LITMIR.BIZ

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were lots of kidnappings both for money and to make people disappear. Ordinary women were their husbands’ chattel. Most people didn’t think much about these atrocities. They were simply a way of life.

      Still, such a hell attracted its share of saints, who naively set up clinics and soup kitchens and schools and churches on both sides of the border without bothering to buy the proper authorities. When these trusting souls got into trouble—recently there had been a lot of kidnappings for ransom—they would turn to the media and tell their desperate stories about the plight of the poor and the exploitation of those who fought to help them. It made for interesting reading, but nobody did anything.

      Terence had been as young and idealistic as the most naïve of them when he’d arrived here in his twenties. Dora, his wife, had been just as inspired as he’d been, but after she’d lost the babies and they’d adopted the twins, she’d wanted more than poverty and chaos and struggle. She’d wanted him to make money. Then they’d lost Becky, too, and been left with only Abigail. Dora had blamed him for Becky and had demanded that they leave the border.

      “It isn’t fun anymore,” she’d said. “It’s become dangerous.”

      The day he’d been nominated for a Pulitzer for doing what he believed in, Dora had sucked up to Daddy and gone back east to resume the upper-class lifestyle to which they’d both been born and had grown up hating. He’d stayed on, growing wearier with the same old battles and lonelier as the years had passed.

      When Dora had died Abby had returned to Texas. She was grown now, and he rarely found time to see her. Strangely she loved him, and was proud of his work.

      Thus, he’d never had a life of his own. Like a lot of people in their fifties, he gave his life a grade. Lately he’d begun to wonder what difference anything he’d ever done had made. The border was a worse pit than ever, and it was still ruled by slick creeps like Valdez. And by drug lords far more vicious than Valdez. He had a neglected daughter, who barely knew him.

      He stared at Valdez’s aquiline nose. Who the hell did the arrogant jerk remind him of? Who?

      The limo and its convoy slipped through the dirty streets like stealthy sharks slicing through dark waters.

      “So, why did you call and invite me to Mexico to interview you?” Collins said at last, his voice cold.

      “For once you and I are on the same side.”

      “Will miracles never cease?”

      Valdez pressed his mouth together.

      This was a setup. Collins could smell an agenda a mile away. Still, being able to talk face-to-face with Valdez, the CEO of Dalton-Ross Chemicals, a major polluter in the area was a rare opportunity he could ill afford to miss.

      When the limo approached a clump of people standing in front of a stunted tree in someone’s front yard, Terence leaned forward and told Valdez’s chauffeur to slow down. Terence rolled down his window and smiled faintly at the crowd of people, who were kneeling and crossing themselves and placing cards and photos in front of the leafless tree.

      “They’re transforming that pitiful trunk into a shrine because the lady who lives there found the image of the Virgin de Guadalupe in its bark,” Collins said, breathing in the stifling dust and heat that smelled faintly of sewage.

      “I know. I read your story on the miracle yesterday.” Valdez stifled a yawn. “At least it gives the poor something to read about besides the constant murders on our streets.”

      “So why did you call me?”

      “To discuss our dangerous enemy, old friend.”

      Terence started at the real concern in Valdez’s voice. Despite the air-conditioning that was all but blasting ice from every vent, Terence began to sweat a little under his rank collar.

      Valdez’s black gaze sharpened. “Octavio Morales has a price on your head. That’s nothing new. But he’ll pay ten times more if he gets you—alive. The sicko wants to play with you before you die. His men are already in your city.”

      “So? I lived through Mexico’s thuggish Interior Ministry investigating me.”

      “This is different.”

      “Why do you give a damn?” Terence said, making his voice blander than he felt.

      “Let’s just say Morales is a hobby of mine.”

      “Why?”

      Valdez’s eyes turned hard and cold. A nerve ticked along his jawline. “If I reveal a family secret, will you promise never to write about it?”

      Collins hesitated. Suddenly he knew who Valdez’s carved features resembled. “All right.”

      Lowering his voice, Valdez leaned toward him. “Octavio Morales is the son of a puta who once slept with my father.”

      “He’s your brother?”

      “No!” The denial held ferocious hatred. “I have five brothers. He is my father’s bastard. Several years back Tavio sucked a favorite cousin of mine into the drug trade. The DEA busted him, and he was forced to sell Morales his beautiful rancho at a very cheap price in the Chihuahua Desert…to make up for the drugs and the money he owed Morales. Then Morales accused him of sleeping with one of his girlfriends. My cousin never made it to prison. Morales shot him and dragged his body all the way from this city to his rancho.”

      “I see.”

      “The rancho had been in our family for six generations. Morales wants what I have. He wants to be me. My father made the mistake of educating him beyond his station. When my father wanted me to let him enter the family business, I said no. Tavio decided to destroy me. One of my executives was stabbed in what looked like a robbery last week.

      “The more powerful he becomes, the worse it will be for me. The reason I publish your articles is because he’s phobic about making the papers, especially when there are photographs of him. A lot of peasants see him as a folk hero. He eats that up. But he knows that when the real truth about all his sordid atrocities is made known, there will be a public outcry to stop him.

      “So, I have come to you with a big story that could get him the kind of international notoriety he most hates. This story has all the right elements. It’s a mystery…about a beautiful American woman who disappears into Mexico. It’s also a beauty and the beast tale.”

      Fascinated, Terence stared at Valdez.

      “Tavio’s prisoner is a celebrity. If he’d known who she really is, he would have let her go or shot her and dumped her body months ago.”

      “And you know who she is?”

      Valdez smiled. “I have a picture of her on a magnificent Arabian Tavio lets her ride. He’s holding the bridle. She’s a famous Texas heiress. If you were to print the picture—”

      The hair on the back of Collins’s neck stood on end.

      “Give this to somebody else. I don’t do disappeared people.”

      “I remember what happened to your daughter…Rebecca. I’m sorry.” He hesitated. “But with your personal knowledge about such a situation coupled with your immense talent—why, you’re the only person who can write this story. You would tell it with compassion.”

      Terence rubbed his eyes. Valdez had still been his brother-in-law when Rebecca had vanished into Mexico. He tried never to think about her, but he couldn’t stop himself. He still wondered…on a daily basis if she was alive.

      “If I wrote such a story, he might kill her.”

      “Or feel pressured to let her go. Remember, he wants the poor to see him as a folk hero. You could make people identify with the kidnap victim and sympathize with her family…instead of him. If her family brought the right kind of pressure, he would have to release her.”

      “Sorry.”

      “You

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