A Girl Apart
Russell Blake
Copyright © 2017 by Russell Blake. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact:
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Contents
Books by Russell Blake
About the Author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Excerpt from A Girl Betrayed
Books by Russell Blake
Co-authored with Clive Cussler
THE EYE OF HEAVEN
THE SOLOMON CURSE
Thrillers
FATAL EXCHANGE
FATAL DECEPTION
THE GERONIMO BREACH
ZERO SUM
THE DELPHI CHRONICLE TRILOGY
THE VOYNICH CYPHER
SILVER JUSTICE
UPON A PALE HORSE
DEADLY CALM
RAMSEY’S GOLD
EMERALD BUDDHA
THE GODDESS LEGACY
A GIRL APART
A GIRL BETRAYED
The Assassin Series
KING OF SWORDS
NIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN
RETURN OF THE ASSASSIN
REVENGE OF THE ASSASSIN
BLOOD OF THE ASSASSIN
REQUIEM FOR THE ASSASSIN
RAGE OF THE ASSASSIN
The Day After Never Series
THE DAY AFTER NEVER – BLOOD HONOR
THE DAY AFTER NEVER – PURGATORY ROAD
THE DAY AFTER NEVER – COVENANT
THE DAY AFTER NEVER – RETRIBUTION
THE DAY AFTER NEVER – INSURRECTION
The JET Series
JET
JET II – BETRAYAL
JET III – VENGEANCE
JET IV – RECKONING
JET V – LEGACY
JET VI – JUSTICE
JET VII – SANCTUARY
JET VIII – SURVIVAL
JET IX – ESCAPE
JET X – INCARCERATION
JET XI – FORSAKEN
JET XII – ROGUE STATE
JET – OPS FILES (prequel)
JET – OPS FILES; TERROR ALERT
The BLACK Series
BLACK
BLACK IS BACK
BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK
BLACK TO REALITY
BLACK IN THE BOX
Non Fiction
AN ANGEL WITH FUR
HOW TO SELL A GAZILLION EBOOKS
(while drunk, high or incarcerated)
About the Author
Featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The Chicago Tribune, Russell Blake is The NY Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels, including Fatal Exchange, Fatal Deception, The Geronimo Breach, Zero Sum, King of Swords, Night of the Assassin, Revenge of the Assassin, Return of the Assassin, Blood of the Assassin, Requiem for the Assassin, Rage of the Assassin The Delphi Chronicle trilogy, The Voynich Cypher, Silver Justice, JET, JET – Ops Files, JET – Ops Files: Terror Alert, JET II – Betrayal, JET III – Vengeance, JET IV – Reckoning, JET V – Legacy, JET VI – Justice, JET VII – Sanctuary, JET VIII – Survival, JET IX – Escape, JET X – Incarceration, JET XI – Forsaken, JET XII – Rogue State, Upon a Pale Horse, BLACK, BLACK is Back, BLACK is the New Black, BLACK to Reality, BLACK in the Box, Deadly Calm, Ramsey’s Gold, Emerald Buddha, The Day After Never – Blood Honor, The Day After Never – Purgatory Road, The Day After Never – Covenant, The Day After Never – Retribution, The Day After Never – Insurrection, The Goddess Legacy, A Girl Apart and A Girl Betrayed.
Non-fiction includes the international bestseller An Angel With Fur (animal biography) and How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (even if drunk, high or incarcerated), a parody of all things writing-related.
Blake is co-author of The Eye of Heaven and The Solomon Curse, with legendary author Clive Cussler. Blake’s novel King of Swords has been translated into German, The Voynich Cypher into Bulgarian, and his JET novels into Spanish, German, and Czech.
Blake writes under the moniker R.E. Blake in the NA/YA/Contemporary Romance genres. Novels include Less Than Nothing, More Than Anything, and Best Of Everything.
Having resided in Mexico for a dozen years, Blake enjoys his dogs, fishing, boating, tequila and writing, while battling world domination by clowns. His thoughts, such as they are, can be found at his blog:
RussellBlake.com
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Chapter 1
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
Emilia ran tired fingers through her thick ebony hair as she and a pair of co-workers pushed through the iron gates of the factory grounds. They offered waves to a grinning security guard and continued down the cracked sidewalk, the darkness enveloping the street as the spotlights from the compound faded behind them. In the dim light she squinted at her fingers, whose nails were worn to the quick by another twelve-hour shift on an assembly line that never stopped. She sighed. Although barely out of her teens, Emilia had the hands of a middle-aged fishwife, and her joints ached like those of a geriatric, not a slim young woman with a quick smile and a bouncing step.
The gloom deepened as the trio hurried along the empty street. Their shift had ended earlier, but Emilia had been forced to delay their departure for an unplanned meeting with her supervisor. Exhaust and sewage wafted on the breeze along with the pungent smell from the nearby Rio Grande river basin, its brown seepage only a few hundred meters away separating them from the United States and its world of impossible luxury and boundless prosperity.
“Slow down, Rosa,” Emilia said. “This isn’t a race.”
Rosa, the tallest of the three, her long legs wrapped in skintight jeans, her makeup garish as a showgirl’s, slowed and twisted her head toward Emilia. “You may not have a life, but I do, and I have a date tonight, so I need time to get ready.”
Emilia rolled her eyes. “You have a date every night.”
The third girl laughed, her eyes dancing as they flitted to Emilia. “You would too if you weren’t so standoffish.”
“You mean selective, don’t you, Marisol?” Emilia replied. “Is it my fault I won’t hop in the backseat with every shop clerk or truck driver with a smooth line?”
“Don’t knock it,” Rosa said with a shrug.
“Not for me,” Emilia said, eyeing the fresh churros hanging from a bar over the cart front. “My mom’s making dinner.”
“This is dinner for me,” Rosa countered, smoothing her blouse over her flat stomach.
“That and a dozen Tecate Lights,” Marisol said, and the girls laughed.
The vendor wrapped their selections in brown paper and exchanged them for a few pesos before returning to his newspaper, the evening rush over, his only hope now to pick up a few stragglers late to work on the night shift. The maquiladora section of the city was a buzz of activity when the crews changed, but deserted much of the rest of the time. With over three hundred plants turning out everything from printers to hair dryers, the area along the border was a magnet for those without options, but nobody lingered in the factory strip after dark – the crime in Juárez was infamous, and even if you minded your own business, robbery or worse was a constant threat.
Emilia checked her watch as her friends chewed on the fried confections, cinnamon dusting their hands as they ate. Her stomach growled and Rosa eyed her, one brow raised, hip cocked at a saucy angle. Emilia laughed at the vision, her friend’s provocative outfit completely out of place on the dusty street.
The wages Emilia made amounted to a little over a hundred dollars a week, paltry even by Mexican standards, but better than nothing. With no degree or vocational skills, young women in the border town were limited in how they could make a living, and those uninterested in prostitution or serving fast food were faced with grim choices in a labor market constantly swelled by a surge of unskilled Central American workers hoping to build nest eggs before sneaking across the river to the promised land beyond.
The girls finished their treats, wiped their hands on scraps of paper that served as napkins, and proceeded down the street toward a larger intersection with a dozen bus stops within a block of each other. Rosa’s cell phone chirped from her back pocket as they passed a narrow alley, where an emaciated dog with drooping teats from a fresh litter foraged for scraps near a pile of garbage.
“Hello?” Rosa answered, and then giggled at something the caller said. Emilia and Marisol exchanged a knowing look, and Emilia shook her head as they slowed so their friend could fake amusement at whatever her latest suitor was saying.
A pair of dim headlamps swung from behind them and bounced over the uneven pavement. Rosa chattered on her phone as the vehicle approached, but Marisol slipped her arm through Emilia’s, her expression troubled. Ciudad Juárez had long been synonymous with unexplained disappearances of young female factory workers, and even though the crime wave had abated, rumors still circulated about this girl or that who’d ended her shift, left for home, and was never seen again.
Emilia’s brow furrowed as the van drew near, and her mouth formed a silent O when it screeched to a stop beside them and the side door slid wide with a clatter. Two men wearing dark leather jackets and jeans leapt out and rushed the girls, who drew back in shock. Rosa screamed as the assailants waved handguns at them, and the nearest slapped the phone from her hand.
Marisol’s eyes widened when the second gunman stuck his pistol in her face and then shifted his aim to Emilia, who stood frozen, purse clutched to her chest. The man eyed her terrified expression, and then his gaze drifted to her yellow top and black pants and his mouth twisted in an ugly grin. He nodded to his partner, and they lunged forward and seized Emilia by the arms. She struggled and cried out as they manhandled her toward the van. Marisol ran after them, swinging her purse like a weapon, her stocky frame moving surprisingly fast. The bag caught one of the men in the back of the head, and he cursed and spun around. Marisol tried to kick him in the balls, but he saw the move coming and sidestepped it. A brutal blow from the pistol to the side of her head sent her sprawling to the ground. Her attacker stood, pistol leveled at Marisol curled in a ball on the sidewalk as his companion forced Emilia into the van.
“You’re lucky tonight,” he snarled, and then made for the door, where Emilia was staring from the interior with a look of horror on her face as the other gunman pressed his weapon against her temple.
The engine revved, and the second attacker jumped into the van. He pulled the door closed, and the vehicle tore off with a screech of rubber, leaving Rosa and Marisol to choke on a cloud of exhaust. Rosa squinted at the back of the van, trying to make out a license number, but there was no plate, only a pair of cracked taillights flickering above a dented bumper. Marisol struggled to her feet and screamed for help. Rosa moved to where her phone lay on the sidewalk and scooped it up, and then swore when she saw the shattered screen.
“Don’t just stand there,” Marisol cried. “We have to do something.”
Panicked tears coursed down Rosa’s face as she held up the broken cell for Marisol to see, and then she joined her in screaming for help, their voices echoing off the ribbon of pavement that stretched endlessly into the gloom.
Chapter 2
El Paso, Texas
A faded sign announcing Whispering Pines, Apartments 4 Rent rattled in the morning breeze before a dilapidated string of low-rent dwellings around a courtyard devoid of anything resembling conifers. A harried-looking young woman emerged from one of the apartments and rushed along the path to the front gate, a battered messenger bag in hand and a purse hanging from her shoulder, auburn hair pulled back in a loose ponytail as she scanned her cell phone screen through heavy black-framed glasses.
“Leah! Hold up. You got a minute?” a scratchy female voice called from the first unit’s open doorway.
Leah paused, her lips pursing in annoyance. “Not really, Aunt Connie. I’m late again.”
Aunt Connie stepped from the doorway, hair in curlers, her face weathered by decades of cigarettes and drugstore bourbon. “Didn’t see you come in last night.”
“I worked late,” Leah said, her tone reasonable.
“You might have called to let me know.”
Leah drew a measured breath. “I was really busy with a story.”
That drew a worried frown. “I was worried about you.”
“We’ve talked about this before. There’s no reason to be. The hours go with the job.”
Aunt Connie’s scowl deepened. “I don’t like not knowing where you are.”
“I appreciate that. But you really don’t have to worry about me.”
Leah’s aunt eyed her baggy cargo pants and hastily chosen top with a raised eyebrow. “I thought that maybe you had a date or something. That would be nice. But then when it got so late…”
Leah groaned inwardly. Not this again.
“Your concern’s appreciated, but–”
“You’re still seeing that nice Bill boy, aren’t you?”
Leah bit back the sharp response that rose in her throat in favor of something more diplomatic. “No, as I explained before, we broke up when I moved to New York.” Leah had brought Bill, a co-worker she had been dating at the time, to a family event four years earlier, and he’d obviously made a lasting impression.
Aunt Connie nodded sadly. “Oh, that’s right. Well, it’s just a shame to see you…spending your life without a family.”
“You’re family, Aunt Connie. And I’m not lonely, really. But what I am is late this morning, so…”
“I know I’m the only family you have here, Leah, and that’s why I worry, girl. It’s just… I don’t want to get in your way, but I’d appreciate the courtesy of a phone call if you’re going to be out half the night. These days you can never be too careful.”
“I know, and as I’ve said before, I’m always careful. And
I was at work. Inside. At my desk. Working.” Leah glanced to where her beater car was parked only a few yards away. Only a few of the units had a parking slot, and so she was one of the unlucky ones relegated to battle it out on the street. She did her best to avoid letting her impatience show. “We can talk about this later, but I really need to get moving if I’m still going to have a job at all.”
Before her aunt could respond again, Leah spun on her heel and made for the car. Ever since she’d returned to El Paso three months earlier, she’d been trying to get along with a relative she’d never known very well, and one who seemed compelled to mother Leah as if she were twelve. Leah accepted that she was exchanging some amount of companionship for a more-than-reasonable rent, but she wished she could go about her business without feeling she owed an explanation for her lifestyle, let alone her whereabouts.
Leah’s gray Chevrolet Malibu’s lock resisted her effort to open it, as it did every morning, and she forced herself to calm down and not take it personally. The clunker had been a budget purchase from a questionable used-car lot that extended credit at usurious rates and had been willing to accept a paltry down payment, so what could she expect? That it ran at all was a minor miracle, and she gently worked the key until the lock flipped open, reminding herself to be thankful for what she had.
The thought stopped her.
What she had was a cracker-box apartment, with noisy plumbing and pot residue on the ceilings, that was rock-throwing distance from the border, in a complex inhabited by meth heads and stragglers on their last legs. Her life was in shambles, her career all but at an end, and with no social life to speak of beyond a nosy relative she couldn’t connect with.
Leah tossed her bag and purse onto the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel, sniffing automatically as she did so. The car smelled vaguely like something had died inside after burrowing deep into one of the seats, and the faint odor was another reminder of her current reality versus the one she’d imagined for herself only a few years earlier.
She twisted the ignition and the car rumbled to a stuttering idle. Leah pulled the windshield wiper lever to clear the thin film of Texas dust off the glass so she could see more than hazy outlines. An anemic stream of water spurted forth, and the blades smeared the beige dust into a series of muddy streaks. She sighed as she put the transmission into drive and pulled from the curb, narrowly missing a migrant worker riding a bicycle the wrong way down the one-way street, who saluted her with a middle finger by way of thanks.