Crazy Enough

Crazy Enough: Chapter 3

"But...but my photos," she said, getting childishly pissy about the circumstances that currently arose. Why the hell did Espinoza have to interfere now? She had Camo Man right where she wanted him, and soon, she might have her pictures back, and only then could she go home.

Juan turned to her. "Nińa...go to Chihuahua, ask for Ivan's help. He will take you to the border and get you across without anyone else knowing you've been here—"

"But—"

He held up a hand, stopping her. "If I find out you have not gone back into America within the next three days, then I will call your Papa, do you understand me?"

She squinted at him. "You wouldn't—"

"I would, and I will," he affirmed. "And I have my ways of knowing exactly when you cross that border."

Corkie huffed. Dang it. He was right. Juan always found out things...everything. It never failed.

The racket from the kitchen—Camo Man trying to get free—intensified, and she sighed again. She couldn't let Espinoza's men know he was here, too. That wouldn't be very hospitable toward her guest.

"What about—"

A splintering crash came from the kitchen. Juan and Corkie raced back there to see Camo Man picking himself up from the floor amid the broken pieces of the chair he'd been sitting in. Ana is going to maim me, she thought, seeing the mess he created. He managed to free his feet before Juan leveled his shotgun at his chest.

Corkie placed a hand on the barrel and lowered it. "Leave him alone, Juan. He's in as much danger as the rest of us, and we can't leave him tied up while Espinoza's men are here."

She didn't have time to worry about undoing the complicated knots around his wrists and waist. Picking up a sharp knife from Ana's sink, she quickly approached and began sawing at the ropes.

"What's going on?" he asked, warily eying the knife in her hands.

She glanced up from her cutting. "Espinoza must have found out that I was at the airstrip yesterday. He sent his men after me."

"Do you work for him?"

She shot him a wounded glare. "Of course not! I wasn't even there because of him. I was there because this is the first time Niro Sultanovich has been spotted in the past two years."

"Niro Sultanovich? The Serbian mobster who's been dead for two years?"

"Oh, he's very much alive. It's a long story, and frankly, I don't have time to explain."

He looked at her skeptically. "Did you know Espinoza would be there?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "But the man works fast on finding out I was."

"You stand there and tell me that you don't have any idea what you photographed yesterday?" he asked as she continued to saw at his ropes. I think I overdid these knots, she groused to herself. This is taking forever!

"Nope," she affirmed. "And really there's no time for me to sit around and figure it out. We have to go...or I'm in big trouble." She mumbled that last part to herself. If her father found out she was in Mexico...

Camo Man raised an eyebrow. "We?" He said that the same way Juan did! So aggravating!

"Yes, we," she repeated haughtily. "If Espinoza discovered that I had been there yesterday, then it is only a matter of time before he finds out about you, too. We may not see eye to eye on a lot of things, especially since you stole my pictures, but I won't leave you to that fate."