Mystery Man

by Diana Palmer

  She went right up to him, aware that her two years of martial arts training might not be enough if he turned nasty. Well, she could always scream, and the beach was fairly crowded today.

  “You’re on my property. What do you want?” she asked the man, who was tall and well-built and foreign looking.

  His eyebrows rose above his sunglasses. “No hablo inglñaes,” he said, and grinned broadly.

  She knew very little Spanish, but that phrase was one she’d had to learn. “And I don’t speak Spanish,” she returned with a sigh. “Well, you have to go. Go away. Away! Away!” She made a flapping gesture with her hand.

  “Ah. ¡Vaya!” he said obligingly.

  “That’s right. Vaya. Right now.”

  He nodded, grinned again and went back down the beach in the opposite direction.

  Janine watched him walk away. She had a nagging suspicion that he wasn’t hanging around here for his health.

  She went down the beach to where Karie was sitting, spellbound at the scene she’d just witnessed. “Karie, I want you to come and stay with Kurt and me today while your dad’s gone,” she said. “I don’t like the way that man was watching you.”

  “Neither do I,” Karie had to admit. She smiled ruefully. “Dad had a bodyguard back in Chicago. I never really got used to him. Down here it’s been quieter.”

  “You do have a bodyguard. Me.”

  Karie chuckled as she got up and shook out her towel. “I noticed. You weren’t scared of him at all, were you?”

  “Kurt and I studied martial arts for two years. I’m pretty good at it.” She’d didn’t add that she’d also worked as a private investigator.

  “Would you teach me?”

  “That might not be a bad idea,” she considered. “Tell you what, Kurt and I will give you lessons on the sly. You may not want to share that with your dad right now. He’s mad enough about the window at the moment.”

  “Dad isn’t mean,” Karie replied. “He’s pretty cool, most of the time. He has a terrible temper, of course.”

  “I noticed.”

  Karie smiled. “You have one, too. That man started backing up the minute you went toward him. You scared him.”

  “Why, so I did,” Janine mused. She grinned with pride. “How about that?”

  “I’m starved,” Karie said. “Maria went to the grocery store and she won’t be back for hours.”

  “We’ll make sandwiches. I’ve got cake, too, for dessert. Coconut.”

  “Wow! Radical!”

  Janine smiled. She led the way back to the beach house, where an amused Kurt was waiting.

  “Diane Woody to the rescue!” he chuckled.

  She made a face at him. “I’m reading too much of my own publicity,” she conceded. “But the man left, didn’t he?”

  “Left a jet trail behind him,” her brother agreed.

  “What are you working on…oh! It’s him!” Karie gasped, picking up the photo of the television star in makeup that Janine had left on the desk. “Isn’t he cool? It’s my favorite show. I like the captain best, but this guy isn’t so bad. He sort of looks like Dad, you know?”

  Janine didn’t say a word. But inside, she groaned.

  She was feeding the kids coconut cake from a local store, and milk when a familiar threatening presence came through the patio doors without knocking. She gave him a glare that he simply ignored.

  “Don’t you live at home anymore?” he asked his daughter irritably.

  “There’s no cake at our place,” Karie said matter-of-factly.

  “Where’s the housekeeper? I told her to stay with you.”

  “She went shopping and never came back,” Janine said shortly. “Your daughter was on the beach being watched by a very suspicious-looking man.”

  “Janine scared him off,” Karie offered, with a toothy grin. “She knows karate!”

  The arrogant look that Canton Rourke gave her was unsettling. “Karate, hmmm?”

  “I know a little,” she confessed.

  “She went right up to that man and told him to go away,” Karie continued, unabashed. “Then she took me home with her.” She glowered at him. “I could have been kidnapped!”

  He looked strange for a space of seconds, as if he couldn’t quite get his bearings.

  “You shouldn’t have been out there alone,” he said finally.

  “I was just lying on my beach towel.”

  “Well, from now on, lie on the deck,” he replied curtly. “No more adventures.”

  “Okay,” she said easily, and ate another chunk of cake.

  “It’s coconut cake,” Kurt volunteered. “That little grocery store has them. Janie gets them all the time for us. They’re great.”

  “I’d offer you a slice of cake, Mr. Rourke, but I’m sure you’re in a terrible hurry.”

  “I suppose I must be. Come on, Karie.”

  His daughter took a big swallow of milk and got up from the table. “Thanks, Janie!”

  “You’re very welcome.” She glanced at Canton. “Housekeepers don’t make very good bodyguards.”

  “I never meant her to be a watchdog, only a cook and housecleaner. Apparently I’d better look elsewhere.”

  “It might be wise.”

  His eyes slid down her long legs in worn jeans, down to her bare, pretty feet. He smiled in spite of himself. “Don’t like shoes, hmmm?”

  “Shoes wear out. Skin doesn’t.”

  He chuckled. “You sound like Einstein. I recall reading that he never wore socks, for the same reason.”

  Her eyes lifted to his face and slid over it with that same sense of stomach-rapping excitement that she experienced the first time she saw it. He did so closely resemble her favorite series TV character. It was uncanny, really.

  “Are you sure you don’t act?” she asked without meaning to.

  He gave her a wry look. “I’m sure. And I’m not about to start, at my age.”

  “There go your hopes, dashed for good,” Kurt murmured dryly. “He’s not an illegal alien trying to fit in with humans, Janie. Tough luck.”

  She flushed. “Will you shut up!”

  “What did you do with that autographed photo?” he asked as he passed the desk.

  “Oh, she never has it out when she’s working,” Kurt volunteered. “If she can see it, she just sits and sighs over it and never gets a word on the screen.”

  He scowled, interested. “What sort of work do you do?”

  “She’s a secretary,” Kurt said for her, gleefully improvising. “Her boss is a real slave driver, so even on vacation, she has to take the computer with her so that she can use the computer’s fax modem to send her work to the office.”

  He made an irritated sound. “Some boss.”

  “He pays well,” she said, warming to Kurt’s improvisation. She sighed. “You know how it is, living in a commune, you get so out of touch with reality.” She contrived to look dreamy-eyed. “But eventually, one has to return to the real world and earn a living. It really is so hard to get used to material things again.”

  His face closed up. He gave her a glare that could have stopped traffic and motioned to Karie to follow him. He stuck his hands into his pockets and walked out the door. He never looked back. It seemed to be a deep-seated characteristic.

  Karie grinned and waved, following obediently.

  When they were out of sight along the beach, Kurt joined her on the patio deck.

  “What if that man wasn’t watching Karie at all?” she wondered aloud, having had time to formulate a different theory. “What if he’s a lookout for the pothunters?”

  Kurt scowled. “You mean those people who steal artifacts from archaeological sites and sell them on the black market?”

  “The very same.” She folded her arms over her T-shirt. “This is a brand-new site, unexplored and uncharted until now. Mom and Dad even noted that it seemed to be totally undisturbed. The Maya did some exquisite work with gold and precious jewels. What if there’s a king’s ranso
m located at the dig and someone knows about it?”

  Kurt leaned against the railing. “They know it can happen. It did last time they found a site deep in the jungle, over near Chichñaen Itzñaa. But they had militia guarding them and the pothunters were caught.”

  “Yes, but Mexico is hurting for money, and it’s hard to keep militia on a site all the time to guard a few archaeologists.”

  “Dad has a gun.”

  “And he can shoot it. Sure he can. But they can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day, and even militia can be bribed.”

  “You’re a whale of a comfort,” Kurt groaned.

  “I’m sorry. I just think we should be on our guard. It could have been someone trying to kidnap Karie, but they’ve just as much incentive to kidnap us or at least keep a careful eye on us.”

  “In other words, we’d better watch our backs.”

  Janine smiled. “Exactly.”

  “Suits me.” He sighed. “What a shame your alien hero can’t beam down here and help us out. I’ll bet he’d have the bad guys for breakfast.”

  “Oh, they don’t eat humans,” she assured him.

  “They might make an exception for pothunters.”

  “You do have a point there. Come on. You can help me do the dishes.”

  “Tell you what,” he said irrepressibly. “You do the dishes, and I’ll write your next chapter for you!”

  “Be my guest.”

  He gave her a wary look. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Wrong. Go for it.”

  He was excited, elated. He took her at her word and went straight to the computer. He loaded her word processing program, pulled up the file where she’d left off, scanned the plot.

  He sat and he sat and he sat. By the time she finished cleaning up the kitchen, he was still sitting.

  “Nothing yet?” she asked.

  He gave her a plaintive stare. “How do you do this?” he groaned. “I can’t even think of a single word to put on paper!”

  “Thinking is the one thing I don’t do,” she told him. “Move.”

  He got up and she sat down. She stared at the screen for just a minute, checked her place in the plot, put her fingers on the keyboard and just started typing. She was two pages into the new scene when Kurt let out a long sigh and walked away.

  “Writers,” he said, “are strange.”

  She chuckled to herself. “You don’t know the half of it,” she assured him, and kept right on typing.

  Chapter Three

  Janine was well into the book two days later when Karie came flying up the steps and in through the sliding glass doors.

  “We’re having a party!” she announced breathlessly. “And you’re both invited.”

  Janine’s mind was still in limbo, in the middle of a scene. She gave Karie a vacant stare.

  “Oops! Sorry!” Karie said, having already learned in a space of days that writers can’t withdraw immediately when they’re deep into a scene. She backed out and went to find Kurt.

  “What sort of party?” he asked when she joined him at the bottom of the steps at the beach.

  “Just for a few of Dad’s friends, but I persuaded him to invite you and Janie, too. He feels guilty since he’s had to leave me alone so much for the past few years. So he lets me have my way a lot, to try and make it up to me.” She grinned at Kurt. “It’s sort of like having my own genie.”

  “You’re blackmailing him.”

  She laughed. “Exactly!”

  His thin shoulders rose and fell. “I wouldn’t mind coming to the party, if you’re having something nice to eat. But Janie won’t,” he added with certainty. “She hates parties and socializing. And she doesn’t like your dad at all, can’t you tell?”

  “He doesn’t like her much, either, but that’s no reason why they can’t be civil to each other at a party.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I do. He’ll be on his best behavior. Did you know that he reads her books? He doesn’t know who she really is, of course, because I haven’t told him. But he’s got every book she’s ever written.”

  “Good grief, didn’t he look at her picture on the book jacket?” Kurt burst out.

  “I didn’t recognize her from it. Neither will he. It doesn’t really look like her, does it?”

  He had to admit it didn’t. “She doesn’t like being recognized,” he confided. “It embarrasses her. She likes to write books, but she’s not much on publicity.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s shy, can you believe it?” he chuckled. “She runs the other way from interviews and conventions and publicity. It drove the publishing house nuts at first, but they finally found a way to capitalize on her eccentricity. They’ve made her into the original mystery woman. Nobody knows much about her, so she fascinates her reading public.”

  “I love her books.”

  “So do I,” Kurt said, “but don’t ever tell her I said so. We wouldn’t want her to get conceited.”

  She folded her arms on her knees and stared out to sea. “Does she have a, like, boyfriend?”

  He groaned. “Yes, if you could call him that. He’s a college professor. He teaches ancient history.” He made a gagging gesture.

  “Is he nice?”

  “He’s indescribable,” he said after thinking about it for a minute.

  “Are they going to get married?”

  He shrugged. “I hope not. He’s really nice, but he thinks Janie should be less flaky. I don’t. I like her just the way she is, without any changes. He thinks she’s not dignified enough.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s very conservative. Nice, but conservative. I don’t think he really approves of our parents, either. They’re eccentric, too.”

  She turned to look at him. “What do they do?”

  “They’re archaeologists,” he said. “Both of them teach at Indiana University, where they got their doctorates. We live in Bloomington, Indiana, but Janie lives in Chicago.”

  “They’re both doctors?”

  He nodded and made a face. “Yes. Even Janie has a degree, although hers is in history and it’s a bachelor of arts. I guess I’ll be gang-pressed into going to college. I don’t want to.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He sighed. “I want to fly,” he said, looking skyward as a bird, probably a tern, dipped and swept in the wind currents, paying no attention to the odd creatures sitting on the steps below him.

  “We could glue some feathers together,” she suggested.

  “No! I want to fly,” he emphasized. “Airplanes, helicopters, anything, with or without wings. It’s in my blood. I can’t get enough of airplane movies. Even space shows. Now, that’s really flying, when you do it in space!”

  “So that’s why you like that science fiction show Janie’s so crazy about.”

  “Sort of. But I like the action, too.”

  She smiled. “I like it because the bad guy looks like my dad.”

  He burst out laughing. “He’s not the bad guy. He’s the other side.”

  “Right. The enemy.”

  “He’s not so bad. He saved the hero, once.”

  “Well, so he did. I guess maybe he isn’t all bad.”

  “He’s just misunderstood,” he agreed.

  She chuckled. They were quiet for a minute or two. “Will you try to get Janie to come to our party?”

  He smiled. “I’ll give it my best shot. Just don’t expect miracles, okay?”

  She smiled back. “Okay!”

  As it turned out, Janine had to go to the Rourke party, because for once her little brother dug in his heels and insisted on going somewhere. He would, he told her firmly, go alone if she didn’t care to go with him.

  The thought of her little brother in the sort of company the Rourkes would keep made her very nervous. She didn’t socialize enough to know much about people who lived in the fast lane, and she’d never known any millionaires. She was aware that some drank and used d
rugs. Her sheltered life hadn’t prepared her for that kind of company. Now she was going to be thrust into the very thick of it, or so she imagined. Actually she had no idea what Canton’s friends were like. Maybe they were down-to-earth and nice.

  She hadn’t anything appropriate for a cocktail party, but she scrounged up a crinkly black sundress that, when paired with high heels, pearl earrings and a pearl necklace that her parents had given her, didn’t look too bad. She brushed her flyaway hair, sprayed it down and went to get her black leather purse.

  “I didn’t even have enough warning to go and buy a new dress. I hate you,” she told Kurt with a sweet smile.

  “You’ll forgive me. I’ll bet when he’s dressed up, he’s really something to look at,” he replied.

  “I’ve seen him dressed up.”

  “Oh. Well, he’s supposed to be the stuff dreams are made of. Karie says half the women in Chicago have thrown themselves at him over the years, especially since his wife remarried.”

  “They live in Chicago?” She tried to sound disinterested.

  “Part of the time,” he affirmed. “They have an apartment in New York, too, in downtown Manhattan.”

  “He may not ever be super rich again,” she reminded him.

  “That doesn’t seem to discourage them,” he assured her. “They’re all sure that any man who could make it in the first place will be able to get it back.”

  There was a sort of logic to the assumption, she had to admit. Most men who made that sort of money were workaholics who didn’t spare themselves or any of their employees. Given a stake, there was every reason to believe Canton Rourke could rebuild his empire. But she felt sorry for him. He wouldn’t ever know who liked him for himself and who liked him for what he had.

  “I’m glad I’m not rich,” she said aloud.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I just meant that I know people like me for myself and not for what I’ve got.”

  He folded his arms across his neat shirt. “Do go on,” he invited. “Tell me about it. What was that invitation you got back home to come to a cocktail party and explain how to get published to the hostess’s guest of honor, who just happened to have written a book…?”

  She sighed.

  “Or the rich lady with the stretch limo who wanted you to get her best friend’s book published. Or the mystery writer wannabe who asked for the name of your agent and a recommendation?”