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  “Pardon, senorita!” a Mexican called, jostling past her, running for his flight with a boy in one hand and a suitcase in the other.

  “Pardon!” another man said, shoving her rudely—he was very tall and dark, and his face was turned away. “Zack!” she whispered in terror, whirling around, watching in confusion as he ran toward a gate where passengers were swarming off their plane. Three Mexicans leaning against a post stared at her, then at the man, then at her, and she noticed them at the same time she saw the dark man’s face. Not Zack’s face.

  The public address system seemed to blare in her ears: “Flight 620 from Los Angeles is now arriving at Gate A-64. Flight 1152 from Phoenix is arriving at Gate A-23. Flight 134 . . .”

  Shaking harder, Julie reached a trembling hand up, shoved her hair off her forehead and began walking swiftly and blindly down the terminal, wanting it to happen without her seeing it now. Four more minutes. If she walked fast, she thought, if she didn’t look right or left, Zack would move out from behind a post or a pillar, materialize in a doorway, and they’d take him and it would be over.

  Please, God, let it happen quickly, she prayed in a chant that matched her long, quick strides after she passed unchallenged through customs. Don’t let them hurt him. Let it happen quickly. Don’t let them hurt him. Let it happen quickly.

  Walking swiftly, she shoved past the passengers emerging from the crowded security check gate, and without breaking stride, she glanced at the overhead sign with an arrow pointing to the terminal exit, turned in that direction, and kept right on going. Don’t let them hurt him . . . Don’t let them hurt him . . . Don’t let him be here, she chanted hysterically as she walked. Two more minutes. Ahead were the doors leading out to the brightly lit area where taxis and cars were waiting with their headlights on. Don’t let him be here. Don’t let him be here. Don’t let him be here. Don’t let him be—here.

  He wasn’t here.

  Julie stopped dead, oblivious to the fact that she was being shoved and jostled by streams of laughing, talking people trying to get around her to leave the terminal. Slowly she turned, her gaze drifting past Paul Richardson, who’d halted and seemed to be chatting with Ted . . . past the group of laughing Mexicans rushing toward her . . . past the tall, stooped, elderly man with graying hair, who was carrying a suitcase, his head bent . . . past the mother with— The old man! Julie’s gaze shot back to him just as he slowly lifted his head and raised his eyes to her . . . his warm, smiling, golden eyes.

  Screaming a silent warning to him, Julie stepped forward once, twice, and started running, shoving through the crowd, trying to throw herself between him and danger at the same time a male voice boomed, “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, BENEDICT!”

  Zack froze, men grabbed him, throwing him against the wall, but his eyes stayed riveted on Julie, warning her fiercely to stay away. Pandemonium erupted with the shouts of passengers scrambling to get out of the way of Mexican Federales, who were running forward drawing guns, and Julie heard herself screaming at all of them, “Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him!”

  Paul Richardson grabbed her, jerking her back.

  “They’re hurting him!” she cried, struggling in his grip to see around the bodies of the men crowded around him. “They’re hurting him!”

  “It’s all over!” Paul shouted in her ear, trying to restrain and calm her. “It’s all right! It’s over!”

  The words finally registered and Julie froze. Unable to pull free or look away, she watched in paralyzed anguish as Zack was surrounded and searched under the supervision of a short, impeccably dressed man with thinning hair who suddenly seemed to be in charge. He was smiling as he watched Zack being frisked by the Mexican Federales, and she heard him say, “We’re going home, Benedict, and we’re going to be together for a long, long time—” He broke off as one of the Federales pulled something out of Zack’s pocket, and he held out his hand. “What’s that?” he snapped.

  The Federale dropped the object into his palm and Julie felt her body go cold at the evil in his smile as he looked from the object in his hand to Zack’s expressionless profile. “How sweet!” he sneered, then he turned suddenly toward Julie, striding forward.

  “I’m Warden Hadley,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll bet this was meant for you.”

  Julie didn’t react, she couldn’t move, because Zack was looking at her now, and the expression in his eyes made her want to die. He was silently telling her he loved her. Telling her he was sorry. Telling her good-bye.

  Because he still thought she’d led them to him by accident.

  “Take it!” Hadley snapped in an awful voice.

  Jolted by his tone, Julie automatically reached out her hand.

  The object he dropped into it was a slender diamond wedding band.

  “Oh, no—” she moaned, squeezing it to her chest as tears raced down her cheeks. “No, no, no—”

  Ignoring her, Hadley turned to the Mexican police. “Get him out of here,” he ordered, jerking his head toward the doors where dozens of squad cars with whirling lights had silently appeared. But as the Federales shoved Zack forward, Hadley seemed to think something was wrong. “Wait a minute,” he snapped, then he turned to Julie as Zack was yanked to a stop beside her, and he said with an oily, malicious smile. “Miss Mathison, I’ve been very rude. I haven’t thanked you yet for your cooperation. If you hadn’t helped us set this whole scheme up, Benedict might never have been caught.”

  Zack’s head jerked up, his gaze raking Julie’s guilt-stricken face, and she watched in agony as his eyes registered first disbelief. And then hatred. A hatred so deep that all the muscles in his face tightened into a mask of rage. In a burst of fury, he twisted against his captors and lunged toward the door.

  “Hold the sonofabitch!” Hadley shouted, and the alarm in his voice made the panicked Federales lash out with billy clubs.

  Julie heard the crack of wood on bone and sinew, she saw Zack hit the floor on his knees, and she went wild when they raised their clubs to hit him again. Tearing free of Paul’s grip, she launched herself at Hadley. Whimpering with maddened pain for the man on the floor, she clawed the side of Hadley’s face and kicked at him in a mindless frenzy while Paul was trying to restrain her. Hadley doubled up his fist to strike her but halted at Paul’s enraged warning: “You sadistic bastard, touch her and I’ll tear your larynx out!” Lifting his head, he shouted to one of his men, “Get the goddamned doctor over here!” Then he jerked his head toward Hadley and added, “And get him out of here!”

  But he needn’t have worried about breaking up another uneven fight . . . Julie was slowly sliding down in his arms in a dead faint.

  62

  DR. DELORK WALKED OUT OF Julie’s bedroom carrying his black bag and smiled reassuringly at Julie’s worried family and Katherine who were gathered in the living room, waiting for his prognosis. “She’s a sturdy thing. She’ll be fine physically in twenty-four hours,” he promised. “You can go in and tell her good night if you like. She’s sedated so she won’t know it’s actually morning, not night, and she may not respond or even remember you were here, but it may help her rest easier anyway. It’ll be a couple of days before she feels like going back to work.”

  “I’ll call her principal and explain,” Mrs. Mathison said quickly, standing up, her anxious gaze on the open door to Julie’s room.

  “You won’t have to explain much to him or anyone else,” Dr. Delorik said flatly. “In case you haven’t had a television set on yet, you may as well know that what happened in Mexico last night is all over every news program on the air this morning, complete with videotapes of the whole thing provided by vacationers who had minicams with them in the airport. The good news is that, despite the beating Benedict got from the Mexican police on those videotapes, the press is making Julie sound like a heroine who collaborated in a clever scheme to trap a murderer.”

  Six faces looked at him without a trace of pleasure in his “good news,” so he continued as he shrugg