'?Andale, andale! '
Maria lifted the child and carried her out back.
She was alone. She didn't need the stethoscope to know that her heart was racing; she could feel it pounding against her chest wall. She stepped across the dirt floor and peeked out the blanket door. She stared east. In the distance she saw women and children scattering from the dirt road and a cloud of dust kicked up by black trucks speeding toward her.
She did not have much time.
Everyone in the colonias knew of the Anglo nurse. But only the doctor knew who she really was. She had never revealed her true identity to anyone else, and no one here had recognized her. They had not seen her face on the news because there was no television in the colonias. They had not read about her or seen her photo in the newspapers because only the Mexican papers were sold here-the language of the colonias was Spanish. The colonias, like so much of the borderlands north of the river, were just suburbs of Mexico.
But Inez had learned the truth. And then she had betrayed her. How? And why? She did not understand, but it did not matter. All that mattered was that they were coming for her. And they would take her into Mexico. She fought not to panic-because what she did in the next few moments would determine whether she lived or died.
Think, Lindsay, think!
They would take her, but he would come for her. She was still his wife. Her husband had his faults-he was unfaithful, he was ambitious, he was a politician-but he was no coward. He would come for her. But how would he find her in Nuevo Laredo? Among five hundred thousand people living in five hundred square miles. A sprawling, lawless city controlled by drug cartels. And beyond the city lay the vast Chihuahuan Desert. She would be swallowed whole across the river. He would never find her.
Unless.
She grabbed the satchel and rummaged inside until she found her cell phone. She always turned it off when she arrived at the clinic each day because there was no phone service in the colonias, landline or cell. She now turned the phone on. The battery registered full. He had found her here on the border that first time when the Rangers had tracked her cell phone with GPS. He could find her again-if she had her phone.
But El Diablo's men would search her and take the phone.
If they found it.
There was only one place they wouldn't find it.
She pushed the volume button to mute the compact cell phone then pulled up her dress and reached down inside her panties and between her legs and pushed the phone into her vagina. Then Lindsay Bonner waited for them to come for her.
And prayed her husband would.
SIX MONTHS BEFORE
ONE
Bode Bonner woke next to a naked woman who was not his wife.
His wife was out of town, so Mandy had snuck upstairs the night before. She was twenty-seven; he was forty-seven. She made him feel young.
Alive.
Vital.
Relevant.
Sex with a younger woman allowed him to forget-at least for a few short moments-that he was a middle- aged man with his best years in the rearview mirror.
It wasn't a pretty sight.
But Mandy was. Her beautiful backside was to him. He slid his hand down her smooth side and over her round hips and firm bottom and down between her legs. She stirred and groaned.
'I'm sleeping.'
'Don't mind me, darlin'.'
He reached over to the condom box on the nightstand and shook it, but nothing came out. Damn. He turned back to his aide and inhaled her scent. Her bare bottom beckoned to him, and his body responded. At his age, he hated to waste an erection, especially since he often required a little help from the Viagra prescription. She had said he didn't need to wear a condom, that she was on the pill and unconditionally devoted to him, politically and sexually. Aw, hell, once wouldn't be a problem. He pushed into her from behind.
'Governor, you're an animal.'
He growled and bit the back of her neck.
c
TWO
The sign on the closed door read: THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE.
Inside, Bode Bonner sat behind his desk flanked by Texas and U.S. flags on tall standards while Lupe ran the boar bristle brush through his thick blond hair then shielded his eyes and sprayed shellac until his hair could stand tall against a Texas twister. Guadalupe Sendejo was a squat, middle-aged Mexican national who had been in the Bonner family service since she was five. She now served as Bode's personal valet, ensuring that his hair was sprayed, his shirts starched, his suits pressed, and his boots polished. He had brought her over to Austin from the ranch four years before when he had won reelection and the job had taken on a more permanent feel. She held the mirror so he could examine her work, but the mirror caught Jim Bob's amused expression from the other side of the desk. Bode nodded at Lupe.
' Muy bueno. Gracias. '
Lupe grabbed the brush and hair spray and shut the door behind her. Bode sipped coffee from a mug with an image of his smiling face and Bode Bonner for Governor stenciled on the side and stared out the second-story windows. The stark white, Greek Revival-style Governor's Mansion and grounds occupied an entire city block at the corner of Eleventh and Colorado in downtown Austin, as it had for one hundred and fifty-five years. Sam Houston himself had sat in this office and gazed out those windows, which now offered a prime view of the pink granite State Capitol sitting catty-cornered across Eleventh Street. The Capitol dome glowed in the morning sunlight just as Jim Bob's bald head glowed under the fluorescent office lights. Add in the pasty skin and pockmarked complexion- the man's got a face like a bowl of oatmeal-and James Robert Burnet looked more like a registered sex offender than the ace political strategist for the governor of the great State of Texas. Bode exhaled loudly enough to get his attention.
'What's wrong now?' Jim Bob said.
At first Bode wasn't sure Jim Bob was talking to him. His strategist had an earpiece that looked like a hearing aid on steroids wrapped around his ear, a newspaper in his lap, and an iPhone in his hands. His head was bent over, and his fingers fiddled with the phone like a squirrel with an acorn. Jim Bob texted on his cell phone more than Bode's eighteen-year-old daughter, and he carried on phone conversations while also conversing with Bode, which annoyed the hell out of him. Bode addressed the top of Jim Bob's bare head.
'You talking to me?'
'No one else in the room.'
'Then stop texting and talk to me.'
'I'm not texting. I'm tweeting.'
'Tweeting?'
'On Twitter.'
