Read Online The House of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake - Free Book Online

roll of duct tape and wraps a length of it over Aldo’s mouth and around his head. Then sidesteps over behind Susi and begins doing the same to her.
    Making sure we can’t even go for help, Jessie thinks. That we won’t be found before morning.
    She flinches at the ponytail’s touch from behind her. The sleeping mask comes down over her eyes, the tape seals her mouth, and the man moves on.
    She stands bound, gagged, sightless, hearing only the rips of tape from the roll. Then hears what she’s sure is a soft cry and her fear surges again.
    Rape-robberies are not uncommon either.
    Now someone takes her by the arm and says, “Por acá, güera.” She recognizes the blond man’s voice. She can’t help resisting his light pull, and he softly repeats himself, saying, Come with me, blondie. No one’s going to hurt you.
    She’ll fight, she tells herself. Kick the best she can. You can’t give in without a fight. It’s a rule.
    He guides her a few halting yards and turns her around and the backs of her legs come in contact with a solid edge of some sort. She emits a muffled squeak as he hefts her by the waist and sets her on a hard surface, and then someone behind her—the ponytail?—slips his hands under her arms and drags her rearward and eases her down between two other persons lying there. She apprehends they’re on the bare floor of the Suburban, whose backseats have been removed.
    And now knows . . . this isn’t a robbery.
    It’s a snatch.
    5 — THE PARENTS AND EL GALÁN
    The Town Car containing the parents of the bride and groom bears north on the beltway’s river of traffic. Wearing large-lensed dark glasses, Espanto drives without haste, Huerta beside him, holding a pistol on his lap and half-turned to keep an eye on the two couples crammed into the backseat. The couples are neither gagged nor blindfolded—it wouldn’t do for someone in another car to look over and see four persons in such straits—but their hands are cuffed behind them. No one speaks.
    It had happened to the parents in such confusing swiftness . . . the Suburban wheeling from around the corner ahead, headlights glaring and police light flashing, blocking the lane . . . the ghostly figure of a spike-haired man in dark glasses at the front window, pointing a pistol at them and commanding them to silence . . . Huerta ordering Mr. Belmonte into the backseat, and the shocked realization that they had been stopped by either corrupt police or outright bandits and that Belmonte’s security chief was in league with them . . . the divestment of their phones, wallets, purses . . . the spike-haired man asking if any of them had a GPS device on them and promising he would kill whoever lied, and their swearing in truth that they did not . . . Huerta handing a phone to Mr. Sosa with the instruction to call home and notify his staff that the after party group had decided to go to a nightclub rather than the Sosa residence and that he and Mrs. Sosa were returning to the Belmonte home for the rest of the night and would there spend the next day . . . their hands being cuffed . . . the spike-haired man getting behind the wheel and driving them away, Huerta beside him and assuring them they would not be harmed if they sat still and kept quiet.
    So have they done.
    The beltway now curves eastward and they stay on it for several miles before exiting onto a northbound highway. A mile farther on, they turn off into a shopping mall and drive around to a far corner of the rear lot where there are few vehicles and park in the darkness of overhanging trees. In the deep shadows, no face in the car is clearly visible.
    The spike-haired man tells them that Huerta is going to put sleeping masks over their eyes but they need not be afraid. He holds a pistol on them as Huerta leans over the front seat and slips the elastic-banded masks on each of them in turn. Mrs. Sosa whines softly as the