Page 129 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
I’d forgotten about my appointment with Mr. Hernandez, who was waiting outside the office with his wife when I emerged from the cantina. Then another client showed up, that one unscheduled. By the time I finished with the meetings and all the paperwork, the sun hung low over the distant mountains, and the heat had loosened its chokehold on the city. I stopped to pick up some vegetables and a fat piece of tilapia for dinner from my favorite local market, and made the drive out of the clogged city to the rural borough I live in. It’s a sleepy town with fewer than five thousand residents, no theater, hotels or shopping malls, and the lowest crime rate of all the sixteen districts in the greater Mexico City area.
There’s also no Internet access, so I don’t own a computer.
In the beginning that drove me crazy, but I quickly realized it was one fewer way I could be tracked. Even though I rent the house with cash, paid cash for my car, am paid cash under the table by Mr. Colón, don’t own a single credit card, and for all intents and purposes am dead under the laws of the United States, a part of me is still expecting the police to show up unannounced at my door with extradition papers.
Paranoia and I have gotten to be pretty close friends.
My car—a nondescript older model Ford with a bad transmission—jumps and rattles over the bumpy road. Summer is the rainy season in this part of Mexico, and the rains take their toll on the roads. The city fixes the main streets, but my private driveway is in a state of disrepair; my landlord keeps promising to get someone in to fill the holes, but he works at the same speed Carlos does. I’ll probably end up doing it myself. I’ve gotten quite handy with home improvement projects.
I park in front of the house, gather my groceries and handbag from the passenger seat, and head up the paved brick path to the front door. Perdón is stretched out across the welcome mat in all his plump orange glory. When he sees me approach, he rolls to his back and stretches, meowing a lazy hello.
The house is a pink adobe Spanish Colonial with an arched colonnade in front. It’s shaded by a towering stand of palms on the west side of the property; scarlet and orange dahlia bushes add a riot of color to the east. In the backyard, I have an herb garden—protected from the blistering sun by netting I hung myself—and a stone fountain carved in the shape of a mermaid that burbles happily day and night.
Sometimes late at night I turn it off, because all that cheerful burbling makes me wish I had someone to share it with. But the only male who’s shared my bed in the past six months is of another species.
“Hey, fatty,” I call lovingly to the cat. “Mommy’s home—are you ready for dinner?”
He leaps to his feet. Actually, leap is too generous a word. It’s more like he flops to one side, struggles to get his paws beneath him, and pushes up. Then he yawns, shakes out his fur, sits back on his haunches, looks up at me, and issues a loud, demanding yowl.
Stupid question. Perdón is ready for dinner right after he’s eaten his breakfast. The animal is an eating machine.
“OK, you little tyrant. In we go.”
I unlock the front door. Perdón struts in between my feet, his tail swishing imperiously. I push the door shut with my hip, turn, and then cry out in shock. I drop the groceries and my purse on the floor.
The living room overflows with bouquets of white roses.
They’re everywhere: on the coffee table, on the side table between two chairs, on the mantel above the fireplace, on the floor. There are dozens of them, full and lush in crystal vases, lending a heady perfume to the air.
My heart thinks it’s a thoroughbred that’s just heard the starting gate bell at the Kentucky Derby, and launches into a thundering gallop. I freeze, listening to the tick of the clock on the mantel, feeling the blood pound through my veins.
My brain is frozen, too. I should grab my purse and run, but instead I call out a tentative, “H-hello?”
After a few eons during which I don’t hear an answer or any unusual sound, I creep forward through the shadowed entry hallway on tiptoe. Wide-eyed, I peek into the dining room.
More roses.
I break out in a cold sweat. My hands start to shake. Terror, disbelief, and something I’m not allowing myself to recognize as hope churn in my stomach, wreaking havoc in my mind.
It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t.
I move like a zombie through the house, stiff-limbed and slack-jawed, finding bouquets of snowy roses stuffed into every room. It’s a dream, or a nightmare. I can’t decide which. When I get to my bedroom and see what’s plastered all over the big mirror above the dresser across from the bed, my frozen disbelief finally cracks. I cover my mouth with both hands and sob.
It’s a montage of Parker and me. Young and happy, smiling madly in every picture taped to the glass.
“Buenas tardes, Ana.”
I spin around, arms flung out. In my haste I almost lose my balance and fall.
There in my bedroom doorway—wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a flannel shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a white cowboy hat, and a ridiculous moustache—stands Parker.
FORTY
I feel as if I might faint.
He’s thinner than I remember, and his hair is longer, but he’s no less beautiful, in spite of that droopy caterpillar nesting on his top lip.
“Or should I call you Anacita?” he asks quietly, his piercing gaze never leaving my face.
