Killer Kisses (14 page)

Web shone the light onto her face briefly, then lowered it. “Lola Getz?”

He sounded a little short of breath.

 No, don’t be ridiculous. She was hearing her own breathing, raspy and hard in her ears, as if she’d been running a marathon. “Webster Bond. The years have been
very
good to you.”

What happened to that skinny boy who fell on top of her twenty-five years ago? This muscled hunk bore almost no resemblance to the Dweebster, except his eyes were still kind and he still had that adorable dimple. When he smiled. Like now.

His grin faded. “What’s with the Lara Spencer ID?”

“I changed my name.”

His eyebrows shot up.

“Legally. A Long story.” She yawned. “I’d really like to get to bed. Am I under arrest?”

“No, you’re free to go, but there are no hotels or B and B’s available.”

“The reunion is
that
big a deal?”

Web shook his head. “The Arts Festival. It’s a three week event. People come from all over the country.”

Mierda.
So much for going someplace to blend in, where an outsider would stick out like a sore thumb. The place was
crawling
with out-of-towners. Not to mention the fact that one of the myriad of gallery owners who came to her studio to purchase her art might be in the crowd and recognize her.
Dos mierdas.
Exhausted, near tears, she didn’t think she could drive much further.

The lights from the cruiser strobed across Web’s face. When did he get that scar on his cheek? He looked so rugged. Tough. Like someone who could protect her. If she told him the truth, would he believe her? Would he help her?

After twenty-five years, they were really complete strangers to each other. Why should he believe her? And why should she trust him?

“What should I do? I can’t sleep in my car.” She could, and had, but it wasn’t safe. Not now.

Web nodded. “You’ll be picked up for vagrancy.” He paused a long moment and at last nodded. “I have a guest room. You’re welcome to use it.”

Relief washed over Lola. “No, I couldn’t impose on you like that---”

“Honest, it’s no imposition. I’m working the night shift and sleeping during the day. You won’t even know I’m there.”

Barely suppressing a sob, Lola threw her arms around Web and held him in a fierce hug. “Thank you, thank you.” He smelled like coffee and a spicy aftershave. His shoulder muscles rippled beneath her fingers. “You’re a life saver. You have no idea what this means to me.”

Clearly flustered, Web stepped back, breaking the embrace. “I’ll take you there now. Just follow me.”

Lola watched him return to the cruiser, his stride almost military in its precision. When did he get to be so buff? In some ways, he reminded her of Rico. Like the way he smelled and her body’s response when she hugged him, her nipples pebbling at the rub of the rough cloth of his shirt against her thin blouse. But this man, so serious, all business, did he ever laugh like her husband had? She needed some laughter in her life right now.

Or was that gone forever, too?

~*~

Web leaped into the cruiser. If Dickhead saw the footage, the conversation and the hug would be fodder for constant jabs. If
only
he could erase the memory chip. Well, the rules were the rules and a traffic stop meant the recording would be maintained for two years.

In his defense, he’d only done what Beth Heade suggested to the group: rent a room to a visitor. The fact that the visitor just
happened
to be an SHS alumna who caused palpitations and erections in every human, bearing an iota of testosterone in high school would be the
piece de resistance
in his passive war against Dickhead.

Web put the unit into gear and pulled in front of the Lexus. His house wasn’t far from the Boulevard. As he passed the gazebo in Dentzel Gardens, he thought about all the fantasies he’d had in his youth about taking Lola there, kissing her and running his hands over her luscious curves while the lake lapped at the shore.

The sands of time had left few marks on Lola. When she hugged him, her breasts pushed hard into his chest and her hips molded themselves against his. Terrified of an instant erection, he’d almost shoved her away.

He put on his blinker and turned down a side street, away from the elite section of town, toward the modest subdivision where he’d grown up. Pulling alongside the curb, he waved Lola into his driveway.

He called in to dispatch. “Forty-three-H to Summerville. I’ll be on a meal break at my home.”

Lola climbed out of the car, stretched and looked around.

 Half-embarrassed that he’d never moved out of his house, even when he’d been forced to place his wandering mother into a nursing facility, he hoped she wouldn’t be dismayed or disgusted by his home.

She pulled the overnight bag out of the trunk of the Lexus and looked around at him. “Are you coming in?”

“Just for a bit.”

A streetlight shone on the driveway, illuminating the hypnotic sway of Lola’s hips as she strolled ahead of him, her sandals flapping against the soles of her feet. He was a man, not a saint. And the feelings she stirred up in him roared back at him, twenty-five years strong. Good thing, he was working the night shift. Otherwise, just being in a bed in the same
house
with her would be torture.

She hesitated at the steps. “You go first, yes?”

He nodded, plucked his house key out of the thick ring in his pocket, and turned the knob. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

She entered the foyer and dropped her bag. “
Madre de Dios
. I’ve been here before.”

His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. “Wh-what?”

“
That
day, your mother—brought me here. I couldn’t go to my host family. The husband, he was a minister. I didn’t want to hear about God taking people to a better place. Your mother held me. I sobbed, screamed and shouted at God. She was so kind.” She turned around, tears streaming down her face. “Web? Where is your mother?”

He sighed and pointed toward the kitchen. “Let me make a pot of coffee and tell you about her.”

Over a cup of scalding
café con leche
, Web told Lola about his mother’s decline into the twilight of Alzheimer’s.

“It’s sort of like watching re-runs. She’s in the past, reliving each day from over thirty or forty years ago. I’m a little boy some days, my dad on others, and---” He flushed at his mother’s question about his crush on none other than the woman sitting right here, right now, at his kitchen table.

Lola placed her hand on his. Nails bitten to the quick, her polish chipped, it was clear she hadn’t been living the grand life of late. “I’m so sorry.”

He looked into her eyes and was suddenly reminded of spring grass and flowers. The fine lines around her eyes told him that unlike Beth Heade, Lola’s body had not been surgically altered. “Thank you. Maybe—” He stopped. What would she think of him?

“What? Tell me.”

“Would you like to visit my mother tomorrow? She probably won’t know you.”

“I
want
to see her.”

He shook his head. “On second thought, no, that’s not fair. You’re here to have fun, go to the reunion, party with the in-crowd.”

“Party with the in-crowd?” She giggled, a youthful merry sound that brought him back to high school. “That’s why you think I’m here?”

“Don’t tell me you’re here to relive our special moment?” At her quizzical look, he felt his face warm. “Me falling out of the locker on top of you?”

“Webster Bond. Stirred, not shaken.” She burst out laughing and he joined in.

When was the last time he’d laughed in this house? Sitcoms didn’t count as genuine mirth.

The timer on his cell phone buzzed. “Time to get back to work.” He led her to the guest room, just down the hall from his. “Use whatever you want. The computer’s in the den. Laundry room is off the kitchen. Sorry, the house is a mess. I planned to clean tomorrow. Eat, drink whatever you can find. The grocery store was on my list of things to do, too. Here’s a spare key for the house.” He handed her a Cougar key chain, a leftover from high school. “My shift ends at seven-thirty. I’ll see you then.”

She stood in the doorway to her room. “Web?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. You have
no
idea how much this means to me.” Two steps and she was at his side, up on her tiptoes, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Stay safe.”

A question niggled at the back of his mind. “Can you tell me about your name change?”

“Tomorrow, I promise.”

CHAPTER FOUR

~*~

Lola waited until she heard the squad car pull away, then raced down the hall to the computer. She shot an email to her cousin, letting her know she was safe without giving her whereabouts. Still wired, she surfed the Internet for information about the Mexican drug cartels and found an article in the
New Yorker
by William Finnegan, “Silver or Lead.”

As she read, she berated herself for enjoying the lifestyle the gangsters had given her through her husband’s
legitimate
business. She could no longer pretend that her life was not connected to these thugs and that being a famous artist allowed her to turn a blind eye to the war going on in her country. Her head-in-the-sand approach to life in Chihuahua had been a façade, until Rico's death. It was time to pay attention—or die.

She studied the article. In the west of Mexico, Finnegan wrote, the Sinaloa cartel ruled, while the east coast was run by the Gulf cartel. Oozing between these territories were the Beltran Levya,
La Familia
and Zetas. The profit from organized and brutal crime wove across countries and around the world, all the way to Italy’s mafia.

 Under two Presidents, the US had clamped down the borders, but the American appetite for drugs and the willingness of the cartels to feed this appetite, meant extraordinary measures would be needed to defeat these crime lords who had become folk heroes among poor and disenfranchised Mexican youth.

Despite a fondness for ‘corpse messaging’
La Familia
made explicit statements that they
never
hurt women. Okay. That ruled them out. But according to a
New York Times
article, the other cartels did not seem to have such a code of honor, one even threw children of a rival cartel, off a bridge. Several fought with each other over turf for setting up cottage industries to manufacture
cristal
or methamphetamine.

But at this point in time, with the exception of
La Familia,
it appeared that all of the other cartels were happy to use the kidnapping and ransom signature. If a family couldn’t raise the ransom money, the loved one was never seen again. Cousin Izzy wouldn’t let that happen. And what if Flora had hired a drug lord wannabe, a young man with no morals, a lot of ambition, and a posse of eager thugs-in-waiting? Lola hoped it wasn’t one who would kidnap, rape, torture, maim—and then
finally
kill you.

She erased her browsing history, shut down the computer and headed for the bedroom. Four in the morning. She had to get some rest, but couldn’t stand the thought of one more night in that leopard print cover-up. Tomorrow she’d do laundry, eat without bolting her food, and take a long bubble bath. Right now, the pillows beckoned to her. Praying she wouldn’t have nightmares, she peeled off her sweaty clothes and fell into bed naked.

~*~

Simultaneously exhausted and exhilarated, Web ended his shift with no further incidents. The formerly boring Summerville seemed to twinkle in the early sunlight, a jewel along the shore of Lake Ontario. Whistling, he stopped at a convenience store, picked up eggs, bread, bacon and milk for breakfast and, on a whim, grabbed a
Gazette
which ran a ‘
Remember Them?’
column in honor of the reunion. He wondered if they had a photo of Dickhead in his mullet. Web would have paid double for that issue.

When he placed the pile of purchases on the counter, Bob, the gray-haired store owner, gave him a puzzled look. “What’s up with you?”

Web stopped whistling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This is you, normal.” Bob made a poker face and nodded. “This is you, today.” The man grinned from ear to ear and waved his hands. “Not to put too fine a point on it, it looks like you got laid last night.”

“Well,” Web laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes, I would.”

“A gentleman never tells.” Web began to whistle again, paid and waved good-bye. He jumped into his Chevy pick-up and headed home. The old neighborhood had never looked so good.

Juggling bags of groceries, he let himself into the house, and winced. Dishes were piled up in the sink, laundry sat in mountains by the washing machine and he thought he saw a herd of dust bunnies hop by. Sleep first, then clean. Shoes off, Web tiptoed down the hall and froze.