Dying for You

“Yes, thank you.” Cara took Senor Delgado’s arm. Lucie and Jason fell into step, Jason ahead of them and Lucie behind them.

Lucie slid into the backseat alongside Cara while Jason climbed in the front with the chauffeur. Once on the road, making their way through downtown San Luis traffic, Cara introduced her two bodyguards to their host. During the twenty-minute drive from the airport to his home, Senor Delgado kept the conversation light and casual, speaking of his wife, his three children and five grandchildren, his love of sailing, his hobby of stamp collecting and his stable of fine Arabian horses.

The estate bordered the ocean on one side, with the two-story, salmon-pink stucco, red tile-roofed hacienda built on the rocks overlooking the pristine beach below. The well-manicured lawns were a luscious green, no doubt watered daily. Bougainvilleas draped the fencing, a combination of stucco and black wrought-iron. Flowering shrubbery, neatly maintained, grew in abundance, adding to the tropical-paradise aura of the estate.

When the chauffeur parked the Rolls-Royce on the circular brick drive in front of the house, a small, plump woman with a mane of black hair arranged in a soft bun atop her head came out of the house and stood on the veranda. When Senor Delgado exited the car, he reached in to assist both Cara and Lucie.

“Your guards may relax somewhat,” Delgado said. “I have my own guards here at my estate and my home is quite safe for me, my family and my guests.”

The small woman, dressed impeccably in a lavender linen skirt and white silk blouse, came forward and draped her arm through her husband’s.

“My dear,” Delgado said, “may I present Senorita Cara Bedell, Senorita Evans and Senor Little.”

She smiled at each of them in turn, but her dark eyes returned to Cara when she spoke. “Mucho gusto, Senorita Bedell. Welcome to our home.” Her English was not as smooth as her husband’s, but fluent enough so that she didn’t struggle with her words.

“Senorita Bedell, this is my wife, Suelita.”

The mistress of the house herself showed Cara to her room, which turned out to be a beautiful suite with a balcony that faced the ocean. Jason was given a room across the hall and Lucie the room next to Cara’s.

“They seem very nice, don’t you think?” Cara asked Lucie when they were alone.

“Yes, quite nice.”

“I’m seventy-five percent decided about choosing Delgado Oil over Castillo, Inc.,” Cara said. “I hope you don’t mind my thinking out loud and using you as a sounding board. Wanda’s accustomed to listening and giving me her honest opinion. I hope you’ll do the same.”

“Yes, ma’am. If that’s what you want.”

“It is. And please, dispense with the ‘ma’am,’ and except when it seems inappropriate, call me Cara.”

Lucie smiled.

Cara retuned her smile. “I’ve received proposals from both Delgado and Castillo. On the surface they seem equal in benefits to Bedell, Inc., but from my reports, personally, the two owners are vastly different. Delgado grew up poor. He’s one of the people. And ever since he became a multimillionaire, he has helped with various charities, and in the last election, he worked to get Naldo Salazar elected president. Salazar is a reformist. Since the election, he has kept a low profile because there are rumors his life could be in danger. On the other hand, Castillo came from wealth and privilege. He’s a playboy who lights his cigars with hundred-dollar bills, as the old saying goes. He backed President Ortega and supposedly the two are very close. Ortega represents the status quo.”

“If your goal is profits for Bedell, Inc., and nothing more, than I’d say all things are equal.” Lucie wondered if Cara realized that by giving her permission to speak her mind, Lucie wouldn’t hold back or sugarcoat anything. “But if your goal is profits for Bedell, Inc. and to help the people of Ameca, then you have only one choice. Isn’t Senor Delgado proposing that his company and yours invest between a sixth and a fourth of the revenue from this joint deal in programs for the needy citizens of his country?”

“Yes, that’s part of the deal, and it’s tempting to simply sign the contracts with Senor Delgado now and deal with my board of directors later. But I think I owe it to my stockholders to at least meet with Senor Castillo and find out if he’s interested in making a counteroffer that includes a similar provision to help his fellow countrymen.”

“Is meeting with him your idea?” Lucie asked, somehow doubting it was.

“Actually, Gray suggested that my meeting with Castillo might appease the stockholders and the board, some who will definitely not be happy giving away such a large percentage of our profits.”

“I guess it’s true.”

Cara looked at Lucie quizzically.

“Enough is never enough. And you can’t be too rich or too thin.” Lucie chuckled. “Well, at least too rich.”

“I know that I make the Bedell board members sound like a bunch of greedy, heartless millionaires, but they’re not. At least most are not. But in order to do my job representing Bedell, Inc., I have to appease the board of directors and the shareholders, even if I am the majority shareholder.”

Lucie laughed. “Poor little rich girl.” Uh-oh, she’d done it now. Let her big mouth get in her trouble again. “I’m sorry. That just slipped out.”

Cara smiled. “Don’t apologize. I appreciate your honestly. Besides, that’s exactly what I am—a poor little rich girl. You have no idea how well that term fits me.”

JOSUE SOTO entered the church shortly before sundown. There were three other people there; one old man lighting a candle and a young couple kneeling in prayer. After slipping into one of the back pews, Josue sat, closed his eyes and pretended to pray. Ten minutes later, when the young couple had left and only the old man remained—he was now seated on the front row, his white head bowed reverently as he mumbled to himself—Arturo eased in beside Josue.

“She arrived today,” Josue said, his voice little more than a whisper. “She is staying with Felipe Delgado. As you know, his estate is practically impregnable. She brought two personal bodyguards with her, one man and one woman.”

“I need to know when she will be outside the estate, when she will be on the road and in town.”

Josue nodded. “I am working on acquiring a copy of her itinerary, but as you know, information such as that does not come cheap.”

“Do not squabble over money. Pay whatever is necessary.”

“Yes, of course.”

“She will be in Ameca for two weeks, yes? That has not changed, has it?”

“No, not as far as I know. Her plans remain unchanged. I have heard that President Ortega plans to have a ball in her honor while she is here. And there is speculation that she may meet with Naldo Salazar, as well as Tomas Castillo.”

“Good. Good. This means she will not remain in seclusion at Felipe Delgado’s estate. At some point during her stay here in Ameca, she will become accessible to us. It’s only a matter of choosing the right moment.”

“The only way to do that is by keeping her under surveillance.”

“Do not try to tell me how to do my job,” Arturo said, a tinge of anger in his harsh voice. Josue knew better than to upset his friend. Where he, Josue, was a businessman, a lawyer, merely a deal broker who was smart enough to keep his own hands clean, Arturo was a killer. He enjoyed what he did. He was truly a man without a conscience.

“I would never tell you what to do, old friend. I spoke out of turn. Forgive me.”

“You are forgiven.” Arturo rose to his feet. “Contact me as soon as you have her itinerary and any other information of importance.”

“Yes, of course.”

Josue stayed for fifteen minutes after Arturo left the church. This time, when he closed his eyes, he prayed in earnest. Despite how lucrative his business association with Arturo was, there were times when he wished he could free himself of their arrangement. He feared that someday, in some way, he might offend his old friend and not be forgiven.

FOUR DAYS INTO her trip to Ameca, Cara attended a gala ball at the presidential palace, an invitation she could not refuse because she was the guest of honor. She knew that for her security team of two, a social engagement such as this one could be a nightmare; but with security already at maximum for the president and other officials, that reduced the responsibility for her bodyguards to a minimum. Keeping an eye on her, the surroundings and anyone with whom she came into contact was essential. Understanding that bodyguards needed to fit in and be inconspicuous, especially at gala events such as this one, Bedell security guards dressed according. Male Bedell guards wore a simple black tuxedo with a plain white shirt. Female agents wore black, unadorned, floor-length gowns and carried their weapon in an evening bag.

Cara had chosen a pale yellow silk sheath with a side leg slit that ended midthigh. Yellow was a color she wore often, because it complemented her red hair and hazel eyes. She wasn’t overly bosomy, but her breasts were full and high, so she could wear gowns such as the one she had on tonight, cut to her waist in the back and draped in folds across her collarbone in front. She had chosen her golden topaz and diamond earrings and matching bracelet and a small bag covered in topaz crystals as her accessories. She wore flats tonight, as she often did because of her nearly six-foot height.

President Ortega was short and stout, with jet-black hair and a pencil-thin mustache. He spoke English with a heavy accent and danced as if he had two left feet. Cara had danced the first dance with the man who insisted she call him Emilio, and not Mr. President, and found him to be rather charming. She guessed his age to be somewhere around fifty, but estimated his wife, the luscious first lady, to be no more than twenty-five. When she had seen her in the receiving line, Cara had mistakenly assumed she was the president’s daughter, but he had introduced her as his wife, Carmela. Later in the evening, Suelita Delgado explained that the president’s first wife had been discarded, along with his two daughters, when the present Mrs. Ortega became pregnant with Emilio’s son, now four years old. Cara had discovered that Suelita was a fount of San Luis gossip. The lady knew everyone and delighted in sharing dirty little secrets and scandalous rumors.

During the past two hours, Cara had met the crème de la crème of Ameca society, the wealthy and powerful. Just as she finished a second glass of excellent champagne and had downed two shrimp-and-crab canapés, Emilio approached her, but not alone. His companion was a tall, elegant gentleman in his early forties. He was rather handsome in a sleek, slick, dark and dangerous sort of way. Clean-shaven, his black hair salon-styled and his bronze skin natural and not the result of a tan, he had rich Latin Lover written all over him.

“Senorita Bedell,” the president said. “May I introduce my good friend, Tomas Castillo.”

Senor Castillo bowed curtly, then reached out, took her hand and kissed it before she could say “pleased to meet you.”

“Senorita, I am honored,” Castillo said, his accent discernable but light. “How is it possible that someone so young and beautiful can command all of Bedell, Inc.?”

She realized he’d meant his comment to be a compliment. First of all, she might be young, but she was not nor had she ever been beautiful. Passably attractive thanks to the trappings of great wealth, but short of plastic surgery on her face and body, beauty was unobtainable for a large-boned, wide-hipped, freckle-faced redhead whose greatest asset was her brains. But she was willing, up to a point, to play along with Mr. Smooth and pretend she’d bought his line of bull.