Page 1 of Prisoner of War
Chapter One
“That’s it? You won’t doanything?” Minnie demanded.
Nick pushed a hand through his hair. “You have to understand, Minnie. We have nearly no army and no weapons. Vistaria has been held by the Insurrectos for three months. They’ve dug themselves into strongholds now. Even to go looking for Duardo would involve a massive operation to infiltrate Vistaria. I can’t authorize somethinglike that. It’s not that I won’t. I cannot justify the risk and the expense, not for a single man. I’m sorrier about it than you can possibly imagine.” He smiled ruefully, “I truly wish I could give you a different answer.”
It was the understanding in his smile that did it. Nick’s smile and the model-perfect Miss Carmen, who wore designer jeans with a rip that revealed the bottom of her perfectlyformed right ass cheek. She stood running her hands over the pecs and biceps of the college jock she’d dragged into the house. Minnie knew she did it to piss off Nick, yet it irritated her, too.
That, and the fact that Carmen had casually ripped out the sleeves of the Diane von Furstenberg shirt, which would have cost Minnie a month’s salary, and loosely tied it around her waist, unfastened,so that every breath and movement she made threatened to spill out her breasts.
It occurred to Minnie that it would be easy to hate Carmen Escobedo y Caballero. Yeah, she lost her father when the Insurrectos bulldozed their way across Vistaria overnight, only the whole time she undulated against the jock, Carmen wore a smug little smile as she watched Nicolás Escobedo tell Minnie to go to hell.
After weeks of nothing but a dull ache where her heart used to be, Minnie felt something.
Pure rage.
“You all think he’s dead, don’t you?” She curled her lip into a sneer. “None of you believe me.”
Calli rose from the lounger on the far side of the balcony. She and Nick and Minnie’s father, Josh, had been stealing a few moments of peace away from the chaotic, busy rooms of the big house perchedon the cliffs on the north side of Acapulco. They’d been watching the sunset when Minnie found them.
Now Calli held her hands out, pleading, her face white. “Minnie, please, it’s not like that. We all miss Duardo.”
“Bullshit! How could you say you miss him anddo nothing about getting him back?” The scream seemed to tear at her vocal cords. Tears sprang in her eyes. Tears of pain. Screw self-pity.She was done with pity. Enough was enough. These people were the key to getting Duardo back and she wasn’t moving until they did.
Nick touched Calli’s forearm, warning her. She lowered her hands and looked at Minnie, the same understanding patience on her face that Nick wore.
“Don’t look at me like that!” Minnie shouted. Her throat was raw. The shout made it hurt all over again. The tears cameharder. Then she realized they weren’t tears of pain after all.
“Fuck!” She hated crying in front of people. Especially Carmen the Wonderful. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. They—all of them—would be horribly patient and understanding no matter what she said and in the end nothing would be done.
She whirled and hurried as fast as she could through the rambling, overcrowded house.
The big house on the road to Tecpan de Galeana was nearly a hundred years old and had always belonged to the Escobedoes. Three hundred acres of wild, private land surrounded the house. They included a private beach that featured a long jetty on a perfectly semi-circular bay. The empty acres guarded the house from adventurous tourists who actually made the trek to Tecpan and its beautiful silverfactories.
For the last thirty years, the house had been provided as a stately residence to Vistaria’s Consul, who served Vistaria’s interests in Acapulco and the Guerrero State.
Since the Insurrectos had ripped through Vistaria, though, the three hundred acres had become Vistaria’sterra cognita. To this house came every refugee who found a way across the one hundred miles of open water betweenVistaria and Mexico. They sought shelter and food.
The weaker refugees were kept in the house itself. There were others who advised Nick and his generals. Then there were dozens of people who voluntarily helped keep the house running smoothly and provided dozens of hungry mouths with hot food each day.
Privacy in such tight quarters was a luxury. Minnie had discovered a closet in the attic thatwas too small for sleeping quarters. She’d tipped an old galvanized steel bucket upside down and used it as a perch for those moments when she absolutely had to get away from people or go crazy.
She dodged and wove through the public rooms and up the rambling staircase, then the creaking attic stair. All the way she fought to hold the tears in, feeling them ripping at her throat and strugglingto explode from her.
She reached the closet, shut the door and buried her head in her hands.
Shivers racked her, yet no more tears came. The effort to reach privacy had pushed them away. Instead she wrapped her arms around her knees and trembled, though it was not cold beneath the creaking, dusty rafters.
“Minnie?”
It was Calli’s voice. She sounded concerned. A small tap sounded on the warpeddoor. “Are you in there?”
Minnie took a deep breath and pushed the door open a few inches. “Yeah, I’m here.”
Calli’s golden hair, even in the dim light, glowed. She glowed. Well, she was in love. Of course, she would glow. Yet her eyes were wide and full of the same endless patience.
“Just don’t give me any bullshit about how you know how I feel,” Minnie said.
“I’m trying to be a friend, towatch out for you.” Calli spread her hands. “Your mom isn’t here and under the circumstances...”
