Flawless Danger (The Spencer & Sione #1)

by Rachel Woods

  chapter 89

  San Ignacio, Belize

  Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita

  “Your mother hates me,” Spencer announced as she walked into the kitchen.

  John stood behind the center island, staring at a small plastic basket filled with green coconuts, a small machete, and an oversized mixing bowl. “No, she doesn’t,” John disputed, picking up a coconut and holding it in the palm of his hand.

  Doubtful, Spencer stared at him. “Yes, she does.”

  John picked up the machete.

  “Maggie, Keisha, and India told me she hates me,” Spencer said. “They said she thinks I’m the wrong woman for you. She told your Aunt Perla that she doesn’t understand why you can’t meet a nice girl at church.”

  “Come on, they’re little girls,” he said, holding the coconut over the mixing bowl, staring at it, as though for wisdom or knowledge. “They don’t understand half the stuff they overhear my mom and Aunt Perla gossiping about.”

  “Your mother thinks I’m not good enough for you,” she said. “And she’s probably right.”

  “Don’t say you’re not good enough for me, okay,” he warned. Using the blunt edge of the knife, he tapped against the coconut, rotating it in his hand.

  “Just face it, John, your mother hates me,” Spencer said, watching him tap and rotate, tap and rotate, until the coconut split in half. “Your whole family hates me.”

  “That is not true.”

  “Okay, maybe not your whole family,” Spencer amended, shrugging. “Just your mom. And your cousin David.”

  “D.J. doesn’t hate you,” John said, holding the coconut over the bowl, draining the juice, and then placing the halves on the counter. “He’s suspicious of you.”

  “Suspicious is an understatement,” Spencer said. “David thinks I’m a criminal. And it’s kind of your fault he feels that way about me.”

  “My fault?” John stared at her.

  Realizing she’d have to be delicate so she didn’t offend him, she said, “You told David to follow me around. You told him to investigate me. He wouldn’t be suspicious of me if you hadn’t put those suspicions in his head.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have been suspicious of you if you hadn’t received that banker’s box with fake passports and money hidden in Xanax boxes,” he said. “Which you lied about.”

  Folding her arms, Spencer said, “I wouldn’t have lied about the contents of that banker’s box if I hadn’t suspected that you had opened it, which you shouldn’t have done.”

  John glared at her, and Spencer knew she’d crossed the line. But the arguments about John’s initial suspicions of her seemed to always come up, and there was no need pretending it wasn’t going to be an issue.

  They would always have to contend with David’s investigation of her. David’s surveillance had yielded damning evidence against her—the delivery of passports and money to Carla Garcia, Karen Nelson, and Maxine Porter.

  Further investigations into the three women had revealed their connections to Ben Chang, which, of course, had convinced David of Spencer’s connection to Ben Chang. Naturally, John had confronted her about it, and to save her relationship with John, Spencer had been forced to lie about that connection. Although, the irony was, now she wasn’t even sure if she still had a connection to Ben.

  A few days had passed since she’d found the envelope.

  Spencer had called and texted Ben that very day, but he hadn’t responded to her. Ben had yet to respond to her, though she called and texted him every day with the same message.

  I found it. Contact me.

  Spencer didn’t know why the hell he hadn’t responded, and she didn’t know where the hell he could be. She worried what would happen when Ben finally returned one of her messages, because she knew one day he would, when she least suspected it. Out of the blue, Ben would be back in her life. And then what?

  After she gave him the envelope, what would she do? It was a question Rae and Shady posed to her each time she called them. Was she going back to Texas or staying in Belize with John? Spencer still didn’t know.

  “You just have to give D.J. some time,” John said. “It’s hard for him to trust you because of your connection to Ben Chang.”

  “But I don’t really have a connection to Ben Chang,” Spencer lied, desperate to keep up her ruse. “I told you, I don’t even really know him. I made those deliveries because I was scared and I didn’t want any problems.”

  “I know that, but …”

  “But what?” Spencer asked. “You think it’s more than that? You think there’s something I’m not telling you?”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “What would I not be telling you?”

  Shaking his head, John said, “Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

  Spencer wasn’t so sure it didn’t matter.

  She always worried if maybe John hadn’t believed the lies she’d been forced to tell him. She’d claimed she had never met Ben Chang and the orders he’d given her had come through some “loan manager”.

  “Tell me,” Spencer said. “What were you going to—”

  A sharp, staccato knock on the French doors that opened to the back terrace made Spencer jump.

  “It’s Jared,” John said, looking past her.

  Thankful for the interruption, Spencer hurried to the door and let the detective inside. Jared greeted her, his smile polite if not friendly, but she hadn’t expected a warm welcome and she never would.

  “Hey, Sione,” Jared called out, walking past Spencer and into the kitchen.

  Closing the door, she turned and witnessed the greeting between John and Jared. At first, there was a warm, easy familial bond, but seconds later, Jared’s mood became grim.

  “Wish I had better news, cousin,” Jared said.

  “What’s going on?” John asked.

  Spencer’s pulse jumped, as irrational fears grabbed her. Undefined terror overshadowed her, and at once, a scripture her grandmother used to say came to mind—the guilty flee when no man pursue.

  “When it rains it pours,” Jared said, his tone weary.

  Giving his cousin a curious glance, John asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Did you two hear about the dead woman those tourists found on Ambergris Caye?” Jared asked.

  Too terrified to speak, Spencer managed to nod as John said, “Yeah, I think so. What about her?”

  “The woman found on Ambergris Caye had been shot between the eyes and had her right hand cut off,” Jared said and continued on, “Then, a week ago, some ex-pats were cave tubing and came across a dead body. She’d been executed too, shot between the eyes with her right hand cut off. Hispanic woman we identified as Carla Garcia.”

  An involuntary shiver passed through Spencer as the shock of Jared’s words almost made her knees buckle.

  Carla Garcia was dead. She’d been killed the same way Maxine Porter had, shot between the eyes before her hand had been cut off. Most likely, the same person who’d murdered Maxine had killed Carla. But who was the killer? Had Ben killed Maxine Porter and Carla Garcia? But why would he have passports and money delivered to the women if he was planning to execute them?

  “Then yesterday, we got a double murder in Bullet Tree.”

  “Did you say Bullet Tree?” John asked, a slight tension in his tone that Spencer found odd.

  Jared nodded. “Backpackers discovered the bodies yesterday. Heinous shit. Two women. One of them had been shot between the eyes and had her right hand cut off.”

  Her heart slamming, Spencer took a deep breath and tried not to jump to conclusions, but she couldn’t help but think about Karen Nelson. She couldn’t help but wonder if the blonde tomboy was the woman who’d been executed in Bullet Tree.

  “The other victim was damn near mutilated.”

  “Mutilated?” John asked.

  Jared nodded and said, “Multiple gunshot wounds to the face. Throat slit. Stabbed several times in
the chest. Overkill, that’s what it’s called.”

  “Oh my God,” Spencer whispered, horrified by the grisly details.

  “One of the murders was impersonal, execution-style,” Jared went on. “But whoever killed the other woman must have hated her and maybe wanted to punish her.”

  “Have you identified her?” John asked.

  “Still working on it.” Jared walked to the table and stood behind the empty chair directly across from Spencer. “The other victim was Karen Nelson.”

  Karen Nelson, Spencer thought, troubled that her speculations about the blonde tomboy’s fate had been right.

  “So, we have three women who were all shot once between the eyes and then had their right hands dismembered,” Jared said. “And now I have to wonder if there’s some crazy, ritualistic serial killer on the loose in Belize.”

  “Hopefully not,” John said, sounding a bit distracted. “Murder in paradise is bad for business.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jared said. “The Tourism Minister already contacted the mayor who contacted my superiors. They want these cases wrapped up as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

  “You have any leads?” John asked.

  “Actually, that’s why I’m here. I need to ask you something, Ms. Edwards,” Jared said, giving her the same look the cops in Dallas had given her when she’d been interrogated after Rae had been arrested for murder. The concerned suspicion, Shady called it. A strange brew of doubt and kindness, designed to trick you into ratting yourself out.

  Her heart slamming, Spencer looked at John, who seemed just as curious and worried by Jared’s request as she was, and her heart slammed harder, but she managed to say, “Okay, what is it?”

  “Obviously, the investigation is just starting, but I’m trying to retrace Karen Nelson’s steps,” Jared said and then took a seat at the table. “I want to find out everything she did from the day she arrived in Belize to the day she was killed. I’m trying to find people she might have come in contact with. We discovered she took one of those cave exploration tours—”

  “Jared, most people who come to Belize visit the caves,” John said. “What does that have to do with what you need to ask Spencer?”

  “We asked the tour company for a list of all the people who’d been on the same tour with Karen Nelson,” Jared explained, pulling a notebook from his lightweight sports jacket. “Ms. Edwards was on that list.”

  Spencer felt her heart plummet as she struggled to breathe, trying not to assume that Jared had come to trap her in a lie so he could arrest her for a murder she hadn’t committed.

  “So what?” John asked.

  “So, Ms. Edwards,” Jared flipped a few pages of his notebook and pulled out a piece of paper the size of an index card. “I was wondering if you might remember seeing Karen Nelson? Since the two of you were on the same cave tour. I have a photo of her.”

  Placing the index card on the table, Jared flipped it over, as though it were the flop in a game of Texas No-Limit, and pushed it across the smooth surface toward her.

  What Spencer had thought was an index card was actually a photo of the freckle-faced blonde who’d held a gun in her face and didn’t like the name on the fake passport. Her heart thudded as she stared at the photo, remembering the girl’s yellow nail polish and the cheap little butterfly ring on her finger.

  “You remember seeing her?” Jared asked.

  Spencer glanced at John, noting the wariness in his eyes, and then at the detective.

  “No,” Spencer said, meeting Jared’s shrewd gaze. “I don’t remember seeing her.”

  “Are you sure?” Jared asked.

  “She said she doesn’t recognize the woman,” John said. “And even if she did, so what?”

  “If you did recognize Karen Nelson,” Jared said, focusing on her. “Then I would want to know if you had spoken to her. Or if you had seen anyone else talking to her. I’d want to know if you noticed anything strange or out of the ordinary about her.”

  Shaking her head, Spencer glanced at John.

  “I don’t remember her,” Spencer said. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” Jared put the photo of Karen Nelson back in his notebook and then stood. “Thanks, anyway. I appreciate your cooperation.” Jared gave her a skeptical smile and then looked over at John. “Sione, walk me out.”

  chapter 90

  San Ignacio, Belize

  Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita

  Outside on the terrace, Jared turned to Sione. “You think Ms. Edwards is telling me the truth?”

  “Why wouldn’t she tell you the truth?” Sione asked, taking a few steps away from his cousin, toward the wall of hibiscus trees. “What would she have to hide?”

  “Plenty,” Jared said. “According to D.J.”

  “What the hell did D.J. tell you?”

  “Just that he was worried about you getting mixed up with a woman he didn’t think you should trust.”

  “Did he tell you why he thinks I shouldn’t trust Spencer?”

  “He didn’t get into all that.”

  “You can’t listen to D.J.,” Sione said, relieved that D.J. had kept his mouth shut about Spencer’s Xanax deliveries. “He doesn’t like her.”

  “I hope she’s telling the truth, for your sake.”

  “For my sake?”

  “You don’t need to be involved with another lying bitch like—”

  “Let’s not talk about her, okay, please,” Sione said, trying to ignore any thoughts of how he’d wrapped his hands around Moana’s neck, trying to forget that he’d killed her.

  Even though he wasn’t sure he had …

  Sione had thought Moana was dead when she’d slumped to the floor, limp and unmoving. But he hadn’t made sure. He’d only assumed. And for his assumption, he’d gone through hell, reliving the moment over and over, torn between anguish and apathy, and self-condemnation and self-justification. All the mental turmoil might have been for nothing.

  Double murder … one of them shot between the eyes … the other one damn near mutilated

  The other one.

  Sione knew it was Moana. What he didn’t know was how she’d died. And who had killed her? Maybe it wasn’t him. He’d choked her, but maybe not to death. What he’d assumed was her lifeless body might have been her unconscious form. After Sione had left, someone had shot Moana and stabbed her, mutilating her in the process of taking her life.

  Who the hell had done that?

  Whoever killed the other woman must have hated her.

  Sione couldn’t pretend he didn’t hate Moana. But he hadn’t shot her, stabbed her, and slit her throat. It was possible that he hadn’t killed her. He didn’t know if he should feel relieved because it meant he wasn’t like his father or if he should feel inadequate because it meant Moana was right about him. You don’t have the guts to kill me.

  “I need to tell you something about Moana,” Jared said reluctantly.

  “I’m sure it’s not something I’m interested in hearing.”

  “You need to hear it,” Jared said, his gaze sober, almost apologetic. “Even though I’m not really sure how to say it.”

  “Jared, I don’t—”

  “Moana is dead.”

  “I know.” Sione stared at him.

  “You know?” Jared echoed, shock registering on his face.

  “Her lawyer called me shortly after it happened,” Sione said. “He told me she was killed in a prison fight.”

  Sione took a breath, wanting to blurt out the truth. Moana didn’t die in some prison fight. He knew that for a fact. Three days ago, he’d seen her. She had stood in front of him, giving him that haughty stare with those indigo eyes, telling him some crazy story about faking her death.

  Richard’s idea, she claimed, but Sione wasn’t sure if his father had orchestrated the gruesome events.

  Ask you father.

  But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He didn’t want to know.

  Jared said, “I�
��m sorry.”

  Sione stared at his cousin. “Why the hell are you sorry?”

  “Well … ” Jared paused for a moment and then said, “You were once in love with Moana and you were going to marry her and—”

  “My relationship with her was so damn long ago, I hardly remember—”

  “It was two years ago,” Jared reminded him. “Not that long. And despite what happened between you two, and how things ended, I know the last thing you wanted was for her to end up dead.”

  Sione didn’t say anything. How could he respond when he felt like he’d just been kicked in the balls. But he had to say something because Jared’s sympathetic gaze was starting to look more like confusion, and soon the confusion would turn to suspicion.

  “No, you’re right.” Sione forced the words from his mouth. “That’s the last thing I ever wanted.”

  chapter 91

  San Ignacio, Belize

  Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita

  As soon as John walked back into the kitchen, Spencer said, “Your cousin thinks I’m lying, doesn’t he?”

  “Lying about what?”

  “About knowing Karen Nelson.”

  “He asked me if you were telling the truth.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “What do you think I said?”

  “John, please—”

  “Don’t you trust me by now? Don’t you know I’m on your side?” he asked. “Why do you think I would I ever rat you out? I’m not going to get you in trouble and have you arrested and taken from me. I told you, I’m going to protect you.”

  “I do trust you, John,” she said. “I don’t mean to make you think that I doubt you, I just … I wish you didn’t have to keep all my secrets.”

  “I can deal with the secrets and the lies,” he said. “Because if not for the secrets and lies, I guess you wouldn’t be here. As hard and dangerous as this situation with the favor has been for you, I have to be grateful, because if you had been able to pay back that loan, then you wouldn’t have been sent to Belize to make those deliveries and I wouldn’t have met you.”