Excerpt of  RESCUING THE VIRGIN PROLOGUE He could hear them behind him.     He heard them beyond the wheeze of his own gasping breath, through the rush of blood filling his head, above the slap-slap of his bare feet against the rocky earth. He heard the horses hooves and the wail of the dogs and the excited voices of the two gringos hunting the most exotic animal of all.     Him...     They’d given him a head start. Not much, but something. They’d told him to run as fast as he could to reach the river before they caught up with him. The Rio Bravo del Norte would offer him a safe haven...if he didn’t drown first. Barely knowing how to swim, he prayed it would be a low spot, that he could simply walk across. Then he would be free and could get back to his own.     As he rocketed toward freedom, he thought about his family. His friends. Everyone left behind.     Were they waiting for him or did they already think he was dead?     He could sense the river ahead, could smell the water, could hear its rush. He just couldn’t see it.     The sounds behind him were now getting louder. The hunters were narrowing the gap. He ran faster, harder. Blind with fear, he almost ran straight off the canyon cliff...     Just in time, he stopped himself, a shower of small rocks spraying down into the foaming river below. He crossed himself and said a quick prayer.     Rapids!     Panic spread through him, added a fine sheen to his burnished copper skin. His stomach threatened him, but with what? It was empty, had been for days.     He couldn’t cross into Mexico here—he would drown for sure!     Even as he turned to look for a way out, one of the dogs hit him mid-chest and he stumbled backward. A whistle called off the creature before it could go for his throat, but his feet were already dancing on the uneven edge of the canyon cliff.     The leader said something in English he couldn’t understand. The two men laughed and the second man raised his high-powered rifle fitted with a scope.     The first shot blew him back—the earth gave way and the watery grave rushed up to meet him. CHAPTER ONE “C’mon, c’mon!”     Luz Delgado slapped the steering wheel of her SUV as though that would help get her across the international bridge that spanned the Rio Grande into Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, faster. The traffic was what it was, barely inching forward. Stop and go. Stop and go. She could see construction equipment ahead—they were doing some kind of repairs. She should have walked the bridge across the river as were the dozens of people on foot. Not needing to be further stressed, she tried to tune out the slow down.     Making a call on her cell, she got nothing but an instruction to leave a message. “Where are you, Diego? Why haven’t you returned my calls?”     She hadn’t heard from her half-brother for three days now. His girlfriend Pilar Morales had disappeared, and Diego had been determined to find her. Luz had made him promise to call her every day so she would know he was all right. He had called...a few times. Then the calls had stopped coming, making Luz wonder if Diego had met the same fate as his girlfriend, whatever that might be.     Not knowing what had happened to him was killing her. She’d had to find out, and so had abandoned the safety of the bookstore where she worked, where she’d hidden from life for nearly five years. For the last half a decade, she’d preferred reading about life rather than experiencing it. But Diego’s disappearance had pushed her to act quite out of character.     She’d left San Antonio for a quick trip into Mexico, in hopes that she would be able to see that her brother was all right for herself. She was all he had, really. Cancer had taken his mother from him when he was a teenager. He must have relatives somewhere in Mexico, but his mother had left her family and had never spoken of them.     The tangle of traffic just ahead finally seemed to straighten itself out as it rounded the repair area. Luz found herself moving along at last, then quickly made it through the customs and immigration checkpoint.     Now in Mexico, Luz entered another world, one of open-air mercados and street vendors, of mariachis and landscaped plazas alive with families, children shrieking as they played around the fountains. Beggars with signs saying they were hungry and hucksters hawking cheap wares swarmed around every vehicle on the street. She’d been here before to visit Diego, but she never felt quite comfortable.     Luz drove past the mayhem—much of it, like the horse drawn buggies, calculated to attract the tourist dollar—to a quieter part of the border town.     She passed mostly one and two-story buildings until she reached her brother’s block, distinctive because of the clay-colored arcade building, whose arches gave entry to the shaded walkway and shop doors. Also distinctive were the three floors of apartments above the shops. Diego lived on the top floor over a farmacia, a supermercado and a small handicraft shop.     Parking was nearly impossible, but today she was lucky and found a spot directly across the street.     Getting out of the SUV, Luz felt unsettled, almost as if she were being watched. The weird feeling sending a chill down her spine and making her stomach knot had to be from worry over Diego. She looked around and assured herself no one was paying her any mind.     Well, almost no one.     A couple of teenagers stopped in the street to stare at her and whistle. “Hey, belleza, ven conmigo!”     Though she perfectly understood the kid’s come on, Luz ignored him. She was used to being hit on, whether in English or Spanish. Still, the thought of confronting the kid bothered her, made her pulse rush a little faster, so she grabbed her bag, beeped her vehicle locked and crossed to the apartment building’s courtyard entry.     After pressing her brother’s doorbell several times with no response, Luz headed directly for Nuevo Laredo Artesania, owned and run by Jacinta Herrera, Diego’s landlady. Fired clay pots spilled into the walkway and hand-carved wood pieces hung from hooks around the doorway. Entering, Luz looked around and oriented herself.     The interior of the store was fitted with old wood and glass displays filled to the brim with silver bracelets and earrings and small and large leather goods. An old trastero with doors open featured wearable art—embroidered camisas and long skirts and shawls. Luz had only been in here a few times before, but she had always been impressed with the quality of the merchandise.     The thing that impressed her the most, however, was a series of masks lining the wall behind the counter. They were life-size ceramic masks of women’s faces. Luz knew they were the missing, suspected victims of human trafficking. The number had increased since she’d been here last.     Shuddering at the thought of people being lifted off the street in the newest incarnation of slavery, Luz looked for the owner.     Jacinta Herrera, a regal sixty-something, silver wings in her long, dark hair framing a gently lined face, was with a customer, a well-heeled younger woman with striking Aztec features and flawless taste. Dressed in a designer, clay-colored suit that played up her exotic heritage, a gem-encrusted snake bracelet decorating one wrist, the customer was paying for a hand-tooled turquoise and coral leather purse. The transaction completed, she left the shop without ever turning her black eyes to Luz. Her disinterest was palpable.     Luz couldn’t help but watch her go, cross the arcade and approach a black car where a man opened the door for her. A driver?     She was pulled back to her quest when the owner asked in Spanish, “Can I help you?”     Answering in kind, Luz said, “Senora Herrera, perhaps you remember me—”     The wrinkled face smoothed as the woman brightened. “Of course. You’re Diego Ortiz’s sister. Luz, yes? Please, call me Jacinta.”     Thankful the woman was welcoming, Luz nodded. “I’m here to see Diego, but he doesn’t seem to be home. He hasn’t been answering his phone. I’m...worried.”     No doubt remembering Luz was a Texan, Jacinta switched to English. “Perhaps he went away for a few days with his woman.”     “Several days ago, Pilar...well, she disappeared. Diego said she was taken and he was going to find her. He promised to call, but...” Luz swallowed her spiraling emotion—she had to keep a level head.     “When did you last hear from him?”     “Three days ago. I’ve called and called.”     “Three days...he could be anywhere.”     Jacinta Herrera appeared as concerned as she, Luz thought, trying not to panic as the woman crossed to the face masks and stared at them for a moment.     Luz shook her head. “You don’t think—”     “I think anything might have happened. The drug cartel in this area is very dangerous.”     “Diego didn’t do drugs. And he wouldn’t have sold them, either. He hates what drugs have done to people he knows.”     “What about his woman?”     “Pilar? I-I don’t know. He never said anything about it if she was into drugs. If she was...do you really think dealing with the drug-trade had something to do with her disappearance?”     Jacinta shrugged. “Terrible things happen to people in this part of the world.” She looked again to the masks. Touched one. “My own niece and her teenage daughter...”     Luz gasped. “I’m so sorry.” This part of the world was barely more than a two hour drive from her home. “Were they ever recovered?”     A slight smile frozen to her full lips, Jacinta shook her head.     The breath caught in Luz’s throat and her stomach shook. “Surely not Diego...” she choked out.     “I will pray for him that it is not so.”     “What do I do? I mean how do I find out?”     Jacinta shrugged. “If Diego and Pilar were taken, it is out of our hands.”     “It has to be in someone’s hands!” But whose?     “The Mexican government does not condone human trafficking, yet it has not been able to stop the trade. The authorities do not seem to think it merits an all-out war against the perpetrators.”     “Maybe that’s not it any more than drugs,” Luz said, trying to be hopeful. “Maybe Pilar ran away for some totally personal reason and Diego just went after her.”     “Perhaps. But you can usually reach him, yes?”     “Maybe something happened to his cell phone.”     “Perhaps,” Jacinta said again.     But Luz could tell the other woman wasn’t convinced. “If I could look through Diego’s things, I might be able to find something, some clue...” Maybe even the cell. He might have left it behind and so was unable to reach her.     After considering the request for a moment, Jacinta nodded. “I will let you in to his rooms.”     The climb to the fourth floor apartment left Luz breathless. Or perhaps it wasn’t the climb at all. She ran most mornings and worked out three times a week, so she had terrific stamina.     Perhaps it was the certainty that Diego was gone, taken from her as swiftly as he’d found her. She’d only learned she had a half-brother a half-dozen years ago, when they’d gone to the same university. Diego had chosen the University of Texas at San Antonio purposely so that his father would have the opportunity to claim him at last. A young man’s pipe dream. Instead, Luz had learned about Diego and had embraced a relationship with the brother she hadn’t even known existed.     Now she might have lost him forever.