Fields' Guide to Abduction, - [famous ebook reader TXT] 📗

A stiff-spined Javier sat across the dinner table from me. The man looked like a walking billboard for good genes and bespoke suits. What did the booted, plaid-shirted sicarios think of his fine clothing?

Last night, he’d seemed set on impressing me, tonight he ignored me.

“I saw my mother on the television,” I said. “On the news. She was crying.”

Javier didn’t even acknowledge he’d heard me.

“I was wondering if I could e-mail her and tell her I’m safe.”

He looked up from his plate. “No. E-mails can be traced.”

“What if I wrote a letter? Someone could mail it?”

“A letter?”

I nodded with enthusiasm. “You know, pen, paper, envelope, stamp—a letter.” I played my trump card. “I’m sure Señor Quintero wouldn’t want her to worry.”

Javier glanced toward the ceiling. Not exactly an eye-roll—but close. “Fine.”

“Maybe I could write it tonight.”

Javier looked up from his tamales. “Fine.”

“I’ll need paper and a pen.”

“Fine.”

We ate a few bites in silence.

“That’s quite a video library.” Ignacio Quintero’s library consisted of every episode of every television show Chariss had ever been in plus every movie she’d ever made. Nothing else.

“I thought you’d enjoy it.” The man was a sadist.

“I think he has a few movies I haven’t seen.” I’d actually watched a few episodes of The Smiths and looked for Irene Vargas. I’d also searched Chariss’ face for a hint of fear or uncertainty and saw only a woman sure of her beauty. Irene Vargas might have believed Chariss was insecure or frightened. I wasn’t buying it. Not for a second. “I don’t suppose I could watch them tomorrow?”

“Ignacio arrives tomorrow.”

I had to move fast! I took a large sip of wine. “What time?”

“Around two.”

“I’ll watch a movie in the morning.”

“You mean you don’t sleep till noon every day?” An innocuous sentence. A charming man could have made it flirty. Javier made it mean.

“Only after being abducted.” I smiled sweetly. If Jake came tonight, we’d have to find a way to steal that frame. If Jake didn’t come, I’d make sure I had the information before I left this place. Javier wouldn’t get away with kidnapping me.

“I’ve been thinking about that abduction.” Javier’s voice was chilly.

“What about it?”

“Your abductor didn’t have much of a plan to get you out.”

“No,” I agreed. “He didn’t. The entire attempt was half-assed.” Typical of Jake to lead with his heart and not his head.

“The Zetas are former military operatives. They plan with precision.” Like planning a crash on a deserted toll road, three sicarios, and a helicopter.

I blinked and fluffed my hair. “I read the Zetas were in disarray and different factions were struggling for power.”

Javier grunted.

“Maybe it was one of those factions that abducted me.”

“Why abduct you?”

“Ransom? Extortion? The man who took me could have been working for one of the factions I read about.”

Javier rubbed his chin. “Where did you do all this reading?”

In a file stolen from a Sinaloa Cartel computer. “I don’t know. I think I saw a documentary, too. I don’t remember.”

We returned out attention to our meals. More silence. Itchy silence.

“This is pretty china.”

“Ignacio’s first wife picked it out.”

I looked up from my plate. “He was married?”

Javier looked up too. “He is married. The third Señora Quintero lives in Culiacan.”

How did Señora Quintero feel about her husband’s obsession with Chariss? How would she react to my presence? My fork scraped against my plate. “How did you come to work for Señor Quintero?”

“He needed a CFO and I needed a job.”

“Most men with MBAs are looking for a C-level job at a Fortune 500 company, not—”

“Not with a drug trafficker?” For an instant something akin to warmth lit Javier’s eyes. “This organization grosses more money than any Fortune 500 company out there and our margins are better. If Ignacio would implement a few of my ideas, he could rule the world.”

Perhaps realizing he’d tilted his hand a bit too far, Javier added, “Ignacio is making changes. And change should be incremental.”

If that’s what he told himself, I wasn’t about to argue.

“Sometimes…” Javier stared at the picture of Chariss. Whoever he was talking to, it wasn’t me. “Sometimes changes can be too big, too fast.”

“Too big?”

He swung his gaze my way. Any warmth that had been in his eyes was frozen over. “Changing a business model too quickly can have unintended consequences.”

Javier and Ignacio disagreed about something. Something big. Afghani heroin?

If the two men engaged in a battle for control of the Sinaloa Cartel, the hacienda was the last place I wanted to be.

Javier put down his fork and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Please excuse me, I have work to do.” He stood and flicked an invisible bit of lint off the arm of his jacket.

“The writing materials?” I looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Pick up your house phone and ask for them.”

Flipping a spoonful of salsa at his snow-white shirt would be wrong. Dreadfully wrong. Besides, he was wearing an Hermés tie. Besides, he’d probably feed me to the lions.

Later that night, having acquired a paper and pen, I sat down at the table in my room and wrote.

Dear Mom (I never called Chariss Mom—she’d know immediately something was off),

I just wanted to let you know the people who took me are treating me well.

It’s like you always say, I should be starring in a thriller (Chariss had identified screwball comedies as my best genre). Now I am.

Of course, I want to go home. There’s no place like Beverly Hills (I hadn’t lived in Beverly Hills since I left for college). I am hopeful they will let me go. Soon.

Love, Poppy

I addressed the envelope to Chariss in care of Ruth Gardner at Gardner, Jackson & Bray, stood, and stretched my back. Javier would read the letter before it was mailed (if it was mailed) but the point had never been the letter. The point had been a believable reason to ask for paper and a pen.

Consuela, who’d decided she was my new roommate, lifted her head from her paws and watched me walk over to the locked veranda doors.

I stared out into the night.

What if Jake hadn’t made it?

What if he had, and the people he worked with decided I wasn’t worth saving?

What if I was alone?

I crossed my arms over my chest. Did I have a hope of making it home?

Consuela rubbed her little head against my leg and I bent and picked her up. She still smelled of Chariss’ perfume.

How often had Chariss accused me of floating through life?

Now, faced with the real possibility of my life ending, I saw her point. I wanted that accumulation of days and weeks and months and years to mean something. When I died, I wanted someone other than my personal shopper and a few paparazzi to know I’d lived.

“I don’t mean fame,” I whispered to Consuela. “I want to make a difference.”

Consuela yawned.

Bringing down a drug cartel would make a difference. Even if Jake didn’t come,