His Mysterious Ways

by Amanda Stevens

  It told Lassiter quite a lot, in fact. The lack of fragmentation told him that the bullet was a full metal jacket, probably U.S. manufactured rather than German or Swiss. And the choice of nondeforming ammunition not only told him that the gunman’s intent was to kill not maim, it also spoke of the killer’s supreme confidence in his own abilities. Unlike most of the rebel snipers Lassiter had encountered, this man didn’t need to rely on fragmentation. He was that good.

  One shot. One kill.

  “You said you’d seen this kind of wound in combat,” Lassiter said. “Where?”

  “In Vietnam.” When Lassiter’s brows shot up, Bond gave a wry laugh. “You look surprised. Is it because you don’t see me as the type to serve my country, or because you didn’t know we Aussies had a presence in Vietnam? Most Americans don’t, you know.”

  It was a little of both, Lassiter supposed. “Is that where you met Kruger?”

  Now Bond looked surprised. “Why would you think that?”

  Lassiter shrugged. “For some reason, I had the impression that you two go way back. I thought you might have served together in Vietnam.”

  Bond shook his head. “You must be thinking about his partner.”

  Lassiter glanced up. “Martin Grace? How do you know he and Kruger were together in Vietnam?”

  “I don’t know that they were together. But I do know Martin Grace was in Vietnam.”

  “How?”

  Bond looked suddenly uneasy. “I probably shouldn’t say anything, but…” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “A few days after he arrived, Grace had a bad case of dysentery. When I gave him an injection of antibiotics, I noticed he had an unusual tattoo on his left arm. When I mentioned it, he flew off the handle and told me to mind my own business if I knew what was good for me. Then he bailed out of the infirmary like the devil himself was after him. The man’s a bit of an arse, if you ask me.”

  Lassiter’s own assessment of Martin Grace was pretty much the same. “What did the tattoo look like?”

  Bond refilled his glass. “Some kind of bird, I think. Actually, I’d seen it before on a patient I treated in Vietnam. That’s why it caught my attention. This guy had been shot up by the VC and was in bad shape when they brought him in. He kept mumbling something about being with a special-forces team on some top-secret mission. Evidently, his unit was ambushed and he got separated from his mates. He kept rambling on about not being able to find a doorway. I thought he was delirious at first, but when I started asking him questions, he clammed up. Wouldn’t even give me his name, rank and serial number. I got the impression he was worried he’d already said too much.”

  Bond finished his drink and poured yet another. “If the poor bloke hadn’t died that night, he might have had to kill me,” he said without humor.

  AFTER THE FIRST few moments of shock, Angel hadn’t appeared frightened at all by what she’d seen. In fact, she’d been excited and kept whispering in reverence, “Usted es un angel.”

  “No, sweetie, I’m not an angel,” Melanie had assured her softly. She’d finally managed to coax the child back to sleep, and then she’d crept down the hallway, retrieved her bag from the closet and slipped out the back way.

  All the way back to the hotel, she kept replaying the conversation she’d overheard between Dr. Wilder and Blanca. For the life of her, Melanie couldn’t figure out why Blanca felt so threatened by her. Was it mere jealousy or something more sinister?

  Was it possible she and Dr. Wilder could be involved in something illegal? Melanie wondered suddenly. It would make sense, then, that Blanca was so worried about Melanie’s presence. Besides, if Blanca’s concern stemmed from nothing more than jealousy, why had she pretended to speak only broken English when in fact she was quite fluent?

  Something strange was going on at that clinic, but Melanie had no idea what it was. Or what it had to do with her.

  I have my reasons for keeping Melanie close. Let’s just leave it at that.

  Her footsteps faltered as something else occurred to her. Was it possible that Dr. Wilder was the man she’d come to Santa Elena to find? Was it possible he was her father?

  She quickly dismissed the idea. If he was her father, she would have known somehow. She would have felt something for him. There would have been some kind of clue, no matter how small.

  But what she’d felt for Dr. Wilder was nothing more than respect for his abilities as a doctor. The bond that had developed between them was because of their mutual concern for Angel.

  Although Melanie had to admit their friendship had developed rather quickly. And it was obvious that Blanca sensed something between them.

  But her father?

  Why wouldn’t he have said something? After all, it had been his idea for her to come to Santa Elena.

  Melanie started walking again. Her birthday was coming up in a couple of days at which time her father, according to his letter, would make arrangements to meet her in the cloud forest. Until then, all she could do was wait.

  Hurrying into the hotel, she went straight up to her room. As she unlocked the door and stepped inside, the back of her neck prickled in warning. The subtle tingle of electricity and the barely discernible vibration sent a shiver up her spine.

  She saw only a brief shimmer of light before the doorway closed, concealing the identity of the person who had been in her room a split second before she’d entered.

  LASSITER CAME instantly awake.

  His sleeping quarters consisted of a cramped cubicle tacked onto the end of the barracks with only a small window to let in light. But it was enough illumination to allow him to make out the dark silhouette hovering over his bed.

  He acted on instinct. Bolting upright, he grabbed for the throat, then flung the intruder down on the bunk, squeezing his windpipe as he simultaneously ground a knee into the man’s abdomen.

  But the interloper wasn’t a man, he realized almost at once. The fullness of her breasts beneath the skintight black top she wore gave her away, as did the long blond hair spilling from the black knit cap she’d pulled on.

  Recognizing her, Lassiter eased the pressure on her windpipe and removed his knee from her stomach, but he didn’t free her entirely. He kept her pinned between his knees in order to search for weapons. He hadn’t trusted anyone in years, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  “Just take it easy,” he said, “and nobody gets hurt.”

  The way he’d trapped her seemed to infuriate her. She clutched her bruised throat as she rasped, “You nearly killed me, you bastard.”

  “Best not to sneak up on a man while he’s sleeping,” Lassiter advised unrepentantly. He ran his hands down her body. The black pants and top fit her like a second skin. He could feel every curve, every muscle, every tempting inch of her body. She’d have to be pretty damn creative to hide a weapon in that outfit, but Melanie Stark had struck Lassiter from the first as a woman not without imagination.

  She tried to jerk away from him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Searching you for weapons.”

  “If I had a gun you’d already have a bullet hole in your head,” she said, deadly earnest.

  He lifted a brow at her bravado. “Somehow you seem more like the switchblade type to me.”

  “Be very grateful I don’t have a knife.”

  “Big talk from someone in your position,” he goaded. But he had to give her credit. Most women who found themselves in her situation would have been begging for their lives by that time. Or on occasion, begging for something else. But not Melanie. She wasn’t the begging type. She’d take what she wanted and then demand more.

  And the speculation of just what those demands might entail fueled Lassiter’s X-rated imagination. He let his hands linger in places where they had no business.

  She said between clenched teeth, “Get your hands off me, you bastard.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve called me a bastard in the space of a minute. You really need to wo
rk on your vocabulary. It’s getting a little repetitious.”

  Her eyes flashed in the darkness. “How about this, then? Get your hands off me, you jerk. You asshole. You stupid…”

  She tried to slap him, but Lassiter easily caught her hand. Grabbing her other wrist, he raised both arms over her head and leaned in closer.

  He could barely make out her expression in the dark, but he knew that her eyes were gleaming with fury. She was breathing hard in her anger. For a moment, he remained transfixed by the rise and fall of her breasts.

  Then something changed in her. The anger turned to something else, something…

  He pressed his body against hers, letting her feel his arousal, and she went completely still, her gaze locked onto his.

  He heard the small catch in her breath as her lips parted slightly, inviting him to kiss her.

  When he didn’t, she looked momentarily confused, and then her rage returned in full force. “You bastard,” she hissed.

  “So we’re back to that, are we?” He slid off the bunk and reached for his pants. He could feel her gaze on him in the darkness, but when he turned, she quickly glanced away.

  “Why did you come out here?” he asked gruffly.

  “Not for that,” she lashed out. “I want to know just what kind of scam you’re trying to pull on me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Her eyes blazed in the darkness. “I’m talking about last night. I’m talking about how you left my room. Why didn’t you tell me you could do it?”

  “Because I wanted to find out what you knew first.”

  “Liar. You’re one of them.” She shot to her feet. “You’ve been sent here to keep me from finding my father.”

  “That’s not true, Melanie. I want to find your father as badly as you do. I need those answers just as much as you do.”

  She gritted her teeth. “I don’t believe you. You want something else or you wouldn’t have come back and searched my room today.”

  “I haven’t been anywhere near your room all day.”

  “Stop lying! It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

  “And I’m telling you it wasn’t me.” He caught her by the arms. “So why don’t you tell me what this is all about so we can get to the bottom of it?”

  She looked as if she wanted to wrest herself from his grasp, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to engage in a struggle she was destined to lose. So she stood her ground and gazed at him with icy contempt. “When I let myself into my room this afternoon, I caught a glimpse of a doorway before it closed up. Who else could have done that but you?”

  His grip tightened on her arms. “Did you see anyone go through?”

  She lifted her chin. “No. But it had to be you.”

  “It wasn’t me, Melanie,” he said grimly.

  She looked taken aback by the finality of his denial. “Then who…”

  He lowered his voice. “Look, I agree we need to talk about this, but not here. Someone could hear us. Give me five minutes to get dressed and I’ll meet you back at your hotel.”

  Her brows lifted. “Five minutes? It’ll take a lot longer than that to drive back to Santa Elena.”

  “You drove out here?”

  “How else would I get here?”

  “I assumed…” He hesitated, shaking his head. “Never mind. Where did you leave your vehicle?”

  “Just off the road, about a mile south of the main entrance.”

  He nodded. “I’ll find it. Wait for me there.”

  When she started to turn away, Lassiter caught her arm. She looked up expectantly.

  “Be careful getting out of here. Don’t let anyone see you.”

  “No one will see me.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that. We have surveillance cameras mounted all around the perimeter of the camp. One of my men saw you on the monitor and caught your little ‘smoke and mirrors’ trick on tape.” At her alarmed expression he said, “Don’t worry. He won’t say anything.”

  “How can you be so sure?” she asked.

  “Because he’s dead.”

  MELANIE SHIVERED as she sat in her four-wheel drive and waited for Lassiter. She didn’t mind admitting that it was nerve-racking being in the jungle all alone. There was a moon, but the huge strangler tree near where she’d parked blocked most of the light. She could only imagine the predators that prowled the forest at night, and the eerie sounds coming from the darkness fed her wildest fears.

  When she saw Lassiter emerge from the trees a few yards in front of her vehicle, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. Then she immediately tensed. The moment of attraction between them earlier had unnerved her more than the jungle.

  At least he was dressed now, but her mind immediately flashed to the way he’d looked leaning over her. The bulge of muscles in his forearms. The washboard ripple of his abdomen. Those eyes, that mouth…

  Jon Lassiter was the hottest man Melanie had encountered in quite some time, and he was also the most dangerous. Just her type, unfortunately.

  Men like him had never brought her anything but trouble. They were good for one thing only as far as she was concerned.

  They sure as hell weren’t the type you could count on. Not the type you could plan a future with, either. Melanie couldn’t, in a million years, picture Jon Lassiter happily married and settled in suburbia.

  But to be fair, she couldn’t picture herself in a blissful state of matrimony, either. She had nothing against a casual affair, but the problem was, there was nothing casual about Jon Lassiter. She knew his type all too well. The relationship would be intense while it lasted. A passionate, consuming obsession. He would take her heart, twist it in every direction imaginable and then, when it was over, he would leave her, desperate and devastated, without a backward glance.

  She stared at him nervously as he climbed into the vehicle beside her. “You still want to drive in to Santa Elena?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”

  “How will you get back?”

  He gave her another strange look. “I’ll manage.”

  Melanie reached to turn on the ignition, then paused. “Can I ask you something?”

  He shrugged.

  “You said the man who saw me the other night is dead. You didn’t—”

  “A sniper took him out earlier today,” he said before she could finish.

  “I’m sorry,” Melanie said softly. “Was he a friend of yours?”

  “I don’t have any friends. And don’t be sorry. Death comes with the territory. We all know the risks.”

  Melanie paused, her attention arrested for a moment by the grim resolve in his voice. “Didn’t anyone notice the break-in at the infirmary?”

  “Angus Bond came in drunk that night. He passed out cold, and when he woke up the next morning, he assumed he’d broken the glass out of the medicine cabinet when he fell into it. And he had a nasty cut on his face to prove it.”

  “He didn’t miss the antibiotics?”

  “No, but it would have been a different story if you’d taken the morphine,” Lassiter said dryly. “So relax, okay? All the bases are covered.”

  His words seemed to confirm Melanie’s first impression of Angus Bond. He was an addict and had been for years.

  “Anything else you want to know?”

  She reached for the ignition. “There’s plenty I want to know. But I’ll save it until after you’ve had your drink.”

  THE ROAD TO Santa Elena was pitted with potholes and deep ruts left from the last rainy season. As they bounced along, Melanie was forced to give her undivided attention to her driving. Neither she nor Lassiter said another word until she pulled into Santa Elena thirty minutes later, and then he gave her directions to an out-of-the-way bar.

  The place was in a part of town Melanie had never seen before. The unpaved streets were narrow and dark and crowded with dilapidated bars and cantinas. It was the section of town where turistas were war
ned never to go.

  Melanie parked, and she and Lassiter got out to walk down a spooky little alley that opened onto another street only slightly less disreputable than the first.

  They entered a cantina, and the man behind the bar gave Lassiter a nod. “¿Qué pasa, mi amigo?” His gaze slid to Melanie and he grinned. “Ella no es su tipo usual, Lassiter. Su gusto mejora.”

  Lassiter said nothing as he led Melanie through a back door to the patio, but she had to wonder at the bartender’s comment. If she wasn’t Lassiter’s type, then who was? And how many other women had he brought to this joint?

  A few bleary-eyed patrons were scattered about the patio out back, but they paid scant attention to Melanie and Lassiter. It wasn’t the kind of place where people noticed strangers. Or asked questions. Everyone kept to themselves, which was undoubtedly why Lassiter had chosen it.

  They found a table in an isolated corner and sat down. A waitress with long black hair and a heavily made-up face ambled over to take their orders. When she leaned over the table, her breasts almost spilled out of the low-cut top she wore.

  “What can I get for you?” she asked Melanie in English.

  “Just a soft drink. It doesn’t matter what kind.”

  The waitress turned with a seductive smile for Lassiter. “¿Y para usted, señor?”

  “Tequila, por favor.”

  Her smile lingered knowingly as she turned and sashayed off. She walked as if she were on a runway, one red spike heel placed in front of the other to maximize the sway of her hips.

  Lassiter watched her until she was out of sight, then turned back to Melanie.

  She pretended not to notice his interest in the woman just as she refused to acknowledge the unpleasant taste in her mouth that might have been jealousy.

  Instead, she leaned toward him and asked almost angrily, “How do I know it wasn’t you in my room earlier?”