Jeanne Stein: The Watcher

She laughs. Not pleasantly. "Oh, we did. But I've come up with a better one. I kill Max and lock you away until the hunger is more than you can bear. Then you may reconsider what I asked of you before."

Max, testing, takes a tiny step forward and turns to me. "What does she want?"

Marta closes the gap between them at once, keeping her gun in contact with Max's back.

She's not taking any chances. I shrug. "Simple. She wants me to make her vampire."

His brows shoot up. "Why would she want that?"

Marta shoves at him in a pique of impatience. "Ask me yourself," she growls.

Max stumbles, fights to regain his balance, tough with the broken ankle. But with the effort, he moves just far enough way from Marta to allow an attack. Marta realizes her mistake almost instantly, but I'm on her before she can correct it. I wrench the gun out of her hand and her injured wrist behind her back. I'm about to leverage the hold when the pilot's gun barks once.

I yank her around in front of me.

The pilot has his gun to Max's head. "The first one was to get your attention. The second will blow your friend's head off if you don't let her go."

His English is heavily accented but very good. He has Max with an arm around his throat. I'm about to release Marta, when Max sends me a look that coupled with a tiny shake of his head, gives me cause to reconsider. He has one hand in the pocket of his jacket; I see his fingers maneuvering the gun.

So does Marta. She starts to yell a warning. I snap her neck with one hand.

The pilot's mouth falls open in shock. But it's momentary. His fingers tighten on the trigger. Max slumps into him and in that same moment, fires the Derringer through the fabric of his pocket.

The pilot staggers backward, looking down at his mid-section in disbelief.

The Derringer is a .22 and even a contact gut shot is very rarely fatal. The pilot raises the .45. Max whirls around, the gun now out, and follows up quickly with a round to the head.

That does it. The pilot goes down like a rock.

Lila and Pedro are screaming. I toss Marta's body toward them and scramble to pick up Lila's gun and the pilot's .45.

It's not until the adrenaline has stopped pumping that the reality of the situation hits.

"Max," I yelp. "You killed the pilot. How the fuck are we going to get out of here?"

For the first time, I get a real smile out of Max. "How do you think," he says. "We fly."

"You know how to fly a helicopter?"

"Don't sound so shocked."

"But you never told me you could fly a helicopter."

"You never told me you were a vampire. I think your secret trumps mine."

We hold this conversation as we make our way toward the helicopter. Max pauses at the hatch. "What do we do about those two?"

I turn back to look at Lila and Pedro. They are prostate with grief over Maria's death. Lila is on the ground, holding Marta and rocking her body as if it were a child's. Pedro is standing over them both, tears streaming down his face. Neither looks in our direction.

"Leave them."

If the coldness of my reply fazes Max, he doesn't show it. He doesn't argue, either. He merely reaches into the copter and picks up the pilot's helmet.

He hands me one, too, and a leather jacket that was slung onto one of the rear seats. I look at it for a minute.

He raises an eyebrow. "You're dressed in a torn sheet."

I'd forgotten all about it. I slip on the jacket and zip it up. It falls to above my knees. I reach underneath and pull the sheet out and drop it on the ground.

I help Max climb aboard. I take the seat beside him in front. He fires up the engine and the rotors spring to life. In a few minutes, we're in the air.

I don't bother to look back.

IT'S TOO QUIET, MAX IS CONCENTRATING UNNECESSARILY hard on the controls and I on the view outside the windshield. I know why. There's a lot Max and I have to discuss, I feel the tension like a third passenger. But I think we're afraid to begin. Afraid of the questions, afraid of the answers.

Max radios ahead once we're in the air and asks to be patched through to SDPD. He hands me the radio when the connection is made and Williams takes my call. I tell him only that we're on our way to Tijuana. He says he'll dispatch a car for us and rings off. Abruptly. No questions about how we are, no demand for details.

And there's something in the tone of his voice— concern, uneasiness—that makes me wonder what it is he isn't telling me. Something about Culebra, maybe? Or Burke?

The silence between Max and me is becoming oppressive. When I can stand it no longer, I turn to Max. "How did you end up at Martinez'? Was it Foley?"

He shakes his head. "Martinez got a message to me right after you left to meet David. Through a contact in Mexico. Said he wanted to meet."

"And you went? Just like that?"

He pauses, looks over at me. "Of course not. He said he knew about you. That if I didn't come, he'd put out a hit on you. That we can blame on Foley. Of course, it backfired on him. He never thought Martinez would use the information he was feeding him to come after me himself."

"But he did."

"Sent the helicopter to pick me up at the border. When Foley found out that Martinez had me, he went ballistic. Came to the compound and demanded to be paid. By this time, though, Martinez had come up with his new plan. Seemed killing me wasn't going to be enough. He wanted to make sure I felt the same pain he did. By killing someone close to me. By killing you."

"I knew Foley was following me. He could have picked me up a dozen times. Why did he choose Burke's little shindig? What connection did he have with witchcraft?"

Max shrugs. "I don't think he did. Marta came up with the plan to lure you to some sort of black magic ritual. And she knew Burke had a connection with Culebra." His voice takes on a cautious tone. "Of course, I knew you had a connection to Culebra, too. I just didn't know what kind of connection until now."

His tone is heavy with meaning. I wait for him to ask the questions he must want to. But when he doesn't, I break the silence by asking, "What happened to your ankle?"

"Broke it the first day I was there. Trying to escape. Fell down those fucking stairs. Don't remember much else after that. Foley kept me drugged up until I came to and you were there."

I'm doing a little mental calculation. "And you're sure it was Foley with you?"

He nods. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure he was there the whole time. Why?"

It's clear now why Williams sounded strange on the phone. He knows my anonymous caller wasn't Foley. It couldn't have been. He was too busy torturing Max to be following me around.

So who the hell was it who made the calls? And shot Alan? And why wouldn't Williams have told me when he had me on the radio?

"Anna?"

Max's voice pulls me back.

"What's wrong?"

I see no use in holding back. "Remember when I told you I thought Foley might be following me? That he was trying to get me to lead him to you?"

He nods. "What about it?"

"Well, the calls continued. From what you just said, it couldn't have been Foley. But somebody was following me. He even shot a guy I was fighting."

"A guy you were fighting? As in apprehending?"

"Kind of. Anyway, that's not important. What is important is each time he contacted me he said something like, 'tell your boyfriend.' That's why I was so sure it was Foley. I thought he was talking about you."

I feel Max bristle. "And he wasn't? How many boyfriends do you have?"

"Max, you're missing the point. If the caller wasn't Foley and you aren't the boyfriend he was referring to, who is? Williams sounded really strange on the radio. I've got a bad feeling."