Page 27 of Hot Soldier's Rescue

“Come again?”

“Well, they are. But their family is not.”

Ah ha. So he’d been right after all. They weren’t just some random kids who’d come to the attention of some random priest. He asked once more, “Who are they?”

She shook her head. “Can’t tell you.”

He thought back to his in-briefings before he’d headed down here. Who could they be? What high profile individuals had died in this area recently— His brain screeched to an appalled halt.

“They’re not the Gar—”

“Hush.” She cut him off sharply, looking panicked.

Sweet Mother of God. “You have got to be kidding. Are you insane?” he demanded.

“Keep your voice down,” she ordered.

“You are insane. Do you have any idea—”

“I know exactly who they are. Who he was.”

“No, you don’t. He—”

“—murdered my parents.”

Ted fell back in his chair, stunned. Valdiron Garza had murdered her parents, and she was still here to rescue his kids? Hell. Maybe she was a nun, after all. What other explanation was there for her madness if she thought she could rescue that man’s children all by herself?

“This isn’t about vengeance, is it?”

Her eyes widened in genuine horror. Nope. Not a revenge thing, then. He was relieved to know that, at least. But it brought him back to his original question. Why in the world would she attempt to rescue the children of the man who’d killed her parents? And knowing Garza, the man who’d probably tortured her parents first?

“I swear, woman. The first moment we are truly alone, you’ve got a whole lot of explaining to do.”

* * *

Right.Like she was sticking around to face that little interrogation. Like it or not, she had to ditch Drago. And fast. Before he got a chance to corner her and force answers out of her. As desperately as she’d love to stay with him and to let him help her and the kids get out of Colombia alive, she dared not. He was getting far too close to truths she simply wasn’t ready to talk about. Not with anyone.

It turned out to be ridiculously easy to escape. The rebels took Drago somewhere more private to talk to the big kahuna, that Raoul guy. Once everyone had cleared out of the cantina, she asked the bartender for a restroom and was shown to an unspeakably bad-smelling little closet with an ancient, high-tank toilet. Thankfully, it had a window, and even more thankfully, it was open.

She slipped out through the opening and dropped to the ground in a fetid alley. Slipping off her wimple and stuffing it in the pocket of her sweater, she walked away from the bar. The village wasn’t large, and her options were limited. She had no money, no identification, no transportation, and no idea where she was.

The first order of business, though, was to put some distance between herself and the rebels, not to mention Drago. Sticking to the back of the low buildings, she made her way to the other end of town where a gas station defined the edge of the settlement.

A bus came along before long and, donning her wimple, she wheedled a grudging ride to Acuna from the driver as an act of Christian charity. The bus ride took nearly three grueling hours. The urine smell of the conveyance was on the verge of overcoming her when the driver announced her destination sourly. She made her way past a dozen tired-looking laborers and various old women, runny-nosed children, chickens, suitcases and shopping bags of produce to the exit. The gaudily painted bus pulled away in a cloud of dust, and she looked around at Acuna. If the last village had been small, this one was minuscule.

A half-dozen houses crouched around a single business that looked to be part grocery, part gas station, part post office, part who-knew-what-else. Warily, she headed for it. A dull-eyed man greeted her when she ducked into the low-ceilinged room.

“Do you have a telephone I could use?” she asked.

“You pay for the call.”

“I will when I get off the phone.” She hoped. If she was lucky, Father Ambrose would figure out a way to wire her money and maybe a replacement credit card in this godforsaken bit of nowhere.

“No way. Pay first.”

Drat. Change of tactics. She asked, “Can you tell me where Ms. Ferrosa lives?”

The man laughed. “Grandma Ferrosa lives in the last house on the right, that way.”

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