Sleepwalker

by Karen Robards

  “Calm down.” Tugging Mick’s hand away from the wing strut when it became obvious that all she was going to do was hang back by the plane while regarding Jelly suspiciously, Jason held on to it, grabbed the suitcase and headed with her in tow toward Jelly, who was looking at him with as much horror as if he had grown a second head. “You can relax. Nobody’s screwed over. Nobody made a deal. She’s on our side now.”

  Jelly goggled at the pair of them. “You horny son of a bitch.”

  Jason pictured how they must have looked—smokin’ hot Mick with her wide eyes and soft mouth, her pale face scrubbed clean, her tumbled hair hand-combed over one shoulder and her killer bod on display in the tight tank top and barely-managing-to-cling-to-her-hip-bones sweats, flip-flops purchased at their refueling stop on her feet, himself grinning and holding her hand—and saw where Jelly was coming from with that. Fair enough was his answering thought. Not that he was about to say it to either one of them out loud.

  “Hey, screw you,” Mick the ever conciliatory said.

  “Be nice,” Jason told her, then said to Jelly, as they reached the golf cart, “after you left us, she and I had to team up. Like I said, she’s on our side now. Relax.”

  “For Christ’s sake, last time I saw her she’d just about beat your ass up. You were holding her at gunpoint getting ready to lock her in Marino’s safe. How could anything have gone this wrong?”

  Jason nudged a reluctant Mick onto the golf cart’s front seat, while he and the suitcase climbed on the back.

  “You and—Tina?—took off and left Jason behind. If I hadn’t helped him out, he’d probably be dead now. That’s how things went this wrong, for starters.” Mick glared at Jelly.

  “We had to. We were surrounded, nothing to do but cut and run. And he can take care of himself. What do you know about it, anyway?” Jelly glared back.

  “Okay, you two, truce. Bottom line is, however it happened, Mick’s with us now.” Jason nudged Jelly with an elbow. “You going to take us to the house or not?”

  Jelly grimaced but stepped on the gas, swung the golf cart in a wide arc, and, motor humming, took off toward the house. Mick grabbed the long banner of her hair, which flew out behind her when they took off, and held it secure with one hand. The sheer beauty of the place stretching out around them hit Jason just like it always did. Coconut trees and palm trees provided shade for banks of lilies and orchids and star flowers. Butterflies flitted from plant to plant. A couple of terns lit on a rocky ledge near the beach, one after the other. Mountains formed a blue haze to the south. To the west, the sun was just starting to sink toward the horizon in a glowing orange ball. It would be night soon: here, there was no prolonged dusk. When the time came, night fell like a curtain dropping over the island.

  Jason might have been born and raised in Chicago, but this place was home. Something about it nourished his soul.

  “What did Tina make for dinner?” Jason asked with interest as they approached the rise that led to his house, and, farther down the beach, the one Jelly and Tina shared. All he’d had to eat that day was a McDonald’s burger and fries in Detroit and a Snickers and some peanut butter crackers he’d grabbed when they’d stopped to refuel. Just thinking about food made his stomach rumble. Besides her many other talents, Tina was a notable cook.

  “Chicken masala,” Jelly answered, naming one of Jason’s favorites. Giving Mick a long look, Jelly then said over his shoulder to Jason, “She made plenty. She told me to bring you.”

  “You can just drop me off wherever I’m going to be staying,” Mick turned sideways to tell him with a haughty sniff. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. You two might as well make peace, because you’re stuck with each other. Mick, you’re staying with me in my house, and you’re going with me to Jelly’s to eat. Tina loves feeding people. Jelly, you know Tina would tell you to bring her.”

  “Yeah, she would.” Jelly’s tone was glum. “She’s got about as much sense as you do.”

  “I’d rather—” Mick began hotly. Jason cut her off.

  “We’re eating,” he said. “I’m hungry, you’re hungry, Tina made food. You and Jelly can keep taking potshots at each other over dinner if that makes you feel better.”

  Mick’s lips compressed. But she didn’t argue anymore. Jelly hunched his shoulders, but he took them to his house without another word.

  “Jason! We were so worried about you!” Having obviously heard the golf cart coming, Tina hurried out of the house to greet them. Around five foot two, plumpish, with curly, jaw-length platinum blond hair and a liking for long, dangling earrings and lots of makeup, she served as a cheerful counterbalance to Jelly’s habitual dourness. Wearing a lime green caftan and clattering clogs, she greeted him with a hug when he jumped off the golf cart, then she turned inquiring eyes on Mick.

  “Mick Lange, Tina Preston,” Jason introduced them. “I brought her back with me from Detroit. You got enough food for her to join us for dinner?”

  “I always have enough food.” Tina transferred her beaming smile to Mick. “Hi. Come on in. You can tell me all about it while we eat.”

  Mick responded with a “hi” of her own, while Jelly said in a strangled voice, “She’s the cop.”

  Tina looked bewildered. “The cop?” Then enlightenment appeared to dawn. “The cop. Oh.” She and Jelly exchanged glances, then she looked at Jason, and, finally, Mick. “I have got to hear this. Come on in, all of you.”

  “She’s the cop, Tina,” Jason heard Jelly repeat in an urgent undertone as he set the suitcase down inside the back door; Jelly would have already put the other two in the safe, and Jason would add this one to it when he got home. Tina gestured to Jason to take Mick on into the dining room while Jelly followed Tina into the kitchen. To blister her ears with his thoughts on Mick’s arrival, Jason had little doubt. The spicy, tomato-y smell of the chicken made him conscious of how truly hungry he was. For Tina’s food, he was willing to put up with Jelly’s negativity.

  “She’s with Jason,” Tina replied in a scolding tone to Jelly, as if that simple statement settled it, and then they both disappeared into the kitchen and Jason couldn’t hear any more.

  He ushered Mick into the dining room with a hand in the small of her back, taking unexpected enjoyment from the slight curve of her spine and the firmness of her flesh beneath his hand. When she stepped away from him, he watched her go on ahead with silent appreciation. Her walk had sass and sway, and he liked that. He liked the erect way she held herself. He liked the reddish luster of the unruly waves of her hair as it hung down her back. He liked the tininess of her waist and the flare of her small but unmistakably feminine ass. He liked that more often than not she had major attitude. He liked the sex appeal she projected with every glance, with every word, with every move she made.

  “She’s with Jason” : Tina’s words repeated themselves in his mind. Jason realized he liked the idea of that, too, probably way more than he should have. Mick was gorgeous, sexy, and she got him hot: all those things went without saying. But there was more to his feelings for her than that. He admired and respected her, too: for her dedication to her job (inconvenient though that had proved to be), her ability to almost kick his ass (not that she actually could), her intelligence, her integrity, her sheer bloody-minded grit and determination. Plus he enjoyed her company. He found her amusing, intriguing, and touching in turn. She was like no other woman he had ever met. What it all added up to, short version, was that he wasn’t sorry circumstances had forced him to bring her with him. What that meant beyond the short term … he was just turning that over in his mind when Mick glanced over her shoulder at him with a frown. Only then did he realize he was just standing there with a shoulder propped against the doorjamb watching her; he hastily got with the program and got his mind back to where it needed to be: Jelly’s living room, being frowned at by Mick.

  “She seems nice.” Mick sounded thoughtful as he joined her. “It’s hard to believe she’s mixed
up with you two. That she’s a thief.”

  “Hey, thieves are people, too. Just like cops are people. Tina’s probably in the kitchen right now saying, ‘She seems nice,’ while Jelly’s saying, ‘She’s a cop.’”

  “The difference being, thieves are, by definition, criminals.”

  “Yeah, well, as today has so aptly demonstrated, so are some cops.”

  “Mick, there’s a powder room off the hall, in case you want to wash your hands,” Tina called from the kitchen. “Jason, show her where it is.”

  “Thanks,” Mick called back. Then, to Jason, as he took her arm to steer her toward the hall, “You know what? Tonight I’m too tired to care what anybody is.”

  He smiled. “I knew that sooner or later you’d start looking at things the right way.”

  Mick flicked him another one of her patented unappreciative glances.

  “Jason? Cabernet suit?” Jelly yelled from the kitchen.

  “Fine,” Jason yelled back. They were in the hall, and the door to the powder room was ajar, making its location unmistakable. He didn’t even need to point.

  As she headed toward it, Mick looked back over her shoulder at him. “They’re a couple, right? Are they married?”

  “A couple yes, married, no.”

  “How did they ever … never mind.”

  Whatever she’d been about to ask, he was probably just as glad not to have to answer, Jason figured as she went into the restroom and he retreated back to the dining room. He trusted her—pretty much—but not enough to reveal his and Jelly’s and Tina’s deepest secrets. An innate caution was one of the reasons he’d made it this far unscathed.

  The dining room was small, with a rectangular glass table and four rattan chairs, but the selling point was the view: a wall of windows overlooked the sea. He walked to the windows, stood looking out. A sailboat luffed across the water toward the east end of the bay. Although the distance was too great to allow him to read the name on the boat, he concluded it was probably Don May, a neighbor, heading home. A couple strolled on the beach: honeymooners, from the look of them, and he guessed they must have rented the Adamsons’ guesthouse for the week. Directly in front of the windows, a turtle the size of a hubcap dozed in the evening sun just out of reach of the waves. Other than that, and the overturned catboat that was a fixture on the sand in front of his own property, the beach and the bay were deserted. The tide was coming in. Long rows of frothy waves broke toward shore. The light had taken on the rich golden quality that told him the sun was about to set.

  “I hope you’re hungry.” Tina, with Jelly’s help, arrived, balancing heaping platters in her arms. Mick emerged from the bathroom. Jelly poured wine. They all sat down to eat.

  “First, Happy New Year,” Tina chirped, raising her glass and beaming around at them. Having almost forgotten for the umpteenth time that it was New Year’s Day, Jason raised his glass, too, and echoed her sentiment. So did Mick and Jelly, although both displayed markedly less enthusiasm.

  Smiling a little at the way-too-similar disgruntled expressions on Mick’s and Jelly’s faces as they each took a sip of their wine, Jason added, “To happy endings.”

  While Tina happily repeated his words, Jason derived considerable enjoyment from watching both Mick and Jelly practically choke on their wine.

  “So tell me everything,” Tina ordered a moment later, looking from Jason, who was forking her delicious chicken in tomato sauce into his mouth with real dedication, to Mick, who wasn’t eating nearly as heartily but still seemed to be enjoying her food. Like him, Mick had had little to eat all day. He wasn’t even sure she’d finished the snack she’d picked up at the tiny convenience store inside the airport where they had refueled. He felt a niggle of worry about her—little sleep, little food, much fear and stress all added up to a lot to deal with. But so far, she seemed to be holding up as well as he was himself. “As soon as I saw Jelly come running around the corner of the pool house, I knew something had gone wrong,” Tina began. “I swung the door open for him, he jumped in the van, then all these armed security guards just appeared out of nowhere and started shooting at us. We didn’t have any choice: we had to go. So what happened to you?”

  “She happened,” Jelly growled around a mouthful of chicken before Jason—he was pretty sure Mick wasn’t going to—could reply. “I guarantee you she’s what slowed him down. She appeared out of nowhere, got the drop on Jason, threw off our timing. Like I told you, she totally screwed us up.”

  He flicked a condemning glance at Mick.

  “Am I supposed to feel bad about that?” Mick fired back, holding Jelly’s gaze challengingly. “You were robbing the house I was hired to guard.”

  “Guys,” Jason intervened, washing the chicken down with a swallow of Jelly’s really excellent cabernet, then making a time-out sign. As Mick and Jelly exchanged less than friendly glances, Jason looked at Tina. “Here’s what happened.”

  He told the (edited to keep what was personal, personal) story. By the end of it, the world outside the windows was dark, and even Jelly was looking at Mick differently.

  “Sounds like you burned your bridges pretty good,” Jelly said to Mick in a tone of grudging respect.

  She grimaced. “Yeah. I have.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Tina told her. “You’ll be safe here.” She transferred her attention to Jason. “I took care of that problem you had with your face getting captured by Marino’s security camera, by the way. Just as soon as Jelly told me what had happened, I flooded the web with about a thousand different identities connected to that face. It would take somebody years to sort through them all. And I made sure there was no way to connect that picture to your real identity.”

  “That’s my girl.” Jason smiled at Tina, then transferred his attention to Mick. “Tina’s our resident computer expert.”

  “If they think you killed a couple of cops, they’ll be looking for you real hard,” Jelly said. “They may not know who you are, but they know who she is.” He looked at Mick. “She’s not ever going to be able to go back.”

  From the suddenly stricken expression on Mick’s face, Jason realized that the truth of that was just now hitting home for her.

  “That makes you one of us now,” Tina told her. Despite managing a wan smile, Mick didn’t look as though the thought made her feel appreciably better.

  The stab of protectiveness he experienced in response surprised Jason.

  “They won’t find her,” he said. “We’ll get you a new identity.” That last he directed to Mick.

  “Yay?” Mick replied, her eyes meeting his. Despite her flippancy, he could tell the prospect bothered her.

  “You know what? She’s exhausted. Look at her,” Tina said, then spoke to Mick. “Everything will look better tomorrow, I promise.” She cast an admonishing glance at Jason. “Why don’t you take her home and let her get some sleep? She’s dead on her feet.”

  Looking at Mick, Jason had to agree. Mick was now so pale that her skin looked translucent, and there were dark smudges beneath her eyes he hadn’t noticed before. The corners of her lovely, soft mouth drooped a little, and there was a shadow at the backs of her eyes that made him wonder suddenly if the weight of all the changes that were being forced upon her might not be heavier than she could easily bear.

  “I’m fine,” Mick protested, toughing it out to the end, but Jason stood up.

  “Well, I’m not. I need my beauty sleep. Come on.” Walking around, he pulled her chair out for her. He realized how really tired she had to be when she didn’t object.

  Tina brushed aside Mick’s polite offer to help with the dishes—Jason volunteered Jelly for that instead—then whisked herself off while Jelly started clearing the table. Jason and Mick headed out the back door. Night had fallen, but the glimmering moonlight glinting off the white sand of the beach, plus the thousands of stars dotting the sky, provided an adequate degree of visibility. The warm, salt-scented breeze blowing in off the bay and the whisper of the w
aves climbing the shore reminded him once again that he was home. For himself, that felt good, but for Mick—probably not so much.

  “Why don’t you try thinking of this as a vacation?” he suggested as they reached the golf cart. He walked around the back of it while Mick slid into the passenger seat. “Just relax and enjoy yourself for the next few days. Swim. Laze around on the beach.”

  “I bet if I was on an airplane that was crashing, you’d tell me to pretend it was a roller coaster.” Her tone was tart.

  Jason laughed. “Beats the alternative.” Settling the suitcase in the golf cart’s backseat, he was just coming around to get behind the wheel when Tina reappeared.

  “Wait,” she called, hurrying up to Mick, who had been eyeing Jason with disfavor until Tina distracted her. “I brought you some things.” Tina passed a stuffed-to-the-brim beach bag to Mick. “It just occurred to me that you had to leave everything. That must suck.”

  “It does, kind of.” Mick smiled at Tina with a glimmer of genuine warmth. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s nothing. Just a little makeup—Lord knows I have plenty—some lotion, things like that, plus some stuff you might want for your hair and a few clothes. Not that we’re the same size, but most of it’s supposed to fit loose. The other things, well, pull a drawstring here, cinch a belt around your waist there, and at least they won’t fall off you. I hope.”

  “That’s really thoughtful.” This time the warmth in Mick’s smile was more than a glimmer. “I appreciate it.”

  “Thanks, Tina,” Jason said, meaning it.

  “You can go shopping in George Town tomorrow,” Tina told Mick, in the fierce voice that told Jason her motherly instincts had been aroused on Mick’s behalf, “or there’s always the internet if you don’t want to go out. Jason’s loaded, and he messed up your life, so don’t you feel a bit bad about making him pay for whatever you need.”