Gage reached into the truck and pitched the phone down on the pavement, stamping on it and grinding the plastic into the gravel with his boot heel.
"Bad connection?" Gage asked, grinning.
"But he knows I'm here," Jose said. "And he knows you're here. So I don't get to disappear in the night like Nelly."
Something shifted in Gage's eye, like a guttering flame.
"Amelia, too," Jose said. "She's with me. Ask her. She's not going anywhere, either."
Amelia sat rigid in the truck, her hands clutching the seat and her eyes locked on the windshield even with the shadow of the other man lurking in her window.
"She works for the Chases," Gage said. "We'll be taking her home."
"No," Jose said, holding the chief's pale eyes with his own. "She's with me. You can't get rid of me, and you can't get rid of her, either, not without a whole lot of TV cameras lighting up the town."
Jose kept his hands in the air and Gage raised his pistol, easing it toward Jose's face in the flashing lights from the cop car until the cold barrel ticked the tip of his nose. Jose never flinched, even when Gage jerked the gun, clicking free the hammer, and returned it to its closed position.
The chief leaned into the open truck, and said, "You want to come with me, don't you, girl? You got work back at the ranch waiting for you."
"You do what you want, Amelia," Jose said.
She looked over at them, eyes wide and lips crushed together. She shook her head.
"I don't want to go," she said, cringing as if she expected a slap.
Gage jabbed a thick finger at her.
"You walk away, you're walking away from a job and a place to stay. You leave now, you're leaving for good," he said. "You want that?"
Amelia's eyes lost focus. She stared straight ahead, but nodded her head yes.
"Everything you say," Gage said, "everything you do, you'll answer for it. That's the law, no matter what this slick spic tells you."
Gage stepped away and Jose climbed back into his truck. The shadow beside Amelia melted away and Jose watched Gage's huge figure as he holstered his gun, then diminished in the side mirror. Jose pulled away from the cop car with its flashing lights and blinding high beams and out onto the open road.
When they reached the highway and headed north, Amelia said, "They will kill me."
Jose glanced at her, then returned his attention to the road. After a minute he said, "Not if they can't find you."
CHAPTER 37
CASEY FINISHED HER RUN AND DIDN'T BOTHER TO TOWEL OFF before she fired up her computer, got the phone number of the first boyfriend she'd had after her divorce, and called him at his new home in Washington, DC.
"Tommy? Casey Jordan."
She heard him clear his throat. In a groggy voice he said, "It's six o'clock."
"I know," she said, speaking fast. "I'm sorry. I had a client deported. Well, she went voluntarily, but that was because they were holding her two-year-old daughter. She's near Monterrey. That's where they sent her and I need your help to get her back."
"Is this really Casey?" he asked. Tommy Gillespie worked for the State Department, a mid-level administrator, and a former standout baseball player at A &M. While unmarried, blond, and handsome, he was too young for Casey and too committed to a career that kept him bouncing from place to place.
"I know I haven't been good about staying in touch," she said. "But I think about you."
"I saw that thing on TV," he said.
Casey felt her cheeks warm.
"Yeah, it was pretty good," he said. "Happy ending and everything. The girl I'm seeing, she got a little choked up. She actually wanted to call you, but I told her no."
"I thought the whole thing was stupid," Casey said.
"Well, she liked it."
"I didn't mean it like that," Casey said. "Anyway, can you help me?"
"I'll try."
Casey explained what happened to Isodora, then told him about the lawsuit she had already put in motion.
"I remember the DA had a witness for a case I tried in Austin a few years ago," she said. "The guy was an illegal from Mexico. I didn't want him testifying and I tried to make something of his status to the judge, but it was all by the book. They went to the State Department and got him some kind of a visa I guess you have for people involved in legal matters."
"Sure," he said. "A visitor's visa for business, a B-1."
"Well, this is a lawsuit," Casey said.
"You think we could do business in this country without lawsuits? Litigation is covered under a B-1. It's no big deal."
"And it supersedes this voluntary deportation?"
"Sure," he said.
"What if she's on some kind of watch list?"
"Is this like that time you asked me if I liked to see justice being served and I ended up as an expert witness in that crazy trial with the woman who stole her kids?"
"Those kids were hers, and you know it," Casey said. "The senator in this case called in some favors. Evidently, the dead husband has a brother who's a Latin King. They painted her with the organized-crime thing."
"I'd like it if every bit of information got referenced and cross-checked between agencies by now, but the truth is, there's a lot less information sharing than you'd think," Tommy said. "I'm not saying you could fly her in. TSA is linked up pretty good. But if you bring her back in a car with a B-1 from the State Department? Customs won't think twice. A visa's a visa."
"Perfect."
"Not for me if someone catches it, but it works for you."
"So how do we do this?" Casey asked.
"I'll have it drawn up and faxed to you for your signature and your input of information on the lawsuit," Tommy said. "You send it back and I'll have it waiting for her in-where'd you say she was? Monterrey?"
"Yes."
"At the consulate there," he said.
"Can you get it done by tomorrow?" she asked.
"Tomorrow?" he asked.
"I need to get this done," she said. "Can you have it waiting at the consulate in Monterrey?"
Tommy chuckled and said, "You're so bashful."
"Please."
"Okay," Tommy said. "One favor."
"Name it."
"My girlfriend, Lauren? Just give her cell phone a call and leave a message. Say anything. 'Hi, this is Casey. Tommy says you're great.' She's in love with you."
"Jesus, Tommy."
"Hey, I'm the one manipulating the federal government."
"I thought it was standard to issue a B-1 for a litigation?"
"Yeah, and it takes about six months to process. You're going to get it in about six hours."
CHAPTER 38
CASEY LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW AND GRIPPED JOSe'S KNEE as a thermal column buffeted their plane. They banked wide, circling to land, and she could see the cluster of downtown buildings and high-rises, dark and lifeless under a heavy pancake of brown-and-yellow smog. From factory stacks, plumes of blackened air flowed upward like hellish geysers, while orange flames licked at the soot, burning off vents of methane. The signs of industry and progress promised cheap goods, processed food, and electric power, all the same comforts offered across the border to the north. Jagged mountains looked on from a distance, dead as slag.
"My God," Casey said.
She tightened her belt and was glad she had when they hit the runway hard enough to bounce and rattle the bins in the small pantry. Jose pried her fingers from his knee.
"Sorry," she said.
"I didn't know you hated flying," he said. "You turned white."
"Flying is fine. Crash landings I don't like."
Jose teased her about her pallor all the way to the car rental counter, where he argued with the woman in Spanish for a time before turning to Casey and explaining in frustration that the luxury sedan they thought they had reserved was actually a jeep.
"That's not too bad," Casey said. "Like a small SUV."
"I don't think it's that kind of jeep," he said, scooping the keys off the counter and signing his name.