Volcano

by Patricia Rice

  Charlie glanced around the neat little room with a half- crooked smile that nearly took her breath away, then fixed her with a look that shook her clear down to her shoes. “Yeah, I was just beginning to like this place. I could have stayed awhile longer.”

  Which didn’t answer her stated question but certainly answered one or two others. He wouldn’t have stopped at kissing. She should have known. She had known; she’d just fooled herself into thinking otherwise. Damn the man. Women probably fell all over him. It meant nothing to him. She’d better keep that thought firmly planted in the forefront of her mind, right after staying alive.

  “Let’s just get out of here, okay?” she demanded anxiously.

  “Righto, it’s into the hills we go. Pity they burned Raul’s shack.” He shifted his backpack, snagged the laptop from Penelope’s shoulder, and hooked it over his own. “Out the back window, my fair lady. Got your climbing shoes on?”

  She didn’t own climbing shoes. She wore the cheap Keds she’d intended to wear for walking on the beach. But they were better than heels. With a sigh, Penelope threw her sack of clothing through the window and followed him out under the camouflage of a fern tree. Charlie’s hands catching her waist and helping her down didn’t ease her jumbled thoughts, only increased her awareness. She had a sudden mental image of Charlie’s impressive chest, naked and leaning over her. Just the image took her breath away. She’d probably faint if it ever became reality.

  Get a grip, she muttered to herself as she trudged in Charlie’s footsteps through the thick greenery behind the house.

  They had to take only a few steps before the cottage disappeared entirely behind the curtain of trees and vines. Penelope prayed Charlie knew where he was going, because any sign of civilization disappeared along with the cottage.

  “Do you think we should head back to Miami?” she asked. From this angle, she could see no more than his broad back. She hadn’t learned to read him yet, but she judged by the way he was stomping down the undergrowth that he wasn’t in an amiable mood.

  “I need to be in two places. Hell, I need Raul.” He shut up again, ripping a massive vine out of his way and forging a path of his own through what could be someone’s backyard, as far as she could tell.

  “Beth will start looking for Tammy. She’s learned to really manipulate the computer and telephones. If her ex gets my message, he can help. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing until we get there,” she offered.

  “If she’s done this on purpose, I’ll strangle her myself.”

  That wasn’t helpful. Penelope threw Charlie’s broad shoulders a scornful look. That was the problem with men his size. They thought brute strength would solve everything. Her stomach did a little jig at the fleeting thought of just what men of his size could do. “We have to figure out what to do next. We can’t play Tarzan and Jane forever.”

  He threw her a look over his shoulder that involved a lifted eyebrow and a half smirk she should have kicked him for, but Penelope allowed him his little nonsense. He had reason to be half out of his mind.

  “This Tarzan has no more fondness for jungle than Jane,” he admitted, turning back to the task at hand and beating his way through banana leaves. “If I knew who on the island is on Jacobsen’s payroll, I might make some progress.”

  “If that’s all it takes, we just need to search for his local bank account. I doubt he pays vandals and murderers by check, but I wouldn’t think he’d be stupid enough to send cash through the mail. Someone has to be taking drafts from a bank account here.”

  “And I suppose you can locate his bank account with that little box.”

  Penelope shrugged even if he couldn’t see her. “I can create whole new identities with this ‘little box.’ I’m amazed that authorities haven’t caught on to what can be done out there in cyberspace. I’ve known kids who can break into banks, past the most sophisticated of firewalls. I probably can’t do that, but I bet the island bank has a standard software package I can get through without much problem.”

  He stopped and looked back at her. “Could you empty Jacobsen’s bank accounts?”

  “Here, easily. Back there? With a lot of work.” Penelope shifted her sack to the other hand and glared at him. “But I won’t.”

  She almost thought she saw admiration in his expression before he returned to hiking ahead of her.

  “I’m gonna have to get me someone like you when I get back,” he announced without preliminaries.

  “Good luck. It’ll cost you,” she muttered. “And the authorities eventually catch on, so if you have crime in mind, be prepared to pay the price.”

  “Crime isn’t what I have in mind at all.” He didn’t elaborate but studied a telephone pole emerging in the field ahead. “They usually keep extra wire out here in case of emergency.”

  The jump from crime to wire took a minute, but Penelope followed the path of his thoughts as easily as she did his path through the undergrowth. She stared upward at the low wires crossing the forest into the open field beyond. Civilization was never far away in this place.

  “We can’t camp out here in the middle of nowhere,” she protested. “I don’t care how many wires you can run or how much electricity you can steal. I’m losing my job because of you, Charlie Smith; I’ll not become a criminal.”

  “I bet you don’t even cheat on your income taxes.” He shot her a rueful look and continued their march to nowhere.

  “That’s the way I was brought up,” she replied stiffly.

  “You don’t mind stealing information but you stop short of cheating. I wonder just how far your shield of integrity and honor goes.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked testily.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m just not used to dealing with women who won’t scheme and lie to get what they want. It seems to come with the territory.”

  “You’re a pig, you know that, Charlie? Why don’t you just lead me to the nearest road and I’ll take my chances on finding my own way out of here.”

  To her utter surprise, he turned and grabbed her shoulders, hugging them soundly. “Not a chance, baby. It’s you and me against the world. Come on, I know where to go.”

  ***

  “What are you doing here?” Having opened the door, Beth couldn’t very well slam it in the face of the man on the other side, but she would have liked to. Even though she couldn’t see him, she’d know John’s presence a mile away.

  “I got Penny’s message. She says there’s some kind of trouble and asked me to stop by.”

  “Well, as you can see,” Beth said this last word sarcastically, “I’m perfectly fine. You can go on about your business.”

  “Don’t you even want to ask about the kids?”

  She could almost swear she heard bitterness in his voice. What right did he have to be bitter? “I don’t want to have to ask about the kids. I want them here with me, telling me how they are. And if you can’t manage that much, then you could at least volunteer the information. I shouldn’t have to ask.”

  “Then I’m volunteering. Will you get out of my way so I can come in or do I have to do it from out here?”

  She didn’t want to let him in. She didn’t want him watching her tapping around a room stripped bare for her sake. Penelope, bless her heart, had stored all her lovely furniture so they could move into this apartment furnished for the handicapped—the physically challenged, she amended.

  All the counters and tables were built without sharp edges and fixed in place so no one could move them and catch her unaware. She hated it, hated knowing she needed the help, hated knowing Penelope had given up her own life, hated herself for not having the courage to just die and make everyone happier. Most of all, she hated her ex-husband for talking at her with pity behind his words.

  Turning her back on John as he entered, she returned to the computer table. “A friend of Penelope’s is missing and now I can’t reach Penny either. I think she’s in some kind of trouble, but she’s out in the
middle of a jungle on an island, with no means of communication. I’m worried about her.”

  “If she’s managed to reach both of us, then she’s not without communication. I wouldn’t worry about that sister of yours. She could raze the jungle in a single day if she needed to. Who’s the friend and where’s she missing from?”

  Beth bent her head over the keyboard rather than let him see the flush on her cheeks. She’d started dating John right out of high school. He was the only lover she’d ever known. And her physical reaction to him hadn’t changed despite all obstacles. Unfortunately, his had the instant she’d gone blind.

  “She’s a twenty-year-old kid who was supposed to have arrived at the airport this morning. I’ve left a message with the pilot of her private plane, but he hasn’t returned it yet. I’m trying to track down someone at the airport to verify that the flight arrived.” She held the information her Braille printer had transcribed from Penelope’s e-mail with the pilot’s name and number.

  John reached over her shoulder and appropriated the phone and her notes. At six feet, he had a long reach. Beth held her breath and rolled the office chair out of his way. She didn’t have much room between desk and console, and he didn’t acknowledge her personal space. He propped his hip against her desk and hit the dial buttons.

  She honestly thought her teeth would chatter as she listened to him in action. She’d always admired his competence in solving problems. It had taken years before she realized that there were some problems he solved by not facing them. He could hammer a nail or find a crook, but he couldn’t deal with her emotional needs. After the accident, he couldn’t deal with her at all.

  He jotted down a number, hung up, and dialed again. In moments, she heard him repeating the time of arrival and jotting it down, then checking on passengers and flight plans. When he hung up, he had everything she’d been scrambling all over creation for.

  “The plane arrived at 6:10 a.m., pilot and one passenger, a Tamara St. Philippe, checked through customs on schedule. I’ll have headquarters check the taxi stand. You say this is the pilot’s number? I’ll have someone go out there and wake him up.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said resentfully, jerking the paper from his hand. “I’m not completely helpless. I checked the number in the directory, and I have a friend going over there now.”

  She heard the brush of his shirtsleeves as he crossed his arms over his chest. “All right, then explain what Penny meant about someone cracking your firewall.” She could see his shadow glancing around at the eggshell paint of the apartment walls. “I don’t see any cracked walls. Is it back in the bedrooms?”

  “The computer firewall,” Beth answered irritably. “Someone’s trying to hack Penny’s computer. She’s afraid that someone may come here. I have no idea what she’s up to or why anyone would want to break into her computer. There’s nothing here that a hacker couldn’t find in a dozen other places.”

  “Well, then, I guess we’d better find out. DeeDee has a dance rehearsal at four. We’d better get on it.”

  Beth wanted to cry hysterically and smack him at the same time. He thought he could just waltz back in here and take over her life again. Damn Penelope. She’d had no business calling on John. Beth didn’t want him here. She’d just begun to learn to cope without him. She didn’t want to be reminded of how good it felt to work alongside him. She’d never been alone in her life until the accident.

  She had plenty of time to get used to being alone again after he left.

  “Penelope forwarded some information she’d dug up on a man named Jacobsen,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe we should start there.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Penelope glanced up from the laptop and, shielding her eyes from the hot sun, checked on the man pounding at the shingles of a tottering, stilt-legged shack. Charlie’s hammering had taken on the aspect of jungle drums as the day wore on. She could almost read the escalating tension in the viciousness of his blows.

  He’d stripped off his shirt, and sweat glistened over bronzed skin and hard muscle. She was almost grateful that he’d chosen to take his frustrations out on the roof instead of her. Almost. A niggling imp inside her wondered how it would feel with all that naked flesh concentrated on her and not the roof. She gulped as he reached for another nail, and she glimpsed the pelt of hair narrowing down his taut abdomen. She was ready to melt like hot wax, and the sun had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

  Reluctantly, she turned her attention back to the shade and the rickety table holding her laptop. Charlie had run wires for the telephone hookup from the pole, but the electricity came from the shack he worked on now. True to his word, he was paying for their borrowed utilities by repairing the roof. She didn’t know how he intended to pay the telephone company, but since all her calls so far were local, she wasn’t worrying about it.

  They’d attracted a string of uninvited guests as the day wore on. Apparently Jacques’s local environmental group was small but close-knit. As soon as she and Charlie had arrived at this shack deep in the interior, word had gone out as if spread by jungle drums, or Charlie’s hammering. The house itself was apparently owned by a relative of one of the group, but Jacques had assured Charlie the police knew nothing of it.

  All day Jacques’s friends had drifted in and out to check on their progress. One had possessed the forethought to bring her a ream of typing paper. She hadn’t exactly worked her way through it yet. The information they sought was elusive. Jacobsen hid his trail well, but she was making progress. As Jacques ‘s friends had observed, the Resort Foundation had connections to every major resort in the Caribbean, few of them environmentally friendly.

  Resolutely, she tried to set aside the prejudices of the people encouraging her efforts, but she had to admit they had a point. The world didn’t need still another concrete monument to greed and selfishness. The island harbored a rare beauty too seldom found in this day and age.

  She had difficulty balancing the beauty of nature with poverty and her own profit-oriented mind-set, but she could see the protesters’ concerns. She’d hate to watch the rain forest destroyed for golf courses, and the wild beaches turned into lines of artificial grass huts and beach umbrellas for yet another hotel. She’d heard the rain forest provided oxygen, and rare plants that could someday make medicines that would save lives. It might even hold a cure for Beth. That was a bottom line she could understand.

  Searching the background on some of the names paid out of Jacobsen’s accounts left her more than a little uneasy. She’d heard tales of the Russian Mafia, but she’d thought them alarmist and of no interest to sunny Miami. But Jacobsen had an unending source of funds from two people who definitely had Russian passports. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, but the potential for criminal money-laundering gave her the jitters.

  Charlie nailed the final shingle to the roof as the sun began its slide behind the rock formations below. Too weary to sit still any longer, Penelope shut down the laptop and wandered over to watch him climb down. She regretted it immediately. Even though he’d thrown on a shirt, Charlie—standing this close, exuding healthy male sweat—rumbled her insides more than lack of food.

  Eyes shadowed, he heaved his tools onto the front porch. “Ready to go?”

  “Go?” He’d kept up a steady conversation with the various people drifting in and out all day, but she’d not followed the patois.

  “Marcos found a place for us to stay for the night. It’s safer if we keep moving, and you’ll like it better than the jungle.”

  From the way he said that, Penelope had her doubts, but they had nothing to do with their accommodations and everything to do with the man accompanying her to them. Somehow, she had the impression that he hadn’t completely worked out his frustrations on the roof.

  ***

  “You are insane,” Penelope muttered an hour later, as Charlie led her inside a luxurious cottage nestled between hibiscus and privacy hedges in the isolated back acres of Jalousi
e Plantation.

  He’d thought she’d appreciate the amenities, not complain about them.

  Charlie checked the drapes, determined they were closed, and flipped a light switch. “And here I thought I was being extremely clever. Goes to prove it’s all semantics.” He admired the huge bed with its floral comforter, then peeked behind the shade at the steaming Jacuzzi in the pool lights outside. The oleander hid it nicely.

  “Security will probably arrest us before dawn.” She dropped her laptop on the gleaming mahogany desk and glanced with interest at the kitchenette.

  “Marcos is security,” Charlie reminded her. He surveyed the bathroom, checked all the windows to determine how well the shrubbery hid their privacy, and deciding they were safe for the moment, flung his backpack in the closet. “Why don’t we take a break and sample the Jacuzzi and some of this wine?” He picked through the basket of cheese and fruit on the counter, wondering if Marcos had provided that too.

  Penelope stood mulishly in the center of the room, looking around as if she suspected assassins to jump out from behind the fancy dresser. He’d hauled her through wooden shacks, rain forests, and banana jungles and she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. He took her somewhere fancy, and she froze like a Popsicle. Maybe she suspected he had an ulterior motive.

  Hell, he did have an ulterior motive. Sighing, Charlie stripped off his shirt and headed for the shower. “I imagine that desk has all you need. I wrote down the access code Marcos gave me. If we keep switching identities, we should stay one step ahead of any trace they have out.”

  She didn’t look at him. She did that a lot. Charlie was beginning to think he was so ugly she was repulsed. He’d caught himself checking mirrors a couple of times to be certain he hadn’t developed some kind of fungus. Jacobsen had already made him feel like a fool. Raul’s death had shaken his confidence and undermined the world as he knew it. And now Miss Penny was succeeding in decimating what remained of his male pride. Maybe he ought to just wriggle on his belly to the shower.