A Christmas Miracle in Pajaro Bay (Pajaro Bay Series Book 6) Read online

But they must have been seen by someone, someone who betrayed them for the reward. The word got back to the cartel. They would be made examples, to show what happened to those who tried to leave.

  The man who came for them was a boy he'd known for years growing up in the cartel. But it didn't matter. He took them to the big boat, blindly following his orders to return Ricky and Inez to their old village to be executed.

  But the gunman had looked away at the wrong moment, and Ricky had grabbed him, wrestled for the gun. The bullets had ripped through them, but the man had gone overboard and Ricky had grabbed the steering wheel and headed the big boat out to the open sea.

  But where to go in the vast, unforgiving blackness, with death surely following his little family like a hound after a rabbit?

  Then he had thought of where to go....

  It had been another night, full of the same black sky and desperate hope as this one.

  "Run," Matteo had said to him that night all those months ago.

  He couldn't believe it. The evil Shadow, feared by everyone, El Hombre's right-hand man, wasn't going to kill him when he caught him at the compound's gate where he had no right to be.

  "Run," Matteo had repeated. "Vamanos. Now."

  Ricky grabbed Inez's small hand and pushed her through the gate. "I won't forget this," he had said to the Shadow.

  "I will," Matteo had said. "It never happened. I never saw you."

  Ricky pressed the buttons on the navigation display, searching for the name of the place he'd heard Matteo had gone.

  Pajaro Bay.

  * * *

  Matt pushed the boat as fast as it would go, which was an outrageous 120 kph. He remembered these boats from his time in the Moreno cartel. He had told Lori his past as an undercover agent for the Project was behind him, but it never really was. The things he'd seen, the lost lives and horror he'd witnessed, it was always with him....

  Enrique had been just another kid he'd seen along the way. Just one more lost soul being slowly destroyed by the cartel.

  "You have a family, Matteo?" Ricky had asked him one time.

  Matt had looked down at the teenager who held an automatic rifle in shivering fingers.

  It was just another night, just another cold patrol back and forth on the gravel.

  Matt shook his head.

  But the boy had persisted in talking. "You ever think of it—wife, kids, all that?"

  Matt nodded. Of course he thought of it. "Someday." He shrugged. "If I ever get out of this life."

  "How many kids?" Ricky asked. "I wanna have four."

  Matt smiled. "Four? Why four?"

  "The girl I like, she wants four, so...."

  "Ah," Matt said. "So there's a girl."

  Ricky nodded. "And you?"

  "There are always girls," Matt said, lifting his shoulders in another shrug. "But the girl? No." Then he stopped and looked out at the trees. "I'd like to have kids," he said very softly. "It would be nice to have a home and a family. A wife, little ones to raise. Yeah." Then he shook his head. "But it won't happen. Not in this life." He looked down at the rifle cradled in his arms.

  "It's not for our kind, huh?" Ricky said.

  Matt looked over at him. He'd forgotten Ricky was even there. "No," he said. "I guess not. Not for our kind. But you're not really one of us, kid."

  Ricky's eyes widened. He looked panicked. "Not one of you? Of course I am. I'm loyal."

  "Shhh!" Matt took a step closer. "Not so loud. I didn't mean that you weren't loyal. But you don't have to live like this. You and your girl. You should go somewhere away from this."

  Ricky looked at him carefully, as if wondering if this was some test of his loyalty.

  "I'm not trying to trick you, kid," he said. "Just saying. You could do more than carry guns for El Hombre. You and your girl could do other things. You don't want her to be part of this life, do you...?"

  Matt looked down at the boy lying bleeding on the deck. His breathing was getting irregular, but Matt didn't dare let go of the wheel of this monster boat to check him.

  "Hold on, kid," he said. "We're almost there."

  * * *

  Ricky remembered that voice. The one voice he could trust from his time in the cartel.

  There were other voices in his head, memories all jumbled now as he felt himself bleeding out, his mind wandering through the past....

  "Ricky?" El Hombre's smooth, sophisticated drawl had made him jump and spill the drinks he was mixing for the men.

  He looked up into El Hombre's face.

  "Did you see anything on patrol last night?"

  Ricky stood there, pinned by El Hombre's gaze, unable to speak.

  "Of course he didn't," Matteo had said smoothly. "If he had, he'd have told me right away. Nobody saw Inez. She must have been helped by one of her customers. Probably over the border and long gone by now."

  El Hombre frowned. "No one gets to walk away."

  "Who cares, Sergio?" said Matteo. "She's nothing. There are plenty more like her—better ones. Now about the next shipment of meth ingredients through the tunnels...."

  And the conversation was turned, Inez forgotten like a leaf that had dropped into a gutter and drifted away.

  * * *

  Lori felt the boat begin to lose way, the expert shift that told her Matt was backing it into a berth.

  She heard shouts from the people waiting for them at the wharf.

  Then Matt was coming below, Sheriff's Captain Ryan Knight close behind him, a big, muscular Santa Claus in red velvet costume and jaunty hat. Deputy Joe was with him, in a dark suit that said that he must have come from the Christmas Eve service at the old mission church on the hill.

  Lori got up off the floor with Matt's help. She picked up the baby that Inez no longer was able to grip.

  "She's badly hurt," Lori said.

  Captain Ryan lifted the young girl effortlessly and carried her out. Matt helped Lori keep her balance on the shifting deck as she got a good grip on the baby.

  * * *

  At the clinic on Calle Principal Dr. Lil was waiting, wearing something that must have won first prize at the senior center's Ugly Christmas Sweater contest.

  In the lobby there were a dozen poinsettias, and the walls were covered with pictures of birds finger-painted by the local kindergarteners.

  Dr. Lil started triage with an efficiency born of her years in Vietnam War aid stations.

  Kyle Madrigal came in the door, in a dark suit like Joe's. "Heard there was a medical emergency?"

  The doctor saw the baby in Lori's arms. "Kyle, do an Apgar."

  Kyle took the baby gently from Lori. He ran through a series of quick checks on the baby's condition. "It's a girl. A few hours old, I think. Looks like an 8."

  "Is that good?" Lori asked.

  "That's very good," Kyle said.

  "Help me here," Dr. Lil said.

  He handed the baby back to Lori.

  "Check his vitals," the doctor said to Kyle. He started working on Ricky.

  Matt pulled out his phone.

  "Who are you calling?" Lori asked.

  "George."

  "What can George do all the way over in Hawaii?"

  "He knows people at the state department."

  Lori pulled the baby close. "You are not sending this baby back to those murderers, Matt."

  "Lori, what did I tell you about George all those months ago?"

  She looked down at the fuzzy head of the baby and whispered, "'trust him with your life. I trust him with mine.'"

  "Yeah," Matt said, and stepped out the door to make the call.

  Without looking up from Inez, the doctor barked to Captain Ryan: "See what's keeping that chopper."

  He went to the front desk and Lori could hear him talking to the dispatcher over the radio. "About fifteen minutes!" he shouted.

  "She hasn't got fifteen minutes," Dr. Lil said. "Joe, go out to the parking lot and make sure there's room for the chopper to land. If there's a car in the way, break
the window and move it!"

  When Matt came back in he turned to Captain Ryan. "We've got to get the Coast Guard in on this asap. There's probably someone coming after them."

  "Do you need us, Doc?" the captain asked.

  "Go!" she said.

  "Come with me," the captain said to Matt. "We'll be at the substation," he announced to the room, and they left.

  Lori watched as Dr. Lil stopped working on Inez. She stripped off her gloves and then donned a new pair as she moved over to Ricky.

  Lori backed out of the way.

  The baby in her arms fussed as if it knew—as if she knew that her mother was gone. Lori held her to her shoulder and patted her. The baby's skin felt cold. Skin to skin contact, she remembered from her mother-to-be class. She went down the hall until she came to one of the treatment rooms. There was a gown there. Lori pulled off her sweater and wrapped it around the baby. She wrapped the hospital gown around her shoulders and then held the baby to her chest. Down the hall she could hear the urgent voices, the beeps of equipment, the crackle of the radio at the front desk. But the exam room was quiet and dark. Now after all the cold and blood, wind and confusion, she and the baby sat in the dark, warm little room that smelled of antiseptic.

  Soon the baby's breathing slowed to a steady, comfortable little snore.

  Lori didn't know how long they sat there in the darkness. She just held the baby to her and tried not to think.

  All of a sudden Dr. Lil's voice cut through the quiet. "They're dead. You don't have to shoot them again!"

  The voice that responded spoke Spanish. Dr. Lil apparently understood, because she said very loudly, "there isn't any baby. It must have died on the boat."

  Lori got Dr. Lil's message. Someone was out there, and the baby was his next target.

  She laid the baby on the exam table, pulled on her sweater, and then wrapped the baby in the hospital gown.

  "Ir in el armario!" the strange voice said, and she heard a door slam.

  Then she heard heavy footsteps in the hall.

  She peeked out the door and saw that the first exam room door was open and there was rustling in there.

  She ran down the hall the other way and out the back door of the clinic. She heard the thud of boots in the hall behind her.

  The parking lot where Deputy Joe waited was on the other side of the building. Matt and Captain Ryan were way down at the main street sheriff's substation even farther away. Kyle Madrigal and the doctor were, she hoped, just locked up in a closet and not dead.

  And she had nowhere to go. The man after them had traveled hundreds of miles across the ocean to make sure Ricky and Inez were dead. He wasn't going to stop now. How could she get around the building to where Deputy Joe waited?

  The back of the clinic faced inland, toward a little hill.

  At the top of the hill she could see the light from the old mission church's bell tower.

  She headed that way as fast as she could, which was not very fast when she found herself pushing her way through the overgrown escallonia bushes with a slippery infant in her arms.

  When she got past the last of the bushes she saw she was in a cleared area about halfway up the hill.

  All over the hillside there were stones rearing up in the darkness, and she realized this must be the cemetery next to the mission church. She had never walked through it. The church's parking lot was on the opposite side. This side was silent and dark, as expected of a cemetery on a winter night.

  The paths were clear through the graveyard though, gravel appearing neatly raked, pale ribbons against the dark of the grass on the graves themselves. Here in the lee of the hill she could no longer see the lights from the mission church above. But the sound of singing came wafting down toward her, faintly carried by the cold wind.

  The church held people, and singing, and safety. She started to follow the sound through the paths.

  But then she heard a door slam somewhere behind her and her heart seemed to jump into her throat.

  She took off like a shot, stumbling along in a panic until she tripped over a granite marker and fell. She twisted around so she fell on her back, the baby protected by her body as she hit the ground. The baby cried out, not hurt but only startled. The cry was piercing. She pulled the baby close and shushed her.

  But the baby's cry was followed by others overhead, and she realized a flock of seagulls was passing over, their calls echoing the baby's, and maybe, just maybe, confusing the man down the hill enough to cover their tracks.

  She scrambled to her feet, clutched the baby tighter to her chest, and ran to the mission.

  There was no light on this side of the old church. She found she was facing a blank wall built of thick adobe bricks. No opening, no lights to guide her. She felt along the wall, one hand clutching at the rough mud bricks, the other pulling the baby close against her, praying she didn't cry again.

  At the corner of the building there was a door. She felt for the iron latch, and it came open. She pushed at it.

  She heard the creak when the old redwood door gave way under her hands, so loud it seemed to carry on the air down the old path through the graveyard, down the little hill, past the quiet storefronts and right down the main street of Calle Principal.

  Lori knew the man must have heard that creak, knew it in her bones. He wouldn't give up and go away. She knew the world her husband had come from, that world where old people and schoolchildren and teenage girls from the poorest villages were just chess pieces in a billion-dollar power game. Not even a baby was safe from them.

  The man would come.

  She slipped through the door and shut it gently behind her. The iron latch didn't have a lock. How did they lock it at night?

  Where was safety if not in the old mission church? But she knew that safety was an illusion. People from that world of hate and darkness cared nothing for rules of polite society. Cared nothing about innocent lives. That world had brushed against hers once, and she'd seen the destruction it left in its wake.

  She could hear the rousing singing loudly now, as the whole village seemed to be joining in a chorus of "Angels We Have Heard on High" in the main part of the church.

  But the room she stood in was still, a bit dusty, and quiet as a tomb.

  She cast around for a hiding place. The baby was quiet now, asleep in her arms, heavy and warm.

  Where to hide? There was a door opposite. She opened it. A closet, filled with choir robes and costumes from the nativity play, and priests' garb. She could hide behind the robes, but it would be the first place the man would look.

  No time.

  She set the baby on the floor very gently, then stood. She grabbed a cloak of rough linen, probably one intended for a poor shepherd in a play or something. She wrapped it around her and then picked up the baby again, covering her body with the cloak. She slept on, unaware.

  It was no good. She knew this costume wouldn't fool the man. She had to find somewhere to go.

  She opened another door, and heard the voices singing loudly. This door led down a little hall into the main church, and the lights ahead and the warmth of the song pulled her forward. She knew there was no safety in numbers, but still, to be around others, it was something.

  Lori came out of the hall and found she was in the sanctuary, directly behind the Father leading the service. There was a large nativity scene set up here, with bisque figures, old and dusty and wearing elaborate robes. There were candles all around, tall creamy pillars all alight around the manger.

  The choir was still singing.

  She cast around for someplace to hide, but all the people in the church were facing forward and looking directly her way. She raised one hand up and put a finger to her lips, then crept over to the midst of the nativity scene.

  Then her stomach turned over. She was sure she had heard the creak of the outside door over the sounds of singing.

  She knelt at the nativity scene and took the little doll out of the creche. Its bisque face
was cracked with age, and the little swaddling was worn and mended.

  She set it aside and placed the baby in the creche, then bent over her and bowed her head, covering her own blonde hair and the baby's face with the cloak's hood.

  The people kept on singing, probably assuming this was part of the Christmas service.

  Then the door from the side hall burst open and she heard it bang against the old church wall.

  The singing started to trail off as people gasped in shock. She couldn't see the man but knew what they must be seeing: a killer, gun in hand and murder in his heart.

  The voices one by one went quiet, except for one male voice, enthusiastically if erroneously singing "angels who have gotten high, sweetly sleeping on the plane." It was Hector of course, the giver of the crooked little seashell mobile that hung over the empty crib at the lighthouse.

  From the corner of her eye Lori could see him smiling away, loopy as ever, happily singing at the top of his lungs, and oblivious to what everyone else was staring at.

  He finally stopped when someone nudged him.

  She saw his eyes widen as he looked at something behind her. "Dude! Not cool!" he said, outraged. But the same hand that had nudged him pulled his arm and he sat down, muttering.

  Total silence. She could hear the hiss as the candles kept burning, their warm, yellow glow so incongruous in what was now to be a house of death.

  She prayed that the baby wouldn't wake up. Even if they all were doomed, she prayed somehow for this innocent baby to be overlooked. Even as she tried to think of words for the prayer, she knew it was futile.

  Father Anselm spoke. They were words in Spanish, soothing phrases that did not seem to soothe.

  She heard a click from the gun, and he stopped talking.

  Heavy steps behind her. She could feel an itch between her shoulder blades as if the bullet was already there. She held her breath.

  The steps passed her, went down past the father to the main aisle of the church.

  She could see the man's feet now as she looked sideways under the edge of the cloak's hood. Booted feet, wet. Slow, purposeful movements as he went to each pew and stopped, seemed to examine all the faces there, then moved to the next. Left and right sides, slow, methodical, missing nothing.