Mercy Killing (Affairs of State Book 1) (30 page)

When he arrived, Sebastian stood Hermanito in the shade of the building and poured fresh water from the largest canteen into a shallow metal trough for the horse. He took four long swallows from the canteen then carried it with him.

Unlocking the door, he opened it then stood back, expecting Mercy to burst out at him—claws flying, spitting accusations—a replay of his confrontation with Maria. But nothing moved inside the shed. Had she somehow escaped?

Maybe she was just sleeping.

Or maybe she was dead.
Dios! Please no!

Moving with caution he stepped through the doorway. “Mercy?” He waited, then moved another pace deeper into the dim interior. “Mercy, are you all right?”

He heard a soft scraping noise behind him. Then a subtle stir in the air above his head.
Just a bat,
he thought. He reached up with both hands to shoo it away and started to turn around, but not soon enough.

Something sharp bit into his outstretched palms, forcing his hands back against his throat. The sweet, tinny smell of fresh blood hit his nostrils. Warmth trickled down his wrists and inside the cuffs of his shirt. And there she was, standing on a crate, holding the ends of a length of barbed wire, aiming to kill him.

“Mercy, for God’s sake! It’s me, Sebastian,” he growled.

“I know who you are, you bastard!”

“Jesus! Don’t do this—”

The harder he fought to keep the wire away from his throat, the deeper the barbs bit into his hands. She was stronger than he had imagined.

“
Basta!
” he roared. Enough!

He lifted one leg, swung it hard and wide, kicking her feet out from under her. She went down with a screech. But held onto the ends of the wire, and the weight of her body tugged even harder on the wire, shredding his hands, snagging the back of his neck and his shoulders on vicious barbs.

Sebastian swore and ripped the wire out of her grip, tossing it away. Surprised that he already felt dizzy from loss of blood, he flung himself on top of her. Blood dribbled from the wounds in his neck and hands, pooling on her blouse and running off onto the ground around them.

“Let me explain. Please!” He pushed down on her thighs with his hips when she tried to lift a leg to kick him. He pinned her wrists to the ground.

“Go to Hell!” she screamed.

He ignored her rage and rested his full weight on her while he recovered enough strength to talk some sense into her.

“Listen to me. If not for your own sake, then for Maria’s.”

She glared up at him. “If you loved your daughter—” she sucked in a short, sharp breath, squirming beneath him, and a shadow of pain flashed across her face “—you wouldn’t live your life the way you do.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your henchmen dragged Maria and me, screaming, out of a public café. That’s called kidnapping and assault in my country!”

Sebastian felt as if she had slapped him. “You exaggerate. They were sent to protect her and bring the two of you to me.”

She didn’t answer. Her breathing seemed shallow, and he sensed his weight was hurting her. Had they roughed her up? Broken anything? Bruised anything?

Sebastian felt sick. Had it come to this—abusing women?

“You’re here to finish the job,” she said, “so what's stopping you?”

“Oh, Christ!” He groaned, rolling off of her and out of range before she could lash out at him. “I’m not going to kill you. I just have to keep you here for awhile. With luck, a week or less.”

“Because I’ve interfered with your dirty plans.”

“No.” He sat in the dirt, staring down at his ravaged hands, feeling blood still oozing from the back of his neck. How much had he lost? He tried to clear his head, but the walls of the shed jitterbugged around him. The words to explain escaped him. “Do you think, Mercy, we could sit here and talk like rational people about this before I bleed to death?”

She frowned, stepping back, as if afraid he was about to spring a trap. “You’ll have to kill me before I let you lock me in here again.”

His body felt lighter than it should have. He hoped to God he didn’t pass out. “You have it all wrong. I’m one of the good guys.”

“Yeah, right. That man who broke into my party—you killed his brother.”

“No. He believed so, but it’s all part of my cover.”

She glared at him, standing up straight now. She looked far stronger than he felt. “I don’t believe that,” she said.

“I’m working undercover, directly under Mexican President Juarez. For three years I’ve sacrificed my family’s honor.” He pushed himself up onto one knee. “I’ve finally earned the trust of the men who would destroy my country.”

He could see that part of her wanted to believe him. The rest of her was still terrified.

“Stay away,” she warned.

“I can’t let you destroy everything we’ve worked for.” He staggered up onto both feet. “You’ll be safe here. I promise.”

Suddenly, there were three Mercy’s, swimming wraith-like before him.
One is more than I can handle.

“I-I will make you comfortable here,” he said. “Food, a bed, whatever you need. We’re so close to success I can’t take the chance. We spring the trap soon, just a few more days.”

“But the truck was
yours
!” she shouted. “How could you do that to those people?”

“That wasn’t me; I was framed. Someone is on to me.” He was having trouble lifting his head to meet her eyes. But it was so very important that he make her understand. “Maybe they thought they could blame the human trafficking on me. Get me out of the way and the police off their backs. Then they could run their drugs, slaves, whatever contraband they liked, with much less pressure from the police. Please, if you leave this shed before I say it’s safe, you'll jeopardize Juarez’s mission.”

“If I don’t leave,” she said, her voice tight with emotion, “I may lose the person I love above all else in this world.”

Sebastian winced, but the pain this time didn’t come from a physical wound. “Your husband?”

She shook her head solemnly. “No. Not him. No.”

He realized belatedly that she had been shuffling slowly backward, away from him. He stared at her, wary.

“Do your men know where you are?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Then, after an hour or so, they will wonder why you’re not back. They’ll come for you.”

His eyes shot toward the single door. She was now closer to it than he was. “I might bleed to death by then.” He wasn't joking.

Rallying barely enough strength he lunged at her, stumbled, and fell. She disappeared through the door. He swore. When he got to his feet again and reached for the door it creaked open at his touch. He felt a rush of relief; she hadn’t locked it.

He smiled, despite the pain of his wounds and the wooziness from blood loss. She was in the middle of the desert in a country she didn’t know. Crazy woman. How far did she think she’d get before she dropped? He’d chase her down. He had a horse. She didn’t.

He staggered to his feet again, made it outside and shaded his eyes from the low horizon glare of the morning sun. His horse was no longer standing in the shade. Mercy was on Hermanito, riding away.

Sebastian stared after her in disbelief.

Goddamn fickle horse.

37

Mercy rode south on the massive, broad-backed white horse, using the sun's arc from east to west to guide her. At first she’d thought the animal wasn’t going to let her mount. He’d snorted and danced, eyes rolling, as soon as she’d tried to wedge her foot into the stirrup. But once she’d hauled herself up by the saddle horn and had a firm grip on his reins, the animal settled enough for her to coax him into an easy gallop.

She didn’t look back. She didn’t dare. Sebastian would have dragged himself out of the shed to try and stop her. The fact that he hadn’t even shouted out for her to stop meant he was angry. Really angry. She had no desire to see that look in his eyes again—the one that meant he wanted her dead.

Instead of thinking about him, she concentrated on the horse beneath her. She sensed if she didn’t pay attention she’d likely end up on the hard ground. She was no match for an animal this big, this strong. If the stallion decided he didn’t want her on his back, there would be little she could do about it. She had to focus. She had to remember everything she knew about riding. 

The first time she'd been on a horse was as a teenager, at summer camp in the Adirondacks. She'd gotten pretty good over the years, competing at barrel races with other girls, which demanded stamina and agility and instinctive partnership with her mount. Even did a little target shooting from the saddle—another fun activity at camp. Later, spending summers in Virginia horse country, she'd ridden with her mother any time Talia was at home. After her father died, with her mother traveling so much, they’d sold their horses. It would have been cruel to keep them, neglected, so rarely exercised. She’d had little time to go riding on other people’s horse since she'd married. She might be a bit rusty, but riding a bicycle or a horse were two things you never forgot how to do.

The real problem was, looking around the barren desert landscape, she saw nothing that appeared familiar. She suspected she was well and good lost. And a horse didn’t come with a GPS. If she found her way back to the Hidalgo ranch, then she could follow the familiar highway back to the city. But it was probably not a good idea to wander too close to where a small army of Sebastian’s men would soon assemble to track her down.

With any luck she’d run into a town where she could borrow a telephone and call her husband or the embassy. Or, even better, she’d reach the outskirts of Mexico City. And if not? Any road would do for flagging down a car and asking for help. Just as long as the driver wasn’t one of Sebastian’s men. That was the danger. She’d gotten away from him once. She wouldn’t be able to a second time. He’d make sure of that.

Her mount seemed to have a sense of where he wanted to go, and brought her to a river. Perhaps this was a route Sebastian often rode and the horse was repeating the journey out of habit. Since the river flowed in the approximate direction she wanted to go—southeast—she gave the horse its head and allowed him to follow it, at least for a while. All civilizations needed water. Likely she’d find a town or at least a small ranch along it.

After riding for two hours through scrub desert, Mercy stopped and drank from a canteen Sebastian had left strapped to the saddle with the rest of his gear. She ate one of the tortillas and some cheese she found wrapped in paper in his saddlebag while the horse rested and drank from the stream.

“You get me home safe,” she told her transportation, “I’ll see you have primo oats for the rest of your life.”

The stallion snuffled in agreement. At least that’s what she told herself he meant.

Mercy’s gaze traveled from the animal's soulful black eyes to the rifle strapped to his saddle. A W engraved in the stock.
Winchester
, she thought. She’d often shot skeet with her father, and she’d taken a fire arms safety course with her mother. Talia hated guns, but she said a woman should know how to handle one, in case the need ever arose. They’d practiced at a firing range with a variety of hand guns and rifles. This rifle looked different from any of those they’d used.

Unstrapping it from the saddle, Mercy took the weapon and sat down on a rock to study its working parts. She unloaded it and dry fired a few times, getting accustomed to the weight of the weapon. The action was smooth. She expected there’d be a little kick but not enough to be a problem.
If
she had to use it. Now, she’d didn’t want to fire it live. Sound carried a long way across the desert. If there was any chance of Hidalgo’s henchmen searching for her, she didn’t want to give them any help.

She reloaded and returned the rifle to its traveling position.

After another hour of moving at a steady lope, Mercy looked around. The geography seemed to be changing. If anything it was even drier, browner, more desolate. She could no longer smell the plant life. She checked the angle of the sun and decided the river had turned to the south, which might lead her too far west to run into the city. Without a map or knowledge of the area, she couldn’t tell how much farther she’d have to ride to reach Mexico City. It would have been convenient if Sebastian had included a cell phone in his saddlebag so that she could call the embassy and summon help. But she’d already searched the bags and, if he’d bothered to bring a phone, it was on him.

Screw that!
He'd probably rung up his men the minute she rode off. Why hadn’t she thought to search him? As if that were possible, without him wrestling her to the ground again. The memory of their brief but desperate tussle summoned up all the wrong sensations.

Despite the rancher’s affiliations with the dark side, he was a beautiful male specimen. Her body responded to a vision of Sebastian astride this gorgeous horse she’d stolen from him. The man didn’t even have to be naked to look good in her imagination. But naked would be good too!

Mercy adjusted her bottom on the richly hand-tooled leather saddle, slowing to a canter in hopes of bouncing unwelcome lust out of her. But that irritated her sore ribs so she slowed the horse still more, to a gentle walk.