Page 32 of Cooper

Pablo stepped out and opened the rear door. Water struck his shoulders and ran cold beneath his collar. From thelobby came the muted bell of an elevator, followed by the scrape of a suitcase wheel.

She emerged with her hood pulled low, one hand gripping the green suitcase and the other shielding her phone. She glanced at the license plate, but the rain broke the numbers into trembling fragments. The car was the right color. The driver’s face was hidden.

For one breath, she stood less than six feet from Pablo. He smelled wet pavement, river mud, and the faint perfume she had worn as a girl. Some ruined family memory tried to rise inside him, but anger pressed it back into the dark.

“Belle Fleur?” she asked. Her voice was almost lost beneath the rain.

Pablo lowered his head so the brim of his hat cut his face in half.

“That’s right, Bianca,” he said. The use of her name made her pause, but thunder rolled across the roofs, and for one fatal second she seemed to doubt what she had heard.

She handed him the suitcase. He placed it in the trunk with deliberate care, feeling the night narrow around them. Somewhere behind the rain, a siren wailed and faded, leaving only the steady hiss of water beneath the tires.

She slid into the back seat. Pablo closed the door, and the interior light went out over her face. As he walked around the car, Bianca turned toward the window, her hand hovering over her phone. In the glass, her reflection watched the hooded man circle behind her and vanish.

He climbed in beside her. The locks descended with four small clicks. Bianca looked at the driver, then at the handle, and finally at Pablo. Lightning bleached the car’s interior. Recognition reached her slowly, then all at once.

“Uncle Pablo?” Her voice caught. “No. You can’t be here.”

“You sound surprised.” His voice was calm, which frightened her more than a shout would have.

The sedan pulled away from the curb. Rain sealed the windows, and the hotel’s red sign slid backward across Bianca’s face like a warning she had noticed too late.

“Stop the car,” Bianca said. When the driver did not answer, she leaned toward the front seat. “Please, listen to me. He is not taking me home. I said stop.”

Pablo rested one hand on the door.

“He works for me.” Bianca recoiled until her shoulder struck the window.

“Then you’re both making a mistake,” she said. “Let me out now, and this can still end without anyone getting hurt.”

Bianca’s thumb struck the screen of her phone, but Pablo took it before the display fully brightened.

“Give that back.” She reached for it, stopped when he turned toward her, and swallowed. “Someone is expecting me at Belle Fleur. If I don’t arrive, they’ll call the police.”

Pablo studied the map still open there, the blue route bending into darkness.

“You chose a lonely road,” he murmured. “After everything you’ve done, you still make things easy for other people.”

“After everything I’ve done?” Bianca stared at him, fear giving way to anger. “The land was never yours. It belonged to the people you pushed off it, and you know that. You’re not furious because I stole from you. You’re furious because, for once, you couldn’t stop me.”

Pablo’s smile appeared and disappeared with the passing streetlights.

“You sold my future for the comfort of strangers.”

“No,” she said. “I returned their past and made sure that you didn’t make deals with devils. And if you think frightening me will make me undo it, you never knew me at all.”

The sedan turned away from the last open businesses and entered a corridor of drowned trees. Branches clawed at the wind above them. Pablo slipped Bianca’s phone into his coat.

“You always did mistake courage for protection.”

Bianca tested the door again. It held.

“People know where I am.” Pablo said nothing, and the silence forced her voice higher. “The hotel has cameras. The ride is on my account. They will find this car. And when they do, he’ll give you up before sunrise.”

“People knew where you were,” Pablo corrected. “That is how I found you.”

Up ahead, the road to Belle Fleur vanished beneath rain and darkness, and something else. Something strange. Then, the driver switched off the headlights.