rturo Pavón liked to tell everyone that he never forgot an insult. He enjoyed seeing the caution in their faces, the way their gazes skittered away from him. And it was true; he forgot no slight, real or imagined. There was only one who had harmed him and gotten away with it, and the knowledge was a bitter little knot in the pit of his stomach, a knot he lived with every day. But he hadn’t forgotten, hadn’t given up on vengeance. His time was slow in coming, but come it would. One day their paths would cross, and he would make the American bitch regret the very day she was born.

For ten years he had waited to make her pay for the loss of his eye.

He could have had her any number of times, the way she constantly came into his country with her silly questions, her prying. But Gallagher had said no, she was too visible, if she disappeared that would raise too many questions and would, at the least, cost them a great deal of money to ensure certain officials looked the other way; at worst, they would end their days in either an American or Mexican jail, depending on where they were caught. If it came to that, Pavón very much wished for an American jail, where they had air-conditioning, cigarettes, and color television.

Gallagher. Pavón didn’t trust him, but only because he trusted no one. Their association was a long and profitable one. Gallagher let nothing get between him and money. He’d been dirt poor when Pavón first met him, but full of fire and nerve and ideas, powered by an absolute lack of scruples. Gallagher knew how to make money; if he couldn’t make it, he would steal it, and he didn’t care how many people he trampled into the dust in the process. A man like that would go far.

Pavón had known it would be better to ally himself with such as Gallagher than to go his own way and perhaps become a rival that had to be eliminated, so he had made himself indispensable. If Gallagher needed someone to disappear, Pavón handled it. If he needed something stolen, Pavón stole it. If someone needed to be taught a lesson, Pavón took great pleasure in making certain this person never forgot it wasn’t wise to cross Señor Gallagher.

Things had gone well for Arturo, until ten years ago. The assignment was so simple: take the blond baby from the young gringa who visited a small village marketplace at least three mornings of the week. So he and Lorenzo had gone to the village, and waited, and they were lucky: the very first morning, she had been there.

It would be easy, they thought. The only problem was that she carried the baby in a sling across her chest, rather than in her arms or in a basket. But Lorenzo always had his knife, and the plan was that they would flank the gringa; Lorenzo would slice the strap of the sling, Pavón would grab the baby, and they would run. Some rich Americans had agreed to pay a lot of money for a blond baby to adopt, and this one was an easy target. The young gringa was distracted by her shopping, and she was a typical American, soft and unprepared for danger.

They had underestimated her. Instead of becoming hysterical and helplessly screaming, as they had expected, the woman had fought with unexpected fierceness. He still woke from nightmares, feeling her fingers clawing at his eye, reeling from the bursting pain and horror, his entire face feeling as if it were on fire. Lorenzo had stabbed the bitch in the back and they had escaped, but unfortunately she had lived. He himself had spent many days recovering, cursing her and swearing vengeance. Where his eye had once been was now a scarred pit; his cheek was permanently furrowed from her claws. When he had recovered enough to begin moving around again, he’d found that his depth perception was altered, that he could no longer shoot so well. And he could no longer blend into a crowd without being noticed; people stared at his ruined face.

She had caused him a great deal of trouble, and he would never forget.

But he had bigger trouble now, trouble that alarmed him. The matter of the woman, he would settle in his own good time. The matter of Diaz... he must be doubly cautious now, with Diaz on his trail, or he was a dead man.

Everyone knew Diaz hunted for money; Pavón, while proud of his justly deserved reputation, had still taken care not to come too much to the attention of the authorities. Under the radar, as Gallagher liked to say. So whose ire had Pavón drawn who also had the money to hire someone like Diaz? He had thought and thought, and there was only one answer.

It had disturbed him afterward when he heard that Milla Boone had been in Guadalupe the same night they had transferred the Sisk woman for her trip to heaven. She had been very close to him, in the same area at the same time, which for the past ten years, on Gallagher’s orders, he had taken care would not happen. Was it coincidence that she had announced then, to an entire crowded cantina, that she would pay ten thousand American dollars to anyone who could give her information leading her to Diaz? If she had ten thousand just for information, how many more thousands did she have? And why would she want Diaz, if not to hire him? Diaz was not a man one called simply to say you admired his work, and one certainly did not pay ten thousand dollars for that.

Pavón had put two and two together. It was obvious Milla Boone had hired Diaz to find him, because shortly thereafter he had received word that Diaz was looking for him. Pavón hadn’t lingered to find out why; Diaz didn’t hunt people just to chat with them. The people he hunted simply... disappeared. Except for the dead ones. They were always easy to find. The others were simply never seen or heard from again. What Diaz did with them was a matter of great speculation.

Pavón had immediately left Chihuahua, and his future was now uncertain. Diaz did not give up; time made no difference to him.

For the first time in his life, Pavón was frightened.

He had gone to the Mexican Gulf Coast, where a distant cousin kept a small fishing boat for him. The area, with the jungles and wetlands, the mosquitoes and the offshore oil fields, was not crowded with tourists, as the rest of Mexico seemed to be. He had supplied his boat and put out into the gulf, where no one could approach him unseen—unless Diaz had taken up scuba diving, which Pavón wished he had not thought of, because since then he had been uneasily watching the depths around his boat as well as the surface.

The weather was miserably humid and he, a child of the desert, hated the heaviness of the air. This was also the prime time of the year for hurricanes, so he made a point of listening to his weather radio every day. If one of the huge storms got into the gulf, he wanted to be far inland at the time.

Once a week, he went to shore for supplies, and also to call Gallagher. Gallagher did not trust cell phones, though he had one; he simply never conducted any business over one. He was so careful he did not even use a cordless phone. Pavón had tried to tell him he could get a secure cell phone, one whose conversations could not be intercepted, but it was one of Gallagher’s quirks that he was so distrustful.

Since learning Diaz was asking about him, Pavón appreciated such caution. Perhaps it would keep him alive.

The only long-term solution he could think of was if he killed both Diaz and Milla Boone: Diaz because he was the immediate, and strongest threat, and the woman because she would just keep hiring people until one of them succeeded. How she had finally linked Pavón with the kidnapping, he didn’t know; someone had obviously talked, despite Gallagher’s influence.

To kill them would require a game of delicate balance, at least where Diaz was concerned. The woman would be easier, so he would take her last. Perhaps he would even show her what a real man was, before she died. Ah, he knew the perfect ending for her! After he finished using her, he would donate her to the cause, an act of tremendous goodwill on his part. He chuckled at his own play on words, then quickly sobered.

The difficult part would be getting close to Diaz; the man was like smoke, appearing and disappearing with the wind and leaving no trace of his movements. To find Diaz, Pavón would have to offer himself up like a tethered goat, and it must be done carefully. He would have to lead Diaz into a place and situation in which he, Pavón, had the control—and he would have to prevent Diaz from realizing that the tethered goat was armed and ready until it was too late to save himself.

This required much consideration and planning; it wasn’t something that could be done overnight. Everything must be perfect—or he himself would be dead.

No one was more cautious and meticulous about detail than Gallagher, so when Pavón went to shore that week and made his regular call, he broached his plan. “We must lure Diaz to me,” he said, “but in such a way that he doesn’t know he’s being lured.”

Gallagher paused, then said, “That’s a good idea. Let me think about it. Where are you now?”

“In a safe place.” Gallagher wasn’t the only one who could be cautious.

“We need to meet.”

Ah. That meant there was something he didn’t wish to say over the phone. “I cannot get there today.” He could, but he preferred to have Gallagher think he was much farther away, perhaps even in Chiapas, the southernmost Mexican state.

“When, then?” Gallagher sounded annoyed, and... something else. Worried, perhaps? But why should Gallagher sound worried? Diaz was not after him—in an instant, Pavón perceived that he was in danger not only from Diaz. He was a link, not only between Gallagher and what was going on now, but between Gallagher and Milla Boone’s kidnapped child, ten years ago. The best way for Gallagher to protect himself was to break that link.

“Perhaps... two weeks from now?” Pavón said slyly.

“Two—goddamnit, you can get here faster than that.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to leave this wonderful place. I have everything I need here, and no one knows how to find me. If I come there, many people know my face. I have to ask myself, who will people be most afraid of: Señor Gallagher or Señor Diaz? If Señor Diaz has a knife to a man’s throat and asks if he has seen me, will that man lie, or will he tell the truth? I think he will piss himself, but he will tell the truth.”

Gallagher dragged in a long, exasperated breath. “All right. If you’re afraid, then you’re afraid. When you find your cojones, call me and we’ll set up a meeting.”

An insult to his machismo was supposed to suddenly make him stupid? Pavón smiled to himself as he hung up the phone. The smile quickly faded, though; what did he do, now that he couldn’t count on Gallagher’s help?

He would have to take care of Diaz by himself. There was no other option. How to do it, though, was a problem. Perhaps he could take the woman and use her as bait? If Diaz was working for her, he would come to her aid, so long as he didn’t suspect a trap. How could he take her and make it look like something unrelated?

He kept coming back to using himself as bait. But for her, not Diaz. He would somehow have to make certain Diaz was occupied elsewhere, then get a message to the Boone woman that he knew she wouldn’t ignore, nor would she wait until Diaz was available. She would come by herself, and then he would have her. When he had her, he would also have Diaz. Perhaps not right away, but he could enjoy himself while he was waiting.

Yes. It was a good plan.

The days slipped past and cooler weather settled in. Except for that one heat wave the summer hadn’t been a hot one, but Milla was still glad to see it go and autumn arrive. She kept her appointment with Susanna and got a new prescription for the birth control patches just before she used up her supply, which was a good thing considering the drastic change in her love life.

“I want to apologize for what happened,” Susanna said contritely. “I was out of line. I should have listened to you and not thought I knew best.”

Milla blinked at her, totally at sea for a moment. She never felt chatty when her feet were in stirrups, and she’d been determinedly thinking of other things. These days, to an alarming degree, “other things” meant Diaz.

The world clicked back into place, and she remembered the scene with True. “It’s okay,” she said. “Everything’s fine. He didn’t like taking no for an answer, and I guess he needed to hear it one more time. He hasn’t called since.”

“That’s good. That he isn’t bothering you, I mean. But what about Finders? Is he still one of your sponsors? You can sit up now.”

Clutching the paper sheet for the meager modesty it provided, Milla took her feet down and scooted back so she could sit up. The nurse began doing the paperwork for the Pap smear, and Susanna turned away to wash her hands.

“He said that turning him down wouldn’t affect his support, so I have to take him at his word.”

“That’s good. I don’t think he’d be petty. I don’t know him that well, but he doesn’t seem to be a man who pouts.”

Milla laughed. No, True didn’t strike her as a pouter. She hadn’t thought about him at all recently, she realized. Two things had occupied her mind: work and Diaz.

“I called and apologized to him, too,” Susanna continued. “We got to talking about other things, and he said you had a lead on the man you think took Justin. Diego? Diaz?”

“No, nothing that panned out,” Milla said, instinctively not wanting to say anything about Diaz. Now that she knew what kind of work he did, the less said about him the better.

“Damn. I was hoping this time—well, never mind. Keep me up-to-date if you do get any information, though.”

“I will.” But she already knew a lot more that she was keeping to herself. Given Diaz’s theory that she had been deliberately led down blind alleys all these years, she thought that the less said the better. She trusted Susanna, but did she trust everyone Susanna knew? Or everyone Susanna’s other friends knew? Not likely. So she borrowed a page from Diaz and kept her mouth shut.

Susanna picked up her pad and scribbled the prescription. “Everything looks fine. We’ll call when the results come in.”

“Leave the message on my answering machine if I’m not at home.”

Susanna made a note on Milla’s chart, smiled, and said, “If I can wrangle any free time for lunch, I’ll give you a call.”

Milla smiled in return; then Susanna and the nurse left the examination room to let her get dressed. As soon as they were gone, her smile vanished. Worry nagged at her. Since they’d returned from Idaho, Diaz had been prowling Mexico. On two nights he’d shown up at her condo, scruffy and snarly, lean from the hunt. A wise woman would have stayed far away from him when he was so lethally edgy, but Milla had decided that where he was concerned, she wasn’t wise at all. Both times she’d fed him, put him in the shower, and washed his clothes. Both times he’d let her, though he’d watched her with narrowed, feral eyes that made her knees go weak, because she knew he was biding his time. And both times, as soon as he was out of the shower, he was on her before the towel hit the floor.

After his sexual appetite was slaked, he was usually hungry again. Whatever he was doing, he wasn’t getting enough to eat. She would make him a sandwich and they would sit at the table while he ate and told her anything new he’d learned, which was precious little. Still, she at least felt that those tidbits were solid information, not a smoke screen.

“The word I get is that Pavón has been working for the same man from the beginning,” Diaz had said the last time she’d seen him, four days before. “They smuggled babies; now they smuggle body parts. But the information on the street is thin; they’ve done a good job of scaring the hell out of everyone.”

“Did you find Lola’s children?”

“The oldest, a son, was killed in a knife fight over fifteen years ago. Lola hasn’t seen her youngest in eight years, but I’ve tracked him to Matamoros. He’s a commercial fisherman, and was out in the gulf. He’s supposed to be back three days from now. I’ll be there waiting for him.”

When she’d awakened the next morning, she had lain there for a moment, so... content, feeling him there beside her, that it frightened her. Almost as soon as she woke, he seemed to sense it and stirred, pulling her close before his eyes were even open. He was relaxed with her, she thought—as much as he ever relaxed, anyway.

She slid her hand over his chest, feeling the hair rough under her palm, the warmth of his skin, the strong, steady beat of his heart. His morning erection rose, inviting her touch, and obligingly she slipped her hand beneath the cover to envelop him. “I can’t believe this,” she murmured as she kissed his shoulder. “I don’t even know your first name.”

“Yes you do,” he said, frowning. “James.”

“Really? I thought you made that up.”

“James Alejandro Xavier Diaz, if you want the American version.”

“ ‘Xavier’? I’ve never met anyone named Xavier before. What’s the Mexican version?”

“Pretty much the same. Ouch!” he said, giving his rusty laugh and dodging when she darted her hand to pinch him in a very tender place. It always melted her when he laughed, because he did it so rarely.

While she had him weakened with hysteria, she slithered on top of him, positioned his penis, and slid down to take him tenderly inside. He took a deep breath and let his eyes close, both hands going to her bottom and kneading. Milla adored morning loving, when she was still sleepy and lethargic, when time didn’t seem to matter and in a way climaxing didn’t either. It was enough, almost, to just lie there and hold him with arms and body. Almost. Eventually she had to move, or he had to move, and it was as if that first stroke broke the bands of self-control. She rode him hard and fast, and when her climax shook her and left her collapsed on his chest, he rolled over with her and took his own satisfaction.

After breakfast he was gone, and she hadn’t heard from him in four days. The first week of October was almost behind them. Was he all right? Had he found Lola’s son?

After Milla left, Susanna went into her private office and called True. “I just saw Milla. We’re still safe; she doesn’t know anything about Diaz. She thinks it was bad information.”

True was silent; then he cursed luridly. “She’s met Diaz, you fool! They were seen together last month in Juarez.”

Susanna’s blood ran cold. “She lied to me?”

“If she denied knowing anything about him, she did.”

“But why would she do that? We’ve been friends for years.”

True snorted at that. Friends? God save him from friends like Susanna Kosper.

“Maybe she suspects you,” he snapped. “Maybe Diaz is closer to us than I thought.”

For once he didn’t have the chance to hang up; Susanna dropped the receiver into its cradle and sat staring at the phone as if it were a snake. She’d always thought Milla, while admirable in so many ways, was a touch naive. Now she wondered if she wasn’t the naive one. Was Milla playing her?

Panic rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. She’d worked too hard to let things fall apart now. She had to do something, and she had to do it fast.