The Jaguar Read Free Page B

don’t let them see your fear, or the shape of what’s growing inside you. Bradley will save you. Bradley has always saved you. Bradley is good and truthful. Isn’t he? Then why in hell is all this happening?
    Several hours later, in sun-blasted day, she walked down a short stairway that deployed from inside the jet, four men ahead of her and four behind. Their guns were not drawn and they seemed tired. They had not searched her. Even with the blanket around her she made it a point to hold her tummy in. She could feel the first-aid tape and its hard cargo, strapped high and out of sight on her right calf. The air was heavy and hot and smelled strongly of the ocean. There was white sand and stands of coconut trees and flats with mangrove thickets stretching far back into a silver lagoon.
    She was ushered into a white Suburban with blacked-out windows. The engine was already running and the air conditioner was on and the driver waiting. Heriberto took the front passenger seat but the other men did not board. As soon as they were moving she tried the door so she could throw herself out and run for it, but of course the child guard was on and she was trapped. Heriberto turned and looked back at her with no expression on his face.
    “You are very happy?”
    “Very.”
    “Maybe the worst is over.”
    “This is a terrible thing to do.”
    Heriberto pursed his lips and nodded. “There are many costs.”
    “Why do you do things like this to innocent people?”
    “Your husband is a criminal and an enemy.”
    “You’re wrong.”
    “And if I am not?”
    “Then you should have taken
him
.”
    “But we have taken something much more valuable than him. We have taken what he loves. Anything we want from him is now ours.”
    “Who is Herredia? Who is Armenta?”
    “They are men, Señora Jones.”
    “Are they criminals and enemies?”
    Heriberto studied her. His face was wide and the planes of it were flat and hard. The stubble on his chin was gray but his hair was black. “They are honest men. They represent no authority except their own power to survive and prosper. Their cruelty is magnificent. But they do not deceive.”
    She considered his words and said nothing. Deceive? Could she say that much about her husband? What Heriberto had said back in the barn in Valley Center had rung true. If Bradley was a simple deputy then where had all of their treasure come from? From his mother’s estate, he’d always said. The estate of a school teacher who died young?
    First there was the white sand road, then a stretch of freshly paved asphalt. The road wound through the jungle away from the lagoon. She tried to reckon directions by the sun but it was straight overhead and defiantly still. There were few road signs and these were hand-painted and announced small hotels or cabanas for rent, eco-tours, fishing charters, ruins. The man drove fast and he gave no quarter to the other vehicles on the narrow road. Erin watched for a state or highway sign. Quintana Roo. Good. Good for what? She turned and saw that the silver Denali and the black Tahoe that had started the drive with them were still in place behind. Soon the signs vanishedand there was nothing but the hunched shoulders of the jungle and the curve of road.
    Heriberto turned and looked at her. “You will see that there is almost no wind now. This means a hurricane is coming. On the news they say in four days. There will be much rain.”
    “Good thing I packed the serape.”
    “Don’t be afraid.”
    “Why would I be afraid? Because you invaded my home and beat my husband and want to skin me? Because of your guns and the smell of your dead men? No fears here, none at all.”
    “It is good that you fight fear with anger. Anger is like lifting a blanket from your eyes.”
    “What shit.”
    “Now you are begin to see the real world.”
    They turned off the highway and onto a smaller asphalt road that brought them to a guard gate manned by soldiers in green camo. They were