Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(10)

“You’re the boss,” he told her. “I don’t know this area. Show me around.”

That threw her off guard. She was the boss.

She guided him past the drugstore her grandfather had started in the thirties, the shack where Mrs. Longoria sold tortillas off the griddle, the homes of her childhood friends. She told him stories—her first broken arm from that tree, her first boyfriend lived there. They passed within a block of her house, but she didn’t show him where she lived. He didn’t ask.

“Where would you go for a quiet talk?” he asked.

Her heart trembled. This was dangerous. Her parents, her friends would not approve. They were always protecting her, reminding her how fragile she was, how unpractical her dreams were.

“I’ll show you,” she decided.

She directed him down South Alamo, then onto a stretch of dark rural road where her friends and she used to stargaze. It was a desolate spot—perfect for ghost stories and underage drinking. At night, the fields and woods were so black she always felt she was at the edge of an enormous sea.

The gringo pulled his Mercedes next to a stand of live oaks and cut the headlights.

“Perfect,” he said.

An orange November moon shone through the tree branches, making shadow scars across his face.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Guy. Guy White.”

He said it as if it were a private joke—as if, with his luminous car, his Nordic features, his milky clothes, he were the gringo. The essence of everything her life was not, would never be.

“They want me to become a secretary,” she told him, blurting it out.

“Who does?”

“My college advisor. He wouldn’t write a recommendation for UT. He said I should stick with typing. Stenography at best. Because I’m a woman.”

“You don’t like that.”

“I can do better. I want to study law.”

“A lawyer.” He smiled. “Perfect.”

His tone made her angry. He said it like he was watching the end of a movie—some momentary amusement that would mean nothing tomorrow.

“I can do anything,” she insisted.

“Can you?” He rested a hand on her shoulder.

Outside, the darkness seemed closer, thicker. Tangled in the live oak branches, the moon looked like a blind man’s eye, webbed with cataracts.

Why had she brought him here?

Even as a child, this road had scared her. Walking to church as a little girl, she’d imagined hearing whispers in the wind through the grass. Her father had kept his eyes on the ground, picking up grim pieces of history to show her—arrowheads a thousand years old, a lead musket ball from Santa Anna’s army, tiny flecks of stone her father said were fossilized scales of prehistoric fish, back when Texas was an ocean for dinosaurs. The place was layered with ghosts, yet it electrified her. It made her feel alive.

She brushed the gringo’s hand away. “Take me back, please.”

“I could help you,” he said. “I could do so much for you.”

He stroked a wisp of hair behind her ear, and she noticed the pale skin on his finger, where a ring would be worn.

“You’re married,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “We’re expecting our first baby.”

“What are you doing here?” She scooted to the edge of the seat, pushed his hand away again. “I want to leave. Now.”

“You said you could do anything,” he chided. “Show me. What are you going to do about me?”

She yanked at the door handle. It was locked.

He slid next to her, blocking her fists as she tried to pummel him. The car was too cramped. She tried to kick him, but he pressed against her, a wave of cologne and muscle and white cloth, pushing her down, pinning her arms.

He was strong—much stronger than she’d realized. She screamed, but there was no one to hear. The car windows were well insulated. Nothing that happened in this expensive box of leather and glass would register in the outside world.

She struggled as he straddled her, pushed back her wrists.

“Do something,” White coaxed. “You won’t get anywhere if you can’t even fight me.”

Above her, the moon shone through the window. She wanted it to eclipse, to hide her in darkness, but it kept glowing through the car window, watching as she withered inside.

Chapter 3

MAIA LEE ARRIVED AT SAPD HOMICIDE SATURDAY MORNING, JUST IN time to watch two detectives and a uniformed cop subduing one of Santa’s elves.

“Serial murderer-rapist,” Lieutenant Hernandez explained, ushering her past. “Seven warrants in Missouri. Department store actually did a background check for once.”

The elf was doing pretty well for himself. His green felt sleeves were torn and his green tights were rolled up to his knees. A broken plastic handcuff dangled off one wrist. The uniformed cop had his legs and the detectives had his arms, but the elf was still managing to scream obscenities, spit, occasionally bite.

His mean little eyes locked onto Maia as she passed, but she’d been ogled by too many incarcerated sociopaths to feel bothered. She had worse problems.

She followed Hernandez through the cubicle jungle.

“Sergeant DeLeon’s office.” Hernandez pointed toward a glass door at the back of the room. “Quietest place to talk.”