Chapter Fifteen
T he two-hour flight gave Becca more time to fret. She couldn’t imagine that if indeed something nefarious was underway at her father’s warehouse, that Uncle Tim was involved. Nor could she suspect her brothers. Their family was too close. She’d just know.
During the trip, they did no talking. Halfway through the flight, she took out her cache of food and water and they ate quickly. The last two granola bars she gave to Rio to put in his waterproof pouch.
On another dirt landing strip, if one could call it that, the pilot put down in only a swath of moonlight. At the end, he taxied to a stop. Rio pushed a generous handful of American dollars into his hands, and they disembarked. The pilot pointed to an old sedan parked in the field and flipped Rio a key. In moments, he was back in the air.
The first thing Becca noticed was the balmy air. No longer freezing, Becca sighed in relief. She really hated the cold.
Rio took out his cell phone and muttered a few phrases. Closing the connection, he and Becca climbed into the sedan and he started driving. Over a short hill she could see city lights. “Are we near Nuevo Laredo?” she asked.
“Yeah. But we won’t go into town. Tonight we’ll stay with some people I know. In the morning, we’re in for a long swim.”
“A what?”
“You’re a good swimmer, no worries.”
She was, but how could he know that? On her high school swim team, she’d excelled.
“We’re gonna swim the Rio Grande. Cross the river into United States territory, into Nuevo Laredo’s sister city, Laredo, Texas.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Like illegals entering the States?” she asked. “Like criminals?”
He looked at her without apology and scratched his chest. “Kinda like that, yeah.”
“But—the Americans—they have border security,” she protested. “They patrol that river constantly. It’s impossible to get past them.”
“Not for me.”
She looked at him in exasperation. She had no option but to trust him, had to believe his confidence was founded in competency, experience, and knowledge. If he thought they could do it, then she would, too.
“Okay,” she said, shaking her head. “All I know is I need to get into the building. If your suspicions are true, there will be something there out of place. I’ll find it.”
“I’ll help you.”
Becca slanted him a glance. Never in her life had she been so alone. Deadly killers were after her, and she had no idea why. Upsetting doubts about her family members filled her mind. Were they complicit in some illegality? It felt as though her pleasant life was falling apart. She had no one to rely on except herself.
And now Rio.
Taking a peek at his handsome profile, she felt insanely grateful he wanted to help her. She still wasn’t certain why this aloof man was motivated to do so, but she didn’t need to question it. For now, it was enough that he was committed to uncovering the truth.
In minutes, he drove down a country lane beneath tall trees. All was darkened, quiet.
“You seem to know exactly where you’re going.”
“I’ve made it my business to know my way around these border towns,” he said.
She stared into the darkness. Somewhere on a nearby hill, a coyote howled. They went to the door of a small stucco house and it was opened by a middle-aged couple. Speaking in hushed voices, it was obvious they knew Rio. No lights were turned on.
“ Gracias ,” Rio said in a low voice. By flashlight, they were shown into a tiny room with only a single twin bed. Backing out of the room, the couple left the flashlight and closed the door.
“We’re safe here ’till dawn,” Rio said. He gave Becca the small light, sat on the edge of the bed, and started to remove his boots.
Keyed up from the long flight and dark-of-night travel, she didn’t move.
“Come on,” he said. “Lie down here with me. Sleep. We only have three, maybe four hours before we’re gone.”
She moved to sit beside him on the bed and shone the flashlight on her loafers. They were scuffed and dirty. So were her socks, her pants, her shirt. She still wore his fleece sweatshirt and the knit cap. She didn’t need three or four hours of rest, she needed a good long night of it, plus a hot bath. She needed freedom from worry. She needed peace.
Peace would not be found soon. She knew that.
“Rio,” she whispered, “I’m so tired. But I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. I’m scared.”
He took her hand. “You’ve been sick, and I’ve kept you on the move. Of course you’re tired. And you will sleep.” He brushed his lips across her mouth.
Leaning toward him, she wound her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. Their tongues met, entwined, danced together. Rio enfolded her in his arms. Taking a gasping breath, Becca found solace in the only person she could trust. In his arms, she didn’t know fear, or unrest, or uncertainty. She knew safety.
Gently, he pulled his head back. “That was nice, honey. But, sorry, no sex tonight. Right now, sleep is more important to the mission.”
Becca lowered her head. “Oh, the mission.”
Rio leaned down, pulled off her loafers, and eased her back onto the bed with him. She curled to his side, his arm around her.
No matter what he said, she knew that no way would she be able to sleep.
****
A t dawn’s first light , Becca felt Rio shake her awake. “Time to go,” he whispered into her ear. He got out his cell phone and made a hushed call.
Groggy, she sat up and tried to orient herself. They were in the tiny room. Outside of Nuevo Laredo. About to swim across the Rio Grande river.
Oh, boy.
Leaving a small pile of hundred dollar bills on the bed, Rio guided Becca down the hall to slip from the house. They walked along a dirt road, keeping to the side. While much warmer and more humid than their snowy cabin near the Chihuahua foothills, heavy fog blanketed the area. Keeping a close watch around them, Rio kept hold of her arm. This early, there were no residents up and about, and they heard only a few dawn-crowing roosters. Within a mile or so, Becca smelled dank water, like that of a sitting pond.
Leaving the road, they wended through trees and close-growing plants, avoiding any of the structures or shacks they passed.
At last they stopped in a heavy thicket. “Nuevo Laredo is connected to the U.S. city of Laredo by four international bridges over the river. We’re near one at the end. They’re all closely monitored by border security. But people make illegal crossings every day. Either by water, or under the officials’ noses hidden in vehicles. A lot of drugs make their way into the U.S. that way.”
“That’s awful,” she said.
“It’s the way it is.”
Up on the bridge, early-rising souls drove cars in both directions. Their shapes were barely visible in the thick fog. The banks of the river were choked with brush and green bushes. Across the river, some seventy yards away, three white trucks were parked front end in, their bumpers almost to the water. Several uniformed border patrol agents stood around, chatting and smoking. Each man carried either a rifle or a handgun strapped to his hip.
Although she wasn’t cold, Becca shivered.
The dank smell was stronger now and filled her nostrils.
Anxious, she held Rio’s arm. “How in the world are we going to sneak by them?”
“We’ll have a little help later on. I’ve hired people to create a diversion. For now, I’m going to make us some ghillie suits.”
“Some gilly what?”
“Camouflage,” he said. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a few.” He disappeared into the fog.
Within ten minutes he returned, his arms filled with cut ferns, green fronds, and long bunches of Bermuda grass. Taking a place beside her, he formed a long stalk into a circle and then wove different colored grasses and underbrush into a kind of crown.
Reaching over to pull off her knit cap, he placed the crown of leaves and fronds on top of her head. “The cap stays here,” he told her. “That black color isn’t found much in nature.”
She touched the long clumps of grass sticking out from her head. She felt as though she were wearing a huge-brimmed, Kentucky Derby Panama style made of natural materials. “Wow,” she said, filled with wonder at his ingenuity. “Will these really hide us from the authorities?”
“If we move slow, keep our bodies beneath the water, and you do everything I tell you.”
She nodded vigorously. “Will do!”
Rio smiled. He leaned over his half-made straw hat and dropped a kiss on her lips. “You’re adorable.”
Becca wasn’t sure about that. Her hair hadn’t been washed in ten days, she’d had no shower in all that time, she wore no makeup and she’d been sick. “Do I smell?”
“You smell like buttercups.”
She doubted that.
Finishing his own, larger hat, he set them both aside. “Let’s have breakfast.”
From his pouch, he took out their last two granola bars and handed her one. In silence, they ate.
“Rio,” she said finally, “What if something truly horrible is going on at my father’s business?”
“Horrible? That’s an odd word. I’m thinking more along the lines of illegal.”
“What if—” She swallowed the last of her granola bar with difficulty. “What if there are chopped up dead bodies in those shipping boxes?”
He did a double take, and grinned at her. “Little chance of that. Not much money to be made in dead body parts.”
“So,” she fiddled with her hat, “you think whatever is going on, it’s all about money?”
“It always is.” He sighed and glanced toward the river. The sun was just beginning to send searing rays through the fog and heat the air. “Time to go.” He instructed her to take off her sweatshirt and leave on just her white button-down shirt. He took her loafers and his boots and tied them together using pliant reeds, and slung them to his shoulder. He still had his pouch.
“We’ll sneak down to water’s edge,” he said quietly. “Step in my footprints in the mud. If I pause, you pause. If I sink down, you do it. No fast moves, no talking. Got that?”
“Got it.”
“This won’t be a quick journey,” he continued. “It’ll be slow. Very slow. It might take longer than you think it should. Just keep close and do what I do.” He handed her a hollow reed.
“What’s this for?”
“Once we’re in the river, if I squeeze your hand, sink your whole face except your eyes below the waterline. Breathe through this.”
“Okay.”
“Even if you think someone has spotted you, or is looking in your direction at all, don’t panic and don’t look back at them. Lower your eyes. Humans can sense when they’re being observed.”
That made sense.
“Look at the river. See the current?”
She watched as an egret floated by them, and nodded.
“We’re just two clumps of underbrush floating along the river, okay? That’s all we are.”
“Be the clump,” she muttered to herself. “I am the clump.”
He grinned briefly. “The last phone call I made this morning? I’ve arranged for a diversion, fifty yards that way.” He pointed south and to the Mexican side of the river. A few families had started to arrive and the children were splashing as though in a pool. “When it starts, that’ll be our cue.”
She wanted to ask him what sort of diversion, but he was already moving ahead of her. Their journey had begun.
A single mantra played over and over in her mind: please don’t let us get shot at again, please don’t let us get shot at again, please don’t let us get shot at again.