by Nina Bruhns
She strolled to the bed and with a light touch, moved a strand of hair that had tangled across the young girl’s eyes. Jessica bolted upright, but Marisela remained steady and cool, even with narrow hatred slicing at her from Jessica’s clear blue stare.
“Get out!”
“I came to talk to you.”
She glanced at her watch. Right about now, Titan was jamming Perez’s surveillance system yet again. This time, she had five full minutes to talk, though she knew she needed more. She decided to gamble that Perez didn’t have his own daughter’s room bugged. If he did, Marisela could be dead very, very soon.
“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say!” Jessica spat, scrambling off the bed.
Marisela spun Jessica into a tight hold and blocked her mouth so she couldn’t scream.
“Look in my pocket.”
Jessica attempted to break free, but Marisela wrapped her foot tighter around the girl’s ankle, then shifted to the side so she presented no target to Jessica’s effective head-butt technique.
“Listen to me, chiquita. If you want to know what is really going on, you’ll take what is in my jacket right now.”
She felt the girl’s capitulation in the way her shoulders sagged. Certain Marisela could regain control of the situation at any point, at least physically, she relaxed her hold so Jessica could do as she asked and slip her hand into Marisela’s jacket.
She withdrew the letter, but the locket fell to the floor.
“Read it.”
Jessica shook the folds until she could read at least the first few lines. In an instant, her muscles completely gave way. Now, Marisela wasn’t restraining Jessica so much as she was holding her up. She took her hand away from the girl’s mouth then led her gently back to her bed.
“This is a letter I sent to my mother,” she said, her voice quavering. “Oh, my God. Alfredo’s granddaughter mailed it for me from her school. I found the address in my father’s papers. He would have locked me up forever if he’d found out. I was only, I don’t know, like eight.”
“You were nine,” Marisela answered, swooping down to retrieve the locket and chain from the floor. “Your mother gave me that letter only a week ago.”
“My mother?” Jessica’s honed instincts brought her voice to a whisper. “No, that can’t be. My father would never allow…”
Her voice trailed off and Marisela watched her eyelids blink as she struggled to make sense of her admission. She shook her head, her hands quaking even as she pressed the sheet of paper onto the bed and tried to smooth out the wrinkles.
“Your father doesn’t know,” Marisela assured her.
“I don’t believe you. He knows everything that goes on here. You’re just playing with me! You’re his assassin! You’re trying to trick me so that I’ll forgive him for asking you to kill my mother.”
Marisela kneeled beside the bed as she glanced toward the door. Even though there might not be a listening device inside the room, there was no telling who was patrolling the hallway.
“¡Silencio! What I’m telling you could get me killed and I sort of like breathing. Think you can tone yourself down while I explain?”
Jessica’s mouth tightened into a thin line, but she gripped the letter as if the paper had been glued to her fingertips.
“I’ll hear you out, but I won’t believe you.”
“Don’t make up your mind just yet. First, let’s get one thing clear—your father did not order a hit on your mother. He was angry and frustrated and scared shitless when those thugs took you. He suspected your mother might have been behind the kidnapping and he was just thinking out loud. Those pendejos nearly got you killed. You can’t blame him for wanting revenge.”
“My mother would never try to kidnap me! She doesn’t want me!”
Marisela rolled her eyes, placed her finger over Jessica’s lips, and shushed her again. “Wrong again, mija. Your mother is the reason I’m here.”
Even as the whole story poured from her lips, Marisela knew Frankie would kill her himself for telling Jessica the whole unadulterated truth. She didn’t reveal her real name, fearing Jessica could inadvertently screw up, but she did promise to tell her once this whole situation ended.
If it ended with Marisela still alive, that was.
To seal her confession, she showed Jessica the locket, which the girl opened, then cradled in her palm as if the charm were made from spun glass instead of gold.
“So you’re here to take me back to my mother?” Jessica asked, her voice raspy from all the unshed tears pouring down the back of her throat.
“I was. But you’ve been through so much and frankly, your father isn’t the man I was told he was anymore than I’m guessing your mother is the woman you’ve been told she is. And now, there is a third player in this game and that’s an unknown that could get you killed if I take you out of your father’s protection. Besides, with the tightened security, I don’t think we can get you off this island safely without your cooperation.”
“Cooperation? What are you talking about?”
Marisela slid onto the bed beside Jessica and glanced quickly at the door. They’d been chatting for quite some time and no one had burst in or even so much as interrupted, which she hoped meant that her hunch about Perez keeping his daughter’s bedroom off limits to his surveillance team had been on target. But this conversation couldn’t go on forever. Sooner or later, her father was going to come in and check on his daughter. Frankie was supposed to run interference after he completed his call to Blake, but there was no guarantee he’d be able to keep the distraught father from his child.
“Do you want to meet your mother?”
“Yes! If she really wants me. I mean, of course.”
“Will your father let you do that?”
“Are you kidding? You heard him. He hates her.”
“I’m supposed to take you to her, back in the States, where she has custody, at least until you turn eighteen. But I don’t want to do that anymore.”
Jessica’s brows shot up, then knotted over suspicious eyes. “Why not?”
“Because frankly, I don’t trust your mother anymore than your father does. And I know you love your father and would be miserable if I took you away by force. I want you to meet your mother, but I’m not averse to changing the terms in your favor. But only if you want me to. So until you decide, I’m putting my life in your hands.”
A light rap on the door forced Marisela’s heart into her throat for the split second it took her to realize that if she’d been found out, no one would be knocking at all. Jessica shoved the locket and the letter under her pillow and after pressing her hand softly on Marisela’s, told whoever was on the other side of the door to come in.
Javier Perez leaned inside, his smile sheepish. “You’re awake. Señora Tosca, have you had breakfast yet?”
Marisela inhaled deeply, then pushed her breath out with a friendly smile. “No, I’m starved. I was just going to ask Jessica to join me for some of Alfredo’s amazing huevos rancheros.
“He made the salsa fresh this morning. Your husband is already in the dining room. Why don’t you go on? My daughter and I will join you.”
Marisela glanced at Jessica, who was looking down in her lap, revealing nothing. If the kid gave her up, she and Frankie would be dead by lunchtime. Did Jessica really understand? Did she care?
With no other choice, Marisela stood. “Of course. Jessica, you remember what I said. Your father loves you very much.”
And on that note, she left them alone. She caught up with Frankie on the terrace where he was sipping an espresso and staring at the surf.
“How’d you do?”
Marisela stole his cup and took a sip of his drink. She blanched when she realized he hadn’t added one speck of sugar. She shoved the demitasse back at him and swallowed a few times to erase the bitter flavor from her tongue.
“I made headway.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The t
ruth.”
Frankie chuckled, but she killed his humor with one pointed look.
“What truth?”
“The real truth. Jessica Perez now holds our fate in her seventeen-year-old hands.”
Frankie slammed the delicate cup onto the railing. It shattered, and he didn’t seem to care.
“You’re not shitting me,” he said.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Nope.”
He cursed, a rather impressive long line of connected vulgarisms that spanned two languages and made his point. “Now what do we do?”
“We have breakfast. Might be our last meal, verdad?”
Dirty Little Secrets: Chapter Twenty
Funny, Marisela didn’t remember falling asleep outside. And hadn’t the storm stopped hours ago? She vaguely remembered exiting the boathouse after the patter on the roof changed tempo from a raucous drumming to a slow, rhythmic beat. Wait. That wasn’t last night—that was the night before. And yet, the moisture splashing on her face right now definitely felt like rainwater, even though she could also sense soft cotton sheets caressing her body as well as the searing heat of Frankie’s skin against hers. She peeked open one eye to catch Jessica flicking water at her from a drinking glass.
She scrambled for the sheet, then elbowed Frankie awake. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
Marisela winced at Frankie’s harshness, but Jessica merely quirked an eyebrow, more interested by Frankie’s naked chest than she was by his morning growl.
“Some greeting for the person who’s about to save both your asses,” Jessica quipped.
Marisela yanked at the sheet, making sure Frankie was covered. He hadn’t gone to bed naked, but he’d ended up that way sometime around three o’clock.
“Keep your virgin eyes off his ass, okay?” Marisela warned. “I’ve corrupted you enough.”
“Who said I was a virgin?”
Marisela’s jaw dropped. “Like your father would leave you alone and unsupervised with any boy long enough for you to get busy.”
Jessica set the glass on the bedside table with a splash and nodded in defeat. “Got me there. There’s only one place my father ever lets me go alone.”
The saucy tone in her voice brought Marisela fully awake. She shook her hand in the direction of her robe and the girl obediently fetched and retrieved. Marisela shrugged into the terry cloth just before Frankie swiped the entire top sheet from the bed and made a semi-modest escape to the bathroom.
“He doesn’t stick around much when I show up,” Jessica noted, disappointment barely hidden beneath her wry tone.
“Maybe because you keep showing up when he’s half-naked?” Marisela offered.
“Well, I may be a virgin, but I’m not virginal. Big difference.”
“Apparently. So why are you splashing me awake so early in the morning?”
“It’s Sunday.”
Marisela waited for the rest of the explanation, which didn’t come.
“And that means…” Marisela prompted.
“Geez!” Jessica rolled her eyes. “Sunday? Hello? Church?”
“Oh,” Marisela answered, suddenly guilty for not thinking of that herself. Funny how her life had changed so drastically over the past two weeks. Not only was she getting laid with incredible regularity, she’d become adept at dodging bullets and lying through her teeth. Okay, so the last two things weren’t so unique to her life. Still, she wasn’t looking forward to her first confession after her latest escapades.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three weeks since my last confession. Let me sum up—I’m nearly ten for ten on breaking the commandments.
A few novenas were not going to do the trick this time around.
“I think I’ll skip mass, if you don’t mind.”
With exaggerated movement, Jessica skipped her gaze back and forth from Marisela to the door, her lips tight as she spoke. “You’d think you’d want to say a few prayers of thanks, you know? That we didn’t get killed the other day?”
Marisela rubbed her face and eyes, trying to clear her head. The girl was trying to tell her something, but the message wasn’t breaking through her early morning brain fog.
“Yeah, you’d think.”
Jessica slapped her thighs in exasperation. “If you could stop being so stubborn and sarcastic, you’d realize that going to church with me, on the mainland, would be a great idea.”
Click.
The child was brilliant. But why didn’t Titan know about this weekly excursion? They’d researched Jessica and her movements prior to her and Frankie’s arrival.
“You do this every Sunday?”
Jessica shook her head. “No, I usually go on Fridays when I’m in school. But since Papi won’t let me go to school, I convinced him to allow me a Sunday in church. The security will be very tight.”
Marisela heeded the warning, but trusted Ian and Max could work out the details. “Your father wouldn’t mind if we tagged along?”
Jessica grinned in relief. “Why would he? He won’t go. My father is a lot of things, but a hypocrite isn’t one of them. He has coffee at the café across the street while I go with my bodyguards.”
“What about Inma?”
Jessica slid on to the bed beside Marisela, a frown underlining her knitted brow. “She’s still on the job, along with a new girl named Carla. I think she was a man in another life. Papi isn’t fooling around anymore.”
Marisela smirked. “Like he ever was?”
Marisela pushed herself off the bed and stretched, invigorated by the opportunity Jessica had arranged for them. Only. Oh, hell. She’d promised Jessica a chance to meet her mother, not to run away. Marisela didn’t even know if Elise Barron-Ryce was anywhere near Puerto Rico, much less available for a tête-à-tête with her long lost daughter in a little less than…
“What time do we have to leave?”
Jessica glanced at her watch. “I’d say we have to leave no later than eight. I usually attend the nine o’clock service.” Marisela hurried to her closet and threw open the doors, certain she didn’t have anything in her current wardrobe appropriate for church. “What time is it now?”
“Ten.”
Marisela spun around. “Ten? We missed it?”
Jessica’s lips had folded inward. She was struggling to keep from laughing, which made Marisela want to grab the girl and shake her silly.
“Ha, ha,” Marisela said. “The joke’s on me. You had no intention of taking me with you to church, did you? What? Afraid you’d get hit by lightning just by standing next to me?”
Jessica opened her mouth, probably to explain, but snapped her lips shut with an audible pop a split second later. Her wide gaze seemed locked on some spot over Marisela’s shoulder and in ten seconds flat, her skin went from seashell pink to ashen white to fire engine red.
With her hands on her hips, Marisela turned and caught sight of Frankie leaning against the doorway, dripping wet from his shower and covered only around the waist in a very small white towel.
“Have you no shame? She’s just a kid. Put some clothes on.”
“Clothes for church? Vidita, it’s not Sunday. It’s Saturday. Seems our pájarita has given us a twenty-four hour head start.”
* * *
By eight o’clock the next morning, a plan was in place, though Marisela had had no idea how the scheme would progress until they docked at the pier in San Juan and on the short walk to the waiting limousine, caught sight of a jewelry-selling street vendor who looked vaguely familiar. The disguise Dionysus had donned made him look every inch the Puerto Rican entrepreneur, so when Frankie stopped to buy Marisela a lovely pair of carved, mother of pearl earrings, none of Perez’s men looked anything more than impatient. He bought a pair for Jessica as well, and in fine distracting perfection, the girl spent the rest of the walk and the first few miles of the drive squealing with delight over the five-dollar gift—just enough time for Marisela to put hers on and activate the listening devi
ce planted inside.
She pressed the tiny button on the clasp and a few seconds later, heard Max’s voice buzz near her ear like a bug.
“Tap the earring three times if you can hear me clearly.” She winked at Frankie and did as she was told.
“Good. Elise is at the convent with Blake. If Perez follows his reported routine, he will have the limo drop his daughter, and the two of you, at the entrance to the church. The convent is in the back. Perez has ten bodyguards stationed around the inside of the sanctuary, but we can detain two without alerting anyone right away. Go with her to communion. On the way back, divert to the alcove off the west aisle where there’s a statue of the Virgin Mary. Let the kid light a candle. Elise will meet you there.”
Marisela tapped the earring three more times to signal that she understood and her heartbeat steadied’ as she replayed the plan in her head. Max and Ian seemed to have covered all the bases. She wasn’t sure that Jessica would be able to make a life-altering decision about her mother after only a few minutes, but Marisela figured that was Elise’s problem. In her last communication with Max yesterday, she’d made her point of view clear that in light of the mysterious third party possibly still working against them Jessica needed to make the choice whether or not to go with her mother for herself. The kid had gone through too much for her and Frankie to swipe her now, mission or not, especially since she’d kept their secret. The mother had to do the convincing before Marisela made another move.
“Those earrings look quite beautiful on you, señora,” Perez said, his eyes trained on how she continued to fiddle with the jewelry.
She reached over and grabbed Frankie’s hand. “I don’t usually let my husband buy me such presents, but I couldn’t resist.”
Perez chuckled, completely unaware of the threat that lay ahead. “My daughter’s influence on you is undeniable, I’m afraid. I hope you won’t regret making her acquaintance, señor.”
Frankie managed a half-grin. Marisela couldn’t believe they’d gotten this far. Or that in a few short hours, the entire mission would be over.
