Chapter 15
15
A lejandro returned to the kitchen after his conversation with his contact in Tijuana. “I talked to my friend, and he’s available to meet us tomorrow. He’ll also do some checking to see what he can find out about Shapiro’s clinic down there.”
Camila sat at the bar eating her food and paused with a forkful of rice halfway to her mouth. “What time do you want to go? Maybe right after the coroner’s visit?” she suggested.
“That’s a good idea since it’s a six-hour flight. I’ll see if there are any seats available. I’ll pay for the tickets.” He opened her laptop.
“You don’t have to do that,” Camila said, sounding appalled.
“I don’t mind.” Alejandro typed in a search for flights.
“I can pay for my own ticket.”
“I can pay for your ticket too,” he said, flicking a look at her before returning his attention to the computer.
They spent the next few moments discussing the best time to go and settled on early afternoon. Seats were available but not together. Alejandro paid for the tickets and then tucked his card back into his wallet. “All done,” he said, closing the laptop.
“Thanks,” Camila said.
Alejandro got a Negra Modelo beer from the refrigerator and popped it open. The entire time he could feel Camila’s eyes on him.
“We should?—”
“I’m going to?—”
They both spoke at the same time and stopped, laughing a little. Without the urgency of the investigation to occupy them, the awkwardness had returned.
“You go first,” Alejandro said.
Camila took a deep breath and set down her fork. “We need to talk.”
Mierda . “About what?”
“I can already see your guard is up.”
“It’s rarely a good thing when a woman says, ‘we need to talk.’”
“That’s fair.” She shifted on the stool. “I, uh, want to talk about last night.”
He tensed but didn’t say a word, holding the cold beer in his hand as he waited to hear what else she had to say.
Camila cleared her throat. “Today there’s been awkwardness between us because of what happened, and?—”
“What happened last night should not have happened. I should not have made a pass at you. I wasn’t thinking. We can forget about it.”
“I don’t want to forget about it. I want to explain my reaction, please. I didn’t reject you. I didn’t know how to respond because you and I have never been in a situation like that before.”
“I put us in that position, and I’m sorry?—”
“Don’t apologize!” Camila snapped. “Listen to what I’m saying, Jandro. What happened was unusual for us, and we should discuss what it means.”
“What it means?”
“Yes! Do you have feelings? Are you human?” she asked.
How ironic for her to ask such a question, when she was one of the few people he lowered his guard for because doing so was discouraged in his line of work.
“Of course I have feelings,” he said, though he felt himself shutting down.
“I know I sound emotional, but not everyone is a machine like you. We can’t all compartmentalize. I mean, I know you care. You were always there for me and Emilio. Keeping bullies away from him, and you’ve always had my back, and to this day help me with… life. But when Emilio died, a change happened, and I can’t quite put my finger on what it was. Everything changed. Seems like he was the glue holding us together. Was he?” Her question came out tentative and unsure.
“It’s understandable that we struggled. I lost my friend and you lost your husband.”
In retrospect, Emilio’s death left them broken and unsure of how to continue. The dynamics of their friendship had changed. Instead of three, now there were only two of them.
“You and he were closer. You both lived in Jalisco, and I was only there during the summers.”
“You were closer. You were his on-and-off girlfriend for years. He moved to this country because of you. You married here. He and I…” He shook his head. “We were friends, but you were his soulmate.” The word grated across his tongue like rough sandpaper.
“And how did you feel about me?”
He refused to look at her or she’d know without a doubt his feelings for her had long surpassed friendship. Gripping the bottle, he said, “You were my friend too.”
“What changed last night?”
“I don’t know, Camila! We grew up. You are a beautiful woman. I am a man.”
She looked at him with baleful brown eyes. “I’m never going to see you again after this, am I?” she asked.
Alejandro expelled a heavy breath from his lungs. “You said yourself that our relationship has changed. We’re not comfortable around each other anymore, and maybe it’s best we keep our distance after I return to Georgia. We will go to Tijuana and see what we can find out about Dr. Shapiro’s clinic, and if we’re lucky, we’ll gather enough information to prove what we already know—that they are harvesting organs.” A perfectly reasonable but ridiculous decision if he ever heard one.
Camila’s lips tightened. “Great.” She got down off the stool, scraped her leftover food into the trash, and tossed the dishes in the sink with a clatter.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing,” she answered with an abundance of snark. “I don’t expect anything from you. Why would I expect anything from a man who said goodbye at seventeen and didn’t show up again until almost three years later?”
“You know why,” Alejandro grated.
“Then you spent the last fourteen years popping in and out of my life—disappearing for months at a time with ‘top-secret government work,’ as an excuse,” she said, adding bass to her voice to mimic his tone.
“Did you think I was lying about my work?”
“I don’t know, were you?”
“No, Camila. I really did work for the government. I killed two men in your house, remember?”
“Maybe you’re a criminal, like Detective Slater said.”
Antarctic chill descended on the room.
“Like my parents. Is that what you’re implying?” he asked in a cool voice.
“I didn’t say a word about your parents or your past.”
“But you want to.”
“I do not .” She threw up her hands in frustration. “You know what, forget it. I tried. For some reason, you want to make me into the bad guy. God forbid we open up to each other and share. That’s the difference between you and?—”
She stopped abruptly, her lips went tight again, and Alejandro’s entire body became rigid.
He narrowed his eyes. “Me and who?” he asked in a lethally low voice. He knew the answer but wanted to force her to say the name.
“No one.”
“Finish the fucking sentence.”
She glared at him. “Don’t curse at me.”
“Then finish the sentence!” He slammed his fist on the bar.
“That’s the difference between you and Emilio!’ she yelled.
The words were a slap in the face. He didn’t know what to do with the emotion surging through him.
“You feel better now?” he asked.
“You asked. You insisted I tell you.” She was breathing hard. He saw a hint of regret in her eyes, but she refused to back down.
“No, you wanted to tell me, querida . Emilio, the son of the priest, the good guy. Meanwhile, I am the son of criminals, the bad guy. Tell the truth, you have been wanting to talk about our differences for a long time, haven’t you?”
She shook her head. “Not the way you think.”
“No? Isn’t that why you married him? Because he is a good man. Because he talks and I don’t?”
“That’s not why I married him.”
“Well, you didn’t marry me, querida , and no man has ever been as close to you as me and Emilio. So why did you marry him? Hmm?”
She stared at him in silence. When she didn’t answer, Alejandro leaned across the bar. “Who is the one who will not talk now?”
He shoved away. He needed to get out of this house. Out of this city. He shouldn’t have agreed to come here. He should have sent a wedding gift like a smart person instead of subjecting himself to this bullshit.
“He asked!” Her voice quivered on those two words and halted his feet on the steps. “He said he wanted to take care of me. He told me that he’d loved me since we were kids.”
I’ve loved you since we were kids! Alejandro bellowed on the inside.
She wasn’t done. “He said every time we broke up over the years, a piece of him died. He missed me. He needed me. He said the most beautiful words and shared his feelings. And… and he asked me to marry him, Alejandro.”
He left then, charging through the front door and slamming it so hard he was certain the entire house shook. He could almost hear the next sentence at the end of her speech.
You never asked.
He had never asked because he thought she could do better. Because she had chosen Emilio. Because Emilio was his friend, and what kind of lowlife would move in on his friend’s woman?
Looking down, he realized he held the beer bottle in his hand. He tipped his head back and drained it in two gulps.
She had belonged to Emilio. Simple. And Emilio had loved her with all his heart. Each time they broke up, he called Alejandro to tell him of his misery. Like a fool he’d give him advice and tell him how to win her back. Or tell him to be patient and give her time.
They always reconciled. Then they married and were together for five years before his death. As far as Alejandro knew, they had been happy. Once she became his wife, his friend never complained about her again. Why would he? He had won the greatest prize of all.
Her heart.