Especially not with her husband sitting in the front.
“Have they caught up?” Jorge asked, his laughter disappearing into the wind.
Chris peered over his shoulder, seeing the front of another Jeep coming over the hill behind them as they reached the end. “Almost.”
“Ah, have to make this fun for them. It’s a long drive, amigo.”
Apparently.
They had been driving for two hours now.
“You will enjoy this tunnel we’ll show you,” Jorge explained, his attention going back to the dirt road ahead of them. “My father had the tunnel built in first, but when the authorities became suspicious over the activity out this way, he had a permit made for a house.”
Chris blinked. “A house?”
Jorge smirked over his shoulder. “Yes.”
Valeria sighed beside Chris, as though she had heard this story a million and one times before. If Jorge took note of her annoyance, he said nothing. The sunhat in her lap hid the clenching of her fists from her husband’s view, but Chris saw the action given she had to hold on to the item to keep it from flying away.
Was there something else on her mind?
Something other than her husband’s conversation?
“And so,” Jorge continued, his voice bringing Chris back to the present, although he didn’t think he had missed much from the conversation, “my father had the tunnels built into the basement. Or rather, he built the home around the tunnel with no one any wiser. They simply assumed the work we had been doing before was us digging the basement out of the rock and then pouring cement. Brilliant, hmm?”
“Smart, yes,” Chris agreed. “And they have never found the tunnel.”
“Once, almost. We had to dynamite a connecting tunnel when aerial surveillance found the entrance, and we didn’t want it leading back to the house a few miles away. The vacation home tunnel is still the closest one we have to the border, and while we don’t use it as much as we used to, well ...”
“It’s good to have.”
“Just in case,” Jorge said, nodding.
The man’s attention went back to the road ahead of them, but he continued talking. Chris had no interest in a lot of things Jorge had to say, but he listened because the man gave details that sometimes helped him along here in this plan to get Valeria and her daughter out.
“I brought Val along for the weekend,” Jorge said, even though no one had asked, “because it’s good for her to get out of the house, and she needs a break occasionally. Isn’t that right, hermosa?”
Valeria’s jaw tensed, but she forced a smile—a fake one—on her face when she turned to nod at Chris. “Sí, that’s what they told me.”
Told, he noted.
Not wanted.
“And our daughter gets to stay at home with the nanny, to keep her out of trouble,” Jorge added after a moment.
Chris kept an eye on Valeria out of the corner of his eye, and that’s how he witnessed the flash of sadness and worry that passed over her features before she hid it by looking away. That was it, then. Not Jorge’s story, or the fact Chris sat beside her in the backseat.
Had Jorge made Maria stay home?
Was this purposeful beyond what the man said?
Chris wouldn’t put it past him.
“Almost there,” Jorge said. “Another twenty minutes, or so. The men I sent ahead of us will already have the generators up and running. This will be a good weekend away for us all, even if you are here for the tunnels, Chris. We all need a break, no?”
“A break is good for the soul,” Chris replied.
His attention was still on Valeria though.
Reaching over, he placed his hand on her jean-covered thigh. She tensed from the sudden touch and then relax. He swept his thumb over the denim, her shiver reverberating through her body, and into his palm.
Something else he shouldn’t be doing.
Still, he wanted her to be aware.
It would be okay.
It would.
He would make sure.
Even if it killed him.
11.
The vacation home, as Jorge dubbed it, sat tucked away in isolation, as much as their ranch did. Perhaps, more so. Dry, desert land surrounded the ostentatious house from all directions, with no neighbor or civilization in sight.
Valeria had never understood the draw of the vacation home—could it really be that when it was in the same country as their usual home? It was the same size as her father-in-law’s mansion, except out in the middle of nowhere, and without power unless all six generators were running, which caused a racket when one was trying to sleep.
Besides that, the house was just ... big. Three levels, reaching toward the sky, a separate wing for whatever men Jorge brought along, and the servants that kept the house running when no one was around to live within its walls. There was no guest house like the ones at the ranch. That meant everyone would sleep in the same house, walking the same halls, and eating at the same table all weekend.
Didn’t that sound fun?
Valeria thought not.
A large pool in the back stretched across dry land, and while landscapers had come out to decorate, Valeria still felt the place was ugly, and lonely. Or maybe that was the projection because of her own emotions, and current situation. She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t like it here.
Valeria walked through the home—watching servants scatter into the closest room whenever they heard Jorge’s boots coming down the hallway—at her husband’s side while he gave Chris a tour. She had other things to do, like hide away in her room, and go back to her daughter at the end of the weekend.
Jorge made it clear this weekend was nonnegotiable for her. Valeria was coming along whether she wanted to, and Maria wouldn’t. Simple as that. It put her on edge to think of her daughter alone with that nanny all weekend.
Although, she knew Maria was also safe because nothing would save the woman from Jorge—certainly not his affection for her—if she thought to put her hands on their child. That didn’t mean she liked her daughter spending more time with Carla than was necessary. Not that she cared to explain it to Jorge because this was just another way for the bastard to keep Valeria in line.
“And now,” Jorge said, taking the stairs leading into the basement slowly as they sloped sharply, “the tunnel.”
The keys in Jorge’s hand jangled with every step he took. Valeria had to walk carefully in her heels, more so than the man in front of her. Jorge didn’t notice, or if he did, then he didn’t care. A hand came to rest on Valeria’s back, and while it shocked her, her body only relaxed from the soft touch.
Chris.
His hand on her back let her know she was safe, and if she missed a step, then he would be right there to catch her. For whatever reason, and she blamed poor planning, they situated the light switch at the bottom of the stairs. She had seen the tunnel before, so there wasn’t very much about this tour that was new or amazing to her.
Jorge flicked the light on, illuminating a stark, white hallway that led to a set of double steel doors at the end, a good twenty feet away.
“There’s nothing else down here?” Chris asked.
Jorge waved a hand for them to stay where they were at the bottom of the stairs as he headed for the doors at the end. “Cement in this section. We filled the rest of the space in because we didn’t need it. The basement is finished and furnished in other areas—bedrooms, and whatever else. Some storage, too.”