Cut Throat

“He’s checking out,” he told her, and then pulled Paulie down the metal stairs, taking satisfaction in the fact that the little bastard wasn’t wearing any shoes.

He dropped Paulie off at the jail, spent a few minutes listening to the jailer talk about his first Christmas as a father and tried not to hate the man’s guts. It wasn’t the jailer’s fault that Wilson’s personal life was one big mess.

Then, as if fate wasn’t through messing with him, he met Art Ball coming in as he was on the way out. All it did was remind him of the female bounty hunter who kept tearing a hole in his heart. Still, he managed to be cordial without making an ass of himself and asking about her. It wasn’t Art’s fault that Cat was a loner.

Once inside his truck, he jacked the heater up to high, taking comfort in the flow of warm air on his feet, and headed out of the parking lot.

Remembering his promise to LaQueen, he picked up a sack of doughnuts from a deli counter as he filled up with gas, then headed back to the office.

While Wilson was plying his secretary with doughnuts and coffee, Cat was pulling out of a drive-through ATM. She had three-hundred dollars cash in her pocket, a suitcase with several changes of clothes and a pair of tennis shoes, besides the boots she was wearing. There was a to-go cup of coffee in the cup holder on her dash and a small sack of fresh hot pretzels on the seat beside her. Every now and then she took a bite, savoring the crunch of salt between her teeth, as well as the warm, chewy bread.

The rain from last night had passed over, leaving gray but clear skies. The grass in the center median of the interstate was brown and soggy, and there were still a few puddles in the road indentations.

Her cell phone was in the seat beside her, but she’d turned it off. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. The only person who knew what she was doing was Art, and only because she’d had to come clean with him to keep from getting fired. He hadn’t been happy with her news, but he understood how Cat’s mind worked. He had the number to her cell phone, and her promise that she would call him at least every other day, so he would know she was all right.

Once again, Cat was the predator, after her prey.

Solomon Tutuola was not the same man who’d driven Mark Presley into Mexico. The burns on his face and neck had been serious and, though they were finally healing, they would leave scars. Most of the hair on the left side of his head was gone and, from the consensus of the last two doctors he’d seen, it wasn’t going to grow back. There was a large portion of flesh underneath his chin and on the right side of his neck that had burned deep enough that the tattoos he’d had since his eighteenth birthday were gone. The healing flesh was red and tender, and the web-work of scarring was visible there, as well. The last two doctors he’d seen had recommended he be sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to their burn center. It was one of the finest in the country, and Solomon was in serious need of some rehabilitation. However, Solomon had his own reason for ignoring their advice, and he’d found it in Mark Presley’s big duffle bag.

It was money.

One-hundred-dollar bills banded in five-thousand-dollar stacks—hundreds and hundreds of them. More money than he’d ever seen in his life. He’d given the bound bills a quick count, then quit counting after he’d gone past a million dollars.

Originally, when Presley had contacted him for a ride into Mexico, he’d had no idea why Presley was on the run, nor had it mattered. His focus had been on the money he was going to get for the job. But if he’d known Presley had been carrying this, he would have killed him outright, taken the money and saved himself a world of pain. He would also never have met up with that damned long-legged woman who’d been after Presley. She’d been like a bulldog. Every time they thought they’d lost her, she would reappear. He had no idea what her thing was with Presley, or what had happened to any of them after the explosion. For all he knew, the man who’d been shooting at him had burned up in the explosion, along with Presley and the woman. He certainly hoped so. He couldn’t remember seeing any other vehicles when he’d come to and taken himself to the doctor, but it didn’t mean one hadn’t been there. He’d been so far gone that he could have driven past his own mother and not known it.

Then he’d found the money in Presley’s luggage, and he’d begun to look at his misery and pain in a different light. There was enough here for him to retire, which was exactly what he intended to do.

For the last couple of days he’d been heading west, with no particular location in mind. It wasn’t until yesterday evening that he’d realized he wasn’t far from Agua Caliente, a tiny little village in the middle of nowhere. He’d been there before, years earlier, and had hooked up with a woman named Paloma Garcia. He didn’t know if she was still there, but he was going to find out. He needed a place to rest up, and her hospitality would be just what the doctor ordered.

Today was Paloma Garcia’s birthday. She had been born in her little house thirty-two years ago today. It was no surprise to anyone in Agua Caliente that she was no better off now than her parents had been when they were alive. No one there was.

She had no means of income other than the colorful serapes she wove and sold to her uncle, who periodically took them to Mazatlan during tourist season for resale.

She woke with no sense of anticipation as to what this day would bring other than that she was officially a year older and still unmarried. The man she’d been seeing had left town over a month ago for the border. She had no idea whether he’d made it into the United States or not. All she knew was that he was gone and she was, once again, alone. Her reputation in the little town had been colored by her careless lifestyle with too many men, and while she refused to consider herself a puta, most of the residents looked upon her as one.

She wet a cloth to wash the sleep from her face, then gave herself a sponge bath, bathing from the metal washbasin on a small table beneath her bedroom window. She dressed with no special care, choosing an old but comfortable red dress with colorful embroidery around the neck and sleeves. Her long black hair was her best feature. She enjoyed the heavy weight of it between her fingers as she made a braid, then tossed it over her shoulder. Her movements were slow and thoughtful as she walked through the tiny adobe house to the kitchen. With no electricity and no utilities, her cooking was done over a small fire that she built on the floor in the corner of the room. As she put some coffee on to boil, she laid a couple of tortillas she’d made yesterday onto a flat stone by the fire to reheat, then filled them with some leftover beans. She dipped the bean tortilla into a mole sauce between bites, and ate while considering what she would do today.

Her uncle had just picked up a dozen of her serapes last week, so there was no urgent rush to begin another. As she ate, she peered through a crack in the wooden shutters she had yet to open, judging the time by the height of the sun in the sky, and decided it was just after eight in the morning.

Today was not only her birthday but market day. Maybe she would treat herself to something special—maybe a melon—or maybe not. She didn’t feel much like celebrating.

As she was finishing her meal, a knock sounded on her door. Frowning, she took a last sip of coffee before getting up to answer it. The second knock hit the door even as she was opening it.

When she saw the man standing on her doorstep, her eyes widened in disbelief.

He smiled.

She gasped, then fainted.

Solomon was pissed. This was not the reception he’d imagined from Paloma. He picked her up, kicked the door shut behind him, then carried her to her bed. As he carried her through the three tiny rooms, he realized nothing had changed.

A small chalk statue of the Virgin Mary still sat in a dirty alcove someone had long ago chipped out of the thick adobe walls. The walls themselves were patched in a dozen places and badly in need of whitewash. There were two chairs and a tiny wooden table in the kitchen, two chairs and a wooden bench in the front room and, in her bedroom, a single bed and some pegs in the walls where her clothes were hanging.

She owned one pair of shoes, which she was wearing. When Solomon laid her down on her bed, both shoes fell off. His nose curled in distaste as he saw how dirty the bottoms of her feet were. It seemed as if the years had not been kind to Paloma. The woman he’d known would never have let herself go in this way.

There was a wet cloth wadded up in the bottom of a metal basin. He picked it up and then laid it across her forehead.

Within moments, she began to rouse.

“What…? Who…?” She sat up, then gasped.

“Don’t go all wacky on me again, woman. I’ve come too far and I’m too hungry to play nursemaid again. Besides…I’m the one in need of help here.”

Paloma’s heart was hammering so hard she could barely hear herself think. She recognized the voice and the face—at least part of it. They belonged to a man she’d hoped never to see again, yet here he was, looking more than ever like the demon he was.

“Solomon…is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me,” he snapped.

“What has happened to you?”

He didn’t like being reminded that his face looked like something from a horror movie.

“I had a little accident,” he said, then cupped himself suggestively and added, “but it didn’t affect what matters most. It’s been a long time since I’ve had me some ass. Do me first, then I want something to eat.”

Paloma swallowed nervously. The last thing she wanted was to put her mouth anywhere on this man’s body, but denying him wasn’t wise. Not if she wanted to keep herself in one piece.

She took the wet cloth from her forehead and laid it aside as she reached for his belt buckle.

“Remember how I like it?” Solomon said, as she unzipped his pants and then reached for him.

“Yes, Solomon, I remember,” Paloma said, and then nervously licked her lips before taking him into her mouth.

The faint scent of urine wafted up to her nostrils. She struggled not to vomit as he grabbed her by the back of the head and pushed himself down her throat.

She choked.

He slapped the back of her head to remind her to tend to business, then let go of every thought but how good her wet, warm mouth felt on his hard dick.

It wasn’t the way Paloma had planned on spending her birthday, but she made a quick mental adjustment and concentrated on the task at hand. It was decisions like this that had kept her alive this far, and since she planned on having many more birthdays, she saw no reason to fight back.

Three

Cat spent her first night on the road in what Art would have called a no-tell motel. As she was checking in, she couldn’t help but remember the last time she’d been this far south of Dallas. Then it had been an all-out race down highways and interstates, trying to catch Mark Presley before he left the country. Retracing the journey felt surreal. Even though she was once again trailing a blip on a computer screen, this time she was uncertain as to who was behind it. Bottom line, she needed to make sure the devil she’d thought was dead had not resurrected himself.

By the time she parked and got to her room, she was exhausted. The furnishings were about twenty years out of style but clean enough. Once inside, she locked the door behind her and sat down on the side of the bed, wearily taking in her surroundings. There was a black velvet painting of a bullfight on the wall above the headboard of the bed. The bedspread was pink-and-green cabbage roses larger than the size of her head, and upon closer inspection, she could tell that the carpet wasn’t actually carpet at all but artificial turf. Cat scooted the soles of her boots against the surface and then grimaced, well aware that walking barefoot wasn’t going to be cushy. Her belly grumbled hungrily, but she was too tired to go looking for a place to eat. Instead, she washed her face and hands, lay down on top of the bedspread and rolled over onto her side. Just to rest. Just for a few minutes.

The next thing she knew, it was two in the morning and she was still in her clothes. She rolled out of bed with a groan. After a quick trip to the bathroom, she kicked off her boots and undressed in the dark. Too tired to look through her suitcase for her pajamas, she crawled back into bed naked, this time beneath the covers.