Rum Runner

by Tricia Leedom

  Jonas parted ways with them at the charter boat office. Not surprising, he left without saying good-bye. She was more concerned about Jimmy discovering his money roll was several bills lighter when he took it out to pay the cashier for use of the boat.

  As they walked across the parking lot toward the main road, she said, “My father told me to check into a motel and wait for his call.”

  “We can do that.”

  Jimmy waved to the cab parked under a shade tree across the street. It pulled out into traffic, cutting off another car before it stopped at the curb in front of them. When the driver popped the trunk, Jimmy tossed his duffel inside.

  “The Road Town Motel,” he said, sliding into the backseat beside Sophie.

  She sat on her trembling hands, staring straight ahead. Somehow, she managed to maintain a cool façade even though her insides were churning like a raging river. Years of practicing a stiff upper lip had finally come in handy.

  The cab lurched into motion, jerking to the left to avoid a goat that was standing in the road. She caught herself between the door jam and Jimmy’s leg.

  “Want to sit a little closer so you don’t fall over?”

  “I’m okay.” She withdrew her hand from his thigh, but maintained her hold on the door.

  The ride into town was treacherous with dogs, roosters, and livestock, all of which appeared to have the right of way. Main Street was crawling with people despite the fact October was supposed to be the low season. Lined with shops and restaurants brightly painted in primary colors, it was a Mecca for tourists, and The Road Town Motel was in the center of it all, crammed between a surf shop and a bakery.

  The cab beat another car into an open parking spot in front of the motel’s tiny office and jerked to a stop. While Jimmy paid the driver and retrieved his duffel from the trunk, Sophie climbed out his side and stepped into the middle of a flock of college girls in bikinis.

  A caramel-skinned blind man in Wayfarer sunglasses sat on the motel’s stoop, strumming “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles on an acoustic guitar. The older gentleman’s guitar case, which sat open for donations, contained only a few coins. Sophie started to reach into her pocket for a dollar but remembered she only had hundreds.

  “The office looks crowded,” she said, her heart pounding. “I’ll wait outside while you acquire a room for us.”

  “You sure?”

  Her chest tightened as she looked into his handsome, despicable face possibly for the last time. She nodded.

  “You okay, darlin’?”

  Sophie blinked back the moisture in her eyes and forced a smile. “Never better. Go on, then. I’ll be right here.”

  He started to turn away but stopped. “Don’t let Ray Charles over there bilk you for a dime.”

  The blind man struck a bum chord and stopped playing. “Hey, man, that ain’t cool. I ain’t bothering nobody.”

  Jimmy shook his head before he opened the door and disappeared inside the office.

  The driver, who had not gotten back into the cab, was walking around the boot of the car toward her when Sophie climbed into the backseat and shut the door.

  She rolled the window down several inches to speak to him through the opening. “Could you drive me somewhere, please? I’m in a hurry.”

  He looked surprised but recovered quickly. “Of course, miss.”

  When he slid back into the driver seat, she leaned forward and said, “I’d like to go to Java Jean’s at the Trellis Bay Market. It’s on Beef Island Road.”

  “Of course.”

  As the driver put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb, Sophie glanced back at the motel office. She had the oddest sensation the blind man on the stoop was watching her.

  The cab dipped into traffic and the turbulence in her stomach congealed into a tight ball. She was doing the right thing. Jimmy was not the man she thought he was. The car took a couple of turns before she looked out the window and noticed they were heading out of town. A crawling sensation tickled up the back of her neck. Despite what her head was telling her, in her heart, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was making a terrible mistake.

  Her mum hadn’t trusted the man she loved to keep her safe. When the going got tough, she’d run out on her husband and chosen to enter a passionless marriage with a cold, pompous ass. Sophie was grateful to her stepfather for all he’d done for her mother and her, but he was a snob. Did the same fate await Sophie if she continued on this path?

  She hadn’t even given Jimmy the chance to explain. He must have had good reason to keep the truth from her. One thing she knew for certain, the intimacy between them hadn’t been a lie. There was no possible way he could have manufactured their cataclysmic chemistry. Her heart might be unreliable right now, but her instincts were screaming at her to believe in him. Instead, she’d fled the moment things got tough. She’d taken the easy way out, just as her mother had done.

  “Take me back.” She sat forward, gripping the edge of the seat. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to return to the motel, please.” When he didn’t respond, she spoke a little louder, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t heard her. “I said, I’d like to return to the motel.”

  The driver glanced in the review mirror but still didn’t respond.

  The automatic door locks clicked and the car sped up.

  The driver was middle-aged and balding. Harmless looking, and yet Sophie’s skin prickled with fear.

  “Relax, Miss Thompson, we’ll reach our destination soon enough.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Do you work for my father?”

  The man snorted.

  The car had left the city and was flying around a bend on a desolate mountain road. The man dialed a number on his mobile and brought the receiver to his ear. “Yeah, it’s me. It was easier than I expected it to be.”

  “Thanks, darlin’.” Jimmy winked at the young blonde front desk clerk and tucked the room key into his pocket.

  “My pleasure, Mr. Panama. If there is anything else you need, please let me know.”

  It paid to be nice to the grunts of this world. A wink and a grin had gotten him the last room in the motel over the big-mouthed New Englander who was nickel-and-diming the other clerk. Even in the low season, half-decent accommodations in Road Town still went fast.

  Jimmy pushed open the door and brushed past Ray Charles on the stoop.

  “You still here?” Jimmy said to the old man. “What, you own this place or something?”

  “Or something is right. You go on now.”

  Jimmy chuckled and shifted his duffel on his shoulder. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked around for the Duchess. She wasn’t where he’d left her.

  Behind him, a raspy, soulful voice sang the opening lines of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone.”

  A passing tourist bumped into Jimmy, but he barely noticed as he scanned the faces on the crowded sidewalk. He grabbed Ray’s guitar handle to stop the song. “The woman I got out of the cab with, did you see where she went?”

  “Can’t you see I’m blind, man? Shit… I tell you what. Some people’s heads are made of Fruit Loops.”

  “If you’re blind, why do you keep craning your neck every time a hot bikini strolls by?”

  Ray was silent for a moment. Then he grinned and let out a sandpaper laugh that was as gritty as his singing voice. “Your girl got back in the cab.”

  “Voluntarily?”

  “Looked that way to me.”

  Jimmy muttered a curse. He dug his phone out of his thigh pocket. This couldn’t be happening. Something had seemed off with the Duchess ever since she’d spoken to her father.

  A thought smacked him in the face.

  Had she somehow learned the truth? Had Mad Dog heard about Jimmy’s deal with Florez and told her about it? It was possible. The cagey bastard had ears all over the place.

  Back in that cottage in Saba, while h
e’d lain in bed basking in the afterglow of the best sex of his life, Jimmy had resolved to tell Sophie everything as soon as Tulio was safe. He couldn’t risk her walking out on him while the boy’s life was still in danger. He hated having to maintain the lie, but now it looked as if he’d made the right call. She’d left him high and dry the first chance she got.

  He punched in Jonas’ number and sent him a page. Then he dialed the number that had been plastered on the side of the cab.

  “Island Transport,” the woman on the other end answered.

  “Yeah, one of your cars just dropped me off at The Road Town Motel. I left a briefcase filled with important documents in the backseat. If you can give me the address of where the car is heading, I can take another cab and meet it there.”

  “Do you have the car number, sir?”

  “Yeah, it was two-three-nine.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, you must have the number wrong. That car isn’t in service today.”

  Not what he wanted to hear.

  He hit End on the phone.

  He’d done it. He’d gotten stupid and careless and let Sophie be kidnapped from right under his God-damned nose.

  The payphone on the corner started to ring, but nobody was around to answer it.

  He looked at Ray.

  “It ain’t Motown callin’. You better get that, man.”

  Jimmy’s stomach knotted as the brassy sound rent the air again.

  He picked up the receiver on the fifth ring. “Hello?”

  A vocal modulator distorted the voice on the other end of the phone. “Mr. Panama, we finally get the chance to speak. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Albatross.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m going to tell you where you can find Mitch Thompson. If you want the woman back, you’ll retrieve him and deliver him to my man in Tortola.”

  “If you know where he is, why do you need me?”

  “We both know he’ll run the moment he spots my men coming. You have the best chance of making a successful approach. Inform him I have his daughter. If he wants her to live, he’ll come quietly.”

  “If I turn him over to you, somebody else I care about is gonna get hurt.”

  “Bautista will likely send the boy back to his mother once I’m in possession of the flash drive and Mitch Thompson is dead. On the other hand, I can assure you I won’t be as kind to Miss Stone.”

  “Listen to me, you squirrely bastard. You touch one strand of hair on that woman’s head and I’ll cut off your acorns and make you choke on ‘em!”

  “I’ve heard about you, Mr. Panama,” the deep, amplified voice said, “about how impetuous you can be. One would have thought you would’ve learned your lesson by now. It’s a shame Mr. Garcia’s death was all in vain.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Jimmy’s hand trembled from clutching the telephone handle too hard. He squeezed his eyes closed and counted to five. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of being right.

  “Mitch Thompson is at the coffee shop on Beef Island Road. My man will contact you with further instructions. And, Mr. Panama, I strongly suggest you don’t do anything rash. You have one hour.”

  When Albatross disconnected the call, Jimmy hung up the phone. With a frustrated roar, he picked up the receiver again and slammed it against the shatterproof glass three times. Somehow, the plastic handle didn’t crack. He hung up the receiver again and turned around, staring half-stunned at nothing.

  All of this was over a friggin’ flash drive? “What the hell did you steal, Thompson?”

  Jimmy’s cell phone buzzed. He looked down at the caller ID before hit Talk and exited the phone booth. “Yeah, bro, we’ve got a problem.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Sophie strained against the ropes binding her to the orange Adirondack chair, but they wouldn’t budge. Her captors hadn’t bothered to gag her because there was likely no one around for miles to hear her scream. They were on the grounds of an abandoned estate, a Spanish tile-roofed villa called “La Rocha House,” perched high above the ocean on a rocky peninsula. The thick layer of dust on the covered furnishings inside the house had suggested no one had lived there for a very long time.

  A short while earlier, four armed mercenaries had marched her down a winding travertine path from the back of the house, through a once manicured garden now overgrown with vines and weeds, to a large clearing near the edge of the bluff. They’d left her trussed up like a virgin sacrifice five feet from the cliff’s edge. That was how she felt anyhow. Except there was no volcano and she was hardly a virgin. Facing parallel to the cliff, she was close enough to smell the briny air and feel the salt spray on the breeze. In different circumstances, the view would have been spectacular.

  Closing her eyes against the incessant Caribbean sun, she rested her head back against the chair and tried to find a modicum of pleasure in the heat kissing her face. What else could she do but wait and hope Jimmy would find her?

  He would have no idea she’d left him of her own accord. He would think the worst and come looking for her. She had to believe the man she’d fallen in love with existed somewhere inside the body of the irreverent American rogue who’d deceived her.

  And what would her father think when she didn’t show up to meet him? By now, he would have assumed she wasn’t coming and moved on. A wave of sadness accompanied that thought. She’d been so close to meeting Mitch Thompson. At least she’d gotten to speak with him on the phone and inform him of the danger. But of course, he had already known. He’d known more about the situation than she did. More about Jimmy. Possibly.

  Her ears prickled at the sound of voices from the direction of the house. They grew louder as they moved closer. Sophie’s chair had been placed sideways to the cliff, so she sat with the ocean to her left and the house to her right. Six dodgy-looking characters with automatic weapons emerged from the garden path and fanned out in the clearing. Winston Wade came last.

  Back in Jamaica, when Wade had almost cornered them in the midst of that festival in the town square, Jimmy explained that Wade was a former Jamaican special forces operator who’d gone corrupt after his retirement. Wade wouldn’t admit he was working for Albatross, but Jimmy had suspected he was. So Sophie wasn’t surprised to see the man again or discover he was in charge of the ragtag group of mercenaries currently holding her hostage.

  “Miss Thompson, I hope you’re enjoying the view?”

  “Jimmy Panama is coming for me. I promise, you won’t like what happens when he arrives.”

  Wade chuckled. “You are correct. He is on his way here as we speak, but not for the reason you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s working for Albatross.”

  “He isn’t! That’s a lie,” she said vehemently. In her heart, she wanted to believe Wade was lying, but damn it, doubt tingled up her spine.

  No. Jimmy might be working for Bautista for reasons that remain to be seen, but there was no possible way he was working for Albatross.

  “Well, well, well, can’t say I’m surprised to find you here.” Goose bumps rose on her skin when Jimmy’s unmistakable drawl came from the patch of jungle directly opposite her. “Winston Wade,” he said, “when did you start working for the big man?”

  The dense tropical foliage parted and a longhaired man with a handlebar mustache stumbled into the clearing. Tall and lanky, he wore a baggy, tie-dyed “Tortola” T-shirt and hibiscus-flowered swim trunks.

  He lurched forward with his hands raised in the air. Jimmy appeared behind him, jabbing the barrel of a machine gun into the man’s side.

  The scene played out slowly, as if someone had pushed a button on a DVD player, making it inch forward one frame at a time. The two men followed the precarious edge of the cliff until they were standing directly across from Winston Wade. Jimmy’s gaze did not waver an inch from his hostage. Nor did his weapon.

  The longhaired
man’s head turned in Sophie’s direction. When their eyes met, he grinned. “How you holding up, Ladybug?”

  Oh my God! She tried to sit up, but the bindings held her in place. What was happening? Why was Jimmy holding her father at gunpoint? Was he actually going to turn him over to these animals? Was he working for Albatross?

  She’d been such a fool!

  A loud crack reminiscent of a lorry backfiring came from somewhere off to the right.

  Her father jerked backward.

  Something dark and wet lightly sprayed her legs.

  It looked like blood.

  Mitch’s arms flailed as a red stain spread across the front of his T-shirt, and then he lost his footing and fell.

  Sophie gripped the armrests of her chair and lunged forward, only to go nowhere. She screamed in frustration and horror as her father disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

  Time slammed into fast-forward as gunfire exploded in the clearing twenty feet in front of her. Jimmy opened fire on the mercenaries. Wade and his men tried to take cover, but there was nowhere to hide as bullets came at them from behind as well. From Jonas, most likely.

  Reinforcements joined the mercenaries from the house, but they dropped like dominos as they entered the clearing. Jimmy rushed Wade and slugged him in the face with the butt of his machine gun, knocking him out cold. Then he spun in Sophie’s direction. He looked beyond her and his eyes flared. In one fluid movement, he reached behind his back, retrieved a handgun from the waistband of his shorts, and fired past her. She screamed as the man who had pretended to be the cab driver staggered forward and fell face-first into the dirt inches from her chair still clutching a gun in his left hand.

  Jimmy ran toward her. Dropping to his knees, he skidded to a stop at her feet.

  Jonas was keeping the remaining mercenaries busy on the other side of the clearing as Jimmy flicked open his Swiss Army knife and sawed at her bindings.