Part 2 (1/2)

His face is stern. ”Keep this to yourself, Cross. And don't ask me for anything else-ever.”

”Whatever,” I mutter as I walk out.

I make it down the front porch steps and to my bike before the pain is bad enough to bring me to my knees. Sometime later-minutes? hours?-I feel a gentle hand on my back and look up, praying for Renault. Instead it's a Southeast Asian man with kind eyes wearing a butler's suit.

”Can I help you, Sir?”

I take the hand he offers and use all my willpower to get back to my feet. I grab onto my bike's seat. ”Where's Renault?”

”Renault DeFritsch?” The man's eyes widen. ”He died four months ago.”

That's the last thing I remember clearly before waking up on my bed a day and a half later. I lie here for a moment, breathing deeply, wondering if there's anyone on this G.o.dforsaken planet more miserable than I am.

One name comes to mind: Meredith Kinsey.

CHAPTER FOUR.

The Sisters don't think the bombing was for me, but I know it was.

I know Jesus Cientos, and I know his tactics. The man is a pyromaniac. He has a love affair with hand grenades. He has half a warehouse filled with nothing but grenades, manufactured for the U.S. Military, smuggled into Mexico by Jesus's soldiers. I've seen the explosions before, a few times. I've watched them from behind the bullet-proof windows of Jesus's silver Escalade. I've watched them rip apart half a house, even seen the ma.s.sive fireball from an exploding gas station.

Juan and Emanuel are the surprise. That Jesus would his nephews out so young. That they would agree to target me. I should know better, but my heart makes it hard to accept.

The explosion on the west side of St. Catherine's killed a woman. Her name was Henrietta, and she was walking on the gravel path beside the clinic, toward the market on Flag Street to buy food for her twelve-year-old son.

I think about her, about Juan and Emanuel and Jesus, as I lie on my cot at night, in the wide, hot, high-beamed attic where I sleep beside Sister Mary Abalitta. The sounds of Sister Susan snoring, of Sister Daniella turning the pages of a paperback under the covers, of the box fans spinning in the two pushed-open windows...they ought to be familiar, soothing, but after what happened yesterday, nothing can soothe me. I clutch my rosary and pray to Mother Mary for strength. I should talk to Sister Mary Carolina again; she didn't believe me the first time. She is too good to give me up, and I'm too afraid to leave the clinic.

I wonder, as the sun comes up, what Jesus will do to me if he gets his hands on me. It wouldn't be s.e.x-that much I know for sure-but it could easily be something worse. I hurt his pride and his reputation when I ran, and I guess it's still hurting, even after almost nine months. That's the only reason he would strike now. Here. At the one place in the state of Durango that all of the cartels have promised to protect.

I curl over on my side and listen to the thunder rumbling in the distance.

CHAPTER FIVE.

I haven't seen Suri since three nights ago, but Lizzy's been here twice. The first time, I guess I was in my pain trance, the one I learned from Akemi, a Zen master in downtown Los Angeles, during my fight with Dilaudid. The second time was a few minutes ago. She left a note on the door and texted me the same thing: Cross, quit hiding from me. I want to talk.

I feel like an a.s.shole for not calling, but I know I won't-not yet. I don't want to talk about what happened the other night with Suri. I don't want to talk about what happened with my parents, or about Renault. Don't want to talk about Cross Hybrids or Hunter West or the wedding.

I have enough conscience to feel guilty for neglecting both my longtime friends. Suri deserves an in-person apology, and Lizzy deserves some face time. I just don't know what to say to them. Suri, for all the reasons anyone would guess, and Lizzy because...f.u.c.k, I don't know. She's living in some wedding fairy land, while I'm in bike shop purgatory. It's not that I'm not glad for her. I am. I'm glad she's getting the happy ending she deserves. I just don't feel like I have a lot to offer anyone right now, and besides that, it's too much effort.

I wait around the house another twenty-four hours to see if I get another pain attack. Another neuralgia episode, as they're really called. When nothing new happens and I don't feel quite as tired, I get back on the Mach and ride over to the local library. I'm glad that I'm at least having an easier time of it today.

I used to have wireless internet at the shop, but I didn't pay the bills while I was in rehab and since coming home, I haven't felt like getting it turned on. What's the point? I pretty much know I have a pile-up of work orders, people wanting custom jobs, and I also know I'm not open for business at the moment.

I feel a little tug of guilt as I get off the bike and stride up the stairs of the two-story brick building. It's true, I miss working on bikes-and the money-but I can't do it one-handed. Not without some help. And help would lead to pity.

I pay one dollar for a temporary library card and sit down at one of the black plastic computer desks on the back row. I pull my little photo out and put it on the table. I haven't looked at it but once or twice, just for a second or two as I loaded and unloaded it from my pockets, but here under the fluorescent lights, something about her face strikes me, like a chime inside my chest. Missy King. Meredith Kinsey. The mistress. The wh.o.r.e.

Her smile looks genuine. It makes her green eyes tilt up at the edges. Her pinkish mouth looks innocently happy, slightly playful, and very familiar, as if she knows the photographer well; as if they're friends. I scowl down at the image. This girl looks young. Eighteen at most. I wonder, not for the first time, if my father made up the name he gave me. This girl, with her prim white b.u.t.ton-up blouse and straight white teeth, is probably the daughter of a California senator.

Pecking at the keys with the fingers of my right hand, I search the name. Within milliseconds, links appear. The first one grabs my attention: Meredith Kinsey Managing Editor, The Red & Black.

I squint. Clearly, that one's not my girl. Missy King was a high-priced prost.i.tute, not a journalism student.

I click on the second link and find 'Meredith Kinsey' on a list of University of Georgia, Grady College scholars.h.i.+p recipients. She's there not once, but three times: William Dale Tichenor Scholars.h.i.+p for Excellence in Journalistic Writing, Sean Love Scholars.h.i.+p for Dependability and Service, Gloria Stamps Scholars.h.i.+p for Excellence in Academics.

I snort a little, drawing a glance from the punk a.s.s kid beside me. Yeah, this can't be her.

Back on the main page, I try a few other links, wondering why the h.e.l.l I didn't ask my father where the girl was from. Couldn't have been Georgia. I find another Meredith Kinsey: award-winning quilter from Salt Lake City. Her web site features a picture of a gray-haired woman with a bowl cut.

The next link takes me to Meredith Kinsey, singer/songwriter. I get excited about this, but then I notice she's in Ireland-and just updated her blog with new lyrics today.

I sift through Meredith Kinsey, freelance writer for an Atlanta home brewery magazine (probably the college kid after college); Meredith Kinsey, high school gymnastics star in Boise, Idaho (photo shows a girl who can't be older than ten); Meredith Kinsey, harpist in Knoxville, Tennessee (tall with a bird-like nose, which my father would hate); Meredith Kinsey, dead at age 86 in Kansas City, Kansas, and another dozen or so Meredith Kinsey's before I get to almost an entire page of links that direct me to The Red & Black: award-winning college newspaper at the University of Georgia, operating independently without the use of student funds since 1980.

Woop de freaking hoo.

I sigh and click on one of the links, because it's dated two years before my Meredith Kinsey disappeared, and it looks to be a rant about the horror of beauty pageants. I skim the piece, finding that this particular Meredith Kinsey objects to pageants on the grounds that they objectify women; she compares the women in their swim suits to cattle at an auction. Another snort, followed by a rub of my eyes. Definitely not my Meredith.

Except...there's a small square picture in the middle of two columns of text, and the face is identical to the one in my picture.

Meredith Kinsey, college feminist.

Holy s.h.i.+t.

I spend the next hour looking for more information, trying to figure out how a college student with strawberry-blonde hair, twinkling green eyes, and a wide smile turned into Missy King, governor's mistress and small time extortionist-turned-s.e.x slave.

I click on every link I find, reading through a couple of her news stories and one more opinion piece (”Holiday Celebrations Can Be Inclusive And Traditional”) before the timer on my screen flashes, and I'm forced to give my computer to a woman who's wearing a skirt suit and typing on her Blackberry. I pay three dollars for a permanent card, which will buy me unlimited time tomorrow, and head out into a drizzling rain.

The photo my father gave me is tucked into a little pocket on the inside of my beat-up jeans, but I can see her face as I roll down the streets of downtown Napa. The bike's tires make a shhh sound, tossing up a spray of rainwater that makes my ankles cold and chills my feet through my boots.

I don't get it. Is this some ruse my father cooked up? Why would a girl with a college degree-and no student loans-turn to a life of prost.i.tution?

I know what they say. People like Lizzy. ”The girls choose to be escorts. It's their choice, Cross. Smarter than giving yourself away for free, huh?” Marchant fed me even more cliche lines: They're stakeholders, some of them have stock portfolios, working on college degrees through the University of Phoenix, la da da.

I bet most of them don't have college degrees. I bet they didn't get into the whoring business just for giggles.

As I fumble for the garage b.u.t.ton with my elbow, pressing into the pants pocket where I keep my keys, I feel the familiar sting of guilt. Whoever she is, Missy King deserved better than what she got. And as far as bulls.h.i.+t goes, I'd have it coming out my ears if I didn't admit that it's my fault n.o.body went after her. I could have told somebody. I should have.

Instead, I tried to forget about her. I told myself it wasn't my business. That she was already out of reach.

It might have stuck, if I hadn't been taken to Mexico myself and watched as my best friend was on the auction block. Ever since that day, it's been under my skin like a bad rash. Missy King was just as helpless as we were.

And for all my lofty thoughts about desperation and how escorts have no other options, I want to believe that Missy King is not Meredith Kinsey. I want to believe that Missy was a s.l.u.tty girl who wanted to drive a s.h.i.+ny red Porsche and wear expensive jewelry. A girl who, just like me, was giving it away to anyone who asked and figured, why not charge?