Sweet Revenge

by Nora Roberts

  elevator sound. She would wait, holding her breath until footsteps moved passed the suite.

  As always, she felt the thud of satisfaction when the lock gave. Setting the key on top of the safe, she took out a jewelry case. Pearls, very nice, opera length. She replaced the case, then took out another. These were diamonds, rather small but fine and worked into a chain. She supposed Lauren would consider them casual wear. Adrianne replaced those as well, then found the diamond and ruby suite.

  Using her loupe, she examined three of the stones in the necklace. Burmese, as Lauren had said, masculine stones of deep color with a lovely satiny texture and a minimum of silk, or flaws. The diamond accents were excellent, V.S.I, with just a trace of yellow. Stones of the second water, but well cut. She slid them and the matching bracelet and earrings into her pocket, replaced the case, then relocked the safe. A glance at her watch showed she had adequate time to return to her own hotel and change for dinner with her cousin.

  It was then she heard a key turn in the lock.

  “Goddammit, get this thing out of the way.”

  Cursing under her breath, Adrianne leapt to obey. “Excuse, señora. Fresh towels, por favor”

  “Give me one then. Shit.” Lauren snatched a towel off the pile on the cart and began dabbing at a stain the size of a dinner plate on her skirt. “Clumsy son of a bitch spilled rum punch all over me.”

  Adrianne battled back a chuckle. The rubies hung heavy in her pocket. “Señora. Agua … ah, water? Cold water?”

  “This is silk, you idiot.” Tossing her head up, Lauren gave Adrianne a furious glare. She saw only a servant, an old and obviously stupid one. “What would you know about silk? God! There’s not a decent dry cleaners on this ridiculous island. Why Charlie didn’t build in Cancún, I don’t know.” She held the de la Renta skirt out. “Two thousand fucking dollars, and I might as well toss it out the window.” Snarling, she tugged viciously at the zipper. “Haven’t you got anything to do? We pay you by the hour. Get the hell out of here and earn your pesos.”

  “Sí, Señora St. John. Gracias. Buenas tardes.”

  “And speak English.” Lauren gave Adrianne a shove through the door, then slammed it.

  Like Adrianne, Philip had a large supply of patience. He had pulled into the El Grande’s parking lot and situated himself in a position where he could watch not only her Jeep, but the entrance as well. It was hot. The sweat rolled down the back of his cotton shirt and dampened it against the seat. He swigged from a bottle of Pepsi and promised himself he wouldn’t have another cigarette until Adrianne walked back out. He’d keep his distance for a while longer. Sooner or later she would lead him to the man Philip admired for his skill and envied for Adrianne’s loyalty.

  He’d have to be good, damn good, Philip thought, if he was going to lift something from the hotel in broad daylight. But then, Philip already knew The Shadow was more than good. The Moreau heist had been the last of a long list of perfect robberies.

  As yet, he hadn’t quite figured out what part Adrianne was playing. A diversion? An informer? From her position, she would be perfect as a supplier of inside information. But why?

  She was laughing when she came out again. Quietly, at some private joke. He’d find out the why, he promised himself, and everything else there was to know about her. For now he followed at a distance.

  At the El Presidente, Philip waited for her to come out again. He estimated that she’d have to push it if she was going to make it back to the El Grande in time for the St. Johns’ party. Whether she took the elevator or the rampway, he would be able to see her from his position in the lobby. It was sundown when she came down, looking cool and self-possessed in a billowy, backless sundress. She didn’t head for the parking lot, but for the beach. From a distance he watched her walk down a pier and onto a sleek white yacht that bore the name The Alamo.

  The woman she’d had drinks with earlier greeted her, along with a balding, ruddy-faced man and a slim young boy. He watched Adrianne offer a hand to the boy, then laugh and toss her arms around him while the setting sun shot spears of fire into her hair.

  If it was a business meeting, Philip mused, then he didn’t know infrared from a heat sensor. Readjusting his plans, he went up to her room.

  He hadn’t picked a lock in a number of years. Like riding a bike or making love, it was something that came back—and once reaccomplished, gave enormous satisfaction.

  She was tidy, Philip mused as he walked through her suite. He’d wondered about that, about how she lived when she was alone. There were no clothes carelessly tossed over a chair, no shoes left in the middle of the floor. On the vanity counter her bottles and tubes were capped and aligned. In the closet her clothes were neatly hung. She’d chosen the casual and roomy, he thought, as suited the hot days and warm nights. Her scent was there, lingering.

  When he caught himself daydreaming, he shook himself and began to search.

  Why the second set of rooms, he wondered. Why the assumed name? Now that he was in, he didn’t intend to leave until he had an answer.

  The makeup case wouldn’t have interested him, but he’d never seen Adrianne wear more than a few smudges of eye shadow and brushes of lipstick. In the three days she’d been in Mexico, she’d bothered to add the minimum only for evenings. So what would a woman who was very confident in her looks, and who rarely bothered to enhance them, need with a full makeup case?

  There were enough grease pencils and foundations to accommodate the chorus in a Broadway show. Intrigued, he lifted off the top layer and found putty, false lashes, and adhesive beneath. It appeared Adrianne liked to play at disguises. Beneath that layer he found Lauren St. John’s jewelry.

  Good? Had he thought The Shadow was good? The man was a genius. Somehow, in hardly more time than it took to tell about it, he had gained entrance to the St. Johns’ rooms, lifted the stones, then transferred them to Adrianne, without ever showing his face.

  She’d hidden them in a hollowed-out case that had once held an array of eye shadows. Holding them now, Philip felt the old temptation, that siren’s call of stones. Wars had been fought for them, lives lost, and hearts broken. They were dug out of the ground, chipped from rock, cut and polished and sold to adorn the necks, the wrists, the fingers. There were cultures that still believed they could ward off evil spirits or death.

  He understood why as the blood-red rocks and the diamonds glittered in his hands and whispered to him.

  He could have had them, slipped them into his pocket and walked away. He still had the contacts who could exchange them for cash and let him walk away richer and still free. It would be sweet, wonderfully sweet. And he was tempted, not so much because of the money, but because of the stones themselves. They lay hot in his hand, somehow feminine and taunting.

  With a sigh he put them back. It was unfortunate that he’d developed a certain loyalty to Spencer. Still, his decision came more because of Adrianne. He would wait and watch to see what she did with them, and with whom.

  He shut the case, then replaced it on the shelf at the top of the closet. After deciding it best to forgo dinner himself, he took a pillow from the sitting room, tucked it into the back of the spare closet there, then settled down to wait.

  He’d dozed off, but since he habitually slept lightly, a trait of thieves as well as of heros, he roused when he heard her key turn in the lock. He stood to watch her through the thin crack between the closet doors.

  She seemed relaxed. That was something else he’d begun to watch for, the shifting of her moods. The light she’d switched on fell over her back as she moved into the bedroom. He heard the rustle of her dress and imagined, though it did him more harm than good, the way she would look stepping out of it. The hangers slid metallically over the closet rail as she hung it up. When she moved past the door she’d left open between the two rooms, she was wearing a short robe, not yet belted. He could see the slender line of flesh from the well of her breasts and down.

  She was moving
briskly; not at all like a woman who was preparing to end an evening. Philip cursed the wall between them as he heard her rattle bottles on the counter of the vanity.

  There were long silences, then the click of a jar being opened or closed, the splash of water running. Then he heard the sound of her door opening slowly, and the quick click that followed.

  He waited, five seconds, ten, before he slipped out of the closet. At the rampway he had to hold himself back from hurrying after her. When he reached the bottom, he thought he’d lost her. The only woman he saw was broad-shouldered, wide-hipped, with frizzed blond hair. Philip continued to look for Adrianne. Then abruptly he swiveled his gaze back to the blonde. It all had to do with the way she moved, he thought, and nearly smiled as he watched her cross the parking lot.

  It was Adrianne, but he doubted she was on her way to a masquerade.

  As she drove toward San Miguel he kept a quarter of a mile back. The traffic was sparse, with an occasional cab barreling from town to the hotel district. On the left the sea was dark and calm, the bright, colorful lights of a cruise ship draped across the sky like jewels. Soon midnight would bring the first breath of Christmas. Children were already sleeping, wishing for morning. Tourists were prolonging their parties. Though the shops were closed, there was still music from the bars and restaurants.

  Adrianne parked across from the square. Her business should be over quickly enough. She wanted it over. Tonight, sitting on her cousin’s yacht, watching Duja with her family, sharing memories of life in Jaquir, she’d decided the rubies were her last job. Once she’d transferred the money and the dust had settled, she would be on her way east to the home of their childhood. And to The Sun and the Moon.

  There had been a festival in the square. The colored paper and wrappers had yet to be swept away along with a few plastic toys that had burst from a piñata and had been lost in the cracks. The town smelled of the water that hemmed it. The moon was clear and white, the stars holding enough (ire within to shimmer red at the edges. Above her the palms whispered in the warm, moist air so typical of islands.

  She went through an alleyway, and the music that echoed in the square was muffled. Another turn and she was in the stalls where by day the merchants hawked and haggled for the tourists. There were bargains to be had here, if one had a good eye and a quick wit. When the stalls were open there would be leather fashioned into belts, bags, sandals. Trinket boxes with little birds carved for handles could be had for a few thousand pesos or a pair of crisp American singles. The black coral the island was famed for could be seen in row after row of display cases. There would be hammered silver, abalone, cotton dresses festooned with embroidery.

  Now it was empty, the merchandise swept back from the narrow aisles and locked away behind garage doors. There would be no bargaining on Christmas. At least not for the tourists.

  Adrianne stopped, and waited.

  “You’re on time, señorita.”

  He melted out of the shadows, a short, spare man with deep marks in his face from acne or chicken pox. His lighter, with its inlay of turquoise, flared as he lit a cigarette and she saw the pucker of an old scar on the back of his hand.

  “I’m always on time for business.” There was a twang of Texas to her voice now. “You have the amount we agreed on?”

  “You have the merchandise?”

  She knew the kind of man she was dealing with. “I’ll see the money first.”

  “As you wish.” With a key he unlocked one of the stall doors. It lifted along its runners with bumps and rattles. Inside, it was crammed with cheap silver jewelry that hung on the walls and lay behind dusty glass. It smelled of overripe fruit and stale tobacco. He drew a satchel from behind him. “One hundred and fifty thousand American dollars. My backer wished to pay only one hundred, but I persuaded him.”

  “Fortunate for both of us.” Adrianne pulled on a surgical glove, then drew a pouch from her bag. “You’ll want to examine the stones, though I can assure you they’re genuine.”

  “Naturally. You’ll want to count the money, though I can assure you it’s all there.”

  “Naturally.” Cautious, eyes locked, they exchanged bags. Adrianne flipped through the bills before taking out a small device and running the face of a fifty over it. “These are also genuine. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”

  “The pleasure’s been mine.” He slipped the loupe and the pouch into his pocket. The knife he brought out glittered in the shadows. “I’ll take the money back, señorita.”

  She looked at the knife, then raised her eyes to his. It was always best to watch the eyes. “Is this the way your backer does business?”

  “It’s the way I do business. He gets the necklace, I get the money, and you, pretty lady, get to keep your life.”

  “And if I don’t want you to keep the money?”

  “Then you lose your life, and I still keep the money.” He took a step forward with the knife between them. “It would be a pity to die alone in the dark on Christmas Eve.”

  Perhaps it was simple reflex, her own instinct for survival. Or perhaps it had been his words, bringing back the horror of her mother’s death. But when he reached for the satchel, Adrianne ignored the knife and brought her foot up hard between his legs. The knife clattered to the ground only seconds before he did.

  “Bastard,” she muttered as she sent the knife careening into the dark. “Now your pride’s as small as your brain and just as useless.”

  “Well put,” Philip said as he came up behind her. He held up a hand as Adrianne whirled. In his other was a snub-nosed .38. He doubted he would need it, as the courier was currently retching onto the concrete. “Remind me to wear reinforced shorts around you, darling. Now pick up the pouch and let’s be on our way.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I was about to save your life, but you took care of that. The jewels, Addy. I’d prefer not to spend Christmas in a Mexican jail.”

  She snatched up the pouch and strode past him. “And I’d prefer that you’d go to hell.”

  Philip engaged the safety before dropping the pistol back into his pocket. “At this rate I’m sure we’ll meet there eventually. Personally, I’d like to put that moment off.” Giving in, he grabbed her arm and whirled her around. “Are you out of your mind coming here alone, dealing with? man like that?”

  “I know precisely what I’m doing and how to do it. You can attempt to arrest me here and now, but I’ll make you look like a fool.”

  He considered her a moment. Even with the makeup he could see the woman he knew beneath. “I believe you could. We’ll take my car.”

  “I’ll drive myself.”

  “Don’t push it.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “First we’re going back to the hotel so that you can get rid of that ridiculous wig. It makes you look like a tramp.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  “Then we’re going to put those pretty rocks back where they came from.”

  They were halfway across the square when she stopped, jerked out of his hold, and stared. “Now you re out of your mind.”

  “We’ll discuss it. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to be several kilometers away before your friend recovers.”

  As he gave her a shove toward his car, the clock in the square struck midnight.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The drive back to the El Presidente hadn’t calmed her. If possible, Adrianne was only more furious when she slammed into her room. Losing her temper was a rare treat for a woman who was used to strapping down any sign of her true feelings. But there were times, and there were people, who rated exceptions.

  “Goddamn you, Philip. You’ve given me nothing but trouble since the first time I saw you. Poking around, interfering, following me.” She jerked off the wig and hurled it in the vicinity of the sofa. It fell, gaudy as a stripper’s G-string, to the carpet.

  “And this is the thanks I get.”

 
“If you were trying in your own limited way to play hero, I can tell you I detest heros.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.” He closed the door gently at his back. He’d always thought there was little more fascinating to watch than a woman in a temper.

  After unclipping cheap gold loops from her ears, she hurled them against the wall. “I hate men!”

  “All right.”

  Seething, she began to pull off fake fingernails, letting them fall, in dime store grandeur, to the floor. “And you in particular.”

  “I always prefer being singled out by beautiful women.”

  “Can’t you find something more interesting to do than screw up my work?”

  “Not at the moment.” He watched as she shook her hair loose. The beauty mark she’d painted at the corner of her mouth didn’t suit her any more than the lavender eye shadow she’d troweled on. “Adrianne darling, what have you done to your face?”

  With a sound of frustration, she wheeled away into the bedroom. “Go away, will you?” she demanded as he strolled along behind her. “I’ve had a long day.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” He sniffed at her. The perfume, Rose’s—or now Lara’s—perfume, definitely had to go. He only smiled when she swatted him back like an annoying fly. “Was that a cousin you had drinks with this afternoon?”

  Setting her teeth, she began to rip off face putty. “You’ve been spying on me. I can’t think of anything lower.”

  “Then your imagination needs work. I favor the red bikini, but there’s a lot to be said for the blue one with all those tiny little stars.”