Cry No More Read online

  When Enrique opened the door, the fresh air outside didn’t even make a dent in the almost palpable wall of smoke that filled the room. Diaz moved without haste from his post, timing his arrival so he stepped through the door right behind Enrique. No one seeing him would have thought there was any purpose at all to his leaving right then, because his gait had been leisurely.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, he had his hand over Enrique’s mouth and his knife point sticking just under his ear as he dragged the weasel into the darkness of a narrow alley.

  “Talk, and you will live,” he said in Spanish. “Fight, and you will die.” He removed his hand from Enrique’s mouth. Just to make certain Enrique got the point, Diaz gave him the point, about an eighth of an inch. It stung like hell and blood began pouring, but Diaz had taken care not to cut anything major.

  Enrique was already slobbering with fear, promising anything, everything, whatever the señor wanted. Here, he had money—

  “Don’t move your hands, cabrón.” Diaz dug the knife point in a little deeper. With his other hand he did a swift search and relieved Enrique of the blade he’d been trying to pull out of his pocket. “I don’t want your friends’ money, just answers to a few questions.”

  “Yes, anything.”

  “Your mother sent me. My name is Diaz.”

  Enrique’s knees wobbled. He let loose with a number of colorful curses at Lola, who, even if she’d heard them, likely wouldn’t have cared. Diaz figured there wasn’t any love lost between mother and son, or she would never have told Diaz how to find Enrique. Essentially, Lola cared about no one but herself, a trait she had passed on to her son.

  “Ten years ago you were living with Lola when she was caring for the stolen babies.”

  “I know nothing about the babies—”

  “Shut up. I’m not asking about the babies. Who did Arturo Pavón and your uncle Lorenzo work for? Did you ever hear a name?”

  “A yanqui,” Enrique babbled.

  “Not his nationality, cabrón; his name.”

  “No . . . no name. All I heard was that he lived in El Paso.”

  “Is that all?”

  “I swear!”

  “I’m disappointed. I already knew that much.”

  Enrique began to shake. “I never saw him. Pavón was very careful to never mention his name.”

  “But was Lorenzo as careful? Or did Lorenzo like to brag?”

  “He bragged, señor, but it was empty noise. He knew nothing!”

  “Tell me some of the things he said. I’ll decide if it is nothing.”

  “That was a long time ago; I don’t remember—”

  Diaz made a tsking sound. He didn’t move the knife at all; he didn’t have to. Terrified beyond reason by that regretful tsk, Enrique shuddered and began to sob. The strong odor of urine wafted up.

  “Do you remember when Pavón lost his eye, stealing a gringo baby? The mother clawed out his eye, tore it from his head. Surely you remember that.”

  “I remember,” Enrique said, weeping.

  “Ah, I knew you didn’t have amnesia. What is it you have recalled?”

  “Not about the man in El Paso, I know nothing about him! But that baby, the gringo baby . . . Lorenzo said the woman doctor helped them.”

  The woman doctor.

  Milla’s friend Dr. Kosper had delivered her baby, and had kept in touch all these years. She even lived in El Paso.

  A big piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

  The eviscerated victims hadn’t been butchered; their organs had been neatly removed, indicating some surgical skill was used. A damaged organ had no value. An undertaker could be doing the organ removal, but a doctor was the more likely choice.

  Who was the one doctor who had lived nearby at both the little village where Milla’s baby was stolen and the border where the bodies were being found?

  None other than Susanna Kosper.

  He had to warn Milla.

  By the middle of October, Diaz still hadn’t returned and Milla was so worried she couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything. Had anything happened to him? Mexico was, by and large, an extremely friendly and hospitable country, but like every other country in the world, it also had a very rough element. She would have bet on Diaz against almost anyone, but even the most efficient predator could be outnumbered and overwhelmed. He wasn’t proof against a high-caliber rifle, either.

  When she wasn’t sick with worry, she was furious. Didn’t he have any idea how it would make her feel to have someone else she cared about just disappear? There was no comparison between Diaz and Justin, of course, except for their ties to her heart. Her son and her lover: surely she couldn’t lose them both in such a cruel way, with no closure, just pain and emptiness and uncertainty. When Diaz did show up again, she’d give him a piece of her mind he wouldn’t soon forget, and if he didn’t like it, that was just tough. He could sever their relationship if he wanted, but as long as there was a relationship she refused to be treated like nothing more than a sexual convenience whenever he got around to visiting.

  She had tried his cell phone number several times without luck. He was either unavailable, according to the canned message, or not in a service area. If he had a voice mail option with his service, he hadn’t activated it.

  She kept busy. Unfortunately, Finders kept busy. There was a rash of runaways and kids being snatched, as well as the inevitable hikers getting lost in the mountains. The reason didn’t matter; if feet on the ground were what mattered, Finders provided them. In just one week, Milla flew from Seattle to Jacksonville, Florida, to Kansas City, then San Diego, and finally back to El Paso. She was exhausted when she got back, but the first thing she did when she got home was check her answering machine for messages. There were plenty of them, but none from Diaz. She didn’t think he’d called on her cell phone, either, but the caller log feature had totally stopped working and she had no way of telling if she’d missed a call or not.

  Come to think of it, she’d had no calls on it at all for a couple of days. She hadn’t thought anything of it because she’d been on so many different flights, and she had always called the office as soon as she could. She’d had no trouble making calls, but what if she couldn’t receive them?

  She picked up her home phone and called her cell number. She listened to the ringing in the earpiece, but the cell phone in her hand did absolutely nothing.

  In disgust she hung up and tossed the cell phone back into her purse. First thing in the morning she would drop it off for repairs and pick up a loaner, or even buy a new one if necessary. She couldn’t bear thinking that Diaz might have tried to get in touch and that stupid phone wasn’t working. Did he have her home phone number? She couldn’t remember ever giving it to him. Surely, though, if he’d needed to get in touch with her and couldn’t get her on the cell, he’d have called Finders and left a message, or called Information and got her home phone number and left a message here.

  Where in hell was he?

  Her home phone rang and she snatched up the receiver. Maybe—

  “Señora Boone.”

  “Yes, this is she.” Milla didn’t recognize the voice. This reminded her of the call back in August, telling her where she could find Diaz. But the voice wasn’t the same; she was certain of it. The first voice had been lighter, smoother; this voice was coarse, and the accent was different.

  “You are interested in Arturo Pavón?”

  My God. Milla swallowed hard to contain the sharp rise of excitement. Please, please let this be some real information and not another false lead, she prayed. “Yes, I am.”

  “He will be in Ciudad Juarez tonight. At the Blue Pig Cantina.”

  “What time?” she asked, but the caller had already hung up. She checked Caller ID; it said, “Unavailable.”

  Desperately she called Diaz’s cell phone again. After three rings the canned voice said the customer was not in a service area.

  She checked the time: four-thirty. Because th