Moonlight Lady

by Barbara Faith

  “Thanks,” Sam said. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “There’s one other thing. On a hunch I checked with Miami to see if there was any possible connection between Reitman and Philip Matthews, the ex-husband of the Collier woman.”

  “And?”

  “They know each other.”

  Sam swore under his breath.

  “Seems that Reitman is into art. He goes to art openings and from time to time buys something expensive, I imagine as a way to launder the syndicate’s drug money. At any rate, he and Phillip Matthews are acquainted. When Matthews knows of a piece of art that will very likely increase in value in a few years, he lets Reitman know. They have dinner together several times a month.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Hargreaves cleared his throat. “Seems a bit strange, doesn’t it, that both he and the former Mrs. Matthews are staying at the same hotel?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Strange.”

  When he hung up the phone, he sat on the edge of his bed. He felt as though he’d just lost his best friend.

  * * *

  “Lisa? Lisa Matthews? My God, is that you?”

  She looked up from the luncheon salad. “Mr. Reitman?”

  “Yes. Small world. What’re you doing here?”

  “Vacationing.”

  “Are you alone? May I join you?”

  “Of course.” She indicated the chair opposite her. “Please, sit down.”

  “Thanks.” He took a cigarette out of a silver case and lit it. “You’re about the last person I expected to see here.”

  Lisa offered a tentative smile. She’d never particularly liked Howard Reitman, though she couldn’t really say why. The few times he’d had dinner with her and Philip he’d been quite pleasant. Still, there was something about him that bothered her.

  He was attractive enough, short—five-eight or -nine, she guessed—and in his early forties. The first time she’d seen him she’d been a little surprised, because he wasn’t the type of man Philip usually associated with. For though he dressed well, there was a rough edge to him. Sam had a rough edge, too, but he wasn’t like Reitman. There was a blunt honesty about Sam that made her trust him.

  Still, after his rebuff this morning it was nice having a man pay attention to her, and when he asked her to have dinner with him that night, she accepted.

  She wore the dress she’d worn the first night at the hotel, and when she met Reitman in the lobby, he gave her an appreciative once-over and whistled.

  “You’re a knockout,” he said, linking her arm through his. “Philip was crazy to let you go.”

  Lisa didn’t answer.

  “I know it’s none of my business,” he went on as he led her through the lobby to the patio, “but what happened with the two of you? I thought you were the perfect couple. Whenever I saw you together it looked to me like everything was fine.”

  “Things happen,” Lisa said with a shrug.

  “Like what?” he persisted.

  “Another woman.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “A Fort Lauderdale artist.”

  He swung around and shot her a look. “Claire Montgomery? Hey, she’s good.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Lisa said, tight-lipped.

  “I saw her with Philip once, thought it was strictly business. Nice looking, but skinny as a board. Can’t hold a candle to you.”

  A waiter led them to a poolside table. When they were seated and he asked if they would like something to drink, Reitman said, “Planter’s punch, Lisa?”

  Remembering last night, she shook her head. “White wine, please.”

  “Aw, come on. You’re on vacation, right?”

  “Well...”

  “Nothing like Jamaica run.” He turned to the waiter. “Two tall ones.” And when they were alone, he said, “How long are you staying?”

  “Another week. What about you, Mr. Reitman?”

  “Two or three days. Then I’m going to Kingston to attend to a little business.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “My name’s Howard. Call me Howard.”

  She started to pull her hand away, but just as she did, she glanced up and saw Sam watching her from the bar. He was leaning back against it, drinking a Red Stripe beer. Even from here she could see the angry, speculative look in his eyes.

  She smiled at Reitman. “Howard,” she said.

  The waiter returned with their drinks. Reitman touched his glass to hers and they drank. It was good, potent with rum. She needed it.

  The band began to play a Bob Marley song, fast reggae with a jungle beat. “How about a dance?” Reitman asked.

  “Love to,” Lisa said.

  He took her hand and led her to the dance floor. They faced each other, a couple of feet apart, and she remembered that when she’d first danced with Sam, he’d said, “I don’t do fast. I like to hold a woman in my arms when I dance.”

  Well, she wasn’t dancing with Sam now and could dance any way she wanted to. Listen to the music, she told herself. Forget about him. Forget that he lied when he said he had plans tonight. He didn’t. He just didn’t want to be with you.

  She smiled at Howard Reitman and gave herself up to the music. It was primitive, wild. She let herself go, moving with the flow of the beat—arms swaying above her head, head thrown back, doing intricate steps when the music grew faster, caught up in the junglelike rhythm of the drums. A whirling turn made her skirt swirl up over her thighs. She wasn’t aware that other couples on the floor had stopped dancing to watch.

  Sam had said watching a woman waving her arms and jerking around didn’t do anything for him. Well, it was doing something for her. She was having a wonderful time.

  The beat quickened and the drums reached a climactic frenzy of sound. Howard grabbed Lisa’s hand and whirled her, fast. She twisted away, full skirt floating outward. The music stopped and the band and the couples on the dance floor cheered. Howard pulled her up against him and kissed her full on the mouth.

  And Sam, standing at the bar, muttered, “Son of a bitch!”

  * * *

  It was after midnight when Howard walked Lisa to her room. “Well...” He smiled and started toward her.

  She backed away and, offering her hand, said, “Good night, Howard. It’s been fun.”

  “Can I come in for a minute?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’m a little tired.”

  “See you in the morning for breakfast.”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “Eight-thirty too early?”

  “No but—”

  “I’m going to run in to Ocho Rios right after breakfast, so I won’t be able to see you for lunch. But how about dinner?”

  Lisa hesitated. She didn’t dislike Howard, neither did she especially like him. The one thing in his favor was that he wasn’t a stranger. If she accepted his invitation, at least she wouldn’t have to have dinner alone. He’d said he was only going to be here for two or three days. So she’d see him for dinner tomorrow night and then he’d be gone.

  “All right,” she said. “I’d love to.”

  “Eight o’clock?”

  “Fine, Howard. Thank you.”

  Before she could step back, he put his arm around her neck and, pulling her toward him, kissed her.

  She did step back then, said a quick, “Good night,” and went into her room.

  It was just about then that Sam started along the corridor. He passed Howard, saw the satisfied smirk on his face and had a sudden urge to wipe it off.

  Eight minutes had gone by since he’d seen them going up toward Lisa’s room. A hell of a lot could happen in eight minutes.

  He stopped in front of her room, went to his own, put the key in the lock, then took it out. Grim-faced, he knocked on Lisa’s door. When she opened it, he said, “I want to talk to you,” and without waiting for an invitation, walked into her room.

  She’d stepped out of her high heels. Now she loo
ked like half a pint of cider. He glared down at her.

  Hands on her hips, she glared right back at him. “I didn’t invite you in,” she said, and started toward the door to open it and usher him out.

  He blocked her way.

  “Please leave,” she said.

  “When I’ve had my say.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “You should be, the way you were behaving tonight.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Flaunting yourself out there on the dance floor. Showing yourself off that way.”

  Hot color rushed to her face.

  “Bare legs. Skirt halfway up around your neck.”

  “What I do isn’t any business of yours,” she said, getting angry.

  “Yeah? Oh, yeah?” Brilliant repartee, Sam, he told himself, knowing he sounded like a six-year-old. What are you going to do now? Jump up and down and swat her?

  “Listen,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “You shouldn’t be running around with some stranger you don’t know anything about.” And testing her, he asked, “Who is that bird, anyway?”

  “His name is Howard Reitman. He isn’t a stranger. I knew him in Miami.” She clenched small fists against her hips. “But whether I know him or not isn’t any concern of yours.”

  “Isn’t it?” He advanced a step, and before she could get away, he grabbed her shoulders. “Isn’t it, Lisa?” he asked. And he kissed her.

  She struggled, but he clasped her in his arms and held her there. He ground his mouth hard on hers, angry again, more at himself than at her because he didn’t want to give in to this, didn’t want to hold her like this, kiss her like this.

  He loosened his grasp, and when he did, she broke away from him and ran out through the open doors of her balcony. He followed her.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  “Go,” she whispered. “Just go.”

  “No.” He turned her around to face him and held her there, searching her eyes as though trying to see what lay behind the mystery in their green depths. Who was she? Only a tourist from Miami here in Jamaica recovering from a broken marriage? Or somebody in the drug underworld, somebody connected with dirtbags like Juan Montoya and Howard Reitman?

  That thought made him mad again, but sure as hell didn’t cool him off. With a muttered curse he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her with all the force of his anger and desire. He took her pouty lower lip between his teeth to taste, clamping hard while he ran his tongue back and forth across the fullness. He nibbled the corners of her mouth, and when she protested, he said, “Kiss me back. Kiss me the way I’m kissing you.” And when she parted her lips to say no, he slipped his tongue past her lips.

  Her mouth was sweet and moist. He touched his tongue to hers and heard the intake of her breath. She tried to move away, but he took her face between his hands and held her until her lips parted and with a cry her hands crept up to encircle his neck.

  “Lisa.” He breathed her name and his mouth softened against hers. He held her close, letting her know she was safe here in his arms.

  A breeze stirred, bringing with it the soft strains of Caribbean music from below and the crash of waves against the shore. The night was scented with jasmine, and with her. She drugged his senses and made him long for things he hadn’t even known he wanted.

  He felt her warmth through the silky material of her dress and thought of how she’d looked out on the dance floor when the dress had swirled up around her pale thighs. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman before.

  He pressed his hand against the small of her back and moved against her. He took her gasp of shock into his mouth, moaned when she snuggled closer and ever so slowly answered his movements with her own.

  Like a drowning man gasping for air, he took her breath, as she took his. He knew he had to stop. If he didn’t right now, he wouldn’t be able to. If she was mixed up in the drug thing... The thought stunned him enough to let some sense back into his brain. He held her away from him.

  All slumberous and warm, she looked up at him. Her lips were bruised by his kisses. Moonlight touched her hair.

  He looked past her to the bed and knew that if he picked her up and carried her there, she wouldn’t fight him. He could lay her down and strip the dress off. He could cover her with his body, hold her, make love to her. He could...

  He touched her hair. “Moonlight lady,” he said. And let her go.

  “Sam?” She reached out to him.

  “No,” he said, his voice rough with all that he was feeling. “This isn’t any good.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe you do, maybe you don’t.” He backed away. “I shouldn’t have come in, Lisa. I’m sorry. I won’t do this again.”

  Her green eyes were wide. “What is it?” she whispered. “Why are you...” She shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said again.

  “Don’t you?” He took a deep breath to steady himself and reached for the doorknob, hanging on to it as though to a lifesaving ring. “Good night,” he said. “I won’t bother you again.”

  Then, as though all the demons of hell were after him, he went out and closed the door.

  Leaving her alone, there in the center of the room. Alone while her body thrummed with desire.

  Chapter 6

  Filoberto Hargreaves showed up in Ocho Rios at seven-thirty the next morning, dapper in a white linen suit, blue shirt and a conservative tie. He took a room on the second floor of the Poinciana overlooking the patio, a room he would use for only a few hours.

  Sam joined him for breakfast.

  “Which one is Reitman?” Filoberto took a sip of his coffee and indicated the tables around the pool. “Is he down there?”

  “Guy with the yellow sport shirt,” Sam said. “Rusty-colored hair.”

  “Sitting with the blonde?”

  “Yes.” Lisa. In a white bikini with a short, white, terry-cloth coverup.

  “Is that the Collier woman?”

  Sam nodded.

  Hargreaves raised an eyebrow. “Quite nice looking, isn’t she?”

  “She’s all right.”

  “All right?” Hargreaves studied her. “From here she looks quite spectacular. I rather hope she isn’t involved is this nasty business. It would be a shame to put a woman like that behind bars.”

  Sam tightened his hands around the balcony railing, but he didn’t say anything.

  “You’re not involved with her, are you?”

  “Involved? Me? Of course not.”

  The Jamaican gave him a piercing look. “One must not let one’s hormones get in the way of duty.”

  “Not a damn thing wrong with my hormones,” Sam snapped.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Hargreaves turned away from the balcony and went back into the room. Sam followed him. “I have something to tell you,” the Jamaican officer said.

  Sam leaned against the dresser and waited.

  “I told you we’ve had a man working undercover with the local group for over a year. Last night we found his body on the beach near Runaway Bay.” Hargreaves reached for a cigarette and when he had lit it, said, “His throat had been cut.”

  “Damn!”

  “He was a good man. We will miss him. So will his wife and their three children in Kingston.”

  For a minute Sam didn’t say anything. Then he said, “Can I have one of those?” and indicated the cigarette.

  Filoberto offered him the pack. Sam shook one out, lit it and took a deep drag. “I quit a couple of months ago,” he said.

  Filoberto waited.

  “How’d they catch on to him?”

  “We don’t know. But his murder suggests that whatever it is that’s going down will take place soon.”

  “And it has something to do with Reitman’s arrival here in Ocho Rios.”

  “I would suspect so. He arrived yesterday?”

  Sam nodded.

  “And made al
most-instant contact with the Collier woman?”

  “They had dinner together last night.”

  “And now breakfast.” Hargreaves ground out the cigarette. “They knew each other in Miami, of course. But still, one wonders if he was simply a business acquaintance of her husband’s or if the three of them were involved with this from the beginning.”

  Sam didn’t say anything. The thought of Lisa being involved with the bastards who had murdered Hargreaves’s man sickened him.

  Hargreaves went back out onto the balcony. “Reitman’s getting ready to leave,” he said. “I’m going to follow him.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Always, my friend.” Hargreaves started toward the door, then turned back and said, “I leave you with the not-unpleasant task of keeping an eye on the young lady.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her,” Sam said.

  His voice was so hard, so cold that it stopped Hargreaves. “Do not do anything foolish. Remember, we want Reitman, Montoya and all the rest of them in one piece. So do you when you take them back to New York.” He paused. “The Collier woman is attractive, Mr. O’Shaughnessy. It wouldn’t be wise to let yourself become emotionally involved with her.”

  “I don’t intend to,” Sam said, tight-lipped.

  When Hargreaves left, Sam went back out on the balcony and looked down at the people having breakfast on the patio below. Lisa was alone now. As he watched, she left the table and walked toward the pool. She took the terry-cloth robe off and tossed it onto a chaise. Her body was slim and tanned and beautiful. He tightened his hands around the rail. Then he swore under his breath and went back into his room.

  * * *

  She wished she hadn’t told Howard Reitman she’d have dinner with him. She didn’t want to see him or anybody else. Not even Sam, at this point.

  She didn’t understand him, or the way she acted when she was with him. She’d never responded to Philip that way. Their marital relations had been more or less okay, if a little bland. Never once in the seven years she’d been with him had she felt the sexual excitement she felt with Sam O’Shaughnessy.

  She was not a promiscuous woman. Philip had been the first and only man she had ever made love with, and only after they were married. Yet last night, if Sam hadn’t stepped away, she would have oh-so-willingly been his.