Charlotte Clancy felt the warm summer breeze caress her skin and with it a tingle of excitement. It was part sexual excitement, part happiness, and part the unfamiliar thrill of doing something illicit. Something naughty. Dangerous, even.
Charlotte wasn’t usually the naughty type. At eighteen years old she’d always been a straight-A student at her San Diego high school, where the most trouble she’d ever gotten into was for allowing her girlfriend to crib her Social Studies paper on early Mexican civilizations. Charlotte just loved Mexico – the history, the language, the food. She’d literally had to beg and plead with her parents to allow her to work the summer in Mexico City as an au pair.
‘I don’t know, Charlie,’ her dad said skeptically. Tucker Clancy was a firefighter and a deacon at the local Episcopal church, about as upstanding and conservative a family man as you could hope to find. ‘You hear stories. People get kidnapped down there. And the drug gangs … you read about beheadings and God knows what other terrible things.’
‘That’s true, Dad,’ Charlotte countered. ‘But those things are only happening in certain parts of Mexico. Not where I wanna go. It’s El Salvador and Colombia where you really have to be careful. And this agency, American Au Pairs International, AAPI – they have an amazing safety reputation. Like, zero incidents in twelve years working down there.’
Tucker Clancy listened with pride to his only daughter’s negotiating skills. One thing you could say for Charlie: she never did anything half-assed. As usual she had all the facts and figures at her fingertips. And she was a very sensible girl.
In the end though, it was Charlotte’s mother, Mary, who had tipped the scales in her favor.
‘I’m nervous too, honey,’ Mary told Tucker over dinner at the Steak ’n’ Shake one Friday night. ‘But I don’t think we should let our fears hold Charlie back. She’ll be at college in the fall, living on her own, making all these decisions for herself. She needs some independence.’
‘College is in Ohio,’ Charlotte’s dad countered. ‘They don’t cut people’s heads off in Ohio.’
Mary frowned. ‘Well, according to Charlie, they don’t in Mexico City either. And the lady at the au pair agency was super-reassuring. This family they’ve got lined up for her sound wonderful. The parents are lawyers, they live on this phenomenal estate … Come on, Tucker. Let the girl live a little.’
That conversation had been three months ago. Charlotte had been in Mexico for two months now, and boy, had she lived a lot. She’d smoked her first joint, got drunk for the first time, cheated on her boyfriend Todd for the first time and (she could hardly believe it, even when she said it to herself) fallen in love with a married man.
It wasn’t the dad of the family she was working for, the Encerritos. That would be cheap and tacky, and besides, Charlotte really liked Señora Encerrito, her boss, and would never do that to her. Not that what she was doing was OK. She knew it was wrong to have an affair. In fact, it was worse than wrong. It was a sin, a mortal sin. Charlotte came from a solid ‘church’ family, and there wasn’t much wiggle room when it came to morals, especially sexual morals. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, either. She cared plenty, and she felt guilty and all of that. But none of that mattered. Not when he was there. When he walked into a room, when he looked at Charlotte, when he said her name, even when she heard his voice on the telephone, everything else went out the window. Her caution, her values, her fear, her regrets. Poof. Gone. And when he took her to bed and made love to her? Good God. There were no words to describe the bliss, the absolute ecstasy. Charlotte had had sex with Todd hundreds of times, but never like this. Never, in Charlotte Clancy’s wildest imaginings, had she believed sex could be this wonderful. So she wasn’t going to heaven? Big deal. She had heaven right here and his name was … Shhhh. She giggled to herself. She mustn’t say his name out loud. Not ever. Not to anyone.
‘What we have is a secret, cara,’ he told her, every time they made love. ‘No one must ever know. You understand?’
Charlotte did understand. He was married, and much, much older, and an important man. Their affair had to be discreet. What she didn’t understand was all his other secrets. The mysterious ‘meetings’ he would disappear off to in the middle of the night. The attaché cases stuffed full of US dollars that she’d seen him hand over to the local chief of police in one of the fancy hotels in town.
‘You can tell me, you know,’ she would whisper coquettishly in his ear in bed. ‘I can keep a secret. I just … I want to know everything about you. I want to be part of your life as much as I can. I love you so much!’
He always smiled, and kissed her, and assured her he loved her too and that he found her little outbursts ‘adorable – like you’. But he never told her anything. ‘It’s for your own safety,’ he would say, throwing in a thrilling element of danger to the already exciting situation.
In short, Charlotte Clancy was having the time of her life.
And tonight was going to be even better, the best yet.
Following the map he’d given her – so romantic! – she got out of her car and weaved her way on foot through the maize fields and down towards the river.
She’d taken a big risk a few nights ago, following him in the little Nissan the Encerritos had provided for her use, headlamps off so as not to be seen, only a few hundred yards behind him. It was hard to see along the bumpy roads, no more than tracks really, that he turned on to once they’d left the city. She’d started to panic, wondering how she would ever get back if somehow she lost him, but at that moment the track gave way to a hidden clearing in the trees and he came to a halt. She could make out rows of semicircular sheds, like giant pipes cut in half; inside, men were working at tables, their stations illuminated by old-fashioned oil lamps that made each shed glow softly in the moonlight. Charlotte watched as her lover got out of his car and moved from shed to shed, overseeing the work. It was all quite fascinating, but Charlotte couldn’t see what the men were actually doing from where she was parked. With a boldness she didn’t know she possessed till that moment, she’d got out of her car and walked over towards the shed where he was. She’d got to within about ten yards of the door when two men armed with machine guns leapt out in front of her.
Charlotte screamed so loudly they could probably hear it back in the city. ‘Don’t shoot! Please!’
Her lover turned around, a look of shock and anger on his face. But it quickly softened to a smile, and then a laugh.
‘Cara!’ he chuckled indulgently. ‘You followed me?’
‘I … I wanted to know,’ stammered Charlotte, her long legs still shaking involuntarily at the sight of the guns. ‘You wouldn’t tell me anything.’
He gestured for the men to let her pass, opening his arms wide and pulling her into a tight hug. ‘I never would have thought you had it in you,’ he grinned, ruffling Charlotte’s hair as if she were a disobedient but adorable puppy. ‘You’re a brave little thing, aren’t you, hm? I see I underest
imated you.’
Charlotte swelled with pride and relief. He wasn’t angry. He was pleased! She’d been right to take the risk, right to show him she was more than some silly little girl, some au pair he was having a summer fling with.
‘Come.’ He took her hand. ‘As you’re here, let me show you around.’
She’d seen it all then, all the workings of his empire.
Cocaine.
Even the word sounded dangerous to Charlotte, like something from an episode of Miami Vice. She’d never been offered coke in her life, never even seen it. And now, here she was, in the eye of the storm, actually watching the stuff being produced. It was fascinating, and he showed her around with pride, as if this were any other factory or business he’d built. It was also extraordinarily complicated.