“I find myself in need of your expertise, Matthew,” he said, looking up at Marie. “Did you know your dear husband is a nuclear genius?”
Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t move.
“It doesn’t matter.” Zamora shrugged. “There is often much we do not know about our loved ones. Pack a bag. You are coming with us.”
“My family?”
Zamora cocked his head to one side. “Do as I say and they will be fine.”
“I’m not leaving them.”
Zamora flicked his fingers, and Pollard heard the men behind him step away.
“There’s only one reason you’d need me, Valentine,” Pollard said. “I’m not going to help you blow anything up.”
“Oh, Matthew,” Zamora said, giving a weary sigh. “Let me see…. How shall I explain myself?” He bounced Simon to keep him calm, but looked down at Marie with a leering eye. “Some men prefer to see their women in a flimsy negligee, the delicate lace of underthings hiding just enough to enhance the mystery of the feminine form.” He glanced up at the dark woman who stood in the doorway behind Pollard. “Lourdes, darling, how do I like my women?”
“Naked.” She chuckled.
“Precisely,” Zamora said. “I despise mystery. I want to have all the goods exposed and on the table, so to speak.” He craned forward with narrowed eyes, staring at Marie but speaking to Pollard. “So let me be plain. You will help me do anything I ask or I will quite literally rip this lovely boy into tiny pieces.”
Marie choked on a sob.
“I know you, Valentine.” Pollard set his quivering jaw. Inside, his bowels churned. “My family has seen your face. No matter what I do, they’re as good as dead once we leave.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Zamora said, stroking Simon’s sandy curls. “You have serious trust issues, my friend.”
Pollard wracked his brain, searching for any alternative to what he was about to say. Tears poured in earnest from his eyes as he looked back and forth from his precious little boy to a baffled Marie. He ground his teeth until he thought they might shatter.
“Bullshit!” he sniffed, his voice harsh and cold. “You hate loose ends the way you hate mystery. You’re forgetting, I’ve seen what you do with witnesses.”
The Venezuelan’s lips turned white under his pencil-thin mustache. He rocked the baby back and forth. “You can’t be certain. It’s not worth—”
Pollard rose to his full height, fists clenched at his side. His shoulders shook with rage.
“Kill us all now!” Pollard demanded through clenched teeth. “We are all already dead, and I know it.”
Zamora’s flat-nosed thug, Monagas, gave a startled jerk, yanking Marie’s head back by her hair. Marie’s eyes bulged like they would pop out of her head.
Pollard could feel the three from the SUV loom closer behind him, but he didn’t care.
Zamora took a measured breath, clutching the baby close to smell his hair. At length, he dropped the burning cigar on the carpet and drew a black pistol from under his jacket. Finger on the trigger, he pressed it gently to Simon’s cheek, and then looked at Marie with a sickening smile.
“You see? No mystery here, my darling. You should speak to your husband. His attitude is about to make your child very dead.” The words dripped from his mouth like poison. “He seems to have lost his way.”
Marie’s lips moved, but she was too terrified to speak. Unable to turn her head because Monagas still had a fist around her hair, her eyes shot frantically between her husband and her little boy. She blinked bloodshot eyes at a heartbroken Pollard.
“Matt?” she pleaded.
He met her gaze, begging for her trust as he struggled to quiet his quaking legs. Marie’s was a world of playgroups and Pampered Chef parties. She knew little of his past and could not fathom such brutality. A brutality he thought he’d left behind, dead and buried.
He locked eyes with Zamora. His words spilled out in ragged, panting breaths.
“You’re an intelligent man, Valentine. Do you believe killing my son would force me to comply? You have me cornered. That makes me more dangerous than you could ever imagine.”
Someone attempted to grab his arm from behind— and got an elbow to the nose for his trouble. Pollard heard the snick of a pistol cocking near his head, but he didn’t bother to turn around.
Simon batted at the barrel of Zamora’s pistol with chubby hands, cooing, oblivious to the danger.
“Move the gun away from my son or shoot me now,” Pollard whispered, surprised at the sudden calm that washed over him. “Otherwise, I’m going to beat you to death.”
The room seemed to freeze as Zamora considered the situation. Grinning like a madman, he pointed the pistol at Pollard, his chest heaving with the first signs of real emotion.
Pollard met his stare with stony resolve. “It was a grave mistake to take away my hope.”
Zamora’s face twitched and then erupted into laughter. He shoved the pistol behind his back and pushed the baby toward Pollard.
“Take him,” he said, suddenly sounding fatigued. “I must admit, I forgot how well you play this game. I will leave some people to keep your wife company. You may speak to her daily via the Internet.” He raised a dark brow and flicked his hand toward the front door. “Provided you do your part and cooperate. Forget packing a bag. We’ll purchase what you need en route.”
Pollard’s shoulders slumped. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Matt! You’re not actually going with him?” Marie gasped. “What is happening?”
Zamora nodded toward Monagas, who instantly released her hair.
Pollard handed her the baby and took them both in his arms.
“Apurate!” Zamora snapped his fingers. “As lovely as this scene is, my dear Matthew, you have a plane to catch. Say your quaint good-byes and let us be on our way.”
Marie’s shoulders quaked as Pollard held her to him, breathing in the smell of her and his child.
“You can’t help him hurt anyone,” she whispered, her voice soft against his neck.
“I won’t let it come to that,” Pollard lied. There was nothing he would not do to save his family.
“I mean it, Matt,” she hissed, regaining the iron will that had drawn him to her in the first place. “No matter what happens to us.”
Pollard kissed her long and hard, their tears mixing against moist cheeks. He held her shoulders firmly as he pulled away, looking directly into her eyes. He knew he’d probably never see her again.
“Trust me. Like you said, I’m a genius.”
Every word stuck in his throat. He’d brought this misery on his family. Valentine Zamora was evil, the exemplification of what he wanted his students to write about — but Pollard knew he had no one to blame but himself.
CHAPTER 12
Valentine Zamora stood on the Pollards’ front porch beside a pouting Lourdes. A wind chime made of colorful shards of pottery clanged softly over their heads. Together, they watched Monagas load the professor into the backseat of the white SUV. There was no need to tie him. He was restrained enough by his emotions. The fool would do exactly what he was asked now that his beloved family was in jeopardy. Love complicated things that way.
Jorge’s leg had been injured when Pollard had hit the SUV with his Prius, and he iced it while he waited inside with an inconsolable Marie and her baby.
Lourdes stomped her foot. She had a certain smell about her when she was angry. Though not unpleasant, it reminded Zamora of burning sugar. “You grow tired of me?” she snapped. “That is why you toss me to the side like a piece of garbage!”
He gave her shoulders a squeeze and looked down into the black depths of her gaze. When he was a young boy, Valentine’s Iranian-born mother would often warn him of Cheshm-Zakhm—the evil eye. The phrase literally meant to strike a blow with one’s eye.