So She Wore Red

Read an excerpt from “So She Wore Red”:

Prologue

Santiago Desoto couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the morning. Shades of pink and blue streaking across the sky behind mountains lush with trees and vines so thick they seemed almost black in contrast, reaching up as if trying to shut off the light.

A helicopter descended rapidly from his right. His eyes followed the path as it swept over the trees on the far side of the lake and turned toward them. DeSoto knew that Eduardo Reyes was the pilot. Reyes had information for him. Information he needed about certain individuals in his organization that were planning a takeover in Central America.

A loud explosion echoed across the lake. A flash of light sped toward the helicopter from somewhere on the shore behind it.

Desoto watched in horror as Eduardo’s helicopter exploded sending bright red, yellow and orange flames across the surface of the still, dark lake. That ball of burning, tumbling wreckage skittered across the smooth surface reflecting light until it came to a halt. It suddenly stopped as quickly as it had begun. It stopped, then slowly sank from sight. As if it had never been. Leaving only circling eddies in its wake.

“Eduardo!” Desoto cried out. Then he was silent, he knew Eduardo was gone. The man had been his only confidant, his voice, his other half. True, Eduardo was no hero, but then neither was DeSoto. Together they ran one of the largest drug cartels with tendrils stretching into the US, Central and South America.

DeSoto sighed as his driver opened the car door of the black limo for him. There would be no report from Eduardo today, or ever it seemed. No news of the traitors inside his organization who had surely perpetrated this disaster. He sank into the buttery smooth carmal leather of the limo seat laying his head back and trying to clear his mind. Even thru the momentary shock of Eduardo’s loss, his mind raced ahead, forming a plan to replace him. He never dwelt too long on personnel loss, He had found it useless.

DeSoto needed to put something in place before the US Congressional hearings started. He needed to insure the outcome would be positive for his organization, despite what he would   have to do to orchestrate it.

 

Chapter 1

 

Lenore had watched the same sunrise earlier that morning, as she stuffed the last piece of bacon into her mouth. She opened the hall closet to retrieve a coat. The weather forecast called for cooler temperatures and light rainfall for the mountains of North Carolina. As she gazed into the depths of the closet all she could see was black.

“Enough with the black already!”  Lenore shouted yanking garments from their hangers and letting them fall to the floor.

Stopping suddenly, her hand in mid-air, a flash of red caught her eye. She reached in to pull a red coat from the closet.

“I’m wearing red today,” she announced holding the coat up, laughing happily.

She smiled as she slipped the coat over her shoulders. Turning, Lenore looked at herself in the hallway mirror.

Black never was my happy color.

Despite the smile, Lenore could see the anger in the green eyes that gazed back at her. She tilted her head trying to soften her expression.

Lenore had spent the last year in mourning after the death of her husband, Ron.

She sighed. It had hurt and embarrassed her when an affair surfaced at the time of Ron’s death. Even before that, she knew he had already left her. He stopped touching her, she felt guilty as if somehow it was her fault. A tear slipped down her cheek. She hissed at her reflection in the mirror.

Don’t kid yourself, Lenore. Ron betrayed you with another woman. Did he care, did he ever love me?

“Damn it! I had breast cancer, I needed him.” Lenore yelled at the mirror.

She tipped her chin up taking a deep breath.

I am not doing this anymore. It’s time I get on with my life. I am no more responsible for what he did than I am for getting cancer.

Lenore buttoned the coat snatching up her shoulder bag. She walked out of the home she had shared with her husband, firmly closing and locking the door behind her, simultaneously closing the door on all those memories, both good and bad.

“Time to make new memories,” she sighed as she climbed into her SUV.

A few minutes later she was pulling out of the drive, heading for the place she had always wanted to be.