Short Cut to Santa Fe by Medora Sale

Suarez,” she said. “I work for an advertising agency, I live in New York, I’m single, and I make enough money to afford a holiday like this. Does that answer your questions?” She managed to sound faintly amused by the situation and by the two men.
    â€œYou don’t look like someone called Teresa Suarez,” said Wayne, dragging himself back into the dialogue now that it had hit a point he was sure of.
    â€œDon’t I really? And what does someone called Teresa Suarez look like?” she asked.
    â€œLike a Mex,” he said. “More like her.” He pointed back at Diana Morris.
    â€œHow fascinating,” said Teresa, raising one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “I’m truly sorry. I have a nose very like my father’s,” she added, as if this would explain everything. “And his name is Pedro Suarez.” Wayne stopped, baffled, like a dog who suspects that people are laughing at him.
    Harriet looked at the disciplined blond hair, the cool blue eyes, and that long, thin, curved aristocratic nose with its flared nostrils and was impressed. Teresa Suarez was someone to reckon with.
    Gary ignored his brother’s discomfiture. He was looking straight at Brett Nicholls, the man built like a football player, who returned his look with eyes hot with rage. But he sat quietly, and in a steady voice said he worked for his father’s insurance agency, and that his wife, Jennifer, was the nurse. They were taking a vacation. Gary turned abruptly away from him, as if he found him a hostile species.
    He wasn’t interested in Rick and Suellen Kelleher either. Rick, who looked as if he could wrestle a bull to the ground, told them in his soft, unworried voice that he was a computer person, associated with a small software company, and that he worked at home in Amarillo, Texas. This trip was his and Suellen’s fifteenth-anniversary present. They had left the kids with his mother and blown the bank account. He didn’t go in for all this mystic sites stuff much, but if Suellen did, he was proud and happy to go along with her. She smiled in nervous agreement.
    The brothers ignored Mrs. Green and Karen and turned their attention to Kevin Donovan. “Now you,” said Gary. “You interest me. Who are you, besides a loudmouthed son of a bitch?”
    â€œNot a particularly interesting person,” said Donovan casually. “Not to you, anyway.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    â€œI’m just a tourist, along for the ride, watching what’s going on. That’s what I do. I watch things for people. I guess you could call me a consultant.” He smiled, as if at some secret joke. “You know, I follow trends and see how people are behaving. I keep track of what’s profitable and what’s not for the people who hire me. And sometimes I watch to make sure their investments are safe. Not very interesting.”
    â€œWhat’s he talking about, Gary?” asked his brother.
    â€œShut up and look after the rest of them. Now—who in hell are you two?”
    â€œTourists,” said John. “From Canada. We flew—”
    â€œThe hell you did,” said Donovan easily. “You were alone on that plane.”
    â€œI came a week early,” said Harriet, quickly. “I flew in to Kansas City and rented a van. That’s why it has Missouri plates. You can check if you want.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI’ve never been this far west before. I wanted to have a look. John couldn’t take that much time, so we met in Santa Fe.”
    â€œYou got some sort of proof?”
    â€œI have a passport in my left-hand breast pocket,” said John carefully. “If you want to see it, I will reach into my jacket and get it. Your brother already checked that I wasn’t carrying a gun—not that either one of us could have brought a gun into the country. Think about it. We were flying and had to go through