She swallowed hard and took another sip of her latte. Her hands were shaking now. I placed my own on the table as a show of solidarity.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “We’ll protect you. We just need to know what you can tell us about Travis, that’s all. Places he goes, who lives in the house with him, how well-protected you think he is – how many bodyguards. That sort of thing. It won’t take up much of your time, we promise, and then you can have your money.”
She slowly lowered her drink and nodded. “Okay.”
Javier shot me an impressed look, lips teasing upward.
Amandine told us everything she knew about Travis over the last two years. He liked to go to the Mercado Hidalgo Market on Saturdays where the local police force would practically salute him. Friday nights he’d frequent a night club or a bar, mainly The Zoo, a touristy joint with high security where he’d drink in his private room. He usually brought women home from these places and his driver would take them home right after their session in the sack. I wanted to ask Amandine if I was Travis’s type, if he’d find me attractive but I knew how degrading and embarrassing that question was, to admit to what I was going to do.
And, honestly, as she explained his mansion in the hills, all five of his bodyguards, some I could tell Javier recognized, past brothers, I started to worry. I started to freak out a bit, my pulse quickening, waves of nausea sweeping through me. I was sure I couldn’t do it, that I’d fail, he’d catch me, kill me and everything would be for nothing. I didn’t want to have my body dumped behind a garbage can or my head on the steps of a hotel. I didn’t want to die by that man’s hands.
“Ellie?” It was Javier, his hand over mine. “Are you okay?”
I nodded quickly, trying to come back to reality. “Yes. Sorry. What … what were we talking about?”
Amandine was looking at me with a quizzical expression. “I asked if there was anything else you wanted to know.”
“No, I’m good. Sorry. I think I’ve had too much sun,” I said, shielding it with my hand.
“I think you’re right,” Javier said, getting out of his chair and pulling me up to my feet. “Thank you, Amandine, you have been a great help. I will be in touch with you if I need anymore help. Oh.” He reached into his back jean pocket and pulled out a Bank of America check book and started scribbling on it with one of Amandine’s pens.
“It’s in US funds and from an American bank so it might take a while for your bank to clear it, but I can guarantee it will clear.” He ripped the check out of the book and handed it to her.
Her eyes bugged. “I can’t take this.”
“You’ll take it, you earned it. Just make sure you share it with your family,” he said. “Come on, Ellie.”
He pulled me over to him and led me away from Amandine, still staring at the check in shock. We were halfway across the park when I asked, “How much did you give her?”
“About thirty thousand dollars, US,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“Shit,” I said. “You made her life.”
“If she has a life for much longer,” he said quietly. “After we do what we have to do, I have no doubt it will all get back to her. That’s the way things work here. Those who talk, die. My only hope is that she gets her family out of here first, to at least give them a chance somewhere else.”
I bit my lip, wishing that pretty Amandine would somehow get out of this alive. Wishing I would get out of this alive. “Is this place really that bad?”
“It’s the wild wild east, my dear, and the sheriff is nowhere to be seen.”
“And who are you? The lone ranger?”
“Don Diego de la Vega,” he answered. “Zorro.”
We got back in the car and drove out of the city and onto the highway that would take us to Alvarado.
We were about halfway there when I started to have a nervous breakdown.
All I could think about was Travis getting a hold of Amandine and cutting her head off, leaving it for her parents to find. What would happen to me if he did the same? Who would mourn me? Camden would probably never know about it. Neither would my parents, wherever the hell they were. The only one I had at that moment was right beside me: Javier.
And that in itself was what set me off.
I hadn’t had a panic attack in weeks so it snuck up on me, like a hand reached around from behind me and began squeezing my lungs until there was no breath left. I started gasping for air, my hand at my throat, taking in nothing. Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks in dirty rivulets and my body began to shake.
“Jesus Christ,” Javier swore, nearly taking the car off the road. “Ellie, Ellie. What’s happening?”
I gulped and gasped unable to stop from crying, panic seizing me all over from my shoulders to my feet and I thrashed back and forth in order to get free.