Theresa Weir - Iguana Bay

by Iguana Bay [SIM-339] (lit)

  From the picture, Dylan could see that Sebastian hadn't changed-he still looked like one of those pretty boys in a fashion magazine. But the man had avoided looking directly into the camera. If he had, his eyes would have given him away. There was a deadness to them, an opaqueness that told of the blackness on the other side. Sebastian was a man with no conscience. A sadist who took pleasure in other people's pain.

  During Dylan's undercover detective work with the Miami police department, he'd been assigned to Sebastian's case. It had taken months to work his way into the man's confidence, but he'd finally become a part of Sebastian's exclusive circle of hoods, getting close enough to suspect that Sebastian was not only running a black­ market for military weapons, but he was also making porn movies on the side. Porn with a murderous twist. Snuff movies.

  Dylan had wanted to get him, take him down all the way.

  Finally, through a carefully orchestrated sting opera­tion, Dylan had sprung a trap, catching Sebastian in the act of selling stolen U.S. military firearms.

  But when the day of the trial arrived, the direct evidence-a warehouse full of antiaircraft weapons-had vanished. Sebastian had walked out of the courthouse a free man, pausing just long enough to look at Dylan, in­clining his head as if to say, We're not through.

  "Maybe next time," Dylan had said.

  Sebastian had looked at him and laughed. At the time, Dylan had misunderstood that laugh. He'd taken it to mean Sebastian thought he'd never be caught. But that hadn't been it at all....

  Now, eyes riveted to the paper in his hands, Dylan forgot about Skeeter, forgot about his hangover. He was lost in the memory of that night, the night Melissa had died....

  He came home late, after midnight. When he un­locked the door to his floor-level apartment he found, Melissa still up. She was sitting on the couch wearing a black, thin-strapped dress, her silk-clad feet tucked under her, an ashtray full of cigarette butts on the coffee table.

  Dylan groped through his fatigue, trying to remember what her plans for the evening had been and if they'd in­cluded him.

  Then it came to him.

  Dinner. She had planned for them to go out to dinner, then to a showing she'd helped sponsor for some up-and­-coming artist. Somebody named Frank ... or Frankie...

  Dylan sank into a chair. "I couldn't get away any ear­lier. You know what a mess this Sebastian case has been." He tugged off his tie and leaned his head back.

  Melissa shrugged, her pale straight hair falling for­ward across a bare shoulder. "It doesn't matter. Frank­lin picked me up. It was probably all for the best."

  Dylan knew she was alluding to the last art show he'd gone to where she'd expected him to ooh and ah over some unrecognizable object-something she and her friends loosely referred to as art. He'd stood there with his hands shoved into the pockets of his tux, looking up at the dangling metal monstrosity. Then, in a voice that had echoed sacrilegiously off the black marble walls, he'd said, "What the hell's that supposed to be?"

  Now, sitting across from him in their apartment, Me­lissa blew out a cloud of smoke and fidgeted with her cigarette lighter. Sure signs of an impending storm.

  "Let's face it, Dylan. We have almost nothing in common. I have no appreciation of criminal elements, and you have no appreciation of art."

  "I appreciate art-if it doesn't have to be explained to me."

  She looked up and gave him a tolerant smile, appar­ently forgiving him at last for his social gaff of a month ago. "It's too bad you're so damn sexy," she said. "Too bad you're so good in bed. And too bad sex is the only thing we have in common."

  He made a sound, ready to argue, but she held up a hand. Once Melissa got warmed up, it was hard to sidetrack her. Sometimes it was best just to let the storm run its course.

  She unfolded her legs and came to stand behind him. He could smell the subtle, expensive scent she wore. With the fingers of both hands, she combed his thick hair back from his temples, caressing it all the way to the ends. "I remember the first time I saw you," she said reflectively, a hint of a smile in her voice. "The first thing I thought was how rough you looked." Her hands went to his shoulders. "Then I found myself wondering if you'd be rough in bed."

  Dylan laughed, then reached up and pulled her down so she was lying across his lap. She looked up at him. "You know, when you're not here, I make perfectly sane plans to leave you. I have my speech all rehearsed. But then you come home, and all my well-thought-out plans turn to dust."

  "You don't mean that. You just want to see me grovel, don't you?"

  She smiled and shook her head. "Dylan Davis doesn't grovel. No, someday you're going to meet someone you can really love, and I don't want to be around when that happens. I don't want to have to come in second."

  "You're talking nonsense." He lowered one black strap and bent his head to press his lips to her shoulder.

  "I'm talking sense."

  He looked up at her. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it to­night."

  "Dylan, I know you. You do what you want. For her you would have made it."

  "Melissa, there is no her. You are her."

  "No. No, I'm not. Someday you'll see."

  He shook his head. "There's only you. And me. That's all."

  With one hand, she reached up and touched his bot­tom lip, softly tracing it. Desire hazed her eyes. "Yes. It's too bad you're so damn sexy," she whispered. "Dyl­an...?"

  He reached behind her and unzipped her dress. "Mmm?"

  "Be rough," she whispered breathlessly, desperately.

  Later Melissa left Dylan's side and moved through the darkness to the bathroom. Lying on his back in bed, Dylan listened to the sound of running water, knowing she was taking a sleeping pill-another thing they ar­gued about.

  He locked the fingers of both hands behind his head and stared into the darkness. It was always the same. A fight, then sex. Surely they could­

  From the bathroom came the sound of splintering glass, followed immediately by a dull thud. Dylan knew at once what he'd heard, though his brain denied it even as the cop in him reacted. With a reflex action, he quickly drew his loaded 44 Magnum from the bedside dresser. Not risking a light, he made his way through the dark­ness to the bathroom.

  "Melissa, " he whispered hoarsely.

  The silence told him what logic wouldn't. "Melissa. "

  His searching fingers found her sprawled in front of the sink. They touched her warm blood, her still pulse-­points.

  "Oh, God, no."

  Later Skeeter found him sitting on the bathroom floor, Melissa cradled to him.

  The next day the word on the street was that Sebastian had put out a contract on Dylan and the hit man had shot Melissa by mistake.

  Dead. She was dead because of him.

  But there was no evidence, nothing to legally link Se­bastian to the crime.

  After that, Dylan lost it, went a little crazy for a while. Instead of reporting for work, he spent days in the Ever­glades boning up on his sniper skills, planning Sebastian's death.

  He ended up being sent to a hospital for burned-out cops. Once there, he spent a routine two months on psychotherapy before being released. Instead of going back to the force, he took up bounty hunting, at the same time keeping an eye on his back, waiting for one of Sebastian's hit men to waste him.

  As time went by and no attempt was made on his life, Dylan decided no one was coming. Sebastian's ultimate revenge seemed to be in letting him live, always listening for footsteps behind him, always knowing he was alive when Melissa was dead. That was how Sebastian func­tioned. He got off on slow torture.

  Even though months had passed since her death, little things still gnawed at him. Things that had seemed unimportant at the time. Like the scene he'd made at the art showing. At the time, he had thought it amusing in a ju­venile sort of way. Now he felt as guilty as hell about it. As if by trivializing what was important to Melissa he'd trivialized her.

  She'd been right. Oh, he'd cared for her. But he hadn
't loved her in the way she'd wanted to be loved. Not with fireworks and bells and flowers.

  And now there was this incredible emptiness in him.

  "You gonna read that paper or strangle it?"

  Skeeter's voice seemed to come from a long way off, mingling with Dylan's black thoughts, bringing him back to the present. He checked the date of the newspaper. It was over a week old. His eyes flew back to the article, quickly picking out the trial date. Fifteen days left.

  He still had time, time to do his part in helping the justice system along, even if it meant breaking the law.

  He looked at the photo again, memorizing the wom­an's dark, straight hair, full mouth, model's cheek­bones.

  Elise Ramsey.

  Dylan smiled grimly to himself. His bounty hunting skills were about to be put to good use.

  Chapter 2

  Elise Ramsey couldn't concentrate on the book she was reading. Knowing she wasn't doing the author justice, she closed the novel and tossed it down beside her on the ho­tel bed.

  The Bastion.

  Quite a name for a hotel. Just this past year, bastion had been one of her seventh-grade reading class's vocabulary words. Fortress. Well, the hotel was a fortress, all right. But instead of keeping people out, it was keeping her in.

  Elise got up, walked to the TV and flicked it on.

  She immediately recognized the scene from a slapstick sci-fi cult classic.

  No, thanks. She wasn't in the absurd frame of mind required to watch such a movie.

  For the past week one of the local stations had been featuring black-and-white horror films. Elise was generally a big fan of old horror films, but lately the word horror had taken on a totally new meaning.

  She flipped the dial through several commercials, summer reruns and music videos, then shut off the set and paced to the window.

  Her room was on the twenty-third floor. If she looked to the east, through the cluster of buildings, she could see the blackness where the ocean lay free and unencum­bered beneath the night sky. There were no stars. Di­rectly below the hotel cars were moving up and down the four-lane boulevard, their headlights reflecting off glass­-fronted buildings, people coming and going as they pleased. Neon lights flashed and blinked in gaudy cheer­fulness, seeming to taunt her.

  Stir-crazy. She was going stir-crazy. Grandma Max would have called it cabin fever. They'd both gotten it whenever the Mississippi River was too frozen to take the skiff from their island to the Wisconsin shore, but not yet solid enough to safely walk on.

  Thinking of her grandmother brought a slow, sad smile to Elise's lips. Thirteen months had passed since her death, and the overwhelming stab of loss wasn't as sharp now. Oh, the pain was still there, but the edges had dulled.

  She leaned her forehead against the cool window glass, the blast from the air conditioner blowing her dark bangs from her forehead. With one hand she reached up and combed her fingers through her fine hair, momentarily surprised when she came to the blunt ends that stopped at her shoulders. She kept forgetting that before leaving home she'd gotten her hair cut into what she'd hoped was a more sophisticated, worldly style. She hadn't wanted to arrive in Florida with her hair and clothes proclaiming her a dowdy hick from the boonies.

  Mistake.

  She would have been better off having remained her­self; then maybe Adrian Sebastian wouldn't have shown any interest in her.

  Actually she shouldn't have come south in the first place, but when fellow schoolteacher Cindy Hastings had told her she was driving down during summer vacation and needed someone to go along to split expenses, Elise hadn't been able to pass up the chance. She'd always wanted to see Florida.

  They'd been in Miami two days when blond, viva­cious Cindy had somehow gotten an invitation to a glitzy Miami Beach society party and had begged Elise to come along. At first Elise had declined, but Cindy was persis­tent. And it had been so tempting.

  Once there, Elise had been swept up in the whole ex­otic atmosphere. It had seemed like something from a movie, with the huge pool and underwater lighting, the palm trees and damp, humid air. The glamorous people.

  Cindy had ended up leaving the party with the guy who'd invited her, and Adrian Sebastian had offered to give Elise a ride to her motel. He'd been so good-looking, like someone from a magazine. And she wasn't used to men like him paying attention to her. She'd been flat­tered. And she'd had too much to drink, so she'd ac­cepted his offer.

  Never take a ride from a stranger.

  How many times had she told her students that very thing? And then what had she done? Taken a ride from a stranger.

  And now here she was, being guarded like the Crown Jewels.

  But who would believe she was virtually a prisoner when her prison was one of the most exclusive hotels in Miami? When her tab was being picked up by the hotel owner, none other than Adrian Sebastian himself? She could go anywhere she pleased-as long as she took the limo and Claude, the bodyguard Adrian Sebastian had left at her disposal.

  She dropped onto the bed, face-up, hands under her head. If anybody ever asked, she could tell them that there were 198 squares on the ceiling. She could also tell them that the grain in the wood of the bathroom door was actually a profile of W. C. Fields.

  A rapid knock sounded, interrupting Elise's study of her surroundings. She answered the door and found Adrian Sebastian standing in the plush hall, hands jammed into the pockets of his baggy silk suit. His dark hair was combed back, as slick and wet as a seal's, his face clean-shaven. The heavy scent he always wore stung her sinuses.

  Funny how your perception of someone's looks could change after you got to know him. At first Elise had thought Adrian Sebastian one of the most handsome men she'd ever seen. Now he didn't seem handsome at all.

  She particularly disliked his eyes. They were pale. Expressionless. Snake eyes, her grandmother would have called them.

  Elise caught a glimpse of Claude before Adrian stepped into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. "I stopped to see if you were comfortable, if you needed anything."

  His voice was low, smooth, his lips dark, so dark that Elise wondered if the color was natural.

  "I don't like being treated like a prisoner."

  He looked surprised, hurt. "No one's keeping you here. Didn't you agree to stay? To accept my protection and hospitality?"

  It was true. When he'd first suggested that she stay at his hotel, it had seemed like a good idea, since Cindy had driven back to Wisconsin, unable to afford to remain in Florida until the trial. And Elise hadn't been able to af­ford to keep a motel room by herself.

  And, after all, she was in this mess because of Adrian Sebastian. But she certainly hadn't expected to be put under guard.

  "You don't have to keep watch over me. I won't leave until I've testified."

  He walked over to the window and looked out. "That's not what I'm worried about. This is Miami, not Wiscon­sin. I have enemies." He turned to face her. "There are people out there who would kill you to get to me."

  She didn't believe him. His every movement seemed to be staged, for effect. He was afraid she would skip town and he would lose his alibi. It was that simple. "If I'm in danger, why wasn't I given police protection?"

  He laughed, an ugly sound. "They might have of­fered it-if you were a witness for-the prosecution. Any­way, the Miami police are a joke. You're safer with me, with my men. And you're free to come and go as you please as long as Claude is with you-for protection."

  He opened his jacket and pulled out a leather billfold. With his well-kept hands, he slid out a charge card and extended it toward Elise. "Here. Take Claude with you and go shopping. It will do you good."

  Did he think he could buy her loyalty? She ignored his outstretched hand. "I don't want your money."

  He shrugged and tucked the card back into his bill­fold, pocketing them both. "I've never known a woman who was so hard to please."

  Elise read sexual awareness in his voice, beneath his words. Queas
iness rose in her.

  He reached out and touched her cheek. Elise drew back.

  His eyes narrowed, and she wondered if he was think­ing about the night he'd given her a ride from the party. He'd touched her then, tried to slip a hand under her skirt while he kissed her. She'd fought him off, pushed him away. He hadn't touched her since.

  She was sure it was no sudden sense of propriety. No, he just didn't dare do anything that might influence her testimony.

  "I'll be gone tonight," he told her, his features once more under control. "We won't be able to have dinner together. Maybe tomorrow?"

  "Maybe." She would plead a headache, as she had the last two nights.

  After he left Elise went to the walk-in closet and pulled out her white linen suit. She had to get away, had to get out for a while.

  She slipped on the suit, tucked the room key into her purse and walked out the door, practically bumping into Claude. His eyelids closed slowly, then opened just as slowly as he took in her suit and high heels.

  He looked like a bodyguard. He had a pair of line­backer's shoulders that sloped upward to meet a thick neck. His jacket was too small for his massive frame. It stretched across his barrel chest and telephone-pole bi­ceps, not quite able to hide the gun strapped to his side near his armpit.

  He followed her into the elevator and pushed the but­ton. The door closed, and the elevator took them to ground level. "Will you be wanting a table in the dining room, Miss Ramsey?" he asked as the doors silently opened to the plush, carpeted lobby.

  "No, thank you. I'm going out."

  To the left of the elevator was the house phone. Claude reached for it. "I'll call the limo."

  Freedom.

  "That won't be necessary. I'm walking. And I'm going by myself." She didn't have enough nerve to wait for his reaction. Instead, heart pounding, she turned and headed for the double doors of one-half-inch-thick milky glass.

  As quick as a cat, Claude was there before her, block­ing her way.

  Over the past two weeks Claude's stiff formality to­ward her had relaxed a little. Elise could swear she'd even seen him almost break into a smile a couple of times. A few days ago, in her desperation for something to do, she'd actually contemplated having the limo brought around so she could see some of the sights. Maybe swim in the ocean. But then she'd thought about the stone­-faced Claude following two steps behind her and so had died another bad idea.