A Touch of Betrayal

by Catherine Palmer

  “Grant, did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard you. But right now, I don’t care why he’s after you. I just want him stopped.”

  “Madam! Madam!” Two African museum guards came racing up the steps of the bastion. “Were you the victim of an attack? The others reported the trouble. We have notified the police!”

  Alexandra let out a sigh. It would begin again. The clinic, the police, statements and reports, long hours of sitting in bare offices. “I’ll go with these guys to the police station,” she told Grant as the officers waited for her. “There’s nothing more you can do for me here. I’ll stop by the bungalow later to pick up my things and say good-bye. I have to get a plane back to the States and hire some protection. Please go on to Mama Hannah now. Would you do that for me?”

  “I’m not leaving you alone, Alexandra.” Grant took her hand. “I don’t trust the situation. We’ll go to the station together. Once you’re under close guard, I’ll check on Mama Hannah. Not before.”

  Without the strength to argue, she walked beside him toward the two officers. She felt like an armed grenade— explosive, dangerous, a threat. At any moment, the people she cared about could lose their lives because of her. And all she wanted to do was rest in the strong embrace of Grant Thornton, a man she had no choice but to leave behind.

  Grant stood at the edge of the bungalow verandah and flipped through the pages of Alexandra’s sketchbook. After she was placed under the protection of two armed officers at the police headquarters, he had returned to Fort Jesus to look for clues. He had discovered her pad on the walkway near the place where Jones had first accosted her. Her pencil case had been lying open there, some of the pencils scattered and their colored tips broken. Grant had set each one in its slot, running his fingers down the smooth wood, trying to understand what would make anyone want to kill a woman like Alexandra.

  Still turning the question over in his mind, he looked through her sketches as if in them he might find a clue. Was she creating something that someone wanted to stop? Was Nick Jones a deranged serial killer and Alexandra just a random target? Or had someone hired him to kill her for another reason—her money, an inheritance, a business deal gone bad?

  Who could possibly want Alexandra dead? She was full of goodness, purity, honesty. Even her artwork showed a unique clarity of vision. Such sensitivity. She had been gifted with a talent few human beings could claim. Who would want to snuff that out?

  “She has not returned,” Mama Hannah said, joining Grant at the verandah’s edge.

  He glanced over at her. “What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be in bed.”

  “Bed, bed.” She dismissed the notion with a wave of her gnarled hand. “Do you not remember what wise King Solomon wrote? ‘A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—and poverty will pounce on you like a bandit.’”

  Grant chuckled. “Now what do you care about poverty, Mama Hannah?”

  “I care about you, toto. And I want to get out of that bed and talk to you about all of these troubles.”

  “Would you at least sit down?” He led her to a woven rattan chair. “You’re making me nervous tottering around with all those drugs in your system.”

  “Ehh, I have not taken a pill since you left me. No, do not argue. The pain in my head is not so bad now.”

  “You’re a pain in my neck, is what you are.”

  “Why? Because I will not take elephant pills and lie in bed all day? Or because I was injured and caused you to miss the important Maasai ceremony? Or because my words touch places in your heart?”

  “I’ve resigned myself to missing Eunoto.” He shut the sketchbook and sat down beside her. “I’ve already gathered a lot of research on the ceremony. I wanted to see it for myself, but I’m sure I’ll manage to write the chapter anyway. No, it’s not that. And it’s not the medicine either. If you don’t want to take your elephant pills, that’s fine with me.”

  “Then it is my words. You know that I speak the truth— even when it is not what you wish to hear.”

  “I’ve always enjoyed your stories, Mama Hannah.”

  “Stories? Do not talk to me of stories and myths, Grant. I speak truth when I speak of a person’s need for God—and you know this in your heart.”

  “Maybe.” It was the closest he could come to an admission of the empty place inside him—a void he had long ago filled with his research, his work, his travels. Or tried to fill.

  “I also spoke the truth about Alexandra, did I not?” Mama Hannah said. “You love her.”

  “Love her!” Grant tipped back his head and laughed. “You jump to conclusions faster than anybody I ever met.”

  “Ehh.”

  “I don’t love Alexandra Prescott. I like the woman. I admire her. She’s smart and artistic and good-hearted.”

  “And beautiful.”

  “Yeah, she’s beautiful.” He shut his eyes, distracted by the memory of kissing her on the beach that morning. “Soft, too. And she smells good.”

  “That you have noticed? Her scent?” Mama Hannah clucked. “Oh, Grant, this is very serious.”

  “It’s not serious,” he said. “It can’t be. She thinks this Jones guy is going to kill her if she doesn’t get back to the States and hire a bodyguard or something. Alexandra’s leaving, Mama Hannah.”

  “You will let her go?”

  “I don’t own the woman. She’s got a life in New York. I live in a tent out in the African bush. Of course I’m going to let her go. What choice do I have?”

  “You could ask her to stay.”

  He shook his head, constantly amazed at the old woman’s naïveté. For all her wisdom, she could be as blind as a bat. “Look at the facts here, Mama Hannah—”

  “You should look at your heart instead of facts.”

  “My heart doesn’t matter. The facts say I’m better off as a loner and Alexandra’s better off doing her fabric design thing in the big city. She’s going to get on a plane, and I’m going back to Mount Kilimanjaro to finish my research.”

  “And you will never see her again?”

  “Maybe one day I’ll stop in New York on one of my university speaking tours. I’ll drop by the design firm she’s planning to build, and we’ll reminisce about our adventures. She’ll show me pictures of her kids or something. That’s how it’ll be. That’s how it has to be.”

  “Ehh.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Grant jumped up from his chair and strode to the verandah railing again. Frustration poured through his veins at his inability to accept the picture he had painted of his own future. All he had ever wanted to do was live out in the bush among the Africans. Now . . . because of some tall . . . blonde . . . beautiful . . . sweet-smelling . . . wonderful . . .

  “Where is she?” he exploded, hammering the rail with his fist. “She should have left that police station hours ago. They already know the whole story. How much more could she give them?”

  “You are so certain Alexandra will abandon you,” the old woman said. “Perhaps she already took a taxi to the airport and got on an airplane to Nairobi.”

  “She wouldn’t leave her bags here, would she?” Grant walked over to the bedroom door that opened out onto the verandah. Alexandra’s suitcase lay unlatched on the bed, clothing and shoes spilling across the spread. Maybe she would leave her stuff here. Why not? She was rich. She could buy more dresses. More shoes.

  He pushed open the door, walked to the bed, and began rooting through her things. Feminine things, silky and gauzy things. Alexandra things. Was there anything in the bag to hold her? Anything she couldn’t live without?

  “Here’s her Bible,” he called out to Mama Hannah on the verandah. He picked up the little leather-bound volume and slipped it into his shirt pocket. Alexandra might want that one of these days. He could mail it to her.

  “She left a lot of socks and shirts and sweaters behind, too,” he added. He lifted a cotton blouse and held i
t to his nose. Alexandra’s scent clung to the folds of fabric—something floral and exotic. Where would she keep the bottle? He’d like to know its name. Searching, his fingers stroked over a scattering of black sequins. “Here’s some kind of fancy evening dress. Looks expensive. And jeans. She’d need those, wouldn’t she?”

  “It’s a little hot for jeans at the coast,” Alexandra said behind him. “What are you doing in my suitcase, Dr. Thornton?”

  Grant dropped her blouse and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I thought . . . maybe . . . maybe you left already. Maybe you caught a plane.”

  “I said I’d come back, didn’t I?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I told you I’d say good-bye. Didn’t you believe me?”

  “You were in a hurry.”

  She shrugged and began to refold her clothes. “They didn’t catch Jones,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “The police are posting a watch at the airports and border crossings.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “My hands are sore.” She attempted a smile. “Ear’s okay, though. No stitches.” She tucked her hair behind her ear to show him the flesh-toned plastic bandage on her lobe.

  “How about your knees?”

  “Skinned, but stronger than I knew. Thank goodness for that thigh toner I ordered off the shopping network, huh?” she said sarcastically. “You know, somebody ought to put me in a commercial: Are you being stalked? Has someone tried to push you through a . . . through a window?” Her face began to crumple. “Try the Mombasa Squeeze . . . free thirty day . . . thirty day . . . money back . . .”

  Grant folded her into his arms. “Alexandra, what did the police tell you after I left? Do they have anything on Jones?”

  “Nothing. Nobody knows anything. He vanished. They said maybe . . . maybe there’s an accomplice. Maybe it’s the Mafia or something.”

  “It’s not the Mafia, is it?”

  “I don’t know!” She slammed her fists against his chest. “I don’t know who Jones is! I don’t know why he wants to kill me. If he’s not nuts, then somebody wants me to die and is paying him to murder me—and I don’t have any idea why!”

  Grant rubbed his hand down her back, trying to calm her. “I’ve been thinking about the money. The bank-account thing.”

  “It’s not the money. He won’t get a penny of my money by killing me. Maybe if he kidnapped me and demanded a ransom—”

  “Do you have a will? Does someone stand to inherit if you die?”

  She sobered. “My father set everything up. If I had children, it would be simple. But no . . . the bulk of the estate goes to a couple of universities, some hospitals, and a dozen or so charities. Daddy told me not to trust anyone. Leave people out of your plans, out of your will if you can. People are greedy. Manipulative. He set the whole thing up with . . . with James. James Cooper.”

  Grant watched the color drain from her cheeks. “The broker you’ve been calling?”

  “It can’t be.”

  “Did he have a copy of your itinerary?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Did you tell him where you were when you called from Oloitokitok? Right before Jones attacked Mama Hannah?”

  Alexandra nodded, her blue eyes wide with disbelief. “And Mombasa. I called him from . . . from the fort.”

  “I imagine Jones found you there on his own. But why would this broker want to hurt you?”

  “Money,” she said simply. “That’s all it could be. James has had his hands on the Prescott stocks for years. Maybe he started siphoning off some of the earnings. His wife’s been sick a couple of times. His daughter’s going to Harvard.”

  “Didn’t you say he takes winter vacations in Arizona?”

  “James wouldn’t use the money for his own pleasure. My father’s money? They were good friends, and my father . . . my father trusted him.”

  “Sounds like your dad should have followed his own advice.”

  She groaned. “Grant, maybe that cablegram I got was meant for me. What if there’s nothing left in those accounts? Could James have bled them dry?”

  “How closely did you watch your holdings?”

  “He sent me a statement every month. I always glanced at it, of course, but I never gave it much study. That money was for the future.”

  “Your design firm.”

  Alexandra looked like she might collapse, and Grant tried to turn her toward the verandah. If they could sit down and analyze the situation, maybe they could make sense of it. But she wasn’t into analyzing. She stood rooted to the floor, twisting her fingers together as the emotions racked through her.

  “How could James have stolen that money?” she wondered aloud.

  “He might have diverted your funds and invested them in dummy accounts. Given a fake name or something. Then when he began to realize he’d managed them badly and lost a lot of money, he got scared.”

  “The margin call,” she whispered. “He must have known it would come, long before I had any wind of a problem.”

  “Sure. When he found out you’d planned this trip to Kenya, it must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to simply delete his wrongdoing.”

  “James is the one who suggested the trip.” She sank onto a chair beside the bed. “He took me to dinner one evening just to catch up on things. He’s been like . . . like a father to me since my dad died. Old friends, you know. We talked about his kids, his wife, the stock market. I detailed my plans for fabric designs and the firm I wanted to establish. That’s when he suggested that I take a research trip. He said I’d be inspired to do something really original. ‘Go someplace exotic,’ he said. ‘Remote.’”

  Elbows on her knees, Alexandra lowered her head into her hands. Grant struggled against the urge to hold her again. Soon she’d be gone, and the reality of the woman’s absence had caused him enough discomfort already. The more time he spent with her, the harder it became to imagine his life rolling along contentedly without her. He couldn’t afford to get tangled. And he knew he had put one foot inside a lethal snare.

  “I need to call James,” she murmured.

  “James Cooper? You’re going to call the jerk who probably lost your money and is trying to get you killed?”

  “I have to steer him off course so he’ll give Jones the wrong information about me. I’ll phone him on the pretense of telling him what happened at the fort. Then I’ll lead him to believe I’m staying here at the coast for another week or so. I won’t lie, but I will misdirect him. If I give him the address of the bungalow, you could forward anything that comes in. Would you do that for me?”

  She lifted her head, and Grant didn’t know when he’d seen anyone so miserable. He couldn’t imagine how Alexandra must feel to realize she might have been betrayed by the one person she had trusted all her life. He expected anger. Rage, even. Certainly a drive for revenge.

  But in those beautiful blue eyes, he read something altogether different. The spark of faith she had placed in another human being had been extinguished. Hope had vanished. Trust was gone. What he saw in her eyes was death.

  “Never mind,” she said, standing. “I’ll take care of this myself. You’ve done more than enough.”

  She threw the rest of her clothing into the suitcase and lowered the lid. As she worked at the zipper and clasps, Grant focused on the moonlit palms outside the window. She was right. He had done more than enough. He’d been chased and knocked around by a hired killer. His mother had been attacked with a knife. He’d lost his chance at the Eunoto ceremony. None of it had happened at his own instigation. If Alexandra hadn’t come along, he’d be deep into one of his notebooks right now, reviewing his research and crafting his report. And, except for Mama Hannah, he’d be alone.

  Alone.

  He liked being alone, didn’t he? No arguments. No big discussions. No shaving and trying to find matching socks. No need for square meals. Nothing but simple, quiet, empty . . . loneliness.

  “My taxi is waitin
g,” Alexandra said. “I reserved a room at a hotel downtown. I figured you and Mama Hannah didn’t need Jones breathing down your necks anymore. So—” She heaved a deep breath. “Thanks for your help, Grant. Sorry about the trouble. I’ll just say good-bye to Mama Hannah.”

  She swung her suitcase off the bed and started for the door. Let her go, Grant told himself. Easier that way. Much easier.

  “Hold it.” He’d never taken the easy way out of anything. Taking two strides across the room, he lifted her suitcase from her hand. “You’re not going downtown by yourself tonight, Alexandra. That’s a sure way to get yourself killed. You’ll spend the night right here in this room with Mama Hannah beside you and the guards and me outside the door. In the morning, we’ll take the train to Nairobi.”

  She set her hands on her hips. “Don’t tell me what to do, Grant Thornton. I’m through with people ordering me around.”

  “I’m not ordering you.” He slung the suitcase back onto the bed. “You said you trusted me, right? Well, this is what it feels like when someone doesn’t let you down.”

  “Grant, I’m not—”

  “My sister Tillie is staying in Nairobi to have her baby. We’ll drop by her place. You’ll like her.”

  “I will not bring your pregnant sister into this mess!”

  “You don’t know Tillie. She’s kind of into adventure. Besides, it’ll do Mama Hannah good to stay with Tillie and her husband while she heals up.”

  “Jones will follow me to Nairobi. Your family will be in danger.”

  “We’re a tough bunch.”

  “I don’t want your help, Grant. I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody.” She knotted her fists. “I can pray about this and rely on my faith—”

  “I’m sure you will. But if there is a God, he didn’t throw you onto this earth to spend your days alone. He put me in your life, didn’t he? Now, are you going to trust me to help you or not?”

  “Grant—”

  “Alexandra.” He took her shoulders. Speaking slowly, he enunciated words that surprised him with their intensity. “I . . . will . . . take care of you.”