Moonlight Lady

by Barbara Faith

  Moonlight Lady

  Barbara Faith

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 1

  It was hotter than the hinges of hell. The only things moving were the miragelike waves of heat floating up from the black asphalt. There was nothing in sight, only this long, lonely stretch of road with tall green mountains on both sides.

  Lisa Collier, who until a week ago had been Lisa Collier Matthews, took off the jacket of her pink suit and fanned herself with the brochure that extolled the beauty of Jamaica and told of the trade winds that almost always cooled the island. But today wasn’t one of those days. There were no trade winds, only the bright, blazing sun.

  Noë Coward, who had lived here, had written a song about only mad dogs and Englishmen going out in the noonday sun. She wasn’t English, so apparently that made her just the least bit mad.

  The driver of the taxi she’d hired at the Kingston airport had assured her that he, Moses Begrande, was the most reliable driver in all of Jamaica and that he could get her to Ocho Rios in less than two hours, since it wasn’t high season and traffic would be light. With a cheerful smile he’d loaded her luggage into the trunk and held the door open for her. Gears grinding, they’d set off, driving as the English did, on what Lisa considered the wrong side of the road.

  An hour out of Kingston, on a winding twist of a mountain curve, the taxi had coughed, sputtered and wheezed its last wheeze.

  “Be not worried, madam,” Moses said as he hurried to lift the hood. “I be A-number-one mechanic.”

  The number-one mechanic stood with his hands on his hips and frowned at the intricacies of the motor as if seeing it for the first time. He jiggled a wire, patted the carburetor as though he were patting the head of his favorite dog and studied the battery. Then he got back into the taxi and tried once more to start the motor. When nothing happened, he said, “I believe there is a small problem. It is best that I go for help.”

  They were in the middle of nowhere. There were no houses, nothing to indicate help of any sort might be nearby. In the last half hour they’d seen only one car. Since then there had been nothing, not even a horse cart.

  “Are we near a town?” Lisa asked.

  “Alas, no.” He smiled as though to reassure her. “But perhaps there be a village, madam, and if there is I will telephone for help and soon we will be rescued. However, since I do not know when that will be, should a car or another taxi pass by while I am gone perhaps it be best you ask for a ride. When my taxi is fixed I will take your luggage to the hotel. It be the Poinciana, yes?”

  “Yes,” Lisa said.

  With a nod and a smile that showed every one of his even white teeth, Moses had started up a small mountain path. That had been a little over an hour ago. Nothing had come by since then, not a taxi or a car or a bus, not even a bicycle. Lisa flicked the sweat off the end of her nose. She was hot, thirsty and cranky enough to wish she’d never left Miami.

  But she had left, both Miami and Philip. Soft-spoken, well-mannered, impeccably dressed Philip, who even in a circumstance like this would not have sweat. He’d have adjusted his tie, straightened his tailor-made jacket, studied his manicured nails and, lighting one of his French cigarettes, would simply have waited to be rescued.

  Of course Philip would never have come to Jamaica in the first place. He much preferred the south of France or Spain’s Costa del Sol. “But only in the off season,” he said. “Otherwise you run into all sorts of people, tourists who’ve barely managed to scrape enough money together for a two-week trip so that when they return to Ohio or some other ungodly place they can say they’ve been to Europe.”

  Lisa was from Ohio.

  She’d been twenty-two when she’d met Philip. Fresh out of the University of Miami with a degree in fine arts, she had been impressed by the fact that he was the famous art critic everyone talked about. And she’d thought him attractive in a slender, aesthetic way.

  He’d courted her for a year, and finally, because she refused to go to bed with him, he’d married her.

  Philip was a snob, but it had taken some growing up on her part to realize that. Artists from Maine to California lived in fear of his often witty, but almost always scathingly sarcastic reviews. He made fun of everyone. Usually he saved his sharp-edged verbal criticisms for the occasions when, at an art opening or a large party, people gathered around him. Then, with a martini—very dry with a twist—in hand, he would tear to shreds whatever artist happened to be in the public eye at the moment.

  Lisa mopped her forehead, angry and upset because she hadn’t come to Jamaica to think about Philip. All she wanted to do was lie on the beach with a tall, cool tropical drink in her hand, and maybe stir her bones once or twice a day for a swim. A swim. Lord, wouldn’t she love that right now.

  With a sigh, she walked around the taxi and stood in the middle of the road as though to will a bus or a taxi or a vehicle of any sort to come around the curve of the mountain. She paced up and down, fanning herself with the hotel’s brochure, but stopped when she finally heard what sounded like the roar of a motor. Shading her eyes, she peered toward the noise. Let it be a car, she prayed. Let it be...

  Like a big, black beast, the motorcycle zoomed into sight. The man astride the machine slowed for the curve, leaned into it and gunned the motor for a straight run. But when he spotted Lisa, he slowed and pulled to within a yard or so of her.

  “Trouble?” He shoved the dark glasses up onto his forehead and regarded her with eyes as blue as the Jamaican sky.

  “Uh-huh.” She gestured to the taxi. “I was on my way from the Kingston airport.”

  “Where’s the driver?”

  “Somewhere up that path.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  She glanced at her watch. “An hour.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “To Ocho Rios. The Poinciana Hotel there.”

  “That’s where I’m staying.” He swung a leg over the motorcycle and stood beside her. Over her. He was big, about six-four, and brawny as a bear. “Maybe you’d better come along with me,” he said.

  I don’t think so, Lisa thought, but didn’t say it. She wasn’t into motorcycles or the type of man who rode one. This was a rough-looking, he-man type, exactly the kind she shied away from. His jeans were faded and tight around his thighs. There was a spot of grease on the denim shirt with the rolled-up sleeves. His biceps were muscled. His black hair looked shaggy and longer than she approved of.

  “Name’s O’Shaughnessy.” He offered a hand the size of a five-pound slab of beef. “Sam O’Shaughnessy.”

  “Lisa Matthe—Lisa Collier.” She hesitated. “Maybe I’d better wait for the driver to come back.”

  O’Shaughnessy shook his head. “You don’t know when that’ll be. Hell, he’s probably sitting in some shack up in the mountains drinking a cold Red Stripe and wondering where he can find somebody who knows more about cars than he does. Could be dark by the time he comes back.”

  Lisa looked at the motorcycle. “I’ve never ridden one of those before.”

  “It’s simple. All you have to do is hold on and lean into the curves when we take ‘em.” He glanced toward the taxi. “What about your bags?”

  “The driver said he’d bring them to the hotel as soon as he got the car fixed.”

&
nbsp; “Then what’re we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  She didn’t want to go anywhere with this hulk of a man, but she didn’t have much choice. She couldn’t wait here by the side of the road forever.

  “I’ll get my purse out of the taxi.” She looked up at him. “I don’t suppose you have any water,” she said.

  “Nope. Sorry. If we hit a village farther down we’ll stop for a beer.”

  She put her jacket back on, took her purse out of the taxi and slung it over her shoulder.

  He swung his leg back over the motorcycle. “Hop on,” he said.

  She looked at him, then at the cycle. Her pink skirt came to a more-or-less discreet five inches above her knees. She hiked it up and frowned when O’Shaughnessy, instead of having the decency to look away, gazed with open admiration at her legs.

  There wasn’t anything she could do. She couldn’t very well ride sidesaddle; she had no choice except to swing her leg over the seat behind him.

  “What do I hang on to?” she asked.

  “Me.” He turned around and grinned at her. “Hang on to me, Miss...Collier?”

  “Yes,” she said, tight-lipped.

  “Put your arms around my waist.”

  She fastened both hands on the sides of his shirt.

  “That won’t do it. The first bump or curve and you’ll go flying off. Hang on to me, not my shirt.”

  Tentatively, she encircled his waist with her arms.

  “Here we go,” he said, and gunned the motor.

  The wind whipped at her short, ash blond hair. She tightened her arms around his waist and hung on. They started around a curve. When he yelled, “Lean in,” she followed the movement of his body and leaned.

  This wasn’t at all like Philip’s silver Mercedes. She felt open, exposed, wanting the assurance of a closed-in car with sturdy metal surrounding her. This was scary, as though any minute she’d go flying off, spattering all over the asphalt or hurtling against the side of the mountain.

  She shouldn’t have come with him. He was a stranger. How did she know he would take her to Ocho Rios? Maybe he was headed up into the mountains to...what? Rape and ravish? God, she hoped not! It was too hot for raping and ravishing.

  With an ironic smile, she closed her eyes and pressed her face into Mr. O’Shaughnessy’s back. He smelled like woodsy fresh air, nothing at all like the scent of Philip’s hundred-dollar-an-ounce French cologne, which he bought in three-ounce bottles.

  Don’t think about him, she told herself. That’s over, kaput, fini, final. I don’t need him or any other man. I’m self-sufficient.... They whipped around a curve she hadn’t seen coming because her eyes were closed. She cried out in alarm and dug her fingernails into O’Shaughnessy’s midsection. His muscles tightened. He didn’t say anything, but reduced the speed, and when he did she took her nails out of his skin and opened her eyes.

  Everything looked pretty and green, she noted as she began to relax. The air smelled of the sea and of whatever the flowers were that grew alongside the road. She leaned back a couple of inches and relaxed her grip around his waist. Actually it was rather pleasant, skimming along this stretch of open road that was such a far cry from the busy Miami traffic, the superhighways she was used to driving on.

  They passed a man with a horse-drawn cart, two women with clay water jugs on their heads and a gaggle of small boys who waved as they went by.

  “Must be getting to a village,” Sam said, and when they rounded a curve, Lisa saw a cluster of small, thatch-roofed houses nestled at the foot of the mountain.

  He slowed the motorcycle when they hit the narrow, dusty road, and came to a stop in front of a store with a tin sign hanging over the door that read Red Stripe Beer.

  “It’s not the Poinciana,” O’Shaughnessy said, “but it’ll do. You want a beer?”

  “I’d rather have a cola.”

  “Okay.” He swung his leg over the motorcycle just as a boy of ten or eleven came out of the store. He was barefoot and dressed in ragged cutoffs and a torn shirt.

  “You in charge?” Sam asked.

  “I be the boss today, mon.” Hands on skinny hips, legs sprawled, the boy looked past Sam to the motorcycle. “That a Harley?”

  “Yup.”

  “Big damn bastard, mon.”

  “That it is. You ever ride one?”

  The boy shook his head. “Go like hell?”

  “Damn straight.” Sam held out a hand to help Lisa off. “Red Stripe cold?” he asked the kid.

  “It be cold.” He tore his gaze away from the Harley and looked at Lisa. “You want a beer, too?”

  Lisa shook her head. “A cola, please.”

  “The beer be cold, the cola be warm.”

  “Beer then.”

  He went into the small, dark store. By the time he came back with the two beers, other people had strolled over to see what was going on. They looked curiously at Sam and Lisa, but it was the Harley that drew their attention.

  The boy frowned at the crowd. “Don’t be puttin’ your hands on it,” he said to a man who ran his fingers over the leather seat. With the part of his shirt hanging out of the cutoffs, he rubbed the place the man had touched.

  An old woman with no teeth grinned up at Sam. Hooking a thumb in Lisa’s direction, she asked, “This be your woman?”

  He took a long swallow of his beer. “Yep.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Been married eight years,” he said.

  “You have many children?”

  “Seven. Four boys and three girls.”

  Lisa choked on her beer, coughed, then sputtered an indignant, “Wait a minute!”

  “She be fine looking.” A scrawny, toothless old man with a fringe of white curly hair around his otherwise bald head pointed a finger at his bony chest. “I have twenty-eight, with four wives all gone to glory. How do you call your children?”

  “Hortense, Tallulah and Matilda, Ismael, Zachariah, Siegfried and Waldemar,” Sam said without hesitation. He drained the beer and handed the empty bottle to the boy. “What’s your name, kid?”

  “I be Joshua.”

  “Well then, Joshua, how’d you like to take a ride on the Harley?”

  The boy’s eyes widened pearl white in his dark-skinned face. “For true, mon?”

  “For true.” Sam swung his leg over the machine and reached out a hand to pull the boy up in behind him. “Back in ten minutes,” he told Lisa, and, gunning the motor, he took off.

  Lisa stared at the retreating Harley, then smiled a hesitant smile at the village people who’d gathered around.

  “That be some fella,” a woman said.

  “Bet he be strong like a bull.” Another woman laughed and poked the woman standing next to her.

  “Be makin’ strong babies,” someone else said.

  Hot color rushed to Lisa’s cheeks. If she had any idea how far it was to Ocho Rios, she’d start walking. As it was, all she could do was force a smile and drink her beer.

  Fifteen minutes later the motorcycle zoomed up the dusty street of the village. When it stopped, Joshua, his mouth split in a grin, hopped off the back. “That be a fine machine,” he declared. “I thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome. How much for the beer?”

  “For you there is no charge.”

  Sam shook his head. “I’ll be back this way in a few days. Wouldn’t feel right stopping if I didn’t pay.” He took a five out of his jeans and stuck it in the pocket of Joshua’s shirt. Turning to Lisa, he said, “Hop on, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy.”

  She shot him an if-looks-could-kill glance, and hiked up her skirt.

  The old man gasped and stared at her legs. “You one lucky son o’ bitch,” he said to Sam.

  “Yeah.” Sam grinned before he swung his leg over the motorcycle and climbed on. Then he held out his hand to Lisa. “Ready, dear?” he asked.

  Grim-faced, she ignored his hand and climbed onto the Harley.

  She didn’t say anything until they rounded the curve o
ut of sight of the village. Then she said, “How dare you tell those people I was your wife?” and smacked his shoulder. When he threw his head back and laughed, she smacked him again.

  He liked her, maybe because she wasn’t like most of the women he knew. And he knew a lot of them.

  Being a New York cop, he met all kinds—hookers and show girls, librarians and Park Avenue society dames. They were streetwise and hip, sophisticated and worldly. He liked ‘em tall and lanky, big-breasted and wide of hip, with shoulder-length hair, preferably dark, that swung in the breeze when they walked—his wife had been like that.

  Lisa Collier wasn’t his type. For one thing her blond hair was too damn short. Curled around her face like a kid’s. Didn’t swing, didn’t bounce. She was short, maybe five-two, with small breasts, a little waist and hardly hip enough for a man to get his hands on. But swell legs. Back at the village the old man’s eyes had almost dropped out of his head when she’d hiked her skirt up.

  She was pretty enough in an elfin kind of way, but still, definitely not his type. Even if she were, he hadn’t come to Jamaica looking for romance. He was here to find Juan Montoya. That was serious as well as dangerous business.

  Two days ago the DEA had gotten a tip that Montoya had been seen in the vicinity of Ocho Rios, and Sam, an NYPD lieutenant who had been working with the DEA on the Montoya case for the last year, hopped a plane for Kingston. When he arrived, he’d gone directly to the Kingston Police Department, where he’d met with a captain of police, Filoberto Hargreaves.

  Hargreaves, a slim, well-dressed man in his middle forties, with cocoa brown skin and surprisingly blue eyes, had welcomed Sam with a smile and a tot of good Jamaica rum.

  But his expression had been all-cop when he said, “How could your police in the United States let a man like Montoya get away from you once you had him?”

  “Wasn’t easy.” Sam took a slug of the rum. “He’d been indicted for murder—”

  “Which one?” Hargreaves asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. “He’s murdered...how many?”

  “Fourteen that we know of.”

  “What happened?”

  “They were taking him out of the courtroom after the indictment. Somebody jostled him and slipped him a gun. He walked out with the guard, then shot him, and at the same time his accomplice took the other guards down. I wasn’t there, but apparently it was one hell of a mess. Four guards dead and three bystanders injured.”