“It is not something to be discussed over the telephone. I will see you in two hours.”
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“Good-bye, Judge Silva.”
“Wait,” she said. “Give me four hours. I don’t know what traffic will be like at the border.”
“Three hours.”
The phone went dead.
2
U.S.-MEXICO BORDER
SATURDAY MORNING
GRACE BARELY REACHED THE border by the deadline. Traffic had been heavier than usual, which meant six lanes of stop-and-slow on southbound interstates. The good news was that the Mexican customs officials were waving people through as fast as they could. They might hate Americans, but they loved the Yankee dollar. The only cars the officials stopped held women worth staring at twice.
The customs official in Grace’s lane looked half asleep behind his two-hundred-dollar Ray-Bans. With a practiced, languid gesture he started to wave her dark green Mercedes SUV through the checkpoint. Then he saw her through the open driver’s window. He leaned forward, hand raised in a signal for her to stop.
The same thing had happened to a convertible three cars ahead of Grace and one lane over. That one had held two California blondes out for a little sin and excitement south of the border.
“Good morning, senorita,” he said with a smile just short of a leer. Despite the polite words, his glance never got above her breasts. “And where in my beautiful Mexico are you going?”
Anger snaked through Grace, a welcome vent for the anxiety about Lane that made her shoulders and jaw tight. As a teenager, she’d put up with enough macho male crap to last her a lifetime. She really wanted to teach this border cowboy some manners, but it would take more time than it was worth.
Her grandmother Marta had taught her when to fight and when to duck.