Hot Schemes

by Sherryl Woods

“Michael, has it occurred to you that you have picked a very odd time to decide you want to seduce me?” She actually thought it was a pretty good show of indignation coming from a woman only one heartbeat away from flinging herself into that bed with him.

  He shook his head. Amusement flared in his eyes. “This is not a recent decision, amiga.”

  “Okay, to act on it, then.”

  “Does that mean you’re not interested in crawling back into this nice, warm bed with me?” he inquired doubtfully. “Tell the truth.”

  Molly couldn’t have lied if her life depended on it. It was just as well. Michael was used to detecting when people were lying through their teeth. It would have been no contest. “Yes. As a matter of fact, the idea holds a great deal of appeal,” she admitted.

  As he reached for her, his expression reeking of smug satisfaction, she added, “But I’m not sure I can fight these nagging images of Tía Pilar weeping for her missing husband.”

  Michael put his head in his hands and groaned. “You really know how to spoil a moment, don’t you?”

  “Better to spoil this one than deal with your regrets the rest of the day.”

  He shot her a rueful grin. “You have a point.”

  “I always do. You just rarely listen. Hand me the phone.”

  “What for?”

  She scowled at him. “Just hand it over, please.”

  When she had it, she dialed Ted Ryan’s number. Michael stood up, found a pair of tan slacks and a soft-beige designer shirt and pulled them on while she waited for the reporter to pick up. She studied his polished designer look enviously, then glanced down at her own wrinkled walking shorts and short-sleeved blouse, which she’d been wearing since the day before. She wondered if she’d ever get home long enough to change. She also wondered about a man who saw past the rumpled clothes and still found an attractive, desirable woman. He definitely had to be some sort of national treasure.

  Ted picked up while she was still mentally enumerating more of Michael’s endearing attributes. “Were you able to get that information I asked for?” she asked.

  “Sure did. I’ve got a huge stack of printouts for you. You can pick them up anytime. I’ll leave them at the information desk downstairs in case I’m not here when you stop by. As for Paredes, he lives in Westchester in some nondescript little house on a quiet street.” He hesitated. “Molly, are you sure you want to get to him yourself? He maintains a pretty low profile. He won’t be pleased to have you drop by, if that’s what you have in mind. He’s liable to greet you with an assault rifle.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Molly muttered as she jotted down the address on the pad Michael had on the nightstand by the bed. “Thanks.”

  “Tell me you’re not going out there alone,” he insisted.

  “I’m not.”

  “That’s a relief. One last thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Forget where you got this information, okay?”

  “It just appeared to me in a vision,” she agreed.

  Michael watched her intently as she hung up. “What was all that about visions? Don’t tell me it was a call to the Psychic Friends Network.”

  Scowling at him, she held out the piece of paper. “Here you go,” she said, then added with a certain pointed emphasis, “partner.”

  Michael looked at the address. “What’s this?”

  “The closely guarded home address of Orestes León Paredes.”

  Michael didn’t waste time on astonishment or applause. His expression grim, he put on his shoulder holster, added a neatly-pressed jacket that made Molly feel more rumpled than ever, and gestured toward the bedroom door. “Let’s go, partner.”

  • • •

  Molly was able to persuade her new investigative partner to detour past the paper by promising him more information than he could possibly gather on his own in days of interrogations, even if he could find people who’d talk to him.

  When she emerged from the paper’s lobby with an armload of computer printouts, he looked downright impressed and maybe just a little worried.

  “Exactly what did you have to promise Ryan to get all this?”

  “First crack at any major break in the case.”

  “Given the way he feels about you, I’m surprised he didn’t hold out for a more personal commitment.”

  She frowned at him. “You’re the only one who thinks he has a crush on me.”

  “Only because you are blind to the signs.”

  “Why are we arguing over Ted Ryan’s amorous intentions, when we should be thanking our lucky stars that he dumped all this information into our laps?”

  “You have a point. You read while I drive.”

  Molly had barely made a dent in the material, when they neared Paredes’s neighborhood.

  Westchester was a community west of the Florida Turnpike, where many Cubans had eventually settled, leaving Little Havana to a more recent influx of exiles from El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama.

  Along the Tamiami Trail, yet another designation for Calle Ocho or Southwest Eighth Street before it continued west to cut through the Everglades toward Naples, there were strip malls and gun shops, a bowling alley, and dozens of neat little restaurants featuring a mix of ethnic fare. One of the most popular Cuban restaurants, Lila’s, with its mounds of crisp papas fritas—fried potatoes—atop tender palomilla steak, beckoned as Michael and Molly headed for their unscheduled meeting with Paredes.

  Refusing to waste time for a sit-down meal, Michael conceded only to picking up two grilled sandwiches, media noches as they were called by Cubans and Anglos alike. They ate the sandwiches as he made the turn off the Trail into a neighborhood of Spanish-style homes with neat lawns and climbing bougainvillaea in vivid shades of purple and fuchsia. Ornamental ironwork covered most of the windows, installed not for its intricate beauty, but to protect against crime. In this respect it was not so different from Little Havana. Here, though, the homes were slightly larger and newer.

  “How’d you get the address?” he asked as he checked the numbers on the houses against the slip of paper.

  Molly was amazed the question hadn’t come up before now. Maybe he just hadn’t had the energy to look a gift horse in the mouth. Well fed now, his naturally suspicious brain had kicked in.

  “Sources,” she said enigmatically.

  “What sources?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “I’m not sure anyone on the Metro police force could get this address, yet one lone county employee just snaps her fingers and has it. It doesn’t figure.”

  “Oh, I’m sure some enterprising cop over there has it tucked away in his Rolodex for a rainy day.”

  Michael shook his head. “Just about the time anyone pins down his location, Paredes shifts to a new spot. I suppose it’s habit after years of moving his guerrilla camps around the Cuban countryside to evade Castro’s soldiers. So what did you barter with this so-called source of yours to get it? Or was this just more of Ted Ryan’s largesse?”

  “Michael, not everything in life has a price tag.”

  “Yes, amiga, sooner or later it does. You just haven’t been asked to pay up yet.”

  Molly decided nothing she was likely to say would counteract that level of ingrained cynicism. She kept her mouth clamped firmly shut.

  When they finally reached the address she had been given, the house looked exactly like every other house on the block. There was nothing to distinguish it, right down to the clutter of toys on the front lawn and the rusty, aging sedan in the driveway, along with a newer, though still not brand-new, car parked behind it. Molly glanced up and down the block in amazement.

  “I didn’t know there were this many old cars still in existence in running order,” she said.

  “You should see the ones on the streets of Havana. I’m told those make these old clunkers look like the latest models. A lot of people have become very adept mechanics.” As he cut off the ignition, he glanced at her, his
expression suddenly serious. “Amiga, don’t get all bent out of shape over this …”

  “Uh-oh. What?”

  “I think it might be best for you to wait in the car.”

  “Why?” she asked, though she was relatively certain she knew what was coming. She doubted it was because he was ashamed of her appearance.

  “If Paredes is even here, he may not be willing to talk with you present,” Michael explained cautiously.

  “Because I’m an Anglo?”

  “Worse,” he admitted.

  “What could be worse?”

  “Because you are a woman.”

  “Of all the idiotic, chauvinistic attitudes,” she said without much energy. As much as she hated the macho world of a certain breed of Hispanic men, it was relatively pointless to flail away at its existence. The discovery that Paredes was such a man wasn’t exactly a stunning surprise.

  “I don’t suppose now is the time to try to mend his ways, though, is it?” she said with an air of resignation.

  “Not really.”

  “Okay. I will wait in the car like the dutiful little woman.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” As Michael stepped out of the car, she beckoned him back. “Just one thing.”

  He regarded her warily. “What?”

  “Hand over your cellular phone.”

  He gave it to her with trepidation written all over his face. “You don’t know anyone on the other side of the world, do you? Liza, for example,” he said, referring to Molly’s best friend and neighbor. “Isn’t she on some trip to the rain forest again?”

  “Worried about me running up your bill? As a matter of fact, Liza’s in Tibet,” she informed him cheerfully. “Hurry back.”

  With one last worried look over his shoulder, Michael walked determinedly up to Orestes León Paredes’s front door and knocked. Heavy draperies slid aside a fraction while someone peered out. Then the door opened a cautious inch. She noticed Michael did not flash his badge. Whatever he said, though, got him admitted.

  Molly caught a brief glimpse of a tall, olive-complexioned man, his military fatigues straining over a potbelly, right before the door slammed shut and what sounded like a seriously heavy-duty bolt slid home. It was not a comforting sound. The only thing keeping her from outright panic was the reassuring weight of that cellular phone and the knowledge that help was only three quick digits away.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Huge, heavy black clouds began to build up to the west over the Everglades. Molly put the cellular phone on the dash as thunder rumbled through the muggy air. A jagged bolt of lightning split the sky, followed within seconds by the ear-splitting crack of thunder. The first fat drops of rain splashed against the windshield, followed instants later by a downpour so intense she could barely see the house only fifteen yards or less away. She felt cut off and isolated as she waited for Michael to return. The feelings of foreboding that had begun with the slamming of that door no longer seemed quite so absurd.

  To distract herself, she tried to read more printouts. Gradually she began to put together an impression of Orestes León Paredes. He was a man who came from great wealth in Cuba, only to have his property taken over by the government. Angered by the loss and young enough to take his ideals to the streets, he had publicly opposed Castro, organizing a band of guerrillas known for the daring and violence of their attacks. He had brought the same attitudes and tenacity with him when he escaped to Miami.

  He had participated in the CIA-planned Bay of Pigs invasion, meant to spark an uprising of the Cuban people. It had failed dramatically. But once again the remarkable Paredes luck had held. He had neither died nor been taken prisoner. He had just added to his mystique.

  He had also realized during that abysmal failure that any overthrow of Castro was in the hands of those who believed as passionately as he did. They could not count on Washington for the help they needed.

  Over the years since then, he had surrounded himself with a veritable army of commandos anxious for their chance to provide the spark that would ignite a revolution. Molly wondered if even now Miguel was in Cuba fanning such flames at Paredes’s instigation.

  Little was written about his personal life, but judging from the toys scattered on his lawn, he had children or grandchildren. She wondered if he was instilling the same anger and fighting spirit in them.

  Eventually she glanced up from the pages. There was still no sign of Michael. “Come on, dammit,” she whispered, her gaze pinned on the shadowy outline of the house. She checked her watch again. It was nearly four o’clock. Michael had been inside for little more than a half hour. It just seemed like longer. She would give him another fifteen minutes before she gave in to panic and called 911.

  She kept her gaze fixed on the house, unwilling to look away even to read more of the articles Ted had provided. The only time her gaze strayed was when she glanced at her watch. The second hand was moving at a snail’s pace. Tick. Tick. Tick. She drew in deep gulps of breath with every tick. At this rate, she’d hyperventilate and the 911 call would be for paramedics for her. Tick. Tick.

  Another streak of lightning split the nearby sky, followed almost at once by the sharp crack of thunder. It was so close that it seemed to rock the car like a child’s toy in a giant’s grip.

  Finally the sheets of rain dwindled into occasional fat drops again. The black clouds rolled on toward the east, leaving blue skies and bright sunshine, with steam rising from the pavement. The rumbling of the thunder receded into the distance. It was almost as if the storm had never happened.

  Unfortunately, Molly’s pulse still wouldn’t settle back into an easy rhythm. The fifteen minutes were past. Michael had been inside for nearly an hour.

  Okay, she thought. So it had been an hour. He and Paredes had a lot to talk about. He wouldn’t appreciate her calling for backup if everything inside was perfectly fine. The only way to determine that for sure would be to get a glimpse inside that house. How she was going to do that was a problem.

  The front windows were covered by those heavy drapes. There was a fence around the side and back yards. There was, however, a gate on the east side of the house, right at the end of the driveway. She wondered if she could get to that gate without being seen, especially with the passenger door of the car in full view of the house.

  Oh, well, nothing beats a try but a failure, she recalled her mother telling her on some occasion when her usually intrepid spirit had failed her. She slid to the driver’s side and carefully opened the door. Right before she stepped out, she grabbed the phone and tucked it into the waistband of her walking shorts. Okay, it didn’t exactly imply the same level of protection as a gun, but it was all she had.

  The air was even steamier after the brief storm. It was sort of like breathing through a damp cloth. Her clothes stuck to her skin. Staying low, she moved from beside Michael’s car to the far side of the cars parked in the driveway. With her gaze locked on the front windows of the house, she inched her way toward that gate.

  She had one hand on the opened latch and one foot inside when all hell broke loose. Two snapping, snarling pit bulls rounded a corner of the house. With her heart slamming against her chest, Molly rammed the gate closed and prayed the latch would hold against the weight of their frantic bodies being thrown against it again and again as they tried to get to her.

  The front door of the house opened and Michael and the man she’d seen earlier came tearing outside. At the sight of Molly standing on the far side of his car, bent over and trying to catch her breath, Michael slowed.

  “Going for a walk?” he inquired dryly as the other man sharply ordered the dogs to the back of the house. They slunk away.

  Molly couldn’t seem to stop shaking. Still she tried to bluster her way out of the incriminating mess. “Yes. It was hot in the car after the storm. I thought I’d get some air.”

  Michael looked as if he didn’t believe that any more than he believed pigs flew. Obvious
ly, though, he didn’t intend to call her on it in front of his host. She’d probably pay for that bit of discretion later.

  The man gestured toward Molly. “She is with you?” he asked Michael.

  “Yes.”

  “And you allowed her to remain outside in this heat? I am surprised at you,” he said, coming forward. He took Molly’s hand and bowed over it in a courtly gesture at odds with the military attire and suburban setting. “Señorita, I am Paredes.”

  Molly gazed into dark, almost black eyes that reflected intelligence and an innate wariness that belied the polite greeting. He looked to be in his late fifties, his face weathered by time and sun, his dark brown hair streaked with gray. Despite the potbelly, he appeared to be in decent shape. The muscles in his forearms were well defined. Anyone misjudging his strength would no doubt be in for a rude awakening.

  “Molly DeWitt,” she said, trying not to recoil from his powerful grip or his intense, distrustful scrutiny. “I’m sorry for disturbing your meeting. I hadn’t realized you had dogs.”

  “Their purpose is better served if they take people by surprise,” he said dryly.

  “I’m sure.”

  “You would like to join us, perhaps?”

  Michael gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Our meeting is concluded, wouldn’t you say, Señor Paredes?”

  A flash of anger darkened the older man’s eyes, but was hurriedly replaced by a jovial expression. He bowed again to Molly. “Perhaps another time, señorita. I will look forward to it.”

  “Perhaps.” There was something in his voice that made Molly feel as if he’d just made an indecent pass at her, though his actual words and expression couldn’t have been more innocuous. She gathered Michael had heard that sleazy note as well since he looked as if he wanted to throttle the man.

  Molly didn’t relax until they were out of the neighborhood. Michael’s stony silence didn’t help.

  “What did he tell you?” she asked finally.

  “You mean besides the forty-five-minute recruitment pitch?”

  “He wants you to join the organization?”

  “He suggested I would be a traitor to my heritage if I did not.”