Joanna Wayne - Son of a Gun

Anxiety pitted in Damien’s stomach. “What happened?”

“The plane crashed.” Tague slumped against the door.

“Where?”

“Somewhere in West Texas.”

Damien felt something crack inside him, and he held on to a post for support. “How did you find out?”

“Sheriff Garcia is at the house. Dad’s dead, Damien.” Panic tore at Tague’s voice. “Mother’s just standing there. She’s not even crying, but her eyes…they look like she’s dying, too.”

Adrenaline bucked off the paralyzing shock. Damien took off running. He thought he heard Tague’s footsteps behind him, but he didn’t slow down or wait for his youngest brother. His dad couldn’t be dead. This was all some horrible mistake. They’d find that out later, but his mother needed Damien now.

Chapter One

Three Months Later

The truck rocked and bounced along what felt like a dry, stony creek bed. Emma Muran’s stomach rolled violently as she was jostled and pressed against the sweaty bodies that were crammed into the back of the type of small rental trailer used for moving furniture. Only this one was painted a dull gray.

Though the air outside was bitter cold, the air inside the crowded trailer was stagnant, the odors of urine and perspiration sickening. Babies cried. A kid in the back was begging to go home. An old woman wailed and murmured heart-wrenching prayers as she clung to her rosary beads.

The woman next to Emma slumped against her as her baby pushed away from the woman’s semi-bared breast and began to cry again.

“Would you like me to hold him for a few minutes?” Emma offered, avoiding looking directly at her. Making eye contact created a bond. Emma couldn’t afford a bond, no matter how tenuous.

“She’s a girl,” the young mother said, pulling away the lightweight cotton scarf she’d been using as a privacy shield so that Emma could see the baby’s delicate white dress and tiny yellow trimmed booties. “She’s eight weeks old. Her name is Belle.”

The woman’s voice was weak, her eyes wet and filmy as if covered with transparent gauze.

“She’s beautiful,” Emma said, “and the dress is exquisite.”

“I made it myself for when she sees her papa in Dallas for the first time. I saved as much as I could from every dollar he sent us to live on until I had enough to pay for this trip.”

“Why does she keep crying? Is she sick?”

“She’s hungry.”

“You just fed her.”

“I don’t have enough milk to satisfy her.”

“Didn’t you bring a bottle of formula to supplement?”

“Ningún dinero.”

No money. No doubt she’d spent every cent she could scrape up to get to her baby’s father. Emma had paid three thousand American dollars to be treated like cattle.

“Does your husband know you’re coming?” Emma asked.

She shook her head. “No married, but Juan Perez is a good man. He take care of us in Texas.” Emma assumed the woman wasn’t an American citizen. Why else would she pay to be smuggled into the country? Emma was likely the only citizen amidst this group of desperate elderly people and mothers with children.

Yet she was no less desperate. Her fate in Mexico was certain death. And in America, as well, if the monster found her.

The baby started to cry louder. Poor thing. Emma weighed her own terrifying fears against the baby’s needs. Staying unnoticed was no longer an option.

“This baby is hungry,” Emma called in Spanish over the clattering rattles of the truck. “If you can spare a few sips of milk. Please.”

Finally, a young mother whom Emma had noticed earlier nursing a boy of about six months reached for the baby without a word. A stranger’s hands took Belle and passed the crying infant to the woman. Exhausted from crying, Belle sucked for only a few minutes before falling asleep.

By this time, Belle’s frail mother had slumped against the shoulder of the young man next to her and seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep. Emma took the dozing infant and cuddled her to her own chest.

So precious. So innocent. She hadn’t asked for any of this.

The truck came to a jerking stop and bodies collided with each other like rotting melons. The back door opened and everyone gasped as if choking on the fresh air their lungs craved.

The man in charge, who they knew only as Julio, climbed aboard. “We crossed the border a few miles back. You’re in Texas.”

A cheer went up from the disheveled group.

Tears wet Emma’s eyes. She was back on American soil. A week ago, she’d all but given up hope of that ever happening. Unfortunately, even here she’d have to find a way to change her identity so completely that Emma Muran ceased to exist.

“If you want out now, you’re welcome to haul ass and take off on your own,” Julio continued. “But you’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I’ll take you all the way to Dallas if you stay on board, just as promised when you paid and signed on.”

About half of the trailer’s occupants pushed and shoved their way to the door. They knew that the longer they stayed on the truck the more chance they’d have of being stopped by border patrol or other law-enforcement officers and returned to Mexico.

For the most part, the ones who stayed seated had young children with them or were so frail they would have had difficulty making the trek across rough terrain on a freezing night. Even in January, bitter cold like this was extremely rare in South Texas.

Emma considered her options and decided to bolt, though she had no idea where she was. If she was arrested, the agents would immediately recognize that she was an American. She’d be forced to try to explain why a citizen was sneaking back into the country in a despicable human-trafficking operation.

She’d be fingerprinted and identified. And then there would be no avoiding the media blitz that would surround her return. Caudillo would instantly have a hundred men on her trail, and no amount of security could protect her.

The baby stirred in Emma’s arms. She turned to hand Belle back to the mother, but the woman had been shoved to the middle of the trailer, facedown, her arms and legs askew, as if she were a rag doll who’d been dropped and left to lie as she fell.

“What’s the matter with that one?” Julio asked.

Several who’d stayed behind shrugged and shook their heads. Julio climbed into the trailer and turned the young mother over so that she stared at the ceiling with blank, lifeless eyes. “Anybody here with her?”

Emma was about to answer that she was holding the woman’s baby, but a warning stare from the mother who’d nursed the baby silenced her.

“No use to transport the dead.” Julio picked up the body and tossed it off the back of the trailer. “Anyone else feeling sickly?” He smirked at his sick joke.

Belle started to fuss.

Julio turned and stared at Emma as if seeing her for the first time. He leered openly and then smiled as if they shared some private joke. Did he know that the baby in her arms was not hers?

Emma quieted Belle with a gentle rocking movement and avoided eye contact with Julio.

Julio took the gun from the holster at his waist and waved it around, asserting his authority. “The rest of you have five minutes to relieve yourself and stretch. You’ll get food as you climb back into your smelly nests.”

The woman who’d nursed Belle motioned for Emma to follow her into a dense thicket of shrubs, the best they could find in the way of privacy. They took turns holding the babies while the other relieved herself. Emma took her last packaged hand wipe from her pocket, tore it in half and shared it with the woman.

“What will you do with the baby?” the woman asked in Spanish.