Love Inc: Taming Cross Part 6

I was so young and stupid, it took me a minute to understand: This was blackmail. We were on the highway, then, and when Jim Gunn turned around from the driver's seat, he held up a pistol.

"I think you want to do what we're asking, darlin'. We've got some fun things in store for you."

I was so young. So stupid.

I never even had a chance.

Hopelessness washes over me now, as I think of walking out of here to meet Jesus.

Maybe I should run. Maybe running would be better than walking into yet another trap.

Instead, I pack my bags in the attic-where no one will find them for a while; so they will a.s.sume I ran away-and when the sun comes up, I'm prepared to face my last day of freedom.

I go to breakfast. Eat my rice and beans as if it's not the last time I'll ever spoon them out of these metal bowls. The hardest thing, I think, is Sister Mary Carolina. She pulls me into a hug after my first appointment and whispers in my ear, "No worries. G.o.d will take care of you."

It's all I can do to hold back tears.

I'm sitting in a tiny office, filling out paperwork to order more menthol back cream for a little boy named Fernando, when I say the only prayer I will ever say for my own fate.

Whatever happens, please help me to bear it. Please don't let any of the children get hurt-or anyone at all. Please don't let the Sisters see me walking out tonight.

That's the last thing that I pray before the door swings open, and Sister Mary Carolina tells me that I have a visitor.

I'm surprised by how pretty Guadalupe Victoria is. It's a small, flat city surrounded by rising hills that might be mountains, and in comparison to the dusty haze of Mexicali, it's green. Not so much of a waste land, even though I know that technically, it's got to be poorer than s.h.i.+t.

By the time I stop at a small, two-pump gas station on the outside of town, my shoulder is aching and my neck feels really tight. I sit on my bike for a minute rubbing the tendons in my neck before going inside to ask about the St. Catherine's Clinic.

"The sick kids' clinic?" the man asks.

I shrug, then nod. "Yeah."

He gives me directions to the north east side of town and tells me the building was burned.

"Burned?" I put my hand to my chest, where my heart feels like it might have stopped. "So it's gone?"

He shakes his head. "Only part of it."

s.h.i.+t. "What happened?"

He leans close to me, so I can smell the food residue in his moustache. "The cartel," he hisses.

"They went after a kids' clinic?"

"They went after a woman. She belonged to Jesus Cientos. She left him and went to the convent. He wants her back."

I clutch the counter. "But he didn't get her?"

The guy makes a fish face and shrugs his slim shoulders. "How would I know? I work at a petro station."

f.u.c.k.

I think him and speed toward the area of town he mentioned. I was thinking of buying a hat or maybe even ditching my bike, but I'm so impatient, I just drive right to the clinic. It's not the only building in town that's half burned, but it's the only half-burned building that smells just burned.

What if she's not here?

Then I'll find her somewhere else.

What if I get shot when I walk through the door?

I swallow. I'm not backing out now.

I park my bike beside the charred remains of the left side of the stout, wide, stucco building and pull my bag into my lap, cursing myself for not doing this sooner. I slide Carlos's gun-a black 9 mm Beretta-into the bag and check the clip. Completely full. That's good.

She's probably gone, I tell myself as I situate the gun in my pants. What kind of self-respecting Mexican drug lord would blow up half of a clinic and not claim the woman he came for? This is probably just a pit stop for me. I might have to chase Missy King all the way to Jesus Cientos's doorstep.

d.a.m.n, that makes me feel tired.

I pull off my helmet and look around. If anyone's expecting me, I'd like to know before I get off my bike; but the parking lot is still and calm. There's no sign of a threat. Beneath the helmet, my hair is matted damply to my head. In some spots, it's dried and sticking up at weird angles. I run a hand over my face and wonder if I still look like h.e.l.l. The look that was so convenient for the club last night will probably scare the pants off everyone in here. a.s.suming the place hasn't been claimed by the cartel.

With my teeth gritted, I stride toward the clinic. A willowy woman is pus.h.i.+ng out the door with a tiny baby in some kind of sling. I give a weak smile, just to let her know I mean no harm, and she holds the baby a little closer.

Two more steps and I find myself inside a tidy, worn-down waiting area, outfitted with your basic metal foldout chairs and a round wooden table piled high with dog-eared magazines. Beyond the waiting area, only a few paces behind the last of the chairs, is a simple school-style desk. A pet.i.te girl with braided hair sits at it, thumbing through a day planner and looking surprisingly prim in a plain navy blue dress with a large, bra.s.s cross necklace.

When she sees me, her brown eyes widen. She audibly swallows, and I notice her left hand is clenched around a bunch of peanuts.

"Did I interrupt your snack?" I ask her in Spanish.

She smiles a little, but it's a nervous smile. She looks down at her hand, like maybe she's going to offer me some of her peanuts, but instead she draws the hand into her lap and looks me up and down.

"Welcome to St. Catherine's Clinic. How may I help you?"

I reach into my pocket for the photo I'm so used to carrying around, and I guess the girl thinks I'm reaching for a gun, because she jumps up, tossing up her hands. Her mouth is stretched wide in a scream I never hear. Instead her lips pinch shut and with a frenzied shake of her head, "I'll go with you! I won't make any noise! Please, don't harm the children!"

Holy s.h.i.+t.

"You think I'm here to kidnap you?"

She lowers her eyes, as well as her hands. "Y-you're not?"

"I'm not with a cartel." I had thought that didn't need saying, but clearly I don't know how things work. "I'm only here to find someone."

"You came here for...an American?"

I nod slowly. I didn't really plan on having this conversation with a kid. "I'm looking for my sister." My fingers twitch in the direction of my pocket, but of course, the photo I had is gone. "I lost my photo of her-" and the video in my inbox on my phone, of Missy King wearing a baseball cap and a heavy coat, is next to worthless if I even have service- "but she's got red hair and green eyes. She's not very tall, but she is pretty. Close to my age," I say.

I can tell I've hit the jackpot. She's chewing on her lip.

"What is her name?" she says, cleverly biding time. She fiddles a bit more with her necklace, and I feel sorry that I've put her so on edge.

"Her name is Meredith Kinsey, but she once went by Missy King. She was kidnapped, more than a year ago, but she escaped. I've been told she took refuge here." The girl doesn't confirm my story, so I add, "Sometime recently, the cartel came looking for her. That's what happened to your building, isn't it?"

She clenches her eyebrows and shakes her head, and at that moment, I hear the clicking of a woman's shoes.

"Alexandria." I hear an older woman's voice before she rounds the corner. When she does, I note a nun's habit and a face that's stretched wide in alarm. Her eyes narrow as they run over the girl's slim form. "Alexandria," she says, relieved, "go into the back room and help Sister Rita with her reports."

The girl's eyes hold the older woman's for a moment, and the older woman nods. The girl clutches her necklace, and I realize it must have been some kind of alarm.

A second later, the girl is gone, and the nun is standing stone still, looking stern, and I feel like I'm about to get thrown out of catechism cla.s.s. "What is your business here, sir? Do you have a child that we can help?"

I shake my head. "I'm looking for someone. My sister, Meredith. She once went by the name of Missy King. She was kidnapped and sold. I heard she might be here."

I'm searching the woman's pretty brown eyes for some hint, but she gives nothing away.

Instead, she folds her arms across her chest and sighs. "Whether she is here or whether she is not, it makes no difference. We have no business with those who seek to do harm to others."

"I don't want to hurt her," I make the sign of the cross. "I was reared Catholic."

She arches a brow, and her eyes move from my sweaty head to my dusty toes. "And what are you now?"

"Looking for someone." I lean in closer and let my urgency show. "And I don't have much time. If she's here, I'm her best shot at getting out. But it has to be now."

More like I'm her only shot, because it really does have to be now, and the sister seems to get it. Her thin lips press together. "Follow me." Two men come around a desk and she says, "They need to check you for weapons."

I hand her Carlos's Beretta, plus the giant magazine tucked into my pants. "I want it back when I go."

"Of course," she says smoothly.

They have scanning wands, and I'm slightly shocked when the one on my left goes off around my hip. The one being wielded by a dude on my right goes off around my neck. The men, both of them muscled enough to be imposing, grabbed me by my arms, and the woman holds up her hand.

She comes around behind me, runs her fingers along my neck, and presses something at the base of my skull that almost makes me purr.

"You hurt your neck," she says simply.

I nod, turning to face her once the men drop me. She nods at my legs. "You hurt your hip?"

I nod again.

"You have a slight limp. Only slight. It must have healed well."

"Observant."

She shrugs. "My job."

She holds her hand out, and when I don't take it right away, she grabs my left one from my pocket. When I recoil, she says, "That's what you are hiding in your pocket."

I exhale. "Yeah."

She opens the door to a small office and I step inside. "Tell me about the woman you are looking for. I want the whole story." I hesitate again, and she puts her hand on my shoulder, urging me into a fold-out chair. She walks around to take a seat at her faux wood desk, where she sits her hands on the table and nods at me. "Go on now, the whole story."

I find myself giving it to her. Not the abridged version, but the whole story, leading to my wreck, to the conversation I had with my father, and finally-when I can tell she knows where Meredith Kinsey, or Missy King is-my hunch that I need to keep my real name quiet at first. Because Meredith might not leave with me if she knows who I really am.

"If she's in danger, I want to get her to the States, where I can help her. It's the least that I can do."

"And your father?"

"I would never give her back to him. I'm going to get in trouble for it, but I plan to turn him in."

She nods for a long time before standing up. "Come follow me, Mr. Carlson."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

I'm pretty sure if I have a visitor, it's not one I want. My heart pounds so hard I can barely draw a breath as I follow Sister Mary Carolina down the hallway in the direction of the prayer rooms.

Why is this happening today? Is this Jesus? I decide as I walk briskly behind the woman who's been most influential in my life, that if this is one of is Jesus's guys, I'll go willingly. The Sisters have said over and over that they won't allow that. That we all stand together; that's the only way it can be. But I can't let harm come to them.

The only thing I can't figure out is why Jesus would send someone to kidnap me after the message Father Mendez delivered.

Sister opens the door to a small reading room with green carpet and white bookshelves, and we pause before going in. All at once she pulls me to her chest and kisses my head.

"Be brave, Merri, my love. You must do what you must do. We only want what's best for you."

And then she...leaves. She leaves me here, before I even see who's in the room.

For the longest second, I stay on the threshold, staring at the man who is facing the bookshelf. My eyes run down the length of him, expecting to find Jesus or one of his sicarios, but that's not what I find.

I don't know who this man is. He's tall, with dark hair and large bones. Long legs, wide back, big shoulders. He looks lean, almost sick, because I can tell he should be bulkier. He reminds me of a starved lion I saw once in a doc.u.mentary.

He turns toward me slowly, and as he moves I'm frozen, like in those nightmares where you're being chased but you can't run.

At first I'm not looking at his features-only the expression, which is somehow both solemn and surprised. And I feel like I've been struck dead, because he has an angel's face. It's not just the flawless blue of his eyes or his celebrity-perfect bones. It's not his perfect, straight-line nose or that lush, cherubic mouth. It's not his smooth skin. It's what I see inside his eyes. Something so intense, so sad, so ecstatic, so relieved, that I know he must be G.o.d's answer to my prayer.

For the longest moment, he just looks at me. I feel like I'll unravel in the brilliance of those ice blue eyes. I'm so thrown off I whisper exactly what I'm thinking.

"Are you here to take me?"

His lips curl slowly, into something that's not at all a smile. My heart stops as he steps closer.

"Rescue you." His eyes. They're still on me, burning through me. Holding my gaze like his hand is under my chin. His throat works and he seems to struggle with his words. "Meredith Kinsey." His chest heaves. "You're her. You're really her."

I wrap my arms around myself as my throat constricts. n.o.body here in Mexico knows my real name.