No One to Trust - Iris Johansen [61]
“I feel nothing for him.”
“Then you won’t mind if I toy with him, will you? He’s a weakling, but maybe he has a little of you in him. This may take longer than you think. I’ll have him call you back after I see just how weak he is.” He hung up.
Luis …
She thrust the phone at Galen. “He … had my brother talk to me.”
“So I heard.”
“He’s going to hurt him.” She tried to keep her lips from trembling. “I don’t care. I don’t care anything about him. He deserves it.”
“Yes.”
“I tried to get him off drugs. I did everything I could. He wouldn’t listen. It’s not my fault.…” Tears were running down her cheeks. “I can’t do it, Galen. I can’t help him.”
“I know.” He pulled her into his arms. “Shh, I know.”
“You don’t know.” Her hands clenched his shirt. “I cared about him. I think I still care about him. I don’t want to, but he made me remember—”
“What’s wrong?” Dominic was frowning as he climbed the porch steps. “What’s happened, Elena?”
“Luis …” She pushed Galen away and wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Chavez has Luis with him, Dominic.”
He stopped in shock. “Luis.”
“He’s going to hurt him.”
It took Dominic a moment to recover. “But Luis helped him.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “That won’t make any difference, will it? Sometimes I forget how evil Chavez is.”
“I don’t.”
“Can we save him?”
“Not without giving up Barry. And you know I can’t do that.”
“There has to be something you can do.”
“He’s using Luis to bait a trap. He wants Elena as well as Barry,” Galen said. “If she tries to go after Luis, he’ll snap the trap. Besides, we don’t even know where he is.”
“Could he still be at the ranch?”
Galen shook his head. “I called the DEA as soon as we got to the airport and told them where Chavez could be located. He’d left the ranch by the time they got there.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Elena said.
“The DEA wasn’t as good as a bullet, but I thought they might buy us time until he bought his way out of jail.”
“You should have told me.”
“Why should I give you bad news? I hoped we’d get lucky.”
“Too much to ask.”
“Is Chavez going to call back?” Dominic asked.
“Yes.” Elena rose to her feet. “I’m going down to the lake to Barry. I need to …” She wanted to be close to Barry, to touch him.
She hurried down the steps and down the path.
“I want to roast Chavez over a slow fire,” Galen said as his gaze followed Elena. “How close were she and Luis?”
“Very close as children. It was the two of them against the world. Later they grew apart. Her father openly favored Elena, and that hurt Luis and made Elena feel guilty. Luis wasn’t a bad boy. He was just weak. When he got on drugs, Elena did everything humanly possible to help him. Every time she’d turn her back, he’d be back on them.” Dominic shook his head. “It’s a terrible thing Chavez is doing to both of them.”
“I don’t care what he’s doing to Luis. The bastard betrayed her.”
Dominic nodded. “I’m sure he had no intention of hurting Elena.”
“I’m not sure about anything.” Galen stood up. “Except that after she thinks about it, she may decide to try to do something to help that son of a bitch. Even if she doesn’t, I don’t want her torturing herself because she had to choose between her brother and her son. I don’t want any tinge of guilt touching her.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have a few options open.” He gazed at Elena sitting on the bank talking to Barry. She was smiling, but he could see the strained tenseness of her muscles. He had never seen her completely relaxed, totally content. Christ, he wanted to see her like that.
“I want to help,” Dominic said. “After all, I’m to blame for trusting Luis in the first place.” His lips twisted. “I wanted him to change, to come to us and start a new life. Instead, I almost ruined Elena’s life. I have to make amends.”
“I’m drowning in all the guilt bubbling around here,” Galen said. “You were only guilty of bad judgment, and Elena isn’t guilty of anything. Luis wouldn’t be in this situation if he hadn’t betrayed her in the first place. She knows that, rationally, but her