unknown?
“Please,” she said, “say you will contact Señor Durrand regarding my situation. He has but to call this number.” She handed him a card and tried to turn away, but he caught her arm. She jerked from his grasp but didn’t retreat.
“Slow down. Wait just one damned minute. Let’s start at the beginnin’. I thought your sister was in a boardin’ school kinda deal.”
She nodded slowly, as if reluctant to share even that much, but finally she clasped her hands and inhaled shakily. “Aspaen Gimnasio Iragua. She was…is…a muy bien student there.”
“What happened?”
“I do not know.”
“How long’s she been gone?”
“I spoke to Principale Vargas. Sofia participated in her classes on Friday last.”
Today was Thursday. “What about the weekend? Was she around then?”
Carlotta scowled, looking angry, but was there a hint of guilt clouding the rage? “l…we do not speak so often as I would like. We“—her hands, as expressive as an artist’s, fluttered—“we are the busy ones. She with her estudios. Me with my job.”
“When was the last time ya saw her in the flesh?”
There was the slightest delay then, “I have not seen her since the Christmas.”
“Is there a problem between the two’a ya?”
“No! Of course not. Why would there be? We are the sisters. She is the sweet girl, and I am…the same.”
He watched her and wondered if the lady protested too much. She was nervous. That much was certain. But why? Because she was lying, or because she was scared? Or both. Maybe she was scared because she was lying. Or lying because she was scared. The thought drove a stake dangerously close to his heart, but he ignored it, reminding himself that he had no wish to act the fool again. In fact, if she planned to betray him a second time, she should damned well be terrified. “Okay.”
“But usually, I hear from her on the Sundays when she is finished with her estudios.”
“Not this week?”
“No.” She turned to pace. “And she has neither returned to her classes.”
“Ya talk to her roomies?
“Roomies?” She scowled over her shoulder at him.
He ignored the fact that she looked as perfect as a sculpted image with her hair drifting freely against the soft contours of her face. “She does have roommates, right?”
“Oh, sí, I spoke to them.”
“How ‘bout her friends?”
“They know nothing.”
“Maybe they’re lyin’? Maybe she took off and asked them not to tell.”
She snorted, seeming to find the idea ridiculous. “Sofia would do no such thing. Always she is busy with her schoolwork. She has no time for such”—she made a dismissive motion with her hand—“frivolidades.”
“How old is she?” he asked and thought regardless of her age, he had not yet reached that level of maturity.
“We will celebrate her seventeenth birthday in four months’ time.”
In fact, Shep mused, he kinda hoped he’d never be so ancient that he wouldn’t… Wait a minute!
“She’s sixteen?” he asked, awed. Somehow, when Carlotta had spoken of her sister in the past, he had assumed Sofia was little more than a child. “And she’s never run off with friends?”
“She is muy responsible.”
“Yeah, okay, I get that,” he lied. What was the point of being a kid if you couldn’t go batshit crazy every once in a while? “But she’s human, right?”
Some of the fear dissipated…only to be replaced by irritation. “She did not run off, as you put it.”
“Alright. Let’s assume that’s true for a minute.” He paced, mind racing. “How do ya usually communicate with her?”
She scowled at the question.
“Telephone? Emails? Smoke signals? What?”
“Sofia, she has the mobile phone.”
“A cell phone, good.” He nodded. There were ways to track such devices. If she had it with her—and what teenager didn’t tote her cell around like a puppy would a bone—there’d be a means to track her. “Are ya listed on the account? If you’re the primary contact, all you gotta do is call the phone company. Ask ‘em to—“
“Señor Tevio pays the bill.”
He felt her words like a physical blow. As visceral as a punch. But he fought past it. Unless she was lying—and he didn’t think she was…not about this—a girl was missing. A child, really. Still, he couldn’t control the bitterness in his voice. “So, what does the good doctor say?” He tried to keep his tone neutral, but it was beyond his capabilities. Could be that there was something about being drugged, handcuffed, and shot that made him a little bit testy.
“He does not know of her disappearance,” she said.
Doubts swarmed in like Colombian mosquitos, but he couldn’t turn away. Without Carlotta at his bedside, he would’ve died in the jungle. If not from sheer depression, surely from some idiotic attempt to free himself. Her presence had given him hope, something to live for. She’d made it possible to wait, to think, to heal. Though she’d betrayed him in the end, he owed her. And wasn’t that a pisser! “You didn’t tell him?”
“The señor has much with which to concern himself. I had no wish to bother him with my troubles.”
He watched her, wondering. “So where do ya think she is?”
“My country,”—she paused, winced, then brightened, her optimism almost painful to watch. “It is a wonderful place, filled with beauty and life and goodness. But some people…” She shook her head. “We are not wealthy…not like you Americanos. And hunger…it makes people do the desperate things.”
There was a problem with her soliloquy. For instance, some Colombians were as rich as Midas. The murdering bastard she called Señor Tevio came to mind. Turned out there was a good deal of cash to be made in the cocaine trade. But she refused to believe the truth. So was the woman simply naïve? Could it be she actually didn’t realize her protector was a drug lord and murderer?
The fear in her eyes was real. Of that, Shep was certain. Almost.
“Do ya think she’s been kidnapped?” he asked.
“Querido Dios!” Her face, that delectable caramel confection, went pale, her knuckles white against the strap of her bag.
“Do ya?” he asked. Prisoners did not fare well in Colombia. He could attest to that fact.
“I do not know what to believe.”
“So you haven’t gotten a ransom note.”
She winced again, shook her head.
“Has Santiago?”
“No.” She reared back as if struck. “He knows nothing of the situation.”
That seemed unlikely. Why wouldn’t she go to her sainted hero for help? He wondered but didn’t broach the question. “If she’s not bein’ held for ransom, what could the motivation be?”
She shook her head. “I do not know.”
“Any other schoolgirls gone missin’?”
“No. Just..” Her voice broke again, but she soldiered on. “Just Sofia.”
“And you’re sure she didn’t take off on a lark.”
“How would she leave on a bird?”
“A lark. A laugh. A prank,” he explained. “Just for shits and giggles. It sounds like she’s got her nose to the grindstone pretty firm. Could be she just got tired’a havin’ it ground down to a nub. I know when I was in school—“
“We are not Americano.”
He watched her, assessing. “I got a feelin’ that’s an insult. I just ain’t’m just not sure how.”
“You people…” She narrowed her dark-river eyes. “With your limousines and your yachts and your—“
He chuckled. Yachts. He could barely make the payment on his beat-up Silverado.
“And your spring breakage.”
He scowled before her meaning dawned. “Spring breaks,” he corrected.
“Sí,” she said and waved a dismissive hand. “We do not have these privileges. We must be diligent, must work like the dog if we wish to improve our places in lives.”
He shrugged. “Maybe your sister got tired’a workin’ like a Labradoodle. Thought she’d live a little while she’s breathin’ without an oxygen tank.”
“Sofia would do no such thing to…” She paused, pursed her sun-ripened lips. “…her future.”
Shep raised his brows, searching for the truth left unspoken…the facts just below the surface. “So she wouldn’t fuck up because she doesn’t wanna disappoint you.”
“Perhaps that is so. Perhaps her diligence is, in part, because of me and…” She stopped short, watching him.
“And Santiago.”
Maybe it was his tone that made her wince, but maybe it was something else. Something she wasn’t telling him. “No matter what you think of the señor, he has done much for us.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Shepherd agreed and let the anger seep in, raw and vicious. “So I guess this ain’t too much for him to ask’a ya.”
“What are you talk about?”
He smiled. “Come on, Lotta,” he said, gently testing the waters. Or maybe he was stirring the pot. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Never did I think you were.”
“I know why you’re here.”
“Sí. You know because I told you. My sister, she is missing.”
“I’d like to believe ya, honey, but I’m gettin’ kinda tired’a bein’ the shmuck. You’re here,” he said, “to give the good doctor another chance to blow my head off.”