Less than a month after Celie had graduated from Rules of Engagement, Cal finally popped the question. Tasha didn’t believe the timing was coincidental.
So here they were, standing in the sweltering June heat, toasting the happy couple who, in less than a week, would be flying down to Costa Playa, an even more sweltering Latin American country. There, they’d tie the knot standing next to some roaring waterfall or while rafting down a raging river.
Tasha shook her head and took another sip of champagne. Celie may have been successful at getting Cal to propose, but she - wasn’t having much luck convincing her fiancé that she’d prefer a more traditional wedding ceremony.
Not that Tasha thought her sister had really tried. She was too happy at the prospect of finally being asked to become Mrs. Calvin Jones to raise much of a fuss. Celie had always been that way—content to go along with other people’s plans in order to avoid confrontation.
Which was why—despite the fact that she was right in the middle of a potentially career-making story as an investigative reporter at Weekly Headline News—Tasha was accompanying Celie and Cal to the godforsaken Latin American jungle. She planned to make sure her baby sister at least had some of the things that were important to her. Like a pretty wedding dress and gorgeous flowers. Not to mention professional photos and a blowout bachelorette party. All things that Cal, and the questionable wedding planner he’d hired down in Costa Playa, would no doubt forget.
What kind of man planned weddings for a living anyway?
Celie had actually giggled when she told Tasha about Quinn Hayes, who worked for a wedding planning company called Extreme I Do. According to the company’s website, their wedding planners specialized in putting together ceremonies for couples who were looking for something nontraditional. Like jumping out of a helicopter and skiing down the side of a treacherous mountain-side before meeting up with your friends and family to exchange vows in some picturesque hamlet in the Alps. Or white-water rafting down a Class V river in the Congo and then tying the knot while lions stalked the zebra grazing in the background.
Wasn’t marriage itself frightening enough?
“He was investigated in the disappearance of Matthew and Julia Martin five years ago. It’s rumored that he was the last one to see them alive,” Lillian Bryson announced matter-of-factly.
“What?” Tasha’s champagne sloshed over the rim of her glass as she jerked it away from her lips.
“Yes, I know. It’s shocking, isn’t it?” Lillian clucked her tongue like a disapproving mother at a misbehaving child. “Two of the biggest stars of our time, gone just like that. Mr. Hayes told police the couple wandered off for a moonlight swim, despite his repeated warnings that the river was full of crocodiles, sharks, and snakes. Not to mention human predators. Of course, the authorities - weren’t so quick to believe his story. It was said that the Martins were carrying quite a lot of cash on their honeymoon—cash that has never been recovered, I might add.”
“Does Celie know about this?” Tasha asked, frowning at her sister, who seemed oblivious to anything but her fiancé.
“She thinks it’ll add an air of excitement to the wedding,” Lillian answered.
That sounded like Celie. She was entirely too trusting.
Good thing Tasha wasn’t. Now there was an even better reason for her to accompany her baby sister and her soon-to-be brother-in-law down to Costa Playa. Someone had to watch over them, to make sure their wedding went off without a hitch and see that they made it back home safely. And if that meant that Tasha had to shadow their every move, then that was what she’d do.
In the meantime, she had a week to check Quinn Hayes’s background. If he’d had anything to do with the Martins’ disappearance, Tasha would find out about it.
Because if there was one thing she was good at, it was uncovering the truth.
With a preoccupied “nice to meet you” to Lillian Bryson, Tasha wandered over to a stone bench and sat down. She pulled a pen out of her tiny purse and set her champagne down next to her as she started making notes to herself on her cocktail napkin. First, she’d call the Extreme I Do office and see if they’d give her any information about their employee. If not, she had a contact in law enforcement who might be able to help. It would help if she could find out whether or not Mr. Hayes was (or had ever been) a U.S. citizen. With his Social Security number, there were numerous sources she - could use to find out where he’d been born, where’d he’d gone to school, get his work and credit history, check out news sources, and on and on.
Gazing absently across the lawn at her sister, Tasha chewed on the end of her pen as she continued to make a mental list of things to do. And, because she was more focused on getting to the bottom of this mystery than on what was happening right in front of her, she missed the knowing wink and thumbs-up sign Lillian Bryson exchanged with the glowing bride-to-be.
CHAPTER ONE
“This last leg of our journey is the most treacherous.”
Tasha gripped the thick cable overhead and silently cursed their cheerful guide. Already, they’d hiked ten miles into the hot, thick jungle and forded a rain-swollen river rumored to be full of bull sharks, man-eating crocodiles, and bushmaster snakes. She’d nearly bitten her own tongue off in fright half an hour earlier when a deadly tree frog leaped from out of nowhere and landed on the top of her head.
And now their journey was getting treacherous?
What was next? Cannibals? Man-eating anacondas?
No. What was next was to let go of the cable and trust the flimsy harness she was sitting in to hold her weight as she went flying above the canopy of trees, hundreds of feet above the ground.
She suddenly wished that she’d stayed back in San Pedro with Cal, who had elected to remain at the airport to wait for their luggage, which had been misrouted to Nicaragua, according to the airline’s surly lost baggage department employee.
“I don’t know why you couldn’t have a normal wedding,” Tasha grumbled, swiping at a bead of sweat before it dripped into her eyes.
Next to her, Celie seemed perfectly comfortable on the five-by-five wooden platform surrounding a strangler fig, but Tasha kept a tight hold on the cable she was clipped to as she stood on the warm planks. If one of the boards had rotted through, she’d free-fall for ten stories before landing on the jungle floor with a sickening whump.
“Be careful,” Tasha warned as Celie stepped away from the solid tree trunk. “If these boards haven’t been properly treated, there could be a microscopic layer of moss growing on them that will make them slick.”
This was one of the downsides of being an investigative reporter. You learned the hard way that bad things happen, mostly because - people were greedy or lazy or downright evil, but sometimes just because someone didn’t do the job they were supposed to do.
“Isn’t it beautiful up here?” Celie, who clearly shared none of her big sister’s qualms, spun in a slow circle, taking in the scene around them.
From up here, the canopy looked more like a thick carpet of grass than the leaves of trees whose branches intertwined until it was difficult to tell where one ended and another began. Brightly colored birds flew above the canopy, some gliding effortlessly - toward some unknown destination and others diving back into the trees as they spotted supper. Tasha just hoped they knew how to get out of the way when the humans clipped to the zip line came zooming their way. She didn’t even want to imagine the mess it would make if she slammed into a giant toucan or one of the pretty blue quetzals they’d seen earlier in the day.
Tasha looked down—waaaay down—to where their journey would finally end. They’d reach the final platform after zooming past a roaring waterfall that plunged more than one hundred feet to a bottomless pool below.
But first, she had to loosen her death grip on the cable, sit back in the sling, lift up her feet and let herself go.
Tasha shivered.
She was so not ready to do this.
“Come on, Tasha. Al
l the amenities of a five-star hotel await you at the end of the line,” Celie urged as she clipped her own harness to the cable and, without another thought, pushed off the edge of the platform and went flying above the treetops.
Tasha’s eyes narrowed on her sister’s retreating back. In addition to a hot meal and an even hotter shower, something even more important would be waiting for her at the end of the line. Quinn Hayes. The man police still believed had played a key role in the disappearance of Matthew and Julia Martin five years ago. But they didn’t have enough evidence to hold him, so he’d escaped back to Latin America and, from everything that Tasha had discovered, was now enjoying a prosperous life here in the jungle—a prosperous life that had begun soon after the Martins vanished.
Another troubling thing that Tasha had found was that rumors of white slavery ran rampant in this part of the world—from vacationers disappearing without a trace to orphans grabbed off the streets and never heard from again. Costa Playa, a small country located near the Colombian border, touted itself as a haven for ecotourism—a safe place for travelers wishing to see the tropics in their most pure form—but despite the maniacally cheery PR efforts, the rumors persisted. It didn’t help that two of America’s top stars had disappeared from this very jungle five years ago.
“Time to go, miss.” The cheerful guide interrupted her thoughts by prying Tasha’s gloved hand from the cable and nudging her none too gently with his shoulder.
Tasha’s arms flailed as she lost her balance and tripped over the edge of the platform, her feet whirling in a desperate attempt to get back to safety. As if in slow motion, she felt herself falling through the air, the tree tops rushing up toward her until she was jerked back by the line clipped to the cable overheard.
The sling was set so that the rider could spin around to get a full view of the jungle; Tasha’s wild thrashing only made her spin faster as she tried to regain her bearings.
“Just relax!” she heard her sister shout from up ahead as she picked up speed.
Easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one dangling upside down a hundred feet from the ground.
Tasha wished she’d spent a few more minutes of her time at the gym doing crunches as she tried to grab the line at her waist and pull herself up into a sitting position. She’d recently seen a Cirque du Soleil performance where the acrobats were suspended from the ceiling by drapes of red cloth tied around their waists. They spun faster and faster and then let go of the end of the drape, stopping only inches from the floor.
Tasha now knew how they’d felt.
Splashes of color flashed in and out of her peripheral vision as she waved her arms and legs wildly in an attempt to slow down. With a mighty effort, she finally managed to grab hold of the line and pull herself up. After wrapping her arms protectively around the cable, she glanced up to see that Celie was waving her own arms in the air. It only took her a moment to realize that her sister must have somehow lost the thick leather gloves she’d been given at the beginning of their journey. The only way to slow down was to grab the cable overhead, and Celie would need the gloves to protect her hands from being shredded by the thick wire. Without the gloves, her sister’s hands would be toast. Or, rather, hamburger.
Tasha grimaced and relaxed her grip on the cable, leaning forward in an effort to gather speed. If she could catch up to Celie, she could toss her one of her gloves.
Only when she looked up again, her sister seemed to be rushing toward the final platform at alarming speed.
Tasha squinted toward the landing pad. Surely there had to be something on the end of the cable that would stop anyone from flying off it at the end? But what if the force of Celie crashing into it at top speed broke it? Tasha couldn’t see any sort of pad or bumper that would cushion Celie’s fall if she went careening off the end of the cable.
And that meant Celie would spend her honeymoon in a body cast. That is, if there was even qualified medical care nearby that - could patch her up after such an accident.
Which, from the . . . er, rustic state of the airport they’d flown into that morning, Tasha doubted.
Tasha knew she had no choice. She had to protect her little sister, even if it meant endangering herself to do it.
So she let go of the line and closed her eyes as the wind whipped her hair across her face.
She had to catch up with the runaway cable car and save her sister.
“All we can do is hope for the best.”
Quinn Hayes surveyed the motley band of human cargo that had been delivered to him moments ago before turning his attention back to the young woman standing beside him. “That’s your plan?” he asked. “Just hope for the best?”
Olivia dePalma folded her hands together in front of her, as serene as the reflection pool in the hotel’s grand open-air lobby—a lobby that would soon be filled with American tourists who would surely wonder what these tired, dirty peasants were doing here aside from ruining the ambience.
“You’ll figure something out,” Olivia said.
Quinn looked over at the group again. There were more than two dozen of them this time, when he’d only been expecting half as many. Not to mention that his contact had promised delivery of this latest “shipment” next week. Quinn had cleared his schedule, making certain that no happy couple’s impending nuptials would interfere while he went about getting this latest ragtag band of workers settled into their new lives.
He should have known Rafe would do this to him. Their profits increased with each new worker, and Rafe never could turn his back on an extra buck. And getting them here faster meant that Quinn could get them to work quicker, which meant even more money in Rafe’s—and Quinn’s—pocket.
So he supposed he shouldn’t complain.
But, still, they couldn’t have arrived at a worse time.
“I don’t suppose there are any empty rooms in the employee quarters where they can stay until the Americans are gone?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“No. We’re running at nearly one hundred percent capacity this week, and that means all available rooms are being taken up by guests or staff.”
Quinn sighed. “We’ll have to set them up in a ballroom temporarily, then. But we need to make sure they stay out of sight until I can get them out of here.”
“How are we going to do that? They’re going to need access to a washroom,” Olivia said, raising one perfectly arched black eyebrow and giving Quinn the impression that she was secretly laughing at him.
“And here I thought that your plan of hoping for the best would take care of everything,” Quinn couldn’t help but toss back.
Olivia merely continued watching him calmly.
After a moment of silence, Quinn gave up. Olivia was efficient and loyal, but she always left this sort of mess to him.
Which he supposed was just as well. He had learned long ago that you could only rely on yourself anyway.
“All right. Ask the staff to see if they can rustle up some extra uniforms. No one is to leave that ballroom without a uniform on, and only then to use the restroom. If they’re asked for something by any of the guests, tell them to pretend they don’t speak the language.”
“Anything else?”
There went that eyebrow again.
Quinn shot Olivia a look that he knew many would consider dangerous. Olivia, however, was not cowed. She never was.
“No. Just get them out of here as quickly as you can,” he answered with a nod toward the eerily silent group huddled in the lobby like a herd of frightened sheep. “I’m going to call the mine and see if I can get someone to pick them up tonight, but we’re going to have to do what we can to keep them out of sight of the guests until help arrives.”
A quick smile dashed across Olivia’s mouth, coming and going so fast that Quinn wondered if he’d imagined it. That is, until she murmured under her breath, “And hope for the best.”
Quinn snorted. Yeah. Like that had ever worked.
But he didn’t say what h
e was thinking. Instead, he dug his cell phone out of his pocket and turned toward the lobby. The cargo—he tried not to think of them as individuals; they wouldn’t be around long enough for him to get attached—stood in quiet bunches of four or five, their sad, dark eyes all trained warily on him as if they half-expected him to go on a rampage and start beating them at any minute. Quinn had had enough experience to know that that sort of treatment wouldn’t come as much of a surprise to them.
He blinked to cover a cringe when a girl who couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen reached out to clutch the ragged, dirty shirt-tail of the woman standing next to her. The fear was easy enough to read on her face, although she kept her shoulders straight and refused to lower her eyes.
Good for her.
Quinn turned back to Olivia after running a frustrated hand through his hair. “Take them down to the kitchen and have Javier feed them first, will you? I don’t need them passing out in the lobby before I can make arrangements to get rid of them.”
Olivia’s lips twitched again, but she didn’t do anything more than nod obediently.
Quinn started outside with his cell phone in hand, the sound of his footsteps echoing on the tile floor as he walked. He did not need this distraction right now, not with a wedding in two days that would pay twice as much as he’d make after delivering this “shipment” to the mine. The sad fact was, human life in this part of the world was cheap. Men, women, children—none carried much value around here except as symbols of power; a painful lesson Quinn had learned more than a decade ago and would never forget.
Catch of the Day Page 17
