Volcano by Gabby Grant Page A

onto the seat
and the side of his door, as Mark wheeled the car around and spun onto the
narrow dirt road.
    Mark grimaced and punched the gas. “Think they’d like us
better dead,” he said, as tires squealed in rapid revolution. “Hang on, Chief,”
Mark said, as the accelerator zipped past sixty. “We’re going for a little
ride.”
    A new round of gunfire ripped through the back of the car,
pock-marking the two front-seat head rests .
    “Sure as hell hope so,” Albert breathed, as Mark leaned into
the wheel and took off like a bat out of hell.

CHAPTER 14

 
    Major Walker sat at the sparse rectangular table with three
other people. DOS protocol officer Sergeant Steve Alexander, Maria Gonzales,
and John James, the best JAG lawyer DOS had. They had Maria purposely
surrounded. Though she was technically free to leave, they weren’t about to let
her know it. The ring-around effect was a part of the intimidation.
    “So, Ms. Gonzales,” John said, speaking slowly and
deliberately, his clear eyes glinting above his aquiline nose. “Would you like
to tell us what this is all about?”
    Would you like...? Man, oh man, was John good. No
opening threats just a clear opportunity for Maria to come clean. Carolyn
studied the woman directly across from her and picked up the twitch in those
dark brown eyes.
    “Eees not like you think!   Not like you say...” Maria began,
shifting her eyes repeatedly between John’s steady gaze and the center of the
table.
    Carolyn cleared her throat and Maria looked up. “We know,
Maria. Know about the limousine. You’re being blackmailed, aren’t you?”
    John sat silently waiting for Maria to respond. As an
attorney, he was prohibited by code from saying anything too leading. Carolyn,
on the other hand, had liberal jurisdiction at the DOS. And, if she made a
little slip or two in protocol, John could rest easy that Steve Alexander
wouldn’t get it down on paper.
    As if on cue, Steve shook and glared at his pen, then
scratched its point hard against his pad of paper.
    John arched his brow, as Maria looked nervously around the
room at the faces surrounding her.  
    “Dry,” John announced, looking up.
    “No worries, Sergeant,” Carolyn said, patting the small
recorder on the table in front of her. “I’m getting it all on tape. No doubt
Mr. Neal is going to want to hear every word.” She cast a piercing look in
Maria’s direction and the middle-aged woman quivered.
    “I say, ees not like you think... It’s...Mr. Neal, he--”
    “What about Mr. Neal?” John James pressed.
    Maria chomped down on her lower lip with her teeth and began
fumbling with the hemline of her skirt, smoothing it out so it covered every
inch of her knees.
    “What I don’t get,” Sergeant Alexander cut in, “is how you
could do it ?!   I’ve got a little girl myself, not much older than Isabel...”
    Carolyn watched Maria crumble at the mention of Isabel’s
name and decided in an instant Steve Alexander’s talentswere being
wasted in his current position.
    “Here, here,” Carolyn said, standing and coming around the
table, as Maria wept freely into her hands . “It’s going to be alright.”
    “I didn’t know,” the sniveling woman pleaded. “Swear I
didn’t know what else to do. Pepe, he’s all I have.”
    Carolyn laid her free hand on Maria’s shoulder and cast her
eyes on John who was sharing a look with Steve. “No Maria,you have Mr.
Neal and his wife, too. Isabel-”
    Another dissolving heap of tears.
    “Isabel,” Carolyn said again, as Maria righted herself and
grabbed another fistful of tissues from the box on the table, “is going to be
alright. We are all here to help you, Maria. You, your Pepe,
and the Neal’s. All you’ve got to do is tell us what you know.”

 
    ***

 
    Carolyn Walker paced the narrow hallway, thinking. It would
upset Isabel now to replace her caretaker. Particularly since both her parents
were mysteriously missing and the baby had begun a