Hero for Hire

by Jill Shalvis

  It had been Baba’s only request, along with frequent visits from Terry and Nina, which they’d done until Terry’s arrest. Since then Nina had stayed away as well, afraid to put a connection between the woman and Terry’s disappearance.

  As she climbed the stairs, she glanced at the hillside and the extensive gardens the older woman had so lovingly planted over the years. Normally the place was alive with color and growth, but the flowers were dry now, starting to wilt. Very odd, as Baba’s garden was a source of pride and joy. Hurrying her steps, Nina wondered if Baba had fallen ill, and if so, why she hadn’t said so two nights ago.

  At the top of the stairs, she stopped short, heart in her throat.

  The door was ajar.

  Just as Nina’s own had been the day before. A coincidence, she tried to tell herself. But as she knocked, the door swung open, revealing more terror.

  No destruction, as there’d been at Nina’s condo, but worse.

  On the tile foyer lay the huddled, far too still form of Baba.

  * * *

  IT TOOK RICK an hour to get the librarian to help him. She was as short as she was round and ancient, and she spoke very little English.

  Another hour was spent cooling his heels while she went painstakingly through the archives to find the requested microfiche. Just when he was about to blow his lid, his patience long gone, she reappeared.

  “We close for lunch in twenty minutes,” she said in Portuguese.

  “I’m going to need at least an hour—”

  With a sweet, uncomprehending smile, she walked away.

  “Wait!” He tried to translate into Portuguese, but she kept walking. Swearing colorfully in both Portuguese and English, he took several dirty looks from the people milling around. Rick gave them the look right back and got to work. Apparently he didn’t have time to mess around.

  Ten minutes whipped by while he digested all the information he could. Everything about the sailing accident seemed suspicious to him. First, there’d been warnings of an approaching storm. Second, Terry was not a boat person. By all accounts, she’d rather lie on the beach and tan her body than get on a sailboat, much less work one.

  Alone, no less.

  None of it made any sense, and as he finished reading all the articles and accounts, he switched to the photos given.

  And hit the jackpot.

  It was a picture of the investigation. They’d pulled the wrecked sailboat in. It lay on its side on the sand, and several authority figures had been photographed milling around taking notes and measurements.

  Behind them, and behind the police line, was a small crowd, all unidentified, all watching.

  Front row and center was a woman who looked haggard and full of fear. She had corkscrew auburn curls, and was the woman in the yearbook picture with Terry, the best friend from school. The woman most likely to sail around the world for the rest of her life.

  A master sailor, in other words.

  Not someone who would let her friend die in a sailing accident.

  Damn, Rick wished he’d gone through Nina’s bag and taken that yearbook, but she hadn’t wanted to give it to him and he’d let it go, not willing to resort to stealing it.

  He hated when his conscience got in the way of his work, and it wouldn’t happen again.

  Why had there been no mention of Terry having a friend with her that day?

  “We are closing for lunch.”

  His friend the librarian again. “Yeah.”

  “Now, senhor.”

  “I just need a few more—”

  “Now.”

  Since she was still smiling at him so sweetly, he smiled back, his most charming smile. “I just need—Hey!” He stood up when she ripped out the microfiche, grabbed the box with the others in it and walked away from him. “I wasn’t finished!”

  She simply sent him another sweet smile over her shoulder.

  Fine. He was finished. At least here. He had to hook back up with Nina and get that yearbook, whether she liked it or not. He’d find Terry through the friend. Case over.

  No more Monteverde sisters.

  And if something deep inside protested, if he wondered if he could really walk away from Nina, he ignored it.

  * * *

  SHE WASN’T at work as she’d promised. Rick stood in front of the huge reception desk of All That Glitters, watching the woman consult the logbook from that morning.

  She shook her head. “No, she never arrived.”

  Rick was overcome with dread. He knew damn well she’d arrived, he’d dropped her off himself. “She never came in?”

  “No, senhor.”

  He’d watched her walk into the damn building himself, which meant one of two things. Either she’d somehow gotten by the receptionist...or she’d fooled him.

  She’d fooled him.

  Damn her. Didn’t she know anything could happen to her without his protection? And where the hell had she gone? What had been so riveting, so dire, so important that she’d had to trick him into thinking she was going to work, and then sneak out?

  Something to do with Terry.

  She’d held back on him, he’d known that, but he’d looked into her deep, melting eyes and fallen for the warmth and affection he’d seen swimming there.

  What an idiot.

  And so was she, because like it or not, she’d attracted some attention. Whether it was the person who had supposedly framed her sister or some new threat, he had no idea, but it scared him that she would put herself in danger.

  Or maybe there was no danger at all.

  Maybe she was the bad guy.

  No. He couldn’t be that far off the mark, not with Nina.

  But she’s fooled you so far, pal, hasn’t she?

  He wanted to think there could be any number of reasons why she’d go to such lengths to make him believe she was going to work, then not go at all.

  But none of them pointed to anything innocent.

  How had a little slip of a woman gotten the better of an ex-Navy SEAL and federal marshal for God’s sake? He was definitely losing his touch.

  And his cool.

  It was happening just as it had before, with Mary Jo. He was letting his emotions in on this roller-coaster ride. A big mistake.

  It wouldn’t happen again.

  Back on his motorcycle, he took the crowded streets as fast as he dared, making his way to Nina’s condo.

  The place was closed up tighter than a drum.

  No Nina.

  He knocked, then pounded on the door, but it didn’t change anything.

  Nina was gone.

  Frantic, he turned back to his bike, wondering where the hell she’d gone, where the hell he’d go looking for her, when he heard her car.

  She pulled up, turned off the engine and leaned her head on the steering wheel.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded, stalking over to where she still sat, unmoving.

  When she lifted her head, her face was paler than a ghost, her pupils round as saucers. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

  Blood coated the front of her blouse.

  CHAPTER TEN

  BABA WAS DEAD. Not just dead, but murdered, in cold blood.

  Nina was too numb for hysterics. Too numb for tears. Too numb for much of anything, which made it a miracle she’d managed to drive herself home.

  She’d done so on auto-pilot, hardly even registering her hands directing her car into her complex, then parking in front of her condo.

  The horror of Baba’s murder kept flashing through her mind, threatening her shock-induced state of calm.

  For the first time in her life she didn’t inhale deeply of the ocean breeze or take a good long look out at the gorgeous Atlantic.

  But as she caught a glimpse of her front door, and the police tape still blocking the entrance, everything came rushing back, and it proved too much, abruptly shattering the blessed numbness.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, then lowering her forehead to t
he steering wheel. “This is not happening.”

  But it was. Terry was missing, either in danger or worse. Baba, her beloved Baba, was gone forever.

  And she was so afraid, so tired.

  So alone.

  Without warning, the scalding tears she’d been holding back came in a flood, but before she could even let out a shuddering sob, her door ripped open.

  She might have screamed, if she’d had the time, but she was hauled out of her car and yanked into a set of strong, warm arms.

  Rick’s arms. She and Rick were sheltered between her garage and the open car door, where no one could see them from the street. Safe. She was safe.

  Baba was not.

  “Nina.” His voice was hoarse, racked with fear. “My God, Nina. You’ve got blood—” Gently he eased her back so he could look down at her, which made him turn pale and swear.

  She felt his hands skimming over her entire body, but she couldn’t move, her every limb like lead.

  Baba was dead.

  Shot execution-style in cold blood and left to die.

  Why? Why would anyone want to hurt her? She’d been nothing but a sweet, kind, very old woman who deserved to live out her remaining days doing nothing but tending to her flowers.

  That she hadn’t was somehow related to Terry, and therefore Nina.

  Her fault.

  It muddled her mind, as did the images of Baba lying dead on her tile floor.

  It would haunt her to her dying day.

  “Where?” Rick was demanding, hands still streaking over her. “How bad? My God, what happened to you? Nina, where is it all coming from?”

  She wanted to tell him—would have, except her body felt as if it had been wrapped in ice.

  Rick sank to the ground and brought her with him, cradling her in his lap while he continued to search for the injuries that weren’t hers. “Nina. Nina, talk to me.”

  She couldn’t do anything but hold on tight, so tight he had to pry her hands off the front of his shirt to examine her. She shook her head, trying to tell him it wasn’t necessary, she was okay.

  He grabbed her hands, pressed them to his chest. “Be still. Let me help you.”

  Let him help her. Yes. Yes, that’s what she should have done from the very beginning, she could see that now. He was tough. Dangerous, too, but only to her heart.

  She could trust him, and she would, because she needed him desperately now. “Rick—”

  “Shhh,” he said shakily, as though he hadn’t just told her to talk to him. “So much blood, my God.” His fingers shook as he undid the buttons on her blouse. He spread it open enough for him to look at her, his eyes dark and intense and so full of terror she hardly recognized him.

  “Not mine,” she managed to gasp.

  He stared down at her torso, at her white lace bra also dotted with blood, at her breasts, which strained at the material, at her ribs, her tummy quivering with so many emotions she could hardly function. “Not my blood.” Somehow she managed to cover his hands with her own. “I am not hurt.”

  He stared down at her for one more second before hauling her back against him. Burying his face in her hair, he held on tight. “Thank God,” he murmured, squeezing so hard she could hardly breathe. “Thank God.”

  The embrace defrosted her, and painful as it was, she began to feel, really feel. Sobs racked her entire frame, along with the ever present shudders, which she couldn’t control, either.

  Still holding her, Rick surged to his feet. She wasn’t sure if he wanted to be holding her, or if she was gripping him so tightly he had no choice. Reaching into her car, he grabbed the keys.

  He let them in her front door, kicked it closed and made his way down her hall past the worst of the mess to her bedroom, which had also been searched and ransacked.

  “Close your eyes,” he commanded, and still holding her, sat on the bed, back against the head-board.

  She closed her eyes, but all that did was give her mind a blank screen on which to paint with blood.

  Baba’s blood.

  With a little cry, she tried to burrow deeper into Rick’s body, and he let her. “What happened?” he demanded.

  “Nothing happened to me.”

  “But something happened. At work?”

  The way he was watching her made her wary. Somehow he knew she hadn’t gone to work. “No.” More grisly images flashed across her vision and she shuddered.

  He let out a low, ragged sound. “Nina, damn it—”

  “I went to see Baba, my old nanny. She looked after Terry and me when we were little, she was like our mother—” A sob escaped her before she could control it, and she slapped a hand to her mouth.

  Rick said nothing, just waited with a stillness that told her he was good and furious at her for tricking him.

  “The blood is hers,” she whispered. “When I went to see her, she had...been executed. Murdered. I found her lying in her own blood, Rick, and I tried to help her, tried to scoop her up—” She swallowed hard at the memory of that cold, lifeless body in her arms. “The police said it had been at least twenty-four hours ago, which would have been right after I called her from here, right before I went to Arraial do Cabo.”

  His arms loosened their hold on her. His intense gaze met hers, demanding and questing. “More.”

  “I think she was murdered for what she knew. About Terry.”

  “And what she knows...do you also know it?”

  “I’m not sure.” She shivered again, and wished he would pull her back against him, but his distance and cool voice made her wonder if he’d ever forgive her for not telling him everything before.

  Nina hated regrets, and tried not to let them creep in now. She’d done what she’d had to do, and the fact that she only now felt she could trust him wasn’t something she could change. “Rick, Terry didn’t die in September.”

  “No.”

  “I—I don’t know where she is now. I don’t even know—” her voice cracked, not moving him at all “—if she’s still alive.”

  Oh, his eyes were cold now, weren’t they, and her heart was quickly getting there as well.

  “Rick—”

  “More, Nina. I want to hear all of it.”

  Behind the cool distance was a man capable of compassion and affection, she knew it. She’d seen him only moments before when he’d thought she’d been hurt. Despite his tough words, his fear had only just now begun to fade from his eyes. It told her what she’d already guessed just that morning but hadn’t been ready to face.

  He was the one.

  She could, for the first time, invest her heart. In any case, she had no choice, because it had invested itself without her permission.

  “From the beginning, Nina.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. “The beginning. Terry ran the business side of All That Glitters, and I handled the creative side. It worked for us, and we were happy. But one day, out of the blue, police starting snooping around Terry, watching her apartment and the office. Within minutes of arriving one morning, she was arrested for embezzlement and smuggling gems.”

  Rick digested all this, most of which he already knew, without a word.

  “She was innocent, Rick. Obviously framed.”

  “How do you know this for sure?”

  “I know my sister.” But he didn’t, and she could tell he wouldn’t be easy to convince. “The way she lived her life did not mean she was dishonest or a thief.”

  “What about proving her innocence in court?”

  “Our father...well, I have told you the evidence was insurmountable. He refused to believe in her. All she had was me. She was not a criminal,” she said firmly. “She was not.”

  “Okay.”

  She searched his gaze, but couldn’t decide if he believed her. “The evidence stacked against her was tremendous. Staggering even, though she was let out on bail. She...ran.”

  Rick slanted her another long glance. “Didn’t trust in the law?”

&nbs
p; “She could not. Whoever framed her was good, the law would have failed her.”

  “So she vanished, without even a word to you?”

  “She assured me she would get messages to me somehow, and she did.”

  He nodded, looking very unhappy with her. “Through this Baba.”

  “Yes.” Nina shivered again and wrapped her arms around herself. “A few months later Terry let me know she was going to fake her death, which she did.”

  “In the boating accident that never was.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who helped her? Family?”

  “No. Our mother died in childbirth with me. Our father is an invalid. There is just me, but she did not ask.”

  “Her friend helped her, then. The friend from school.”

  “Jolene Daniels? Probably.” Definitely. “When I went to get the so-called body in Texas, a man met me. We never spoke. I came back with a forged death certificate and had a funeral. I buried sandbags, but to the cops, to our family and business associates, to everyone, she was dead.”

  “Yet she contacted you regularly.”

  “Until about a month ago, when all correspondence stopped. I have been going crazy, wondering what is happening to her, but I have no way to get a hold of her. I thought Baba—” She closed her eyes, opening them again when he put his hands on her arms.

  He’d hunkered before her, his face close to hers. “Obviously something has happened, Nina. You’re being followed, Baba is dead, and you’ve heard nothing from Terry. You’re in over your head here, you know that.”

  “I know now.”

  “It never occurred to you that whoever framed her was still out there?”

  “Of course!” she cried. “But the police here are not like your American police. They cannot always be trusted, not when they are poorly paid and can be bought so cheaply. I paid private investigators all year. They looked into everyone around us, but nothing. No clues, nothing.”

  “So Terry had to stay away.”

  “You believe me,” she breathed, joy and relief battling for first place.

  He just looked at her.

  “You do! I can see that you do.”