Better Off Dead

by Meryl Sawyer

  “Before that I worked three years at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia as the assistant coordinator.”

  “But you have no experience with weddings on the water,” Eddie said.

  Chad knew Eddie was thinking of an excuse not to hire Devon. When Eddie’s wife Malaea saw this babe, she would pitch a fit. Not that Eddie was a player. Far from it, but Malaea was extremely protective.

  Chad was protective, too, but for another reason. A hottie like this could easily take advantage of Eddie financially.

  Devon recited the cover story she’d concocted for this interview. “I did one wedding on Lake Michigan. The club catered the event on a member’s yacht. I coordinated everything.”

  Eddie nodded thoughtfully.

  “Sounds like she’s perfect for the job,” Chad said. No way would he let this woman not be hired even though he’d already decided he would have to keep his eye on her so she didn’t use Eddie.

  Okay, so keeping his eye on her wouldn’t be any problem. Keeping his eyes off her would be another matter. She chose that second to turn those cat-green eyes on him.

  Their gazes locked and for a long suspended moment they gazed at each other. Seconds ticked by. Devon refused to look away and let him know how much he unnerved her.

  Chad experienced an erotic charge, but quickly realized it was one-sided. The intensity of her gaze and the tight set of her full lips, confirmed her mind was not on sex. Her look was almost a challenge, almost as if she were daring him…to what? In that tiny suspended moment, he felt the full impact of her undeniable sex appeal.

  Eddie broke the tension. “When can you start?”

  Devon weighed her options. Her instincts told her this was a dangerous situation. She was unaccountably attracted to the taller man even though he reminded her of Tyler.

  “Before I take the job, I need to know if I can bring my golden retriever with me. He’s well-trained and won’t be a problem.”

  “Goldens are great dogs,” Chad said.

  Eddie hesitated a moment before saying, “Bring him.”

  “So when can you begin?” Chad asked. Not soon enough.

  “Next week.”

  “Tomorrow,” Chad said. “A big wedding is coming up this weekend.”

  “All right,” she agreed, but Chad heard a note of reluctance in her voice. “What time do you open?”

  “Nine,” Eddie replied. “Since we work weekends, you have Monday and Tuesday off.”

  Chad watched the knockout blonde as she filled out the employment forms Eddie had given her. He was standing close enough to get a whiff of some faint lemony scent. Perfume or perhaps shampoo.

  What was her story? No wedding ring, but she was a heartbreaker. Chad could spot one a mile off.

  Why had she come to Hawaii? In his experience people who relocated to Hawaii were looking for something or wanted to get away from something. They usually went home within the year.

  Watching Devon Summers, Chad wondered why she hadn’t applied to one of the big resort hotels or one of the larger wedding coordinators. With her credentials and looks, Devon could land a job anywhere. Why was she applying for a job with a small firm that wouldn’t pay as well as one of the upscale companies?

  A thought niggled at the back of his mind. Something about this woman seemed…off. What? Okay, okay, maybe it was visceral warning signals or simply his protective instincts where Eddie was concerned.

  “How long have you been in Honolulu?” Chad asked.

  “Less than a month.” Devon didn’t dare look up from the form she was filling out, fearing this man would see she was lying.

  “Why did you move here?” Eddie asked.

  “I’ve always wanted to live here.” She handed Eddie the forms. “Tomorrow, I’ll come a little before nine.”

  “Maikai.”

  “That means good,” Chad told her.

  She gazed at him for a moment, her eyes as unreadable as stone. Man, oh, man. She was one sexy lady and didn’t even seem to realize it.

  “What do you do here?” she asked.

  “I’m Chad Langston. I don’t work for Eddie.” He offered his hand.

  Devon’s instincts told her physical contact with this man was out of the question. She mustered a businesslike smile, but didn’t shake his hand.

  “My office is across the courtyard. I—”

  “See you tomorrow,” she abruptly told Eddie and headed for the door.

  Chad was right behind her. “Later,” he said to Eddie.

  “Do you need a ride?” he asked Devon.

  “No.” She wanted to get away from his disturbing presence. That’s what she needed.

  “I’ll drop by tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”

  Devon didn’t dare reply. She walked through the courtyard to the entrance of the building. A shiver of anticipation coursed through her. Why? It must be a reaction to Tyler’s betrayal, she decided. Her subconscious wanted to know if men still found her attractive.

  An ice queen, Chad thought. Just his luck. At one point anything in panties had captured his attention.

  Must be getting old.

  The first woman who’d interested him in a long time was frigid. Give Devon a break. Maybe she’d moved here to put a bad relationship behind her. She could be temporarily off men—or have a boyfriend.

  Thanks to three sisters, Chad had a good understanding of how a woman’s mind worked. He got along with women and enjoyed them. He was even willing to go shopping, although that was a stretch.

  He watched Devon disappear. He wanted to kiss her until she was breathless and begging for more. Hell, what he really wanted was to whisk her away to his place and peel that sundress off her.

  Heat pooled in his groin. Chad silently cursed himself for thinking with his dick. Like a siren, Devon called to him, urging him to come closer…and be destroyed.

  DEVON RUSHED OUT of the building, anxious to escape Chad Langston, but she paused to check the street. There were a few people, but none of them looked familiar. She hadn’t been followed.

  She should have turned down the job because she found Chad attractive, but she quite literally couldn’t afford to. She’d been offered lots of jobs, but none of them met her requirements should she need to escape.

  Chad Langston. Quite a hunk. Tall, sun-streaked chestnut-brown hair, blue eyes and a body to die for. No man had the right to possess so much masculine virility. He seemed to know it, she decided, remembering the aggressive boldness in his gaze.

  She would just have to give him the deep freeze until he got the message. No matter how sexy the ripped bod or how adorable his smile, Devon did not need a man in her life. But she had to admit his long sensual look, as close to a caress as you could get without touching, had triggered a bittersweet sensation.

  She hadn’t experienced anything like it for well over a year, when she’d been forced to leave Tyler behind in Houston. She’d immediately recognized the telltale gleam in Chad’s eyes for what it was—lust.

  What had stunned her was her own reaction. She had been too long without a man, but she couldn’t afford to get too close to anyone. The last man to help her had paid with his life.

  Over and over at odd, unexpected times, she kept seeing herself closing Romero’s eyes. Until we meet again, may God keep you in the palm of His hand.

  The weight of the loss, realizing she would never see Romero again swept through her. Where would she be if not for him? Even more lost and lonely than she’d been.

  Guilt had a stranglehold on her emotions. The hit team had killed something vital inside her when they’d murdered Romero. Problem was, she hadn’t died yet.

  Death was terrifyingly final. Knowing she’d caused his murder brought the blur of unfallen tears to her eyes. No more star-filled nights for Romero, no more artists to discover, no more walks through the historic plaza. No more anything.

  She forced herself to hit the speed dial on her cell phone and called Warren. “I got the job. I don’t think they c
hecked my references.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’re backstopped.”

  From her first relocation, she knew phony credentials and references were fixed so that if they were checked, they would appear to be legitimate.

  “Problem is I need to become an expert at planning a wedding by tomorrow morning.”

  “Try the Internet.”

  “I plan to.” She hesitated a moment before asking, “Has Masterson given the okay to call my sister yet?”

  “No. I’ll let you know when he does.”

  “Any word on selling my condo or the gallery?”

  “Like I’ve told you before, Lindsey Wallace is wanted for murder. WITSEC can’t just quietly sell your assets without attracting attention.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

  Warren was not a warm fuzzy guy. When Derek had been her handler, he had been much more helpful. She supposed Warren thought she knew the ropes since she’d already been relocated once.

  This time she had to take the WITSEC stipend until her assets in Santa Fe could be sold and the money transferred. Meanwhile, like most other WITSEC witnesses, she had to live on the cash her handler doled out and establish credit on her own. Until she had an income stream, she had to live in an apartment the size of a broom closet.

  The need for cash and the office’s setup with a back door and two escape routes made Devon take the job at Aloha. Otherwise, she told herself, she would have steered clear of pushy Chad Langston. For a moment she wondered if she should have told her handler about him. No way, she decided. Warren would have made her look for another job. Except for Chad, this office was perfect.

  She climbed into the temperamental Toyota that Warren had helped her buy. The rattletrap car was rusted, a common occurrence in Hawaii, and probably wouldn’t last another year, but for now it was all she could afford.

  Chad Langston drifted into her mind. His office was just across the courtyard. I’ll drop by tomorrow to see how you’re doing.

  Oh, no, you won’t.

  BROCK HARDESTY STARED at the special map on the wall that he had created for Samantha Robbins/Lindsey Wallace. He’d marked every state where she had attended school or had relatives or friends. He’d tagged the spots where she had vacationed. WITSEC wouldn’t relocate her in any of those places.

  “She’s probably in the Pacific Northwest or California,” he muttered. She hadn’t traveled to those places and had no friends there. But exactly where was she?

  The bitch was smart. He would grant her that. Not only had she evaded his hit team, but Lindsey had been clever enough to change the license plates on Romero Zamora’s car. When the APB went out, the police were looking for the blue Suburban, but they never spotted it because it had different plates.

  He later learned, through a source at FBI headquarters, that she’d driven north to Denver. WITSEC had immediately evacuated her.

  He’d caught hell from Kilmer Cassidy because his agents had muffed it. He reminded the scumbag CEO that he had advised him to have the bitch terminated the first time they had visited PowerTec.

  He had been running checks on new licenses issued by DMVs in the Western states. Hacking into the DMV was a no-brainer. It took a badge number to get into the local police computer. No problem since badge numbers were stored with employment files.

  Once Brock was into the local police computer, it was easy to springboard into the State Police computer. From there, it was a few keystrokes and you were in the DMV database. So far, nothing. He’d run hundreds of pictures of new applicants against an imaging software program with Samantha Robbins/Lindsey Wallace’s photograph on it, but none of them matched the picture of the woman he was after.

  His operatives—the dumb shits who’d let Lindsey Wallace get away—had a contact at the Bank of Santa Fe. The minute her condo or gallery sold and the funds were being transferred, he would know about it.

  It might take years. Romero Zamora had been a popular man with a lot of influential friends. His murder was getting more attention than Brock would have thought. With the media hovering, WITSEC wouldn’t dare sell her assets.

  In the meantime, he would wait. And when no one at Obelisk was paying attention to Number 111 and 32, Brock would arrange for an accident. He hadn’t come this far to suffer fools. He was already grooming another top-notch hit man.

  Man. Like Number 32, women were too emotional. Slitting Zamora’s throat was an unbelievable fuckup. Something only a woman would do.

  One of his telephones rang. The caller ID said it was one of the secret sources he’d developed for Obelisk.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve got some interesting info on a new device the DoD is testing.”

  “The Defense Department is always testing something.”

  The source chuckled. “How many times do they test it outside the department?”

  “Never.”

  “Never say never. Remember the Predator.”

  “Right,” Brock reluctantly agreed. The Predator drone had been developed in astonishing secrecy.

  “Archer Danson himself gave this prototype to some ex-military officer to test.”

  “No shit! What is it?”

  “I’m trying to find out.”

  “Get back to me the minute you do.”

  Obelisk had an unending need for military equipment. Something phenomenal would remind them how brilliant he was.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SITTING ON A BEACH CHAIR with his long legs stretched out, Chad chomped on a slice of pork slathered with a barbecue sauce that was supposed to be a family secret. It was store-bought sauce doctored with Worcestershire, Tabasco, and a bit of honey. The taste depended on who made the sauce. Keke made this batch. It was loaded with Tabasco.

  It was almost sunset and he was with his sisters and their families under a cluster of date palms. His three sisters had seven kids among them, and they had brought along assorted rugrats who were friends or relatives. On most family birthdays and other occasions, Chad’s brothers-in-law came early in the morning to Waimanalo Beach on the west side of the island, not far from Honolulu. They’d dug an imu pit in the sand, lined it with dried banana leaves, and slow-roasted a kalua pig.

  The waves were calmer here than in other parts of the island, and the fine sand made awesome sandcastles. Chad preferred the surf on the North shore where he’d grown up, or nearby Sandy Beach around Makapuu Point where the body surfers hung out. But for young children, this beach was perfect.

  The luau was a Hawaiian family tradition. It had been botched by hotels that served gross food while hula girls and fire eaters performed. Family luaus usually didn’t have hula dancing. For entertainment someone might pick up a ukulele and start playing after having a few too many Primo beers. Keke’s husband Paul was sure to bring out his slack key guitar as soon as he’d had dessert.

  For Hawaiians a luau was a chance to get together with their extended family and “talk story” while they feasted and celebrated a birthday or special occasion. Talking story was their way of passing on island lore and traditions to the young.

  It was also a way of handing down family tales. Talking story meant telling the same tales over and over, but Hawaiians didn’t mind. It was customary to listen intently as if hearing the story for the first time.

  His sister Keke came over and sat down beside him. “You’re awfully quiet. What’s up?”

  Keke and Chad were closer than he was to his other two sisters because they had been born fourteen months apart. With his father away constantly managing the Turtle Bay Resort, their mother had been so overwhelmed that it had been another three years before the twins, Nola and Hana had arrived.

  “Come on.” Keke poked him in the ribs. “Tell me.”

  “I met a woman.”

  “About time!” The blue eyes he saw every morning when he shaved sparkled with mischief, and Keke laughed. “Tell me about her.”

  He didn’t know what to tell Keke. As much as he was attracted to Devon, something abo
ut her made him wary. It wasn’t anything tangible. It was a gut feeling, a holdover from his Special Ops days with Delta Force, when he’d learned to rely on his instincts.

  “Her name is Devon Summers. She’s going to be the new wedding coordinator for Eddie.”

  Around her finger, Keke twisted a strand of dark hair wet from swimming with her kids. “Remind her that I’m on the list if she needs extra help.”

  Keke sometimes worked Eddie’s parties to make extra money. She was exceptional at tending bar for a large number of guests and could do the work of two bartenders.

  “I’m sure Eddie will tell her.”

  “You can’t have known her very long. Malaea told me yesterday morning that Eddie was still interviewing.”

  Keke was very close to Eddie’s wife. Once Chad would never have believed it could happen. Eddie and Keke had dated steadily throughout high school. After Eddie left the North Shore for Honolulu, he’d met Malaea.

  Chad had been overseas with the Delta Force fighting Desert Storm. Nola and Hana had sent him a barrage of e-mails to tell him how upset Keke was. The first chance he’d gotten, Chad had called Eddie and found out his calabash cousin was in love but not with his sister.

  A little more than a year passed and Keke met Paul Nakamura. They married and had children. With young children so close in age and being thrown together at family gatherings, the women had the opportunity to get to know each other and become friends.

  “Eddie must have just hired her.”

  “This afternoon.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Chad watched his sisters’ brood splashing in the surf glazed golden by the setting sun and thought how perceptive Keke was. “I think the woman took an instant dislike to me.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes. Way. I was trying to talk to her and she walked off.”

  “You didn’t come on too strong, did you?”

  Chad shrugged one shoulder. “She walked in and—wham—a guy would have to be dead not to stare at her.”

  “I might have guessed. Big tits.”

  “No, not centerfold material. She’s hot, though. Slim, long legs, blond hair.”