“But how could you have lied to me about who you were?”
He got up and walked across the room with a powerful, masculine grace, stopping inches shy of her. He bent down and cupped her cheek, filling her senses with his touch. Her heart hammered and, no matter what he’d done, she was powerless to resist him.
“I lied because I wanted you from the first moment I saw you,” he said softly, staring into her eyes. “And I knew that if my brother was your type, then I wouldn’t be.”
Something inside her softened at his words. She thought of how wonderful he was with the children on the baseball team, of how contagious his smile and spontaneity were, of how self-assured she’d started to feel in his company. She opened her mouth to tell him he should think more of himself, but he placed two fingers against her lips.
“Don’t say anything, Leeza. I know I’m not worthy of you. I could never be the kind of man you want. That man wouldn’t do what I’m about to do.”
He removed his fingers from her lips, leaned down and brought his mouth to hers. His lips were soft, moving over hers with something that felt like reverence, giving her no choice but to open her mouth and kiss him back. The moment she did, he drew back with a sad smile.
“Goodbye, love,” he said, staring into her eyes.
Then he turned and in moments was gone, leaving her sitting there with the Key West sunshine at her back.
He’d claimed he could never be the man she wanted, and he shouldn’t be. Not after the elaborate deception he’d pulled off.
So why did she have the suspicion that, despite everything, Cary Mitchell was exactly who and what she wanted?
CARY SUCKED IN A BREATH and walked through the door to the main Key West police station on Angela Street, in the heart of Key West’s historic district.
He might have lost the courage it had taken him all day and half the night to gather and turned back around if the drag queen from last night’s sunset celebration hadn’t been leaning one of his hard-boned hips against the reception desk. The drag queen let out a loud whistle.
“Will you look at the piece of eye candy the wind just blew in?” he asked the desk sergeant, a paunchy middle-aged man who looked like he’d be on the verge of pulling out his hair if his head wasn’t shaved. “Five’ll get you ten you’ll listen to his complaint.”
“Only if he complains about something more substantial than his evening gowns getting ripped off his clothes line.”
The drag queen harrumphed so powerfully a piece of paper on the reception counter fluttered into the air and back down again. “Those gowns are substantial! Do you know how hard it is to find a stylish dress in a size twenty-two?”
“About as hard as finding a thief to fit into it,” the desk sergeant muttered. “Why’d you have those dresses on the clothes line anyway?”
“They were smoky, and smoke isn’t sexy. Now what you gonna do about it?”
The sergeant sighed. “I’ll send an officer to take a look. That’s all I can do, Bubba.”
The drag queen balanced his broad hands on the counter and leaned forward. His yellow dress was so shiny Cary thought it might blind the officer. “I told you not to call me that anymore. The name’s Xanadu now.”
Xanadu straightened to his full lofty height and clomped to the door, pausing to give Cary a come-hither smile.
“Hey, there, handsome. I’ll be performing in about an hour at Club Cockatiel.” He blew a kiss out of lips that seemed to have undergone collagen injections. “You don’t want to miss it.”
Cary could have debated that, but there wasn’t much point. If the next few minutes went the way he suspected they would, he wouldn’t be free to go anywhere tonight but a jail cell.
“How can I help you?” the desk sergeant asked.
Cary hesitated. It wasn’t too late to claim he’d made a mistake and disappear into the tropical night. Nobody would blame him. Everybody knew he wasn’t the twin who was cut out to be a Boy Scout.
“Actually, I, uh, don’t have anything you can help me with.” Ignoring the speculation on the sergeant’s face, Cary turned around and went back outside, where he expected to be able to breathe again.
But his chest tightened and the glow of the moon reminded him of the night before, when Leeza had spied on him and found out what kind of man he was. He thought about the way she’d looked that morning, her beautiful face cloaked in sadness, her dark eyes filled with disappointment.
“Aw, hell,” Cary muttered and turned back around. He marched back up to the reception desk. “I’m here to report a crime.”
“What kind of a crime?” the sergeant asked.
“I don’t know,” Cary said.
“How can you not know?”
“I will know,” Cary said, then drew in a breath. After this, there would be no turning back. “As soon as you open the crates in the trunk of my SUV.”
AFTER HE POPPED THE TRUNK, Cary stood between two uniformed cops as the three of them considered the heavy crates he and Captain Turk had loaded into the SUV the night before.
“You’re saying you don’t know what’s inside?” asked the taller of the two cops, cracking his gum so loudly it sounded as if someone had set off a firecracker.
Cary tried not to jump, although his insides were bouncing. “That’s right.”
Aside from the traffic noise, the only sound was the officer’s teeth coming together as he chomped on his wad of gum. He looked long and hard at Cary. “And you were supposed to deliver them to a warehouse in Miami last night?”
“Sure was.” Cary kept his voice light, as though he wasn’t the least concerned that he was about to give up twenty-eight years of freedom. “That’s where I took the other crates.”
“Why didn’t you take these, too?” The question came from the shorter cop, who wasn’t nearly as pleasant as his tall buddy. Even though the only light came from a street lamp, his eyes were shaded with the sort of black sunglasses men wore when they’d stayed out too late partying the night before. Cary should know. He’d used that trick plenty of times himself.
“My conscience wouldn’t let me.” Cary made himself shrug, as though he discussed his conscience every day.
The little cop snorted and reached for one of the crates, which his partner helped him hoist to the parking-lot pavement. He pulled out a crowbar and looked up at Cary. “Well, Mr. Good Citizen, let’s see what your conscience has been letting you smuggle into Miami.”
The splintering sound of the crate being opened ripped into Cary like the slash of a knife, and he was tempted to use the speed God had given him to dash for his freedom. But then he’d have to add coward to the slate of reasons he didn’t deserve Leeza Drinkmiller. Figuring the list was already long enough, he stayed where he was and pretended the contents of his stomach weren’t rising with the top of the crate.
At the last second, he closed his eyes against the truth in the crate.
“What are those things?” the tall cop asked.
“Looks like they’ve been underwater,” came the gruff cop’s answer, and Cary’s stomach fell. He’d driven by the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society and Museum. He knew all about Shipwreck Trail and Key West’s rich legacy of preserving history through the artifacts found on those unfortunate ships that had gone down in the waters off its coast.
He’d been aiding Captain Turk in plundering history. Maybe even in stripping one of those seventeenth-century Spanish galleons treasure hunters like Fisher had treated with such veneration.
“Looks like action figures to me,” the tall cop said. Cary’s eyes snapped open. The officer reached into the crate and pulled out a plastic doll dressed the same way Captain Turk did. “Hey, isn’t this the guy from Star Trek?”
“Star Quest,” Cary corrected. At the officers’ puzzled look, he explained, “It was a spinoff of Star Trek.”
“A spinoff? Looks to me like it was a rip-off.” The gruff cop pulled out a Sprock doll, complete with pointed ears. He turned to his par
tner. “Hey, remember that insurance scandal back in the ‘80s involving a ship carrying a shipment of toys? The cargo was insured for far more than it was worth. Maybe these dolls are from that wreck.”
Cary moved closer to make sure there weren’t any ancient Spanish coins inside the crate. All he could see was more plastic, including a replica of the U.S.S. Surprise.
“Does this mean you’re not going to arrest me?” Cary asked.
“For what?” The short cop asked, straightening. “Stupidity?”
The tall cop cocked his head, gesturing Cary away from his partner. They walked a few paces before he said, “We’ll check the rest of the crates but my guess is they include more of the same. Somebody obviously located a shipwreck, but it doesn’t seem to contain anything of historical significance.”
“Isn’t plundering against the law?”
“Whoever’s behind all this should have gotten a permit before he excavated. I’ll need you to give us his name, but he’ll probably get off with a fine.” The cop frowned. “If he thinks Star Quest action figures are valuable, I’d venture to say this guy is probably not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.”
Cary thought of Captain Turk’s theory about the Press-ons who could ingest ozone and nodded.
“How about me?” Cary asked. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“Nothing,” the cop said. “You probably would’ve been okay even if we had found something illegal. You came to us.”
Cary thought of his brother advising him to go to the authorities when he’d found out about the mess Cary had created in Charleston.
“You guys give credit for things like that?” Cary asked.
“Sure do,” the cop said and smiled. “We tend to like guys who do the right thing.”
With that, he turned back to his partner, who was ripping open another crate. The cop’s parting words rang in Cary’s mind.
Do the right thing.
Suddenly, the right thing seemed so simple. Why, Cary wondered, had it taken him so long to figure out what it was?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Mitch opened his eyes and reluctantly rolled away from the warmth of Peyton’s sleeping body to grope for the ringing phone.
He wondered if masquerading as his brother had resulted in so much bad karma that his punishment was being repeatedly woken up from a sound sleep. At least this awakening had a different twist. Usually, he was jarred out of dreamland by a doorbell.
“Yeah,” he said into the receiver, his eyes at half-mast.
“Hey, bro. It’s good to finally hear your voice.”
“Cary.” Mitch came instantly awake.
Peyton stirred beside him and turned over on her side. Her eyes cracked open. “Who’s that?” she asked drowsily.
Oh, no, Mitch thought as his stomach pitched. Had Cary heard Peyton ask the question? Worse, had Peyton heard Mitch greet his brother by name?
“Like I said, this is Cary.” he improvised into the receiver as Peyton gave him a sleepy smile. “Who’s calling?”
“This is Cary,” Cary said. “Are you okay, Mitch?”
“Yes. I mean no.” Mitch sat up in bed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He’d be perfectly within his rights to blast his brother for talking him into the twin switch and then disappearing — if he hadn’t been in bed with his brother’s girl. “It’s just that you woke me up.”
“You’re kidding. I waited until ten to call so I wouldn’t.”
“Since when do you care if you wake me up?” Mitch asked at the same time something else his brother had said registered. "Is it really ten o’clock?”
“Ten o’clock,” Peyton repeated, sitting bolt upright so that the bedsheets fell away from her lovely breasts. Mitch pressed the mouthpiece of the phone into his cheek, hoping his skin would muffle Peyton’s comments. “I’m supposed to be at work at ten.”
“Of course I didn’t want to wake you. Do you think I don’t appreciate this favor you’re doing me?” Cary said. “You wound me, bro.”
Peyton scrambled out of bed and headed for the bathroom, her bare behind about the loveliest thing Mitch had ever seen. Cary would really be wounded if he knew they’d slept together.
But darn it. Peyton didn’t feel like Cary’s girl. She felt like Mitch’s. He certainly wouldn’t cheat on her with a stripper.
“Don’t pull that wounded act with me,” Mitch said, angry for Peyton’s sake. But he couldn’t very well take his brother to task for two-timing her, not when he could hear Peyton turning on the shower in the bathroom. “You’ve been missing for more than a week, then you call me up out of the blue and pretend to be appreciative. How stupid do you think I am?”
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Cary said. “I think you’re a damn fine brother.”
Mitch swung his legs over the bed and pulled on a pair of his brother’s sweatpants. Fashioned from a revolutionary lightweight material, the sweatpants were as expensive as everything else in Cary’s home. “What kind of game are you playing now?”
“No game.”
Mitch rose, walked to the window and drew back the blinds. The day was overcast with only thin rays of sunlight breaking through the clouds. “They why are you calling?”
“A man can call his brother to say he’s sorry, can’t he?”
“You never say you’re sorry,” Mitch reminded him.
“Maybe I do now.”
“Where are you and how much money are you trying to get me to send you?”
“I’m in Key West,” Cary said.
Typical, Mitch thought. He was risking everything while his brother lived it up in the tropics.
“But I don’t want you to send me money,” Cary continued.
Atypical, Mitch thought.
“What do you want then?” Mitch asked.
“To tell you that you were right in the first place. I’ve decided to come back to Charleston and turn myself in.”
“No!” Mitch said. “I was wrong.”
“No, you weren’t. Turning myself in is the right thing to do.”
“Since when are you concerned with doing the right thing?” Mitch heard the shower turn off. He didn’t have much time to talk his brother out of making a major mistake. “Never mind the answer. Just listen to me. You can’t come back right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not going to end up in a jail cell if I can help it.”
“Maybe a jail cell is where I belong.”
“You must be getting too much sun down there in Florida. You sound like you fried your brain.”
“I’m serious, Mitch. You’re always telling me I should face up to the consequences of my actions. I’m ready to do that.”
“It’s too risky,” Mitch hissed. He glanced at the bathroom door. He only had moments before Peyton reappeared. “You were right. Flash Gordon’s a bad character but I can’t prove it yet. I need a few more days to find out more about his bookmaking operation.”
“Flash isn’t a bookie,” Cary said.
Time seemed to stop for interminable seconds while Mitch tried to process what his brother had said.
“You told me you were in trouble with him because of your gambling problem,” Mitch said slowly.
The door to the bathroom burst open. Peyton rushed out, pulling up the zipper on the dressy pair of black pants she’d worn the night before.
“That’s right,” Cary said. “I borrowed money from him to pay back my bookie, but I didn’t place bets with him.”
Mitch’s mind whirled. He’d assumed Cooper Barnes and Stu Funderburk, the two men he’d been sent to harass, were gamblers. If they weren’t, why did they owe Gibbs money?
The possibility that Gibbs was making the bulk of his money by loan sharking didn’t ring true. That was small-time stuff. It wouldn’t account for the staggering sum of cash he was laundering through Epidermis. So what was his evil?
“Why didn’t you tell me this in the first place?” Mitch asked.
&nb
sp; “I thought I had,” Cary answered as Mitch watched Peyton pull a comb through her wet hair and get on her knees to search under the bed for her shoes. “About my coming back—”
“I told you to stay put,” Mitch interrupted. “Now is a bad time.”
Peyton pulled on her shoes and looked at him quizzically. He wanted to demand that Cary listen to him but instead deliberately toned down his voice. “Check back with me tomorrow. Maybe things will be different by then.”
“But—”
“It’s for the best,” Mitch said. “Call me tomorrow, okay?”
There was a long pause. “Okay,” Cary finally said. “But I want you to know I really did mean it when I said I was sorry.”
Cary broke the connection, leaving Mitch staring at the receiver, wondering at his brother’s serious tone. Cary was never serious, one of the hundred reasons Mitch needed to look out for him.
“Who was that?” Peyton moved across the room toward him. Her hair smelled like his shampoo. Check that, like Cary’s shampoo.
“My brother,” he answered.
“I didn’t know you have a brother.” She looped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him. “You’ll have to tell me about him when I have more time.”
“Sure,” Mitch said.
She planted a swift kiss on his lips and drew back in his arms. “I’m already late, but if I don’t stop home to change everybody will know what we were doing last night.”
He smiled despite the fact that his head was crammed with thoughts of Gaston Gibbs and what kind of illegal operation he could be running.
“I left work early last night without getting permission,” Mitch said. “Don’t wait for me to say that missing work to do what we did isn’t worth it.”
She laughed and blew him a kiss. “You’re bad for me, Cary Mitchell.”
She left the room. A few seconds later, Mitch heard the front door shut. He sank to his bed, already feeling a sense of loss. Maybe it was a foreshadowing.
Bait & Switch Page 21
