Dirty Deeds(76)

I couldn’t hear what he was saying and I could only see the side of his face as he addressed the crowd, but it was apparent he was getting choked up over what he was saying. He left it short and then disappeared to the back of the crowd again.

The casket was lowered into the ground. The priest threw dirt.

Alana Bernal, as everyone knew her, was laid to rest.

I swallowed hard, feeling their sadness waft across the graves and penetrate my bones. I had felt that utter horror just a week ago when the explosion first went off. That grief, that fear, that big black hole of hell in your heart, it was still all so real for me. Loss. The world was cruel with what it gave you and what it took away.

I stayed in that spot until it was all over. Until the last people to stand over her grave were her brother, Esteban and Luisa. I watched until Javier mouthed words to the fresh-turned earth and then walked away. I watched as Esteban put his hand on Luisa’s shoulder and whisper something to her. Her expression wasn’t impressed but his was as cunning as a wolf. Then they followed behind Javier, Luisa walking quickly to catch up to her husband.

This was a detonation waiting to happen. But it wasn’t my problem to worry about. It was Javier’s. And I had a new life to lead.

When everyone left, I turned and headed back through the jungle about a mile before I came to road where I parked the truck, the dirt stirred up by a hot breeze. The houses here were little more than rustic shacks but the face of the old man staring at me from the overturned bucket on his porch told me they were happy.

That would be me soon. The money I got from Alana’s hired assassination, that deposit, it wouldn’t last forever. But the happiest people seemed to be the ones with less to lose.

I waved to the old man who waved back, content to smoke his cigarette as chickens pecked at the dirt path, and got in the truck.

I didn’t stop driving until I reached Guatemala City in Guatemala. I hadn’t been here for a long time. Not since the last I had been involved with Javier, helping take down Travis.

I had no wish to stay here but it was an easy meeting spot as any.

My blood pumped heatedly in my veins as I handled the busy city streets. The closer I got to the hotel – to the first hiding spot – the more anxious I had become. The darkness here, the scattered city lights, thrummed with promises.

The hotel was right downtown and a rather fancy one at that. It was about being unpredictable, now more than ever. Until the danger was far enough away, you had to be careful, you could never ever let your guard down. Even after death, someone will watch the grave. Someone will always wonder what was.

Was that body lowered into the ground today Alana’s? Had there been anything to bury at all?

Someone out there was asking themselves that. Maybe not about to follow up on it, but it would be simmering at the back of their head, waiting for someone to slip up one day. You couldn’t tempt fate. We had tempted it enough.

I parked the truck a block away and then walked over. I got a few stares as I often did – I’d feel better once my hair started to get long and I looked less like myself – but like I had been before, I was ignored.

I walked into the hotel, glad I had worn a crisp shirt and tailored pants, my watch glinting under the bronze chandeliers that lined the lobby.

“Hola,” I said to the well-padded clerk behind the front desk. “Do you speak English?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“I have a reservation for Dalton Chalmers,” I told him and when he asked for ID, I pulled out an American passport with the name on it, a perfect forgery I had got from Gus.

“Someone called earlier, asking for you,” the clerk said once he’d run through my credit card, also belonging to Dalton Chalmers.

“Oh?” I asked.

“A woman,” he said, as if he was telling me a secret.

I guess it kind of was. I managed a smile at him. “Well, well,” I said and the clerk grinned in response.

He gave me the key and I went up to the room, my feet light on the velvet-laced stairs. I felt like I was walking on the moon, the skeleton key with the brass sun pendant heavy in my hand. It had been three days.

It had been too long.

I found my room and stuck in the key, opening the door to a simple but brightly-colored room: Polished wood furniture, orange and green bedspread, red walls, a bronze sun with a circular mirror at the center.

It was empty. I knew it would be, but even then my heart sank a little. This is what could have been.

I went and sat on the end of the bed, waiting. There was a marching band in my chest.

Then, a knock at the door.

I took in a deep breath and for a split second I almost dropped my guard. I made sure my gun was loaded, my safety off, my grip on it firm.