Chapter Thirteen
By the time Laura reached the kitchen, she was sure her legs would buckle. Finding Tony was all she wanted, but Mark. Mark could be hurt. Killed.
Rosa and the cook were talking quietly. Both turned as the door swung closed behind her.
“Doña Margarita was not there. I left the tray on her desk.”
“That is all then,” Rosa said. “I will speak with her later and pick it up.”
“I may go?” Laura asked.
“Sí. Go. You’ve worked hard. There will be much more to do tomorrow. Arrive early.”
“Buenas noches.” Hands shaking, she grabbed the small cloth bag that held her change purse, practically sprinted from the kitchen and headed for the servant’s entrance. The sun had set but the sky still held the blue of dusk. The city lights began blinking on. Margarita’s car was still parked in its usual spot.
Somewhere inside Margarita Ruiz was planning what to do with her newfound knowledge. Had she gone straight to her husband?
Mark. Por Dios, Mark!
He’d told her to go. He’d done that for her. For Tony. She wanted to rush back to him and...what? Tell him she was sorry? Tell him to be careful? She couldn’t be the cause—
Her vision blurred, but she blinked the tears away. Mark was her father’s agent. He knew the risks when he took the job. If the worst happened, she would be Tony’s only hope.
She walked to the back gate where another guard, one she didn’t know, stood watch.
She kept her head down so he wouldn’t engage her in any way.
He opened the gate for her.
When it clicked closed behind her, she looked up and down the street, then turned back. Maybe there was still time to convince Mark he had to leave.
Just then, she heard an engine crank inside the compound. She ran to a large palm tree that grew between the sidewalk and the street, and hid behind it, waiting.
The gate opened and Margarita’s car drove out. When it turned toward where Laura stood behind the tree. As it passed, she moved around the palm to keep from being detected. Margarita was alone. At the end of the block, the car turned to the right.
With feet so heavy they felt like they were encased in cement, Laura ran to the corner in time to see Margarita turn on her headlights. Was it possible she was going to see Tony now that she knew Laura was his mother? With the bright tail lights disappearing down the street, Laura raced a half a block, desperate to see which way she went. The car stopped at a red light.
An old red Volkswagen with the ubiquitous taxi sign propped on the dash, putted closer. The sign on the dash meant this was a private taxi, probably unlicensed. She held out her hand, waved until he stopped next to her. The driver leaned toward the open passenger window to talk to her.
“¿Adónde va?” Where to, the driver asked.
“I don’t know. La señora left something she needs,” she said. “I must catch her or lose my job. That’s her car. The black one. Up there.” Laura pointed.
“We’ll catch her,” the young man answered with a wink.
She opened the passenger door and hopped in. “She must not know I am chasing her. Por favor, can we follow and let me get out when she stops? I can have this for her there. She will never know I failed to put it in her bag.”
Laura clutched the seat as the driver weaved in and out of increasingly heavy traffic, keeping a constant watch on Margarita Ruiz’s car. Having lived in Ciudad San Mateo most her life, Laura knew they were bypassing the Plaza de Armas. Only once, when they turned off the main boulevard into an older neighborhood, did she fear they’d lost Margarita’s car. But they quickly caught up.
They drove through a more middle class neighborhood, past a school and a park. Margarita turned again, then pulled up in front of a green two-story house on a corner, its exterior plain and square, nothing like the Ruizes’ other houses. The driver stopped the car two blocks away.
Laura oriented herself. A block over from a banking center, maybe three blocks from one of the main avenues to the Presidential Palace. There was no one on the street. If she was spotted, she’d have to run and hide.
“You’ve saved my life,” Laura said handing over the six peso fare plus an extra one as a tip, knowing one peso was nothing.
“At your service.” The driver saluted and gave her a broad smile.
Margarita entered the house just as Laura got out of the taxi.
She walked closer, her manner casual, her attention on the two windows in the front.
A shadow crossed behind the sheers in one window. Then a small silhouette appeared in the second window. The sheers parted slightly, just enough.
Tony!
Tears of relief welled in her eyes. It was all she could do not to run to her son. But she knew better. She had to be patient. A light came on inside and someone appeared behind Tony. A woman. She recognized Esperanza. They were both okay. Esperanza led Tony away from the window.
The man who’d opened the front door for Margarita stepped out and looked down the street toward another man standing on the corner. They nodded at each other, then the one at the front stepped back inside and closed the door.
Both men held automatic rifles.
***
“Doña Margarita’s car is gone,” Rosa said when Mark walked into the kitchen. He’d already checked the house for the woman, then started asking servants. “One of the guards says she left, but didn’t say where she was going.”
“Maybe she had to meet someone,” Mark suggested.
“No, she—” Rosa looked away with a guilty expression.
“Do you know where she might be?” Mark asked.
“Don Ernesto cannot—” The woman put her hand to her mouth, as if to stop herself from talking, her eyes wide. “¡Ay!”
“Is Doña Margarita in danger?”
Rosa looked confused. “Danger?”
“Is someone trying to hurt her?”
“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “There is a little boy.” Rosa faltered, as if unsure she should continue. “She loves him, but Don Ernesto wants no more children. He has a son and a daughter. Doña Margarita hopes to make him see that adoption—”
The kitchen door swung open and Gonzalez stepped in. “Have you found her?” he asked.
“The guard says she took her car and left.”
“Then she is well, no need to alert Don Ernesto.”
Mark’s heartbeat slowed. Laura would get away. If Margarita had told Ruiz who Laura was, Gonzalez would have had him dragged away. Now all he had to do was get to the house and decide what to do next.
“Four more men will arrive.” Gonzalez said to Mark. “They will be escorted to the office by the security team you met this morning. They will take over. You are then dismissed.” To Rosa, he said, “You are dismissed also, woman. You are not to stay here tonight.” With that, he walked out.
Rosa looked momentarily stunned, then started toward the door to leave.
“Señora Rosa,” Mark said, stopping her. “How old is the boy Doña Margarita wants to adopt?”
“Six. A handsome boy. Very smart. Doña Margarita will convince her husband.”
Was the child Tony Iglesias? Whether or not Margarita knew the boy’s true parentage before, she must by now. Ernesto Ruiz took the boy because he was the grandson of Arturo Herrera, but adopting the boy? That made no sense. Unless adoption was what Margarita told Rosa to explain the child.
Laura had said Margarita was spoiling a boy, sure it was Tony. Maybe that was where the woman had gone when she saw Laura’s picture.
He stayed at the front door until the men Ruiz was expecting arrived. The vice-president, the heads of San Mateo’s Guardia Civil, the city’s police force, and the general who headed the air force were hustled into the office. Adding these men to the generals already inside, who were the heads of the army and navy, proved that a power play was in the works. President Valdivia was being sidelined by holding, or maybe threatening, all those who supported him until Ruiz got what he wanted. If it was war with the country to the north, Ernesto Ruiz was about to make his move.
And to do it, he was willing to destroy his country.
***
With no money left for a taxi, Laura took a bus to get back to the house where she and Mark had stayed. The only thing she could think to do was get one of Mark’s guns to confront Margarita and her armed guards.
Her mind spun. It all seemed so surreal. If she went back for Mark now, if he was with Ruiz, she might jeopardize him—if he hadn’t already been exposed because Margarita knew who she was.
She had no idea how to find Emilio Estrada again, or if he’d refuse to help yet again.
She had no choice. There was no one to turn to. She sucked in a huge gulp of air. She had to do this alone.
By the time the bus reached the Avenida Abancay, fifteen blocks from the house, it was dark and the traffic had reached critical mass. While traffic jams were a way a life in the city, this was unusual. They’d been stopped for far too long.
Inside the standing-room only bus, restless grumblings began. As they waited, one man asked the driver to open the front door so he could get out. Laura moved to get out with him, hoping to catch another bus, but a policeman on the street grabbed the man and put him back on the bus.
Following him in, the policeman said, “Stay inside. No one leaves. The bus will run its regular route. Do not get off before your stop.”
“¿Qué pasa?” What’s happening, an older woman asked as the bus inched forward.
“Nothing to worry about, señora,” the policeman said in a deferential tone. “When you get off the bus, go home.”
“What has happened?” an older man insisted.
“Do as you are told.” This time the policeman spoke harshly.
A middle-aged man ran up the steps into the bus, out of breath. “¡Guerra!” he shouted. “There is war. Monte Blanco has invaded our border!”
“Be quiet,” the policeman ordered. “Do not frighten these people.”
“They deserve to know.” The man jumped off the bus and vanished into the crowd.
Others joined the chorus of questions until the policeman finally acknowledged reports that Monte Blanco had invaded San Mateo. As the policeman waved his arms to calm people down, Laura searched for a way to slip off the bus unnoticed.
If she didn’t do something Tony would be would be trapped in a country at war and she’d never find him.
And Mark. Madre de Dios. Mark was still at Ruiz’s. If he were trapped there, if Margarita told her husband who Laura was, Ruiz would kill Mark. He could already be dead.
No, he would get away. He was good at what he did. She couldn’t think about that. She could only think about Tony. If she could get off the bus, she could run to the house, get a gun and go back for him.
“Atención, atención,” shouted the policeman when the bus stopped at an intersection. “If you live within a few blocks, you should get off here. If you live beyond the Plaza Madrid, stay on the bus. The government has ordered a curfew. You will be arrested if you are not off the streets by eight.”
Up ahead, the traffic had cleared as police took control of the intersection. Plaza Madrid was around six blocks away. Laura’s stop was four blocks beyond that. The curfew meant she only had a half hour to get to the house and use Mark’s truck to drive to Tony. But would it be quicker to stay on the bus, then run the final four blocks, or run from here?
Suddenly someone shoved her, and she was jostled and pushed to the back of the bus, down the three steps and out.
Into a world gone mad.
***
By the time the bus Mark was on got to his stop one block from where he and Laura were staying, men and women were running to their doors, urged to get off the streets by police using megaphones. Parents ran carrying their children. An elderly woman sobbed in anguish about family caught in the north of the country. A couple spoke of going south, away from what they believed would be an invasion.
He cut across the plaza to the house, dodging people, jogging, frantic about losing Laura in this bedlam. He’d seen it before. People got hurt or were separated. Some were never heard from again.
After opening the wrought iron door, he unlocked the ancient wooden front door, and stepped into the cool, shadowed entry.
“Laura!”
Silence.
Moving down the long hallway in the dark, he called again. Nothing. Once in the back, he flipped on a single overhead light, and took the stairs two at a time to her bedroom. “Laura!”
No Laura. His heart hammered wildly in his chest. Things were exactly as they’d left them this morning.
He bolted out the door and back down the stairs, drawing on the logical side of his brain to keep worst case scenarios at bay. Laura was smart. She was resourceful. She’d be okay. She’d get herself to safety. For her son.
But why the hell had he told her to go on alone? Why hadn’t he just cut and run with her? What the fuck was wrong with him?
He was an idiot. A damn fucking idiot.
The kitchen was empty.
Where the hell was she? She’d left over an hour before he had. She could be anywhere between Ruiz’s and here, stuck on the streets.
He’d backtrack and find her.
He ran back to the front door, opened it and came face-to-face with an armed policeman.
“Adentro,” he ordered. Inside.
“Mi mujer—”
“There’s a curfew. Our orders are to shoot anyone on the streets after eight. You must go inside.”
“That’s only ten minutes—”
“If she does as she’s told, she will not be shot,” the policeman said. “The streets are jammed. It’s taking a long time to move through the city.”
“She’s alone—”
“Back inside.” The policeman aimed his pistol at Mark’s head. Another policeman a few steps away shot into the air. People ducked. “We will shoot anyone who does not cooperate.”
Hands up, Mark backed away and closed the door. He looked out the tiny window, scanned the street. She was okay. She had to be okay.
With one last look at the policemen now forcing people into their homes, Mark rushed back, past the kitchen to the patio. He could leave undetected through the back. No truck though. He couldn’t take the truck with this traffic. He had to walk.
Except he had no idea where she could be. If he left, he could be stuck in the chaos. If he were arrested or shot, he’d be of no use to Laura. He rushed back to the front and leaned against the door, eyes closed. He was as helpless as he’d been four years ago.
Throat suddenly dry, he swallowed and pushed away the thoughts. This wasn’t about him. It was about Laura and her son. The policeman had to be right. She’d just been held up because the city was in turmoil.
***
Laura broke free of the cluster of people she’d gotten off the bus with. All around her, people hurried, but no one ran. If they did, the police shot into the air or grabbed them and hustled them away to a waiting bus. She walked the remaining blocks as fast as she could, head bowed, breathing in shallow gasps.
Tony and Esperanza. Her father. Mark. They had to be safe.
She’d thought that by moving to the States, away from her father and memories of José Antonio and her brother, she had taken charge of her life. But the truth was that she hadn’t. She wasn’t strong, she wasn’t brave and she needed help.
Ruiz still had Tony and Esperanza. Who knew what her father was going through. And Mark… Was he still alive?
Another shot rang out.
She reached the house and fumbled with the key, a policeman so close she could smell his aftershave.
The door swung open. Mark!
She stood there for a moment, trembling, before she fell into his arms.