Marrying Daisy Bellamy (20 page)

Julian couldn't tell whether or not the passage had been marked by design or by happenstance.

He read both texts obsessively, absorbing the words, even memorizing whole passages. Each book was a particular sort of fantasy—a tale of injustice, endurance, escape and revenge. On the surface, Monte Cristo
seemed to reflect Julian's situation—a man imprisoned and forgotten, bent on escape.

Yet he felt more of a kinship with Alice, trying to find a way back through the rabbit hole. He was a stranger in a strange land, filled with characters who bore him ill will or, at best, utter indifference. Some were as insane as the Mad Hatter, their brains fried on coke, their livers stewing in
aguardiente,
which more than lived up to its literal translation, “burning water.”

Edmond Dantès was another kind of lifeline. Reading the frayed pages of
The Count of Monte Cristo
, Julian learned there was more power in forbearance than in an exploding temper. He never lost it, no matter how they tormented him. Poor Dantès had to wait seventeen years for success. That was another thing Julian had learned—things could always be worse. Always.

Alice was more puzzling, maybe because she was female. Another passage that may or may not have been marked by a crease in the page gave him much to contemplate: “Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for her.”

“W
ell, look at you.” Sonnet breezed into Daisy's house to find Daisy hard at work, applying a maple-colored stain to the dining room baseboards.

“I'd rather not, thanks,” said Daisy, blowing upward to chase a lock of hair out of her eyes. She was long overdue for a trim.

“You look so…domestic,” Sonnet said. “Mrs. Happy Hands at Home.”

“Right, that's me.” The phrase had appeared in an outdated home economics textbook they'd been made to study in high school. Apparently the authors considered an idle wife to be the devil's instrument, and so keeping busy at all costs was advocated.

“What on earth are you doing? I'm up from the city to babysit for your first anniversary weekend and you're what, painting the woodwork?”

“Staining,” Daisy corrected her. “I'm staining the woodwork because it needs doing.”

“Well, I hope you've got some big plans for this
weekend, seeing how the wedding itself was kind of a nonevent.”

Daisy sat back on her heels. “You're still bitter about that, aren't you?”

“
Moi?
Bitter? Why would I be bitter about my best friend and stepsister running off and getting married on the sly?”

“It wasn't like that. It was…spontaneous.”

“You were my only hope of being a maid of honor, and it was snatched away by your insane Vegas impulse.”

“I'll get out my tiny violin.” Daisy used a rag to rub on more stain. She knew Sonnet had forgiven her long ago.

“Seriously, how's it going?” Sonnet asked. “And I don't mean the woodwork.”

Daisy ducked her head and rubbed harder. “Great,” she said, ignoring a secret tug in her gut. “We gave Charlie a family. It's what I've always wanted. I—”

The phone rang.

“Could you get that?” Daisy asked. “My hands are a mess.”

Sonnet picked up. “Oh, hey, Logan. It's your stepsister-in-law. You know, the perfect one.” She was quiet for a moment. “Okay, sure. I'll let her know.”

She rang off. “He's going to be late tonight. Said not to hold up dinner.”

Daisy nodded. It wasn't unusual for him to miss dinner. Business was good for Logan, but the downside was, he worked long hours. He was consumed with doing well. His schedule made for some lonely evenings, but she was determined not to complain.

“So it'll just be the three of us for dinner, then,” said Sonnet.

“Call Zach,” Daisy suggested, finishing the last of the
baseboards. “He loves coming for dinner, and he always brings a pie from the bakery.”

“You keep trying to play matchmaker.”

“You know you like him. You always have.”

“Zach? He drives me out of my mind.”

“That's a good sign.”

“Being out of my mind?”

“Right.” Against her will, Daisy remembered feeling so in love with Julian she couldn't think straight. Even now, she could still recapture that feeling—a flutter of the heart, an all-consuming passion that did seem like a kind of insanity.

She reined in the thought. She was married to Logan now. To
Logan
. He was a good husband, and he'd stepped up, giving her this home, turning the three of them into a family.

“Call Zach,” she said again.

“Fine, whatever.” Sonnet dialed the phone. “Voice mail,” she said. “Hey, it's me. Daisy wants you to come to dinner tonight. She says to bring a pie. And it wouldn't kill me if it was peach. Six o'clock, okay?”

Daisy had to smile. Just talking to his voice mail put a sparkle in Sonnet's eyes.

“Done,” said Sonnet. “It's up to him now.”

“And you were so gracious about it. I thought working at the UN would teach you diplomacy.”

“I'm off duty.”

Daisy stood up and surveyed her work. The dining room gleamed with the richness of the old wood, revived by the refinishing process. “Nice, huh?”

“The whole house looks great. Domesticity agrees with you.”

“Hmm. I'm not sure I want it to. But I do like working on the place.”

Daisy had always wanted a place on the lake, but Logan preferred this neighborhood, with its tree-lined avenues and proximity to town and schools. She felt an odd compulsion to make it beautiful. For reasons Daisy refused to examine, it was hugely important for her to create a lovely house and garden. It was more than pride of ownership. She wanted this house to look like the kind of place where a happy family lived and thrived.

Because that was what they were, she reminded herself.

Blake, her little dog, wandered in, sneezing as she caught a whiff of the stain. Logan had never really warmed up to the terrier, but he tolerated her for Charlie's sake. The boy and the dog were inseparable.

“Hey, girl.” Sonnet got down on the floor, offering Blake some serious belly rubs. The terrier's eyes glazed over with bliss. “Life is so simple for a dog,” Sonnet remarked.

“That's why it's nice, having her. She reminds me every day to keep things simple.”

Blake flipped over, coming to attention, and her ears pricked up.

“Check this out,” Daisy said. “She can hear the school bus a block away.”

Tiny toenails scrabbling, the dog shot toward the front door. A few moments later, Charlie came tumbling in. He dived for the floor, lying down on the hall carpet while Blake covered him in kisses.

“Heya, kiddo,” Sonnet said. “Don't I get a hug?” Charlie jumped up and went to her. Round-cheeked and red-haired, his green eyes alight, he was a baby no longer.

“Aunt Sonnet, I didn't know you were coming.”

“I'm staying for dinner,” she said. “And Zach is bringing pie for dessert.”

“Awright.”

“How is first grade treating you?” Sonnet asked.

“Good,” he said quickly.

Sonnet probably didn't notice the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, but Daisy caught it. She went over to him and planted a kiss on the top of his head.

“Hey, little man,” she said.

“You smell funny.” He wrinkled his nose.

“I've been staining the baseboards.”

“You're always doing stuff to the house.”

“That's because it's our house, and I want to make it nice.”

“Boring,” he said.

She picked up his backpack. “How was school?”

The flicker again.

“Charlie?”

“There's a note from Mrs. Jensen,” he mumbled.

Her heart sank. She unzipped the backpack and fished out a long white envelope. Now what? she wondered, exchanging a glance with Sonnet as she unfolded the note. Even before reading it, she knew it was bad news. The school year had barely begun, yet the teacher was already seeing red flags.

“Charlie continues to act out inappropriately when he should be focusing on his lessons,” the note read in even Palmer Method handwriting. Mrs. Jensen was old-school, preferring a handwritten note to email. “He is still quite behind in his reading skills. I would like to schedule a meeting at a mutually convenient time.”

Charlie watched her, contrite. “Am I in trouble?”

She took a deep breath. “We'll talk about it when your father gets home. And I can't believe I said that. Good lord, Charlie, you're turning me into my mother.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. For now, we'll hang out with Sonnet.”

“It's a beautiful day,” Sonnet said. “Why don't we take Blake out in the backyard and have a game of catch?”

“Yeah!” As mercurial as his dad, Charlie switched from despondent to eager as he led the way out the back door.

“I need to get cleaned up,” Daisy said. “I'll be down in a few.”

She put away the painting supplies and went upstairs to scrub her hands and face and change clothes. Charlie's laughter wafted up through the open window, followed by Blake's barking.

Stepping into the bedroom, Daisy tried to shrug off her troubled feeling. The bedroom was supposed to be a sanctuary of tranquility, right? Olivia had helped her decorate, picking out shades of subtle blue and white, everything carefully coordinated for this showcase of a house.

She put on some nicer jeans and a loose, flowy tank top. A happy family. They had their ups and downs, same as everyone, but at the end of the day, all was well.

Mostly.

Making marriage work was a process. She and Logan had to be patient and understanding with each other, same as they were with Charlie. Tomorrow night would be a great chance for some quality time. They had reservations at the Apple Tree Inn to celebrate their first year together.

She ran a brush through her hair, pausing with her arm lifted.

Great, the rash was back. For several months now, she'd been plagued by a weird skin rash that came and went without explanation. Maybe it was all those house
hold chemicals, she thought, putting on a light sweater to cover the spot.

“You're too skinny,” Sonnet said when she joined them in the yard. “Who, me?”

“I don't see any other freakishly skinny people around here. I myself have the Romano fondness for pasta and bread, and Charlie takes after his dad. Husky as a dockworker.”

“Yep,” said Daisy.

“Who you calling husky?” Charlie demanded.

“Hey, it's a good thing. Husky means healthy,” Sonnet explained. He ran off with Blake, and she turned back to Daisy. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. And I'm not skinny.”

“Just…take care of yourself.”

Daisy watched her little boy, lost in exuberance as he kicked a soccer ball with the dog chasing along. “Always.”

“‘I
could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,' said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.'”

Julian set aside his book and angled the wheelchair toward the pale slits of light that lay across the floor of his prison cell. When the wind blew just so, he could smell freedom through the louvered vent in the wall. It was the blue-green aroma of fresh ocean breezes blowing in from the west, tinged with the lighter scent of river water, the perfume of flowers and the harsh reek of chemicals used in cocaine production.

Occasionally, he caught a whiff of exhaust. That—the exhaust—was the scent that most compelled him. Combined with the lawn-mower whine of a small engine, it told him there was a float plane that came and went regularly from the compound. The plane came twice a week, on days Julian had designated Monday and Friday, though he didn't actually know. By the sound of it, the aircraft was too small to be used for drug transport. It
was likely a means of transport for an individual, a high-level worker, perhaps.

Julian wished he could see outside. He pictured a dock on a river, where cargo could be loaded on boats and taken out to sea.

In a training exercise that had seemed meaningless years ago in the ROTC program, they'd undergone sensory deprivation in a variety of situations. If deprived of sight, how could they use their other senses to evaluate their environment? In a pitch-dark room they'd been required to identify sounds, smells and textures in order to find a way out. Similar exercises had taught them to function without the ability to hear or speak. At the time, it had been hard to imagine how such a situation might arise.

Since his capture, he'd learned that anything could happen. He'd been moved around so much, he started to wonder how many places Don Benito Gamboa controlled. Surely there was a limit.

Julian himself had a limit. He had reached it. Could feel it in his bones. If he had to endure any more of this shit, he would lose his mind.

Sometimes he thought about Daisy so long and so hard, he was sure she must be able to sense his presence.

Not likely. Julian was a realist. Just because his mind was screaming, I'm alive, I'm coming home, didn't mean there was anyone on the other end to hear.

Flicking pebbles against the wall, he studied the crude small marks he had made in the plaster, marking off each day. It seemed important to keep a count.
Every single day matters
—that was going to be the key message of his wedding vow to Daisy. Before he'd left the States, the two of them had agreed to write their own vows. He'd
been stymied, wondering how to cram everything he felt into a two-minute speech. Now he realized the message needed to be simple and clear: he wanted to go through life with her, celebrating every day being in the world together.

The thing to do, he told himself every day, was to get the hell out of this place, not become an embittered career prisoner like Dantès in the novel he'd read over and over again.

He had to plan with cold calculation, though. He would have the element of surprise only once.

His training had drilled a message into him. There is always a way out.

He clung to this notion like a lifeline.

Knowing the passage of time was a curious kind of torture. He had no idea what had been reported to his family. Missing in action? God forbid—killed in action? That wasn't out of the realm of possibility. But no. That wasn't how it worked.

Early on in his captivity, he had listened for any hint of a rescue unit—the thud of a chopper, the rustle of boots in the night, the soft crackle of a radio. He'd heard nothing. Either there was no rescue unit, or they hadn't been able to penetrate Gamboa's labyrinthine operation.

The cell was equipped with an iron bunk bolted to the floor, a thin mattress covered in stained ticking, a slop bucket for his waste, which he was required to deal with himself, because the guards were completely skeezed about it. Presumably anything else could be a potential weapon to use against the guards who attended him—not that they were too diligent about it.

Seated in the wheelchair or lying on the bunk, he had watched the entire life cycle of a large brown spider. There was a peculiar Zen in staring at her gossamer
web, pinned in a corner, its evenly spaced strands waiting, soon to be a soft, sticky embrace to trap her next meal. She was both patient and selective, taking her time, choosing her battles. She would not tangle with a wasp, for example; nor would she eat a moth. Presumably one was too great an enemy; the other too poisonous.

Pick only the battles you can win.

Miguel Cuevas was on duty; Julian had memorized the rotation. Cuevas wasn't too vigilant, and he worked on Friday, when the plane arrived at twilight. He talked about his girlfriend and his cat when he was bored, and he sent constant text messages on his cell phone. He was tall and big-shouldered, with a beard. That part would probably turn out to be important.

Julian hoped he wouldn't have to kill the guy. He'd do it, though, if it came to that.

Despite the guard's lackadaisical ways, there was a high probability of failure, which meant a high probability of death. Julian didn't love the odds.

Cuevas came with his tray as usual. “Hola, amigo.”

“How are you today?” Julian asked.

“Very satisfied, if you must know. My
novia,
Celisse, she is a fine woman. A fine, fine woman.” He preened a little.

It was a conversation they'd had many times, a routine exchange. Miguel was usually chatty before the weekend, and in no hurry to get after his other duties. And invariably, a text message came in. This was crucial.

Everybody knew you weren't supposed to turn your back on a prisoner, but Julian was no threat, bound in his wheelchair.

While Cuevas was busy with his texting, Julian made his move.

He shot up from the chair, hooked Cuevas from
behind in a sleeper choke hold. The phone dropped from the guy's hand as he sank into unconsciousness. It would be safer to kill him, but Julian held off. He grabbed Cuevas's sidearm, then stuffed a strip of his undershirt in the guy's mouth and bound it in place.

Then he swapped clothes with the guy and put him to bed. He used more strips of fabric to tie him down, even binding his head to the cot to keep him from thrashing.

Cuevas started to come around as Julian was lacing up the boots. He made a gagging sound and stared at Julian, who was balanced on one foot as he tugged on the borrowed fatigues.

“Surprise,” he said. “Sorry you had to find out this way. No, who am I kidding? I'm not sorry.” Damn, but it felt good to be in his body once again, to quit pretending. He'd kept his recovery a secret; his captors had made it easy by not putting him under a doctor's care. After that first day, when the infirmary doctor had given him a couple of injections and pronounced him a paraplegic, Julian had been on his own. The doc had suggested a course of physical therapy, but no one had bothered to follow up on that.

Sensation had returned gradually, not long after his capture. First he'd noticed a twitch in his toe. Soon he'd been able to move his feet, bend his knees. He became his own physical therapist, working in secret, in the dead of night, building his strength with squats and calisthenics, then spending the days malingering in the chair, pissing in a bag and playing up his helplessness. Most guys wouldn't know the first thing about faking paraplegia, but Julian had firsthand knowledge of it. After his father's accident, the two of them had learned together to adapt. He knew what it looked like, what had to be
done. When he asked for rectal suppositories and rubber gloves, his captors had asked no questions and merely provided them.

There was a small caliber pistol clipped inside Cuevas's belt. In addition to the pistol, the guy was equipped with a lock blade knife and a Leatherman tool, a pair of field glasses, a box of cigarillos and some wooden matches, some condoms, a small sum of cash and the ever-present bag of bazuco, a low-grade paste of preprocessed cocaine. It was plentiful in these parts, and guys liked to smoke it.

“You're a real Boy Scout, eh?” Julian muttered. He helped himself to everything. He'd feel better if he had one of the submachine guns favored by the rebels, but Cuevas wasn't so equipped. Maybe Julian would have to take down a guard outside and could help himself to a more powerful weapon. He gave himself a haircut with the knife and covered his head with the guard's cap, made of army-green canvas with an oversize bill.

A couple more text messages appeared on Cuevas's phone. Julian hastened to put it on silent mode.

“She sent you a dirty picture,” he informed his captive. “Don't worry, I didn't look. The subject line gives it away.” He hesitated, wondering how Cuevas might respond to the incoming text. Immediately, that was how. Text messaging was like crack to the guy.

Julian scrolled through a few of the sent messages to get an idea of how the guy wrote. Text in Spanish slang was not his strongest area of expertise. He told the
novia
he was pulling extra duties to cover for someone's absence and would give her an appropriate reply later.

He would need to ditch the phone at some point in case it had a locator beacon. He checked the time—how weird to actually know the exact time, after so long
without knowing—1900. Late in the day, then. The plane would be landing soon.

Time to venture outside. He hoped like hell he could keep a low profile once he left the cell.

Whenever he was taken anywhere, he would be blindfolded, so he had only the vaguest idea of what he was in for. He stepped out into the hallway, lit by a bare bulb, and locked the door behind him. There were several other doors, but he didn't avail himself of them. He headed toward some stairs leading up and out.

His hands were tense on the knife and gun. He stepped outside, blinking like Rip van Winkle just waking up. The light was dazzling gold, filtered through a thick canopy of vines and trees. An overgrown slope led down to a broad river or canal; he couldn't tell which.

He'd known, based on the noise outside, that this was probably a big operation. He wasn't prepared for how big, though. Bundles of cocaine were being loaded onto a barge—a freaking barge. It was like something at the Long Beach waterfront in California. Along the flat roof of the compound, guys with scopes and guns kept watch. Workmen were using forklifts and a crane to move whole pallets of the stuff. There were machine guns mounted on beat-up Chevy Blazers. Row after row of barrels lined the dock, and the forklift was bringing in more. Julian used the field glasses to check them out. These were probably chemicals used in cocaine production—kerosene or gasoline, acetone, sulfuric acid. He couldn't read the lettering but spotted an unmistakable symbol—a skull and crossbones.

Excellent, he thought.

Footsteps crunched on a gravel path that traversed the front of the compound. Julian lifted the mobile phone to his ear, hunched his shoulders and headed down toward
the water. Although his biracial looks made him seem vaguely Latino, he didn't much resemble Cuevas. Anyone who spotted him and gave him a moment of thought would know he was a stranger. He simply had to count on the idea that people were, for the most part, wrapped up in their own lives and not looking for trouble.

The guy on the gravel path barely glanced at him. Julian measured his paces, trying not to hurry.

A nasally whine signaled the arrival of the plane. It was expertly landed and motored to the docks. A worker helped moor it. The flimsy door opened, and a man in khakis and mirror-lens sunglasses stepped out. He exuded an air of authority as he strode along the quay next to the lined-up barrels and pallets of wrapped cocaine.

Business as usual. Still unremarked upon, Julian headed toward the plane. Assuming he managed to commandeer the aircraft, he would be flying with no notion of where he was. He could only hope the instruments would help him out. The main task was to get to it before the pilot exited. Everyone seemed focused on the passenger. It could be Don Benito himself. Julian didn't care. He simply wanted to get the hell out.

Soldiers were loading the wrapped kilos onto pallets for the barge. Emulating the other workers, he transferred a dozen of the bricks, stamped with a black spider logo, to a hand truck and headed down the slope to the quay, where another pallet awaited. He kept his head down, eyes watchful, fighting the urge to hurry. On the dock, a
jefe
was fussily organizing the parcels next to the barrels.

A preponderance of no-smoking signs marked the area. Close enough to see the labeled barrels, he realized they contained a slushy mixture of coca leaves steeped
in kerosene. These would be dried and treated with sulfuric acid and other substances, and then the crude paste would be refined into cocaine hydrochloride, the white powder.

The rows of barrels provided a partial concealment between the dock and the staging area. Julian thought about the cigarillos and wooden matches. Some guys up above were smoking, but no one down here. Too risky. But hell, everything he was doing was too risky.

He paused in his labor, took out a slender brown cigarillo. He'd never been much good at smoking. His mom had caught him at it as a kid. Instead of punishing him, she had insisted on making him smoke menthol cigarettes, one after the other, until he grew dizzy and puked. Aversion therapy. It had worked like a charm on him.

He opened the box of matches and sparked one, lighting the cigarillo, puffing on it a few times to get a good ember. There wasn't much of a breeze; it wouldn't be long before someone noticed.

Months of boredom had prepared him well, perfecting his aim. How many times had his idle fingers flicked a stone or stick at a designated spot on the wall? With the ease of so much practice, he flicked the burning cigarillo at the barrels. The amber tip landed under the rim of a barrel. It would likely fizzle, but it was worth a try.