THE SECOND MILAGRO (n/a) Read online

  So Miguel hadn’t changed. When she had met him eighteen years ago, he’d been kicked out of the University of Mexico for taking part in student demonstrations. He and Tomas were at opposite extremes in their ideologies. Miguel idealized the populist President Lopez Mateos because Mateos had put his father in charge of the land distribution to the poor. Tomas was a friend of his successor Diaz Ordaz who sent troops against the poor, the middle class, intellectuals and students. The two argued long hours over politics. But Jim was wrong about that being why they hated each other.

  “I don’t think it would be a good idea to involve Tomas’s brother. Right?” Jim asked. “I don’t like working with someone that’s already fighting for the other side. Cuts your odds that way.”

  Patricia picked up a silver frame from the mantle and rubbed her finger across a picture of Max and her. Graduation Day. He was in his cap and gown, trying to look serious, but laughter rode in the dimple creasing his right cheek, giving away the little boy in costume. His arm draped down over her shoulder. His height he inherited from her family, but his black hair and eyes contrasted to her auburn hair and green-brown eyes. How could he look so little like her and be part of her soul?

  She looked back at the fireplace, into the long mysterious tunnel that seemed to begin there. Not the one Max might be in, but one for her. If she took one step in the direction her mind was running, her world could change forever. What if it was the only way to get Max back? Without him, nothing else mattered.

  She took a deep breath, turned and went to an antique secretary against a far wall. She took some paper from a drawer and handed it to Jim over his shoulder.

  “Thanks for going down there. Now, if you don’t mind, I want a list. Everybody you talked to and anyone else that needs to be questioned.”

  “Got it right here. Figured you might want to know.” He took a folded paper from his coat pocket and handed it to her. A nod was all she could manage.

  Jim pulled her down on the sofa beside him. The liquor had relaxed and warmed her. She smelled his cologne.

  His fingers touched her cheek. She jumped. Had she almost been asleep?

  “Come on,” he whispered. “Finish your drink, then off to bed.”

  Yes, she needed to rest, for her trip. She needed her strength to find Max. After she slept, she’d go and bring him home. Jim led her up the stairs. She felt weighted, as if her clothes were soaked, her feet too heavy to lift from one stair to the next. In her room, Jim unbuttoned her blouse and unzipped her skirt. She sat on the bed in her slip and bra, and slid her feet beneath the sheets. She felt his hand brush against her breast and heard the plastic catch of her bra snap loose.

  “You’ll be more comfortable without this,” he said as he slid her bra free. He kissed her neck, unclasped her hair and fanned it across the pillow.

  His voice came from the rain. The sound and his touch soothed her. She didn’t want him to leave. Clinging to him, her arms locked, she buried her head in his chest.

  “Shh,” he shushed her silence, pushed her down on the pillow, saying, “Sleep.”

  She thought she heard the door close, then nothing. The silence shifted and she heard Max call her.

  A damp, black wall enshrouded her. She could not move, could not reach out for her son. She was blind. Or was she only blindfolded?

  Sound existed. Inside her tomb, life emerged at all levels. Tiny inching feelers swished, testing the air. Bold, tougher appendages scraped, scratched. Whispers floated in and out. Or were they loud voices flowing through a long tube?

  “Max?” she called.

  Behind the dark, inside her imagination, she saw Tomas carrying Max. His lanky legs draped over her husband’s arms, almost dragging the floor. What was he now? At least three inches taller than she? They had stopped marking his height when he turned fifteen.

  “Come here, son,” Tomas had said, a thick pen held high between his fingers. He pointed at the inside of the hall closet door. Lines and dates recorded the years in a rainbow of colors. So, too, did the handwriting. Block letters, shaky cursive, bold, firm inscriptions. Hieroglyphic history of Max’s changing personality as well as his stature.

  Max focused on the line that marked his fourteenth year.

  “That’s for kids,” he had said and turned to walk away.

  Tomas caught him by the arm and shoved him against the door, held his head still, and sliced the marker across the wood just above the thick black hair.

  Max had said nothing. The next day, he painted the door.

  Tomas was not angry. He had really hoped for more. He wanted tenacity, ruthlessness, defiance from his son. What he called, “backbone.” Max had just wanted to be taller and didn’t want to be reminded that he wasn’t getting there.

  Now he is seventeen, she thought. Much taller and time to grow more. Maybe.

  She drifted in and out of dreams and sleep. Someone else was carrying Max, then two men were dragging him. His legs were broken, bloody, useless. A metallic smell seeped through her nostrils. The taste of blood was on her lips. She cried and cried. No tears wet her cheeks.

  Max had wanted to stand on his own two feet. He had said that. He wanted her to let him grow up. But she had let him. Hadn’t she been the one to help him take his first steps? Come on, Maxie, you can do it. Hold on. Mommy’s got you.

  She had not meant to hold him back.

  She struggled against her shroud. Slowly it unwound. She tossed the bedcovers aside and opened her eyes to the dark of her bedroom. Jim was gone. She stood up, reeling. Like a drunk. Like someone drugged.

  She stumbled to the bathroom and threw up.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  September 26

  Patricia was up and dressed in her most comfortable traveling suit before dawn. The effects of the sleeping pill Jim had slipped into her brandy had been drowned in a pot of coffee.

  “Damn him,” she muttered. “Damn him.” Her hand struck the mantle. How typically “male,” she thought. Just because he’d been Tomas’s best friend didn’t give Jim the right to boss her around. Of course, he’d argue that he was just trying to keep her home and safe, but he was taking over her life. Last night he had gone one step too far.

  She’d given him the proverbial inch, so she guessed it was her fault that he wanted it all. She had needed him to go to Mexico. And it had felt good to let him hold her. For a moment. Her anger began to fade. She was to blame, not Jim. She knew he cared and was probably trying to protect her as usual, but she was letting him manipulate her. That had to stop. She had made her own decisions for many years. Before Tomas. And after.

  Since Max had been gone, she had wallowed in grief. She had to snap out of it. Time for control, over the others, over herself. She was all Max had.

  When dawn highlighted the windows, she made some calls, packed a suitcase and drove through empty streets to her office. The soft glow of morning promised sunshine.

  A guard let her into the building. Several fortunes in silver were displayed in the Morelos Galleries on the main floor of their headquarters. A number of guards were on duty around the clock.

  How useless they are, she thought. Why couldn’t they have been protecting Max instead of some pieces of shiny metal? She stared so hard at the man as she waited for the elevator that he turned away.

  When she reached the ninth floor where her office was, she combed every secretary’s desk and opened every office door just in case someone had left a ransom note. It didn’t necessarily have to come in the mail, did it?

  Finally, in her own office, when she was sure there was nothing to find, she put coffee on and paced the floor while it brewed. Overflowing a mug, she ignored the spill and slumped into the chair behind her desk. The old green leather swivel groaned even under her slight weight. She propped her elbows on the silver edged, tooled leather desk, and studied her surroundings as if she had never seen them.

  Everything in the room was massive, masculine, trimmed and bought with the ore that had made Tomas
Morelos rich. She had no intentions of remodeling it. She liked the power and wealth that exuded throughout the room from the silver doorknob to the jade Olmec gods in the glass case. It was where Tomas had run his empire and where she had tried to carry on his wishes. The strength of the room invaded her, steeled her. From now on, it had to be her wishes.

  As she drained the cup of coffee, she picked up an oval frame from the desk and gazed at a photograph of herself and Tomas. She felt the silkiness of the Dior gown and the weight of the jade necklace she’d worn that evening of her thirty-sixth birthday three years ago. With her dark hair swept high, she looked taller than her five-five height. She stared at her late husband. Tomas had not been a handsome man. Swarthy skin, insignificant moustache, dark, boring eyes. She had not married him for his looks or for love. And not even, as most thought, for his money. He had known the real reason, and somehow, she didn’t think he had ever regretted his decision.

  The figures blurred as her eyes filled. She had never loved him. Even after all the years. Maybe if she’d given him more, he’d have been happier and lived longer. A deep breath trembled in her throat. She brushed the back of her hand hard against her cheek. God, she needed him. Max needed him. Damn him for leaving them! Nothing was right. All the years amounted to nothing. She slammed the photograph face down onto the leather.

  Another picture remained on the desk. A face etched into her heart. Dark haired man-child, cocky-tilted head, saucy mouth, twinkling eyes. Max. She lifted the frame and pressed it to her chest. Her sobs heaved against the cold silver weight as if it were a mountain of stone.

  She would go to Real de Catorce. Wherever the hell the place is, she thought. Somewhere in the Sierra Madres. Couldn’t be too hard to find. Not if Max had found it. Not with his sense of direction. Or lack of it. A crooked smile let in the taste of tears.

  First, she had to go to Mexico City. People there owed Tomas. Officials. Businessmen. She knew better than Jim how business was done in Mexico. The network of childhood friends who pulled, pushed and tagged along through school and life until the one chosen leader carried the rest with him to the top. Tomas had friends among these. They would help her.

  Jim had met with some of them. She picked up the list he had given her. She would start there. Where Jim had struck out, she would make them listen. After all, she owned the mines. The miners worked for her. And Max. If she had to give up everything, she would. No one else could make that decision.

  If Tomas’s friends didn’t help, she would do what would have been unthinkable before Max was kidnapped. She had thought about it for days. Agonized over her decision. She knew her world, Max’s world, could change forever. It might be the only way to get her son back. Without him, nothing else mattered.

  For the first time since Max left, she felt light, mobile, alive, as if she had lifted the heavy stone that crushed her. She would find her son. And she would bring him home.

  No matter the cost. No matter what she had to do. Who she had to bargain with. Even if it meant dealing with the devil himself.

  Still clutching the frame with one hand, she picked up Jim’s list of names. In bold black letters she added MIGUEL RAMIREZ.

  Yes. Even if it meant the devil himself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Patricia heard a rap on the private door to her office. She ran to it, jerking it open. “What? Oh, it’s you,” she sighed and waited for Rachel to walk past her into the room.

  “I’d be offended, except you have reason to be disappointed. It is only me, and I have no news. Except that it has finally quit raining, but I guess you knew that.”

  With her usual casualness Rachel went straight to a hand carved mahogany chair, fit for an Aztec princess. Her tall slight figure, frosted hair and green eyes belied the part. She was impeccably dressed as always—from her silk blouse tucked into the slim Halston skirt to her hair neatly combed in a cap of soft curls. Picture perfect in her dark imperfect world.

  Patricia didn’t trust herself to speak. She sat down and placed the frame with Max’s picture on her desk.

  As silver settled against leather, Rachel turned toward the sound. “He’s okay, Patricia. Didn’t Jim tell you he was?”

  “Like you believe anything Jim says,” Patricia reminded her. “Want some tea?” She stepped quickly to the kitchen alcove where she tried to compose herself amid the sounds of clattering china and silver tea cozy. When she was ready, she placed a half-filled cup in Rachel’s hands.

  “Thanks. Now I can be civil,” Rachel said, sipping the hot tea. She smiled and a dimple scooped her left cheek.

  “How did you know I was here?” Patricia sat behind her desk and watched her friend. She knew Rachel was up to something.

  “Where else would you be if you’re not home? I went to the house and Josephina said you left before she got up. When I called here, the receptionist said you weren’t coming in today. Seems that’s what Jim told her. Naturally, like you said, I didn’t believe it. So, I got Stevens to bring me to your private door. Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Rachel’s delicate eyebrows raised. As often was the case, Patricia felt a probing look emanate from those lifeless eyes even before the question came.

  “Let’s just say, Jim made a shot at keeping me from going to Mexico.”

  Rachel shifted to the edge of her chair as if to challenge Patricia.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I am going. And let’s forget about Jim’s little tricks and find out what you have working up your sleeve. If you’re here to talk me out of it, you don’t have long, and you’re just going to waste your energy.” Pulling papers from a drawer, she organized them into her briefcase.

  “So, you’re going to Mexico.”

  “What else can we do, Rache?” Patricia’s voice cracked. “Oh, I’d just like to shake him,” she said, trying to compose herself.

  “Oh, it’s ‘we’ now. Since when are you going to let me have a say in bringing up Max? I’ve been wanting to turn that kid over my knee and spank the goodness out of him for years. And I do mean ‘goodness’. Patricia, Max is a saint compared to most kids. Annie, for instance. I couldn’t love my kid more, but I just wish she cared a fifth what Max does about people. It’s not his fault. He didn’t run away. He told you where he was going. He just wanted to help those people.”

  “And look how they thanked him. This is the fifth day, Rache. I have to do something. If the law can’t do anything, I can, me and the almighty U. S. dollar. I have a list of people to see and if I have to camp on every doorstep and grease the palm of every official in the Mexican government, then I’ll do it.” She fingered several stacks of $100 bills. “And you may as well save your breath about whom I see.” The unspoken name of Miguel Ramirez hung in the air like a spider on a thread. She snapped the briefcase shut. “Well?”

  Rachel uncrossed her long slim legs and stood up. Her eyes seemed to look through Patricia and out the window. The two women leaned across the desk and sparred silently.

  “Well, what time do we leave?” Rachel asked, cheeks soft, undimpled, no hint of a smile.

  “Thanks for the offer, Rache, but you have a daughter who needs you at home.” She picked up her briefcase, walked around the desk and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

  Rachel shrugged it off. “And you have a son in Mexico who might need us both. I speak better Spanish than you, remember? Besides,” Rachel bit at her lower lip, “Annie went back to the university today. State of emergency is over.”

  “And she’ll be calling you about some other crisis before the week’s out.”

  “She can call Roger this time. It won’t hurt him to take on a crisis for a change.

  Patricia turned away. “I have everything ready. I’m packed. I don’t have time to wait for you, Rache. I’m sorry.”

  Rachel came around the chair and walked to the door she had come through shortly before. She opened it, picked up a tapestry bag which sat against the wall, and held the door for Patricia. She
smiled. “I’m ready, too.”

  * * *

  Jim Mainland opened the door to Patricia’s office, stepped inside and shut the door. It was already nine o’clock. There had been no reason to hurry in this morning. Patricia would sleep most of the day. His eyes scanned the room, lingered just a second longer than usual on the best pieces of jade, the shiniest gold. He strolled the length of the room to the desk, trailed his fingers along the cool silver edges, and eased into the cracked leather chair. The desk and chair, the room, were built for a man, not a woman. Even down to the ornate eighteenth century silver tea service which needed a man’s strength to lift. He leaned back in the chair, his six-four frame feeling uncomfortable in the deep impressions left over the years by Tomas’s short, stocky body.

  When everything is over, the chair is the only thing I’ll get rid of, he thought. Everything else he would keep just as Tomas left it. His gaze fell on the picture of Tomas and Patricia. What an odd mix. A little ugly old man and his beautiful young wife. Her green dress curved at all the right places. That face would turn any man on—high cheek bones, slender nose, dark eyes, full red lips. The shiny hair was pinned up, sexy and proper at the same time. He remembered the feel of the soft strands he had spread out onto the pillow the night before. Yes, his old friend had had good taste. Soon he would take Tomas’s place as Patricia’s husband. They would be good together. He smiled, then frowned at the photo of Max.

  He reached for the phone, punched some buttons and asked his secretary if there had been any calls from Mexico. None. Maybe that was good. No news, good news. Of course, no one really believed that. The boy wouldn’t be hurt, he would see to that. And when he got Max home, Patricia would be one grateful mom. She would know by then how much he wanted her.

  In the meantime, he needed to keep Patricia safe and out of the way. He’d convinced her to let him deal with the police and FBI. The hurricane had been a help in getting a slow response from the authorities. As long as he had them listening to him, things would be okay. He couldn’t take a chance on her raising enough hell that the Feds changed their view and got involved. Heaven forbid she talked to the press. Or went off half-cocked to Mexico. He just needed time and everything would be all right.