by Alice Sharpe
Tucked in among fish-processing plants and the fleet, which had obviously seen more prosperous days, were a few small carry-out restaurants, this one with a single picnic table set on a concrete slab above the river. Off to the west, the bay emptied into the ocean; to the east, the river continued inland to a small marina. Overhead, a bridge connected the south shore with the north.
The cold Pacific wind lifted his too-long hair. The odors of sea and humanity were fresh and vibrant, and the sea lions—warming themselves on the floating docks—added comic relief. Best of all, every single thing about the place was two and a half worlds away from the jungles of Tierra Montañosa.
And the food. Sizzling golden-brown deep-fried cod, coleslaw and shoestring fries. Good-for-the-soul kind of grub. The woman sitting at the table made the whole thing, well, one of those moments.
That was another trick he’d learned during his captivity. Freeze a moment. Capture it. Hold on to it. Bring it out later to savor, to taste, to relive, make it a light in the darkness of forever. Damn poetic thoughts for a bodyguard, sure, but things like the look of a raindrop on an orchid glimpsed weeks earlier had seen him through a beating or two.
He sat down opposite Hannah with his own basket of goodies, squeezed on the lemon and took a bite.
Across from him, Hannah smiled wistfully. “You look like a man who’s found heaven.”
He nodded, too busy eating to talk. She daintily dabbed her fish in tartar sauce while he started on the fries.
He finished long before her, and under the guise of staring at a sailboat motoring past, watched Hannah play around with her food. She was apparently too hyper to enjoy her meal but he remembered the first time they’d met—over a bowl of Tierra Montañosa’s signature bar food, grilled fish cubes with garlic and herbs. Back then she’d eaten with gusto and kept up with him when it came to the local brew. She must not have known she was pregnant at the time if she was comfortable drinking booze. Even he knew women didn’t do that anymore.
She pushed away the basket at last and he cleared the debris. When he came back, he walked around to her side and perched on the table next to where she sat, his feet on the bench. She looked up at him and despite the wind whipping between them, the air crackled with mutual awareness.
At least he hoped it was mutual.
She pushed herself to her feet and sat back down on the table next to him, her leg brushing his.
He said, “Are you ready to tell me how it went at your office and exactly who you’ve been protecting?”
She pleated the hem of her jacket as she mumbled, “The office was fine. The only trouble was dealing with all the scary thoughts you planted in my head.”
So that’s why she’d been so edgy since driving back up that hill—she was pissed at him. “Why did you really go in today, Hannah?”
After a moment, she said, “It ties in to what I’m going to tell you about David.”
“David? Is he who you’ve been protecting?”
She glanced up at him. “I know he’s dead—”
“But he’s the father of your baby,” he finished for her. Did that mean her feelings for David ran deeper than he thought they did or was she protecting her child’s father’s reputation? It didn’t matter, he had no reason to be jealous of a dead man.
“I just want to say that David claimed he never went to Tierra Montañosa, so that means he was never in Costa del Rio, so my suspicions are really dumb.”
“That’s quite an opener,” he said. “I feel a ‘but’ coming on.”
She met his gaze. “But he did travel right before his death. He went on a vacation.”
“Where?”
“He said he went to Arizona to see a sister and her family.”
“You sound dubious.”
She looked down at her hands, which she’d folded together and wedged between her knees. As her skirt had hiked up when she sat, the material now molded her thighs while her knees and the rest of her legs were bare. The sight of all that ivory flesh almost undid him so he raised his gaze and tried to keep his thoughts on target.
“I had no reason to doubt him until yesterday when you started asking me about money,” she said. “Your accusations made me think of the night David returned from his vacation. He came to my place all excited. He gave me a gym bag with one of those plastic cable ties securing the zipper. He made me swear I would tell no one I had it and I haven’t, not until right now.”
“You didn’t know what was in it?”
“Not until after he died. I opened it then. It was stuffed with money.”
“How much money?”
“Fifty thousand dollars in big bills.”
Jack whistled. “That’s a hunk of change.”
“Yes, it is, especially for David. He spent money as fast as he got it.”
Jack nodded. That’s exactly how he remembered David. The guy loved money and wasn’t above pushing the strict limits of the law to get it. “Do you have any idea where the money came from?”
She twisted her head to meet his gaze again, her green eyes almost the same color as the harbor water below them. “No. He was acting kind of strange so I told him he better not be asking me to do something illegal, and he swore he wasn’t and that he’d come back the next day and take it back. He said he trusted me.”
“But the next day he was killed riding his bike out to the foundation.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t find that suspicious?”
“The police investigation ruled David’s death was an accident. The truck driver was a local guy with kids and he was reportedly torn up about it. That night I opened the bag and found all that money. I couldn’t imagine where he’d gotten that kind of stash, but there were a few funny things about it all that made me wonder if he’d stolen it or found it or something.”
“What funny things?”
“Well, the trip for one thing. We were going to meet somewhere for a few days, you know, away from this area where we could spend some time together. But he canceled it at the last moment with this story about needing to go see his sister. I was relieved. By then I knew we couldn’t go on the way we were and I’d had enough of his secrets. Well, anyway, when he came back from this sudden urgent trip with that much cash, it made me wonder. I didn’t see how I could turn it over to his parents or anyone else for that matter.”
“Did you spend it?”
This earned him a glare. “Of course not.”
“Then where is it?”
“In one of those commercial mail boxes.”
“Hannah, let me get this straight. Your boyfriend brings you a wad of dough, asks you to keep it on the QT, gets himself killed the next day, your house is broken into and you don’t put it all together?”
“It didn’t all happen in quite that orderly a fashion,” she said, her voice sharp. She got to her feet and paced off the distance to the iron railing, turning to lean back against it and stare him down.
“He gave me the money, then he died. I waited for someone to mention it—no one did. I even hinted around with his family at his funeral. They obviously knew nothing. I took the bag to work and locked it in my file cabinet and then I transferred it via my briefcase to the rented box. Then I went to Tierra Montañosa and then the ambush happened.
“You can’t imagine what it was like back here with Harrison Plumber and Hugo Correa kidnapped and the rest of you held hostage. I’d just met you and then the next day you were gone…it was crazy. And poor old Santi Correa. He hired me straight out of college, he was always kind to me, and I spent a lot of time with him because he was sure they were going to kill his only son. Then my grandfather died, my mother got married again, Hugo and Harrison were freed and through it all, I was throwing up every morning.
“By the time of the break-in at my apartment, I was beyond frazzled. Nothing was stolen, it appeared to be vandals and I was moving in with my grandmother anyway, so, Mr. Know It All, no, I didn’t put it all together until ye
sterday when you asked if I helped the terrorists in exchange for money. That’s when I got to thinking, what if David went to Tierra Montañosa instead of Arizona? What if he sold out?”
Jack was quiet for a few minutes before he said, “Did he know about the planned route to the school?”
“He had access to my papers,” she said miserably. “It never occurred to me I had to hide things like that from him of all people.”
It wouldn’t, but if she was right, her baby’s father had helped kill ten people. David, you raging bastard, how could you do that?
“If he went out of the country, his passport will be stamped,” Jack said.
“I sent his mother a box of things after David died but I don’t remember all that was in it.”
“Did you talk to his sister at his funeral? I mean, did she mention him visiting?”
“No, she didn’t come. Just his mother and stepfather and one brother.”
“You could call his sister and think of some reason to ask about his visit last year to Arizona. We could probably rule him out if he was really with her.”
“I don’t know what excuse I could offer,” she said. “They think of me as David’s coworker, not his girlfriend.”
“You could think of something,” he said.
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I could think of something.” She turned around and stared out at the water and he got up and went to stand beside her. “Did anyone else from the foundation go down several weeks before the school opening and the ambush?”
“You’re still trying to pin things on someone who works here,” she said.
“I can imagine David having information he’d sell to the guerillas, but I can’t quite see how he’d do it all on the sly, especially since he wouldn’t have the contacts because he didn’t go down there regularly.”
“He spoke Spanish because his stepfather is from Mexico. Actually, he understood more than he could say. If someone from the foundation went, too, wouldn’t you have been notified to act as their bodyguard?”
“If it was on the up-and-up. If it wasn’t…”
She shook her head and looked so burdened by all this that his heart went out to her. He found it impossible to believe that twenty-four hours before, he’d totally believed she’d set him up and sold all the others down the creek.
“I don’t know how this all fits together,” he told her, looking down at the sweep of her lashes against her cheeks, “but I think it does. There are two issues. One, who plotted the ambush? If I’m right, someone in the Staar Foundation is diverting funds to the GTM and the GTM is using those funds to finance terrorist training schools. If they’re planning some act of terrorism to make their point, can we stop it? And what does any of this have to do with someone threatening you?”
“That’s at least three things. The most obvious answer to the last one is that someone knows about the money.”
“That explains the break-in, but it doesn’t explain the note or the threats. It’s almost like there are two different minds at work. You said going into the office tied in to David. How?”
“I almost forgot,” she said, reaching into her jacket pocket and extracting a small sheet of paper.
“What’s this?” he asked as he read aloud. “9D 125 1-2.”
“It was in the gym bag with the money,” Hannah said. “I have no idea what it means. Do you?”
“Are you kidding? I don’t know, maybe a locker or a safety-deposit box, maybe a location, maybe an identity number, maybe nothing. Do you still have the gym bag?”
“It’s locked in the file cabinet at work. It’s empty now and there’s nothing unusual about it.”
He handed the paper back, but she waved it away. “No, you keep it.”
Folding it carefully, he put it in his wallet.
Hannah sighed, which lifted her breasts a little under her black jacket. Maybe it was a relief for her to have this out in the open, although how they were going to make sense of anything without David to enlighten them was a mystery.
As they leaned side by side against the rail staring down at the water, he became increasingly aware of every detail of her from her hip an inch or two from his to her glistening hair blowing back from her face. When she reached up to rub her eyes and he saw her lashes were moist, he impulsively put an arm around her shoulders. Her whole body stiffened. He was about to take his arm away when she gently relaxed. Because he could not hold back another moment, he kissed the top of her head, inhaling the salty freshness of her hair. She turned to look up at him, eyes registering surprise.
Before she could chew him out, he lowered his face to hers, waiting for her to draw away or warn him off, but she didn’t. Instead, she met him halfway and as the cold wind blowing off the water buffeted their clothes, he cupped her cheeks in his hands and claimed her mouth.
She broke the connection and held him away from her for a long, intense moment, then she slowly wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers linking behind his head, twining in his hair, leaning in against him, her breasts pressing against his chest, her hip against his. She looked so deep and far into his eyes it alarmed him—for a second he felt naked and vulnerable. What was she looking for, what did she see?
It was a relief when her lips touched his, and when her tongue slid against his, fire erupted in his groin, singed his skin, sent smoke out his ears, or at least it felt that way. The year since the last time they made love shattered like crystal; it seemed just a minute ago that he’d stretched out beside her…
If there weren’t so damn many layers of clothes between them, he’d— Man, he needed to get a grip. Since when did a kiss or two plunge him into such a frenzy?
He caught her upper arms in his hands and gently pushed her away. She blinked a couple of times and looked surprised. Hell, he was surprised. In his head, he got a stranglehold on his libido and stuffed it into a box. Tight fit.
He didn’t know what to tell her, only that he’d fallen into a trap of some sort, he’d lost his focus. A year in the jungle with no sex had given him a one-track mind that this woman ignited every time she looked at him.
But there was more at stake than a roll in the hay. He shrugged, unsure how to say what he didn’t want to say.
“I got carried away,” she said softly.
“Yeah, well, me, too.”
“There’s something between us,” she said. “I can’t deny that.”
He swallowed what felt like a starfish. “Cariño, you were right last night, you’ve changed. We’ve changed. I’m your baby’s bodyguard, not your lover. You need a man who can be a father and we both know that’s not me.”
“No, it’s not,” she said and with such conviction it almost made him mad.
He rubbed his forehead, ran a hand up through his hair and redirected his gaze right into her eyes. “The food, the day, the freedom, you—everything got to me. I should be focusing on David’s apparent windfall and the Staar Foundation and who is out to get you, and instead, here I am wanting to take you to bed every time we’re alone.”
She reached up and ran a hand down his cheek, her touch light and gentle as her fingers grazed his scars. He closed his eyes and wished things were different.
“David was a mistake from start to finish,” she said. “You’re right. I can’t afford to make more mistakes.”
“I know,” he said, looking down at her again. “It worries me you take the things that have happened to you so lightly. Your grandmother is terrified.”
“I know she is. I didn’t know how deeply until today.” She leaned her head against his chest. It was the kind of thing a person did when they felt familiar and comfortable with another person and it amazed him more than her lusty kiss had.
He tried patting her shoulder. “I really will do my best to keep your baby and grandmother safe.” He didn’t add that he’d move heaven and earth to keep her safe, too. “I know the Staar Foundation is involved in some way with the GTM and—”
�
��Jack?” she said, looking up at him. “Forget about everything that’s happening to me. Forget about what you think about the Staar Foundation. We have no proof about where David got that money or what anyone else is responsible for, either. Are you sure your suspicions aren’t being driven by your need for revenge?”
“No, I’m not sure.”
She looked startled by his answer. He added, “I’ll be honest. Maybe I do want to see the bastards who slaughtered all those men twist in the wind. Maybe I want the year they stole from me back. Maybe I’m seething inside. But the bottom line is this—I learned a long time ago to listen to my gut.”
She nodded as though what he said was reasonable. “I just—”
She stopped as a noise erupted from her purse that she’d left lying on the table. For a tinny little melody playing from within a closed object, it galvanized her in a hurry. She dug through her purse until she found the prize, flipping open the tiny cell phone as she raised it to her ear.
“They hung up,” she said, pushing buttons. “It’s our home phone. I wonder why Grandma hung up.” She pushed another button, apparently dialing her grandmother’s house. Her face reflected her tension. Jack felt a knot form in his own stomach just watching her face.
“No answer,” she said.
“Did the call go through?”
She checked the screen. “The signal is fine. She just doesn’t answer.” Her face had lost every drop of color. “We have to go, Jack.”
He was already running toward the car.
Chapter Six
Hannah tried calling home numerous times. Then she finally thought to try the number of one of the poker ladies. The phone was answered on the second ring.
“Barb? Thank goodness,” Hannah said, sparing Jack a smile of relief. Obviously something had happened to the home phone and her grandmother hadn’t thought to borrow a cell from one of the women who were in the house with her and Aubrielle.
