by Joanna Wayne
Amazingly, her hands didn’t sweat, her stomach didn’t roll and her chest didn’t cave in. Either her nerves were actually making progress or else being in Damien’s presence made her feel safe.
The vantage point helped, too, and the fact that the yacht was nowhere to be seen, which meant that Caudillo wasn’t there, either. The fortress was less intimidating than she remembered, the island much smaller. At least it was until Damien began dropping altitude.
“I’ll be working the controls so that we can circle the island. You do the talking—anytime you’re ready to start. We’d be able to see all of the island at once were it not for the trees and heavy vegetation. This whole island is barely twice the size of the Bent Pine Ranch.”
“Bear in mind that I only saw a small part of it,” she reminded him. “I arrived at night. And once I was here, I was confined within the walls surrounding the house.”
“Just tell me what you know. The north side of the island is just below us.”
“That’s the house,” Emma said. “The small inlet about a hundred yards down the beach from the house is where he anchors the yacht.”
“That looks more like a commercial marina than a personal boat dock.”
“It is, except that Caudillo is the only customer allowed. There were at least two dozen workers there the night we arrived. I was still woozy, but I remember that they helped us off the boat and, I suppose, cleaned it and got it ready for the next trip. Before I was drugged I remember noting that the yacht was immaculate, more like a posh hotel than a boat.”
“Tell me about the house.”
“Only if you promise you’re not going there to try to deal with Caudillo yourself.”
“We’ve already established that, but you have to admit it would be fun to see the look on his face if you dropped in with a team of Navy SEALs and told him that you were back for your half of the property settlement.”
“Don’t even joke about my going back to the island or about a marriage.”
“Right. No jokes. But you did crack a smile. I’ll circle the north end again in a minute, but what are the buildings to the west?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t know they were there.”
“Could be barracks for his army. Did you ever hear him say how many men worked for him?”
“No, but when he was gone I could hear them outside the house. My guess is there had to be at least fifty in all, counting the guards at the house. There could be more.”
“So it appears no one around here questions a businessman’s need for an army,” Damien said.
“I don’t think anyone questions Caudillo about anything.”
“Then I suspect he pays off the right people. Corruption is always in style.”
“It is his personal island,” Emma reminded him. “He told me it was a gift from some prince I’d never heard of, but he could have been lying.”
“I guess real estate is real estate,” Damien said, “as long as you have the money to pay someone off.” He pointed to his left. “There, just over the guava trees, do you have any idea what that rectangular building is used for?”
“That, I do know. It’s where the men were hauling the crates of weapons from the night I escaped. On the beach just past that is the dock where their boat was.”
“And then there’s another view of the house coming in from the south. I can see why you think it looks like a fortress with that stone fence all the way around it. Nothing is missing but a moat.”
“No moat. You walk through the front doors and into the main part of the house. It’s a big open room with no furniture. I never saw it used for anything other than a giant foyer.”
“Where were you kept?”
“My quarters were to the right.”
“What about the other two women who were there for part of the time you were? Where were their quarters?”
“I’m not sure, but not close enough that I could communicate with them through the walls.”
“So there could be other women still imprisoned there who you never saw.”
“It’s possible.” Suddenly, the light came on. She should have realized it before. The questions. The flyover. The entire trip to the Caribbean.
Damien might not be planning to personally lead his own rescue operation, but he was planning to make sure one was carried out utilizing whatever information he culled from the trip.
“You’re going to the FBI with this information, aren’t you, Damien?”
“Let’s not get into that now.”
“And if Caudillo has connections with the FBI as he said, how long do you think it will take him to find me?”
“He’s never going to find you because I won’t do anything unless I’m positive you’re safe. And face it, Emma, you are never going to feel safe until Caudillo’s either dead or behind bars. And for all we know, Caudillo might already be picking out your replacement. This man has to be stopped.”
She took a deep breath and fought back the wall of fear that held her captive as surely as Caudillo had. She’d stopped lying to Damien. It was time she stopped lying to herself.
“I agree that Caudillo has to be stopped at any cost, Damien. In my heart, I’ve always known that I couldn’t just run away and soothe my conscience with some anonymous phone call. But the thought of facing him again is frightening beyond anything I can describe.”
“You have every right to be afraid, but I’m not going to lose you to that fear, Emma.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I don’t plan to lose you at all.”
* * *
“THAT’S THE ISLAND OF Misterioso just below us now,” Damien said.
Emma leaned to her right for a better view. “It looks like a kite from here.”
“Shall I lower the altitude to see if you can pinpoint the hotel you fell in love with?”
“I think it’s at the end of the kite’s tail. But no. I don’t need to see it. I’m out of love with it now. It’s where I met the monster.”
“The beaches look great,” Damien said, “but they don’t have a decent landing strip on the island, so you have to get there by boat or helicopter or in a very small plane.”
“That’s why we’d already arranged for a charter boat before I got to Aruba,” Emma said. “Actually, I could have gotten a much better rate if I’d booked on-site, but Dorothy had her heart set on going to one of the non-touristy islands.”
“Dorothy had a lot of plans for a woman who canceled out at the last minute.”
“I told you. It was a money issue. And I was fully in favor of going to Misterioso.”
“How did you hear about it? Did you go through a travel agent?”
“No. Dorothy looked it all up on the internet.”
“And then she decided to bail on you.”
“I’m not blaming her. She was heartsick over missing the trip, and she couldn’t possibly have foreseen what would happen to me if I came alone. And if I hadn’t come alone, we might have both been kidnapped. I know she would have jumped at the chance to board that fabulous yacht.”
Still, the facts didn’t add up for Damien. It was Dorothy’s dream vacation and her friend went without her. Yet Dorothy hadn’t bothered to report it to authorities when Emma had stopped texting and had never come home.
He wouldn’t bring that up now. He’d heard the sadness in Emma’s voice when she talked about her friend. She thought Dorothy might be dead. He had other ideas about that, but he didn’t want to say anything more to upset Emma.
He circled the island again at a lower altitude so that he could get a better look at the three yachts he’d noticed anchored in a small inlet.
Emma turned and touched his sleeve. “That’s it, Damien. The biggest one. That’s Caudillo’s yacht.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. How many yachts that size can there be in the world, much less in the Caribbean?”
“Not too many.”
“If the yacht is there, Caudillo is not far away. If we h
ad one of those sophisticated drones the army uses, we could fire it on him and blow him to smithereens.”
Her voice was clipped as if she were firing off shells. Killer thoughts claimed Damien’s mind, as well. He’d like to walk onto that yacht and strangle the sick bastard with his bare hands.
Possibilities stormed his mind. He tried to put them in some kind of rational order. He could land on one of the other islands and hire a boat to bring him and Emma back to Misterioso. They could go to whoever was in charge on this island and press charges.
The authorities surely couldn’t just let Caudillo sail away if she was standing there telling them how he’d kept her captive. At least not in a perfect world. In this one, Caudillo was a regular on the island. He and Emma were outsiders. There was no question whose side they’d take.
Damien could call the FBI and request urgent help, but when they checked the records, they’d find that Emma Muran was married to Caudillo. The kidnapping story would instantly lose much of its credibility and urgency, especially since she wasn’t being held captive now.
That explained the marriage license. It was Caudillo’s insurance against kidnapping charges. For all Damien knew, the fake paperwork might have been filed in the past few days, after Emma’s escape.
As he pondered the options, the yacht began to move. Damien circled again and increased his altitude. Then he watched helplessly as the yacht sailed not toward Enmascarado but toward the open sea.
“I hope he gets caught in one of those killer waves you read about and the ship sinks with him on it,” Emma said.
“Good plan.”
But in case that didn’t happen, Damien figured he better come up with a plan of his own, one that had a lot better chance of succeeding. A plan where the FBI eagerly jumped into the fight with him.
For that, he might need a live Dorothy Paul.
And the time was ripe to renegotiate his earlier promise with Emma. The Lambert brothers did their best work as a team.
* * *
“HOME AGAIN,” DAMIEN SAID as he stopped in the carport attached to the four-car garage on the Bent Pine Ranch. “Take a deep breath and let the odors of manure and damp earth titillate your lungs.”
“I hope you’re not planning to stop raising cattle and take up writing poetry.”
“Always a critic in the group.”
“But I’m as excited to be back to the ranch as you are. I can’t wait to see Belle.”
“Head on in and snatch her from Mother’s clutches. I’ll bring the luggage.”
“Your mother will ask about what we found out about Belle’s father.”
“Tell her the lead didn’t pan out.”
“I hate lying to her.”
“You can choose to tell her the truth anytime.”
“I’d only drag her into the Caudillo sphere of horror. What I really need to do is leave Belle in her care and disappear the way I’d originally planned. You have plenty of information now to take this to the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security or the ATF.”
“Here we go again. Run, baby, run.”
“It’s the only sensible solution.”
“It’s no solution. And I’m not ready to turn this over to any federal agency just yet.”
“What’s holding you back?”
“The kidnapping is compromised by the fake marriage license, and if Caudillo does have the connections he claims, a search of his island for illegal weapons would likely result in a dry run. He could clear the contraband off the island as quickly as the marauders did the night you escaped.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“If we go to the FBI with what we have now, the case against Caudillo could get so tangled in bureaucratic red tape it’ll end up in file thirteen.”
“And you don’t have anything else. Face it, Damien. We’ve hit a brick wall. Caudillo wins.”
“Not unless we give up, and I have no intention of doing that. Now, go see Belle.”
She practically ran up the steps and across the wide porch. He’d always liked coming home to Bent Pine. But never had it looked or felt as good as it did now with Emma on the scene.
His phone rang as he slid the luggage straps over his shoulder. As always, he checked his caller ID. It was the private investigator he’d hired to find Belle’s father.
“What’s up?” he asked in lieu of hello.
“I may have good news for you.”
“Hit me with it.”
“I think I’ve located the Juan Perez you’re searching for.”
Chapter Eleven
“Tell me about the man you’ve located,” Damien said.
“To start with, he’s the only decent lead I’ve found. The downside is he lives in Fort Worth, not Dallas.”
“Not a big deal,” Damien admitted. People from outside the region frequently referred to the entire metropolitan area as Dallas or Dallas/Fort Worth, whether it was Fort Worth, Garland, Arlington or any number of smaller towns that surrounded Dallas.
Damien thought of himself as living in Dallas, though he was a good forty-five minutes from the downtown area, and that was when traffic was light.
“This Perez is in construction,” the P.I. reported, “and has been with the same company for six years. No police record. No one is suing him for bad debts. And according to his landlord, he pays his rent on time.”
“All to his credit, but I fail to see the connection between any of that and his being Belle’s parent—other than his name.”
“I’m coming to the evidential facts. He’s twenty-nine years old and not married. He was born in Texas, so there’s no question of his being legal. His neighbor says he’s heard him say he sends money to his family and a pregnant girlfriend back in Mexico. But he says the guy hadn’t mentioned that lately, so I figured she could have delivered the infant you’re talking about by now.”
“Have you met this Perez?”
“Not yet, but I drove by the construction site where he was installing windows. I picked him out from a picture I got off his website.”
“He has a website?”
“Yeah. He refurbishes golf carts as a sideline business.”
“When do you find out if he has a daughter named Belle?”
“Hopefully this evening. He stops off for a beer most nights after work. I’ll be at his usual hangout tonight. A little small talk should let me know if we need to question him further.”
“Tell you what. Email me the link for his website and the name and location of the bar he frequents and leave the rest to me.”
“Then you don’t want me to finish this investigation?”
“I don’t want you to confront this man. If he turns out not to be the Juan Perez I’m looking for, I’ll turn the case back over to you.”
“Okay. Keep me posted.”
“Will do, but get that information to me in the next few minutes.”
Damien had mixed emotions about finding Belle’s father. He knew returning the child to her biological father was the right thing to do. But once Belle was out of Emma’s life, keeping Emma from leaving the Bent Pine would become increasingly difficult.
Keeping her with him was the only way he could keep her safe. He had to move fast on the Caudillo case—for all their sakes.
His phone rang again.
This time the news was all bad.
* * *
CAROLINA SAT IN THE MIDDLE of the family room floor surrounded by her treasures. She’d carefully removed each sentimental memento from one of the boxes she’d stored in the attic years ago.
Straightening her full skirt, she reached for the red heart-shaped box. Cradling it in her hands as lovingly as she’d cradled Belle in her arms, she caressed the brocade covering.
Hugh had given her that box and the sapphire ring inside it on their first anniversary. Their real anniversary, not the one he’d adopted so that Damien would never know he was born before they were married.
The band was engraved with the words Yours Forever
. She still had the ring. She no longer had Hugh. Her dreams of growing old with him had gone down with the plane.
She looked up as Emma stepped into the room with Belle against her chest, her head resting on Emma’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I didn’t realize you were in here.”
“That’s okay. Come join me. I’m just delving into memories, and I’ve already been at it too long. I can use some company.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure, if you don’t mind talking to a sentimental old widow. Sybil and Pearl both avoid me when I get in these moods. So do my sons.”
Emma sat down on the floor amidst the souvenirs. Carolina picked up a snapshot that had brought tears to her eyes a few minutes before. This time she smiled. That’s the way it went with memories.
“This is Hugh the first time he tried to give Damien a bath by himself. They were both soaked, and so was my floor.”
Emma reached for the picture for a closer look. “How old was Damien when this was taken?”
“Six months. I don’t think Hugh got up the courage to bathe him again until he was walking. To tell you the truth, I was almost as inept with Damien as Hugh was. Neither of us had ever been around babies. Poor Damien. He was our guinea pig on parenting.”
“You obviously did a lot of things right.”
“He did turn out to be quite the man. Both Hugh and I were proud of all our sons.”
“You must still miss your husband very much.”
“Every waking minute.”
“What was he like?”
“I could take hours answering that question. But I won’t,” she added quickly, lest she scare Emma off. “I guess the best description of Hugh is that he was bigger than life. He walked into a room and everyone else faded into the background. He was gregarious, boisterous and a man of his word.”
“The two of you created a great life.”
“Huge loved this ranch. He liked the business world, too, but the land was like an extension of him.”
“He must have been a remarkable man.”
“He was, but admittedly not quite as perfect as I make him sound. He had a tendency to believe that he always knew best. Damien inherited that trait from him. I suppose you’ve realized that by now.”
