Paradise Burning

by Blair Bancroft

  But of course it wasn’t awful. Manatee Bay worked hard at upholding its claim as the cultural capital of Florida. The fledgling company could not yet afford an orchestra, but its sound system was superb as a poignantly charming Butterfly lived out her updated tragedy in Pearl Harbor to a medley of everything from Puccini to Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington.

  Their seats were close enough to the stage that they could hear the thud of padded slippers on the hardwood floor, catch an occasional sheen of sweat as the male dancers lifted a variety of dark-haired beauties over their heads. In the final scene Mandy had to fumble for her evening bag and attempt to blow her nose without disturbing the woman next to her. It didn’t matter, she discovered, because her neighbor was also fishing in her purse for a handkerchief.

  “We could use some cheering up,” Peter announced as they moved with the crowd down the steps toward the parking lot. “There’s a club I’ve heard about just up the street. Want to try it?”

  Mandy wiped a knuckle under one eye. “Sure, sounds great,” she said, her words punctuated by another sniff.

  When she’d realized Peter’s invitation to Madame Butterfly was a genuine date, she’d shoved aside the trafficking implications. But, truth was, Butterfly was the story of a man who purchases a concubine, lives with her a short time, then deserts her. Not the most ideal plot to be viewed à deux by Amanda Armitage and Peter Pennington. Then again, Peter hadn’t remarried, and Mandy didn’t have a child. And if she had, she could not imagine abandoning that child in deliberate death, no matter how great her shame and anguish.

  A drink would be good, Mandy thought. Some place warm, cozy, and cheerful, where all serious thought would be vanquished by shallow, frivolous sociability.

  The noise was deafening, the atmosphere frenetic, conversation impossible. By the time Mandy and Peter realized the club was not quite what they had in mind, they were seated at a tiny balcony table overlooking the dance floor, snack menus in their hands. Disco, it seemed, was alive and well in Manatee Bay. They were only a few feet from the minuscule counter shared by two obviously dedicated disc jockeys, and it was apparent no moment of silence was ever going to be allowed to pollute the club’s head-banging ambiance. If non-stop noise could ever be described by so esoteric a word as ambiance.

  Mandy winced as the music soared still louder and the classic mirrored ball above the dance floor twisted in front of her eyes, showering the dancers with iridescent sparkles. Some seemed intent on sweeping the other dancers off the floor; others just stood and swayed as if moving to an altogether different beat. Something about the club just wasn’t . . . right. Silly. It was herself, of course. She was the fish out of water, the naive nerd who had never been in a disco club before.

  They ordered drinks and nachos with everything by the simple expedient of pointing at the desired items on the menu. As the waiter grinned and snaked his way down one of the narrow openings between tables, Mandy wiggled out of her chair, trying not to disturb the person whose chair was sardined in behind her. She tossed Peter a wave of her hand. Hopefully, he would understand she was heading for the Ladies’ Room.

  It was almost peaceful among the stalls. The stainless steel, cold porcelain, and tile were so remarkably soundproof Mandy was tempted to hide out for a while. Poor Peter. She knew he had no idea what the club was like or he wouldn’t have suggested they come here. But in this land of seniors, very few places were open after the supper hour. Nothing to do but make the best of it. One bright spot—it was impossible to mourn poor Butterfly in such an atmosphere.

  Mandy paused at the door, bracing herself for reentry into the frenetic, pulsing club. With a sigh, she pulled it open. The blast of noise, the flashing lights hit her like a physical blow. She took a deep breath and began to weave her way through the crowd. A couple pushed by her. Suddenly she was stumbling, falling. Arms reached out, steadied her. A young man was staring at her, holding her upright. “You okay?” he asked, as, suddenly embarrassed, he let go.

  “Thank you,” Mandy said, equally embarrassed by her clumsiness. Once again strangers, they each moved on. Only it wasn’t clumsiness, Mandy realized. She, a not-so-small person, had been bowled over, swatted aside like a mosquito. Good lord, she thought as she ascended the steps back up her table, I’ve never in my life been anywhere where someone knocked me off my feet. And without a word of apology. What kind of place is this, anyway?

  Mandy’s frown didn’t last long after Peter flashed her a grin over a platter of nachos that was large enough to fill the small table. Dripping with cheese, meat, black beans, sour cream, guacamole, green onion and jalapeños, the dish was enough to spike her spirits higher than the fat and cholesterol count. Their salt-encrusted margaritas were equally tasty. Ah, well, Mandy conceded, the club had its compensations. She and Peter could always talk on the ride home. And later. In bed.

  Their affair was ten days old now. That’s all it was, of course, an affair. Mandy refused to think beyond the moment. Thankfully—annoyingly—Peter had not breathed a word about permanence. As for herself, pride stood like a giant sentinel before the gates to happiness. That and the knowledge that if she stayed with Peter, she would be giving up what she had already refused to leave behind: her loyalty to AKA, to her parents, to everything she had been taught was life itself.

  Below, on the dance floor, a young man floated into position directly under the slowly revolving mirrored ball and launched into a dervish-style frenzy. Fascinated, though slightly appalled, Mandy stared down at him. Putting aside all comparisons with the grace and drama of ballet, this still wasn’t art, she decided. Not even self-expression. There was a wrongness about the young man’s heedless monopoly of the small dance floor, his glazed expression . . . He staggered against a couple who were still trying to dance, stumbled backwards, legs buckling. No one was quite close enough to catch him as he fell, sprawling on his back at a ridiculous angle on the polished hardwood. He didn’t move.

  A heavy-set man, undoubtedly the bouncer, ran forward, quickly followed by two waiters. One minute the solo dancer was there, the next he was gone. Straight through a nearby unmarked door that opened, swallowing the whole entourage. For a moment, the barest minimum of time, Mandy thought she caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Impossible. He couldn’t be here. Not her Iranian officer. Not Nadya’s jailer, Karim. And yet . . . this club was a very strange place . . .

  Mandy met Peter’s eyes. He gave a slight shake of his head, raised his dark brows. So they’d found their way into a club that tolerated drugs as long as their customers kept their cool. When they didn’t, they got carted off as discreetly as possible and cared for so they and their money could return another day. None of her business, Mandy decided. She and Peter would find their entertainment elsewhere from now on.

  Another round of margaritas appeared. With a shake of her head, Mandy took a sip of her second drink. No sense in being wasteful.

  She couldn’t possibly have seen Karim Shirazi.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As if glued shut by some malevolent elf, Mandy’s eyes refused to open. Insistent light sent strange patterns flittering across the gritty surface beneath her eyelids. Something was wrong. She had always hated to get up in the morning, but this . . . this was different. Unsettling. Oddly menacing.

  A dull ache pulsed from the base of her skull to the top of her head in a rhythm that seemed to move in time with the aurora borealis playing against her lids. She was thinking the right commands: open eyes, wiggle fingers, move toes. But nothing, absolutely nothing, was happening. Except fear was poking its way into her unease.

  And cold. Bone-chilling cold. She might not be able to move, but she could feel. The numbing cold of an inverse hell. Raging thirst. Scratchy skin. Odd uncomfortable lumps beneath her crumpled body.

  Dear God. Not nausea too.

  Mandy gritted her teeth, willed her stomach to be quiet. To her vague surprise, both teeth and stomach obeyed her better than her eyelids. As the wave of nausea sub
sided, she made another stab at opening her eyes. No luck. And yet her head had cleared to the point where she could recognize that something was seriously wrong. She might be immobilized, but her brain was beginning to register warning signals of alarming intensity. The problem went way beyond an early morning desire to ignore the alarm clock or her New England conscience screaming about being late for an appointment. It was even worse than when Peter . . .

  Peter.

  Mandy’s eyes popped open. She immediately wished they hadn’t. Slitting her eyes against sunlight that sent a lightning flash of pain through her already aching head, she gradually focused on . . . a small dragon-like head, small beady eyes, a tiny flickering tongue, a narrow pointed tail. The miniature monster, frozen in startled wonder over the strange being that had invaded its habitat, was poised inches from her nose.

  Mandy sucked in her breath, swallowed hard. This seven-inch distant cousin to an alligator was not a threat. Though what she was doing eye to eye with it was something else again. The little creature regarded her balefully before skittering off into the safety of the tall grass.

  Grass.

  Mandy stared blankly at the sand where the lizard had been. She was outdoors? What on earth was she doing sleeping outdoors? No wonder she was uncomfortable and scratchy. And probably bitten in a hundred different places. This was, after all, Florida.

  Florida. Peter. She’d been with Peter. Last night.

  Was it last night? Last week? Or in some dreamtime of imagination?

  Mandy squeezed her eyes tight shut against the glare, willed her brain to function. She was an analyst, for God’s sake. A highly paid, top-of-the-line researcher for Armitage, Kingsley & Associates. If she couldn’t figure out what she was doing here—wherever here was—she might as well pack it all in and retire. So . . .

  Fact. She was outdoors in what appeared to be early morning. In Florida. In March. Not freezing, but not a degree over fifty. Her goosebumps had goosebumps.

  Fact two. She was lying with her cheek on hard-packed sand. Though how or why she got here was a mystery.

  Fact three. The irregular lumps biting into her skin were probably pebbles and sea shells, which were part and parcel of all sand in Florida’s frequently deceptive paradise.

  Fact four. The nasty little pinpricks that were rapidly developing into stinging torment as sensation returned were undoubtedly due to Florida’s host of insect life. Hopefully only from the six-legged variety. Not those with eight legs. Or fangs.

  Fact five. Fact five . . . Mandy searched for something, anything, concrete to keep away the nightmare she sensed lay just out of reach. Fact five. The sun was bright, but the air was still cool, a lingering reminder that the night before had been cold. Shivering, biting, teeth-rattling cold. She may have been unconscious, but her body remembered.

  Yet before the cold and sand and pebbles, the shells, and the lizard?

  Before was Peter.

  They had gone somewhere . . . Mandy wrestled with her numbed brain. Peter. Research . . . no, courtship. They’d driven into the city. To the ballet. Madame Butterfly. Later, they’d stopped at a club for drinks, shared a platter of nachos. They’d watched the frenetic, almost blind, intensity of the dancers sparkling beneath shooting glints of light from the revolving mirrored ball overhead.

  And then . . . nothing. She was sitting with Peter at the club. And then she was lying on cold sand, the signals to her brain so scrambled she was unable to move.

  Mandy heard a forlorn sound. Herself. Whimpering.

  How little it had taken to reduce her to bewildered infancy. She could almost hear her father’s snort of derision.

  She was lying here, whimpering, when Peter might need her. Shivering and feeling sorry for herself when Peter could be—no, she wouldn’t think dead! Just move, girl. Up, up, up!

  Mandy’s fingers flexed, her toes wiggled. Eyelids opened.

  Nothing but sand and grass. The lizard was gone. Slowly, very slowly, ignoring the incipient nausea, Mandy placed her palms flat on the sand, pushed until she was semi-upright. A bit more canted than the leaning tower of Pisa, she thought sourly, but she was making progress.

  She was on hard-packed sand, which seemed to be part of a road to nowhere. Beyond the few feet of straggling grass on each side of the road, she could see nothing but Florida wilderness. A solid jungle of palmetto, pine, live oak, cabbage palms, and ubiquitous bushes.

  When Mandy tried to turn her head to look around, she almost lost it. Her balance, as well as what was left of the nachos from the night before.

  Peter. Have to find Peter.

  She clung to the thought as her head swam and her stomach roiled. When the world stopped spinning, she began to inch her body into a turn, scrunching over the sand and shells, furious at the effort it took to do something as simple as search the circle around her. And why was turning on the sand so miserably uncomfortable?

  Oh God, oh God, oh God! She was naked. Without a stitch. Her skin was stark white against the sandy road. Bare. Exposed.

  Totally vulnerable.

  Frantically, Mandy swiveled her head, searching for her clothes. Her stomach promptly revolted. When she was able to lift her head from the vile mess already sinking into the sand, she discovered she felt better. Sour, horrible, bitten, humiliated . . . but the miasma of nightmare and fear had lifted. During that disastrous swivel of her head she hadn’t seen her clothes, but she’d found Peter.

  With great care Mandy focused on the portion of the Florida jungle that had been behind her head when she woke. Peter, all magnificent six feet-two inches of him was standing in calf-high grass at the edge of the trees doing . . . something. Mandy squinted, regretfully adding her glasses to the list of the missing.

  It was not wishful thinking. It was Peter Pennington in the flesh. Completely in the flesh. Leanly rugged, with the warm glow of a tan that made his naked body appear considerably less vulnerable than Mandy felt. Shading her eyes against the eastern sun, which was flirting with the tree tops, she stared across the thirty feet of sand and grass that separated them.

  Peter was quite beautiful. Even for a man on the wrong side of thirty-five. She skipped the familiar face, which triggered such painful mixed emotions, and concentrated on the ripple of muscles in well-toned arms, the soft mat of dark chest hair that glistened in the sun, V-ing to thighs and adjacent parts so well sculptured Michelangelo and Leonardo would have loved him . . .

  Appalled, Mandy sunk her teeth into her lower lip, almost grateful for the pain. No one knew better than she that Peter Pennington was no hero. And yet, if she had to choose a companion to be stuck with in the middle of nowhere without a stitch to wear . . .

  She squeezed her eyes shut as a tear slipped out, rolling down her cheek, dripping off her chin. She felt the cool path of a matching tear from the other eye. Peter was okay. He was here. Whatever had happened, they had both lived through it.

  “You all right?”

  Mandy’s goosebumps rose another notch. Her eyes snapped open. Peter was squatting on his heels beside her, the anxiety in his eyes about as far from his customary sangfroid as she had ever seen.

  “Freeze-dried. Probably going to be sunburned . . . but alive is good.”

  Peter’s amber eyes glowed softly. His fingers touched her moist cheek. “That’s my girl. Do you remember what happened?”

  Mandy scowled. The blank wall in her mind was, in itself, terrifying. Let alone finding herself naked out back of beyond. “Not a thing,” she admitted. “We were sitting in the club, then . . . here.”

  “After the second drink.” Peter nodded. “It didn’t hit me quite so fast. I’ve got quite a few pounds on you. I remember two men coming up, slapping me on the back like old friends, big laughs, but I couldn’t react, couldn’t talk, couldn’t resist. They just took us by the arm and walked us out of there. After that . . . I don’t remember a thing either.”

  “Was one of them my Iranian? I have a vague recollection of catching a glimpse of
him at the club.”

  “Not Middle-Eastern. More like Russian thugs.”

  Mandy heaved a sigh that ended on a shiver. At the moment, just who had drugged and abandoned them in the wilderness seemed remarkably unimportant. “So what do we do now?”

  Peter managed a wary grin. “Well, right now, we try these on for size.”

  He had to be kidding. Mandy goggled at the two large leaves from an elephant’s ear plant that he was holding up for her inspection. The “skirt”—more aptly described as a round green loincloth–-was skimpy, even by the standards of a topless club, and held together by a vine of some kind. She sincerely hoped it wasn’t poison ivy.

  “I made a bra too,” Peter was saying proudly, displaying two smaller leaves, also held together by vines.

  Mandy scowled at the saucer-sized greenery. Naturally, for her breasts Peter had used smaller leaves. Much smaller. “Okay, so where’re the snake and the apple?” she snapped.

  “Be nice, Mouse. I worked damned hard on these things.”

  For the first time Mandy noticed Peter was already wearing one of his own creations. Similar to the lower body covering he had made for her, it was composed of two large leaves whose decency depended on the complete absence of a breeze.

  “I can’t,” Mandy stated flatly, shaking her head. “No way. I’d rather stay here and starve.”

  With careful precision Peter laid his leafy creations on the sandy road. “I can’t believe Jeffrey Armitage’s daughter said that,” he taunted.

  “That was my Grandmother Armitage and my Grandmother Kingsley talking,” Mandy admitted, making a wry face.

  “Yeah, well, it’s about time you started taking after Jeff and Eleanor. They’re tough as nails, both of them. Eleanor may not be one of my favorite people but, believe me, she’d walk out of here stark naked and hail the first passing motorist without blinking an eye. She’s Eleanor Kingsley Armitage, and to hell with the rest of the world.”