by Bonnie Vanak
“I was,” Jarrett said, forcing a smile.
Lacey smiled, but Jarrett sensed his words troubled her. Yeah, they had been married, and had a good thing, but they let it slip away.
If only they could get it back again.
* * *
That night at dinner Rose’s six-alarm chili impressed Gene so much that he ate three helpings and declared Rose “an honorary Texan.”
Jarrett pushed back his plate and stole another look at Lacey as she talked with Sam. Several times he saw her gaze flick to the sidearms the men carried. Some women might object to the pistols, but Lacey seemed relieved.
That warned him how worried she was about Fleur. He remembered well the days when they’d been married. After coming home from a mission, he’d barely made it through the front door of their house when she ordered him to put away his personal sidearm and lock it up.
Of course she’d also ordered him to get naked, too. That was one order he loved to obey.
Fleur, squeezed between Lacey and Jarrett, had a special chicken and rice dish Rose had prepared for her. She said little. Her hair was done in several pigtails, with bright red bows and barrettes and she wore a red-and-white dress. She looked so sweet and adorable, but her eyes remained solemn as she looked around at the adults.
Worried, Jarrett looked at her plate. She’d barely touched her food. She’d been fine this afternoon when he’d picked her up from her friend’s house. Fleur even laughed as he played jump rope with her.
Lace had been great at reassuring Fleur, protecting her from the underlying tension in the compound from the fire last night, but kids were sensitive.
“You’re not eating,” Jarrett said gently. “What’s wrong?”
Fleur shrugged her thin shoulders.
“Anyone bothering you at school?”
A head shake.
“The chicken isn’t to your liking?”
“It’s okay,” she said. Her gaze slid to Sam and to Gene and he saw the fear flickering in the child’s face.
Three men at the table. All big guys, perhaps like the father who had killed her mother before the child’s terrified eyes.
“You know Gene and Sam are assigned to protect you. They’re good guys. You don’t have to fear them. They’ll make sure you stay safe from the bad men.”
“Like you do?”
Jarrett’s breath hitched. “Yeah. But if you don’t eat that delicious dinner Rose made for you, I can’t play jump rope with you tomorrow. Because I only play with children who eat their dinner and grow big and strong.”
“I’ll never be strong,” she whispered. “Some girls at school say I’m too skinny.”
Fierce protectiveness came over him at her forlorn expression. “I used to be skinny, too. But I got stronger as I grew older and ate the right food, and you will, too.”
Fleur glanced at Sam again, who was built like a linebacker. “I wish I had been strong enough to protect my first mommy.”
The lump in Jarrett’s throat turned into a baseball. He silently made a promise to do whatever he could to help get her to the States where she could get the psychological help she needed to recover from her past. Lacey was right. Fleur couldn’t thrive here on St. Marc. There were too many memories.
How he wished he could find the son of a bitch who fathered this precious little girl so he could give him a taste of his own medicine. Bastard.
“It wasn’t your fault, sweetie.”
“I know.” She sounded so damn adult it broke his heart all over again. “I have a new mommy and I love her.”
“And she loves you very much. She’d do anything for you. She’ll always do her best to make sure you have everything you need. She’s very special.”
Fleur didn’t say anything for a minute. And then she looked at him and whispered, “So are you, Jarrett.”
Suddenly, he felt her slide her hand into his under the table, as if for reassurance. He’d squeezed it gently, relieved when she began to eat.
When her plate was nearly empty, Jarrett turned the conversation to her school and how the class was preparing for the big recital at the end of the school year in another month. Gene asked Fleur to sing the song she’d been practicing with her classmates. As she sang a song about an old French folktale, Gene’s eyes misted over.
He applauded loudest of all when she finished. “Thanks, Fleur. You remind me of my little girl. She’s about your age and she loves to sing, too.”
Jarrett gave her hand another squeeze as Fleur beamed. “Can you skip rope, Mr. Gene? Jarrett is very good at jumping rope.”
Gene grinned. “I bet he is. Not as good as Jarrett here, because I’m not a special warrior like him. I’m not a SEAL.”
“What’s a SEAL?” she asked.
“It stands for Sea, Air and Land. I’m a special soldier who is good in the water,” Jarrett told her.
“Like a fish? We learned about fish last week in school and how they don’t breathe air.” She pursed her mouth and made a fish face.
Lacey laughed. “He’s a very good swimmer, sweetie. Like a fish. Maybe soon we’ll go visit Coco Bay and Holly and Heather. Jarrett can take you to the pool to teach you how to swim.”
“I’d be happy to teach your mommy, as well,” he said softly, his gaze centered on Lacey.
She looked at him, heat glimmering in her gaze. “Fleur. Time for your bath and then bed. Let’s give Jarrett alone time with our guests. I’m sure they want to drink beer and discuss macho stuff.”
Lacey nodded at the sideboard near the dining table, where an assortment of glass bottles stood. “I have a great dark rum if you’d like something that puts lots of hair on your chest, Jarrett.”
Fleur gave her mother an innocent look. “Do you like hairy chests, Mom?”
As Jarrett laughed, Lacey smiled. She put a hand on Fleur’s shoulder and bent down to whisper something in Jarrett’s ear. “On one chest I do.”
Fleur slid off her chair and said a polite good-night to Sam and Gene. But when she came to Jarrett, she threw her arms around him. He hugged her and watched as Lacey left with her daughter.
He, Gene and Sam went into the living room carrying the beer he’d found in the fridge. Gene popped his open and sighed. “What a sweet kid. I miss my little girl.”
“She Stateside?” Jarrett asked.
“She lives with my wife’s parents. Her mom died two years ago. Car crash, when I was deployed. With me moving around so much, I couldn’t keep her. I try to see her as much as I can.” Gene sipped his beer. “And you?”
“Lacey and I have been divorced for five years. It’s over between us.”
How it pained him to admit that.
“Yeah, didn’t look so the way you kept staring at her through dinner,” Gene told him.
“Couldn’t fool me,” Sam drawled.
He didn’t want to discuss Lace or his personal life. “Tell me what you found out about the man asking about Fleur.”
Gene set down his beer, his cocky grin gone. “Guy’s been appearing on and off throughout the past week. Usually just before school is dismissed. He wears dark business suits, expensive and tailored, always with a red checked tie. He looks like an official or a parent, so the locals who set up businesses outside the school or the men who play dominoes think he has a kid in the school. He’s short, and he has a scar on his chin.”
Sam spoke up. “We did a little checking with the locals. There’s a rumor going around that a man is inviting women to his house for interviews about a job working for his business in the capital. They go there for the interview and never return. He’s cutting out their hearts to use them in some black magic hoodoo ritual. They call him Big Shot.”
Lacey had told him about that horrible rumor. “People like to talk, spread tall tales. Have you seen anything or heard anything else?”
“It could be a rumor,” Sam admitted. “Except there’s a missing girl. Local named Caroline Beaufort. Last time her family saw her she was wearing a yellow shi
rt with lace around the collar, black pants. Her nails were painted neon green. We promised we’d keep an eye out for anyone matching that description.”
That name... Lacey had mentioned it was a woman who used to work for her. It worried him. Had someone close to Caroline blamed Lacey for her disappearance?
Lacey had told him villagers in small communities loved to gossip, and any newcomer was subject to scrutiny. Sometimes the locals blamed wealthy denizens for everything from crop failure to their donkeys dying.
He knew black magic wasn’t unusual on the island of St. Marc. But this particular story had his instincts on full alert.
Jarrett wanted to run into Fleur’s bedroom, wrap both Fleur and Lace in cotton wool and board them on the next plane to DC.
They finished their beer and Jarrett fished out three more from the fridge. Gene was in the middle of telling about parachuting exercises after he and a buddy had drunk too much the night before and “we all ended up puking as the chute jerked us upward like puppets” when Lacey walked into the room.
She grabbed Jarrett’s beer and took a swig. “Don’t let me stop you,” she said with a sweet smile. “You were talking about suffering from the world’s worst hangover at twenty thousand feet. I’m sure that earned you a double face palm from your CO. And all the guys you spewed upon on the way down. Boys will be boys.”
Jarrett grinned as Gene looked flustered. Oh yeah, Lace had nailed him to the wall. She knew what it was like, being an ex-military wife.
He liked this kind of familiarity, Lace sitting next to him, her warm thigh pressed against his, her taking his beer as if they were still married. Old habits.
He fetched another beer for Lacey and went to take his. Their fingers brushed and their eyes met. Desire glimmered in hers and his body tightened.
Lacey looked at Sam and Gene. “Where are you staying?”
When Sam told her, she looked horrified. “Isn’t my father paying you enough? That place is a dump.”
Gene gave a lopsided smile. “He is, but the accommodations in town are, ah, limited.”
Her gaze flicked to Jarrett. “I have a guesthouse. Five bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen and dining area. You can stay there, no charge. It’s no luxury hotel, but it’s much more comfortable than that flea trap.”
Sam glanced at Gene. They nodded. “Thank you,” Gene told her. “We’ll check out tomorrow and move in, if that’s okay with you.”
They began a discussion of the various rum drinks on the island, and then Lacey started talking about the best rum she’d ever tasted at a little seaside bar “where the rum erased the taste of the fried conch that had the consistency of a rubber tire.”
And then Lacey put a hand on his bare arm. It was casual, like a friend would when telling a story, but it ratcheted up his internal engine all over again.
He leaned forward to ask a question when a scream sounded. High-pitched and filled with terror, it made the hair on his nape salute the air.
Jarrett sprang to his feet, knocking over his beer. “Sam, stay here with Fleur and Lacey,” he ordered. “Gene, come with me.”
Jarrett raced upstairs and retrieved his sidearm. After flipping on the exterior lights, he went outside, his weapon in hand, Gene following him, his sidearm drawn, as well.
The humid night air wrapped around him like a blanket. The sounds of cicadas in the trees interspersed with a woman’s sobs and the excited chatter of several people.
Rose stood outside, wringing her hands. “Oh, sweet Jesus, the poor lady,” she cried.
Jarrett took her aside. “What is it?”
But the woman would not say, only continued to sob. Men from the compound and security guards Lacey had hired to patrol the compound stood around talking in high voices.
“Jarrett, the tree.” Gene pointed and Jarrett’s stomach roiled as he stared.
Suspended from the thick branch of a mango tree by a rope around her feet, the woman hung upside down near the western wall of the compound.
Yellow shirt with lace edging the collar, though now it was stained crimson. Black linen trousers. Her toenails were painted neon green. One white satin ribbon tied around her hair waved gently in the breeze.
Her eyes stared open in frozen shock and horror.
The description fit Caroline Beaufort. Dead, with a large hole in her pretty yellow shirt.
Her heart had been ripped out of her chest.
On the wall near her body were words painted in red, crude letters.
American lady go home or you will end up like this.
CHAPTER 10
Cold sweat broke out on Lacey’s skin as she stared at her former employee hanging from the tree. She’d left Sam watching over Fleur as she’d raced outside to see what caused the hysterical screams.
And now, seeing for herself, hearing Rose’s anguished sobs, the excited, stunned chatter of the men, she felt all the blood drain from her. Lacey’s breath hitched as Jarrett came over to her.
“Oh God, oh God!” Lacey felt the dizziness push at the edges of her vision. The poor girl...
“Breathe.” Jarrett holstered his sidearm and gently pushed her head down, increasing the blood flow to her brain. “Your pulse is too rapid and you could be headed into shock. Stay like that a minute, Lace. I’ve got you.”
“I have to call the police,” she said, closing her eyes and bracing her hands on her knees as Jarrett held her shoulders. “But not yet.”
Get a grip, get a grip, you can be strong. Oh God, the poor girl!
“Fleur,” she managed to say, standing straight, willing herself to gather her lost composure. “I can’t let her see this. I have to get her out of here before we call the cops, Jarrett. She’s terrified of the police. They took her away when her mother was killed and put her in an orphanage and she didn’t speak for two months. But I don’t know where to send her!”
She couldn’t think, much less focus.
“What about her friend Sally’s house? She can have a sleepover.”
Fleur had never spent a night away from her since she came to live with Lacey, but it sounded like the only solution. “I can’t go with her. The police will want to question me.”
“Send Gene. He’s her bodyguard now. And he’ll make sure she’s taken care of, sweetheart. He won’t let anything happen to her.”
As Sam joined them, Lacey fished out her cell phone, her hands shaking badly. Jarrett took the phone from her, scrolled through her contacts.
“I met Sally’s mom this afternoon. Let me make the arrangements. You go sit down for a minute. Sam, get Lace a cold cola. She’s in shock and needs the sugar.”
Jarrett, quiet, in control and capable.
Fifteen minutes later, Fleur’s overnight bag packed, Lacey held her daughter, shielding her face from the terrible sight on the compound wall. She kissed her cheek as she bundled her into Gene’s SUV. Gene put her overnight case into the back and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Lacey buckled her daughter’s seat belt with a steadier hand. Fleur stared at her with big, solemn eyes and then at Jarrett, who stood next to her.
“Why am I spending the night at Sally’s house, Mommy?” Fleur’s mouth trembled. “Are you sending me away?”
Lacey’s stomach tightened. “Never, sweetie. I promise. You’re my little girl now. But Mr. Gene is going to take you to Sally’s because there’s some grown-up things going on that I have to handle here.”
“I can hear the people talking. They’re saying a lady got hurt real bad. She’s dead.”
Lacey closed her eyes a minute, wishing she had a wand to wave away all the bad things that her child had to witness. “Yes, sweetie. And I’m going to be dealing with the local police. The police will want to find who did this terrible thing. I want you to go to Sally’s and not think about any of this. Gene will keep you safe. And if you need anything or get worried, call me on the cell phone.”
Fleur looked past her at Jarrett. “Will you take care of my mommy, Jarrett? She
needs someone to take care of her. The police can be scary. They might take her away like they took me away when my first mommy died.”
Jarrett kissed her daughter’s cheek. “I will, kiddo. Your mom is staying here with me and she isn’t going anywhere. She’ll be right here, waiting for you, when you return. You go with Gene, enjoy your time with Sally. Her mom is making hot chocolate for you both, and Sally has her LEGOs all set up for you to make a house.”
Fleur nodded. “I love you, Mommy.”
Lacey hugged her tight. “I love you, too, sweetie.”
Then she stepped back, shut the door and watched as Gene drove her daughter out of the compound. The tightness in her chest became a stretched rubber band, until she wanted to scream.
“Make the call,” she said dully. “Tell them what Rose found. And tell them to notify the coroner.”
* * *
Four hours later the police arrested Jean, the man she’d hired to work on the compound.
She had led the police to the gardening shed and they found the buckets of red paint and two wet brushes. Circumstantial evidence, except for one small fact. The shed’s walls were bone dry and the brushes wet, along with smears of red paint on his clothing. They found him drinking a bottle of rum in the room she’d kicked him out of earlier that day. He was drunk, but still coherent.
And then he broke down and confessed. Not to the police, but when Jarrett looked him in the eye, rage simmering in his expression as he flexed his powerful fists, Jean caved in.
He admitted to painting the threats. But he swore he did not know who killed poor Caroline. And he went into hysterics, claiming he’d painted the wall before the body hung there.
Jean told the police he’d owed money to a creditor, who told him how to erase the debt. A harmless prank to scare the rich American lady living in the complex. No one would be hurt. He had practiced painting the writing and then painted the threats. He admitted to painting the gate, as well, and hanging the dead chicken. Harmless pranks, he called them.
But he claimed he did not kill Caroline Beaufort. Jean kept crying and protesting he would never hurt anyone.
Innocent pranks. And now a woman was dead.
