[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Bodyguards, maybe? Then a smaller figure stepped out. A woman. A
long mane of platinum blond hair fell around her back. It was one of
the only details Elizabeth could make out in the recording.
 Stop.
Miguel froze the frame on the woman, her back to the camera.
 Who is she?
 Not sure. This is only the second time I ve seen her. She showed
up the first time about a month ago. I saw her go in, but didn t see her
come out. Which means nothing because she could have left at night.
There are plenty of vehicles that come and go at night, but in the dark I
can t tell who s getting in them, even with infrared. It s just too far
away. We tried to check her out based on the long blonde hair, but it
wasn t much to go on. We finally decided she might be a girlfriend.
 I ve seen that hair, Elizabeth murmured.  I think it s safe to say
nobody has hair that color naturally, and very few have hair that long.
112
TAKE IT ON FAITH
That s why I had you go back.
 Where have you seen it?
She bit her lip as she thought. And then it came to her.
 Don t be mad at me, but I just remembered something.
 I m not mad at you. Tell me what you re thinking.
 Remember I told you I was supposed to meet Lionel for lunch at a
restaurant the day before yesterday?
 El Tulipán, yes, I remember.
 Lionel wrote down the address for me before he left that morning.
He said it was close enough I could walk there. But when I tried to find
the place I got lost. It turned out he d told me the wrong street name. It
was supposed to be something like Camin& 
 Camino? It means street.
 Yes, that s it. It should have been Camino something Reinas, but
he d written Camino something Reyes.
 One means kings street, the other is queens street.
 Well, I went to the wrong one. I ended up on Reyes Street. I didn t
see a blue building with flowers Lionel had told me that s what the
restaurant looked like. So I went in another restaurant, a small one that
was in between some stores, to ask for directions. The maitre  d was
rude to me. I m not sure what he said since he was speaking Spanish,
but he had an attitude. Finally, in English, he said something about a
private party, then he ushered me out the door and I heard him lock up
behind me.
 Private party?
 That s what he said. And before he pushed me out the door, I
glanced in the direction he indicated, and through a doorway I saw a
woman with long platinum hair like that  she pointed at the computer
screen  sitting at a table with a couple of men.
 What did the men look like?
Elizabeth thought for a moment, trying to bring the scene to mind.
113
TAKE IT ON FAITH
 I just had a quick glance, but one was older with graying hair. The
other one was younger with hair longer than yours. Both men were
dressed in business suits. And the woman, in spite of the fake blonde
hair, had an olive complexion.
 Do you remember the name of the restaurant?
Elizabeth scrunched her face.  I m sorry, I don t. As you ve already
seen, my Spanish is hopeless. But the woman didn t look like a
girlfriend to me. Instead she looked& well, kind of like you do right
now. All intense and in charge. Plus, she was sitting at the head of the
table, and I got the sense nothing concrete mind you, just a gut feel
that she was leading the discussion.
Miguel stared at her. Then at the frozen picture on the screen. Then
back at her.
 Damn.
He put the picture in motion again, but there was nothing else to
see. The threesome disappeared into what, Elizabeth had to assume,
was the hidden house. Miguel rewound it and watched the short scene
again. Then he minimized the video and his fingers flew on the
keyboard as he typed. It looked like he was running a search on the
internet.
With his focus on the computer, she gathered up the paper plates
they d eaten off of and took them to the trash. Then she pulled on her
jeans and tied the tails of Miguel s shirt around her waist.
She heard him place a phone call. He told someone about the events
of the past two days. But Miguel s next words had her jerking her head
around to stare at him.
 I think Galista s a woman, he said to the person on the phone.
 The blonde woman. He proceeded to tell about the video and what
she d seen.  And I just ran a search and discovered the head waiter at
Casa Robles, which is a restaurant on Camino de los Reyes, was found
shot in the head night before last.
114
TAKE IT ON FAITH
Elizabeth gasped. The rude man who d shooed her out had been
killed?
There were a lot of yes and no responses, then Miguel hung up.
 Get your stuff together. We re leaving.
 We are?
He opened one of the dresser drawers and pulled out a navy blue T-
shirt. As he yanked it down over his head and his rippling chest and
abs, he said,  My cover s history. There s nothing else I can do here.
And Galista wants you dead before you can identify her. One of my
partners is in Mexico City this week, so they re sending a team to get
us out of here and back to the States.
Icy fear spread through Elizabeth at Miguel s blunt words. Galista
wanted her dead. Dead. All because she d seen a woman in a
restaurant.
 The man I spoke with. He was killed?
Miguel closed his laptop.  I m sure his job was to guard the door.
But he allowed you to enter, gave you a chance to see Galista. A
mistake like that when you work for someone like Galista is guaranteed
death.
 Oh, God, she whispered.
Miguel took her by the arm and pulled her against him for a quick
hug, then released her.  Come on. There s no place to set a chopper
down around here in the mountains, so we re driving to meet them.
When she still hesitated, frozen to the spot, he cupped her cheek.
The warmth of his hand brought a little life back to her.  It s going to
be okay, Beth. We re going to get out of here.
She swallowed past the knot of ice in her throat and nodded.
115
TAKE IT ON FAITH
CHAPTER 9
An hour later they were on the road heading toward the pick-up
point. With the back window history from the shooting yesterday, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • thierry.pev.pl

    •