by B. J Daniels
“I understand this woman, Rose Garcia, got away?” Raymond asked.
Lorenzo nodded, looking sheepish. This, at least, appeared to be genuine. “She knew karate or some defense thing.”
“Where is your ex-wife?”
Lorenzo’s head jerked in obvious surprise. Raymond glimpsed panic in his eyes. “Why…what…why would you ask about Jenna?”
“Is there any reason she would leave town?”
Lorenzo blinked. “What makes you think she left town?”
Raymond said nothing.
Lorenzo’s eyes widened. He shifted in his chair. “You think she ran off with Franco?” He looked dazed by the idea. “Jenna and Franco? You think they’re together?”
The thought had never crossed Raymond’s mind. “I thought you found Franco’s girlfriend, this Rose Garcia woman.”
“I guess I was wrong,” Lorenzo said. “Jenna and Franco. Who would have known?”
Raymond tried to picture Jenna with Franco. Impossible. And yet Franco was gone with a bagful of money, and Jenna wasn’t answering her cell phone.
And yet what bothered him wasn’t how quickly Lorenzo had latched on to the idea but how he was taking it. Too calmly.
“That son of a bitch,” Lorenzo spat, as if it had just sunk in. Or he’d just realized his reaction wasn’t the right one. “I’m going to kill that bastard when I catch him.”
“Not until I get my money,” Raymond said, watching Lorenzo. This was all messed up. He couldn’t have been that wrong about Jenna. Franco wasn’t her type. But there had been a lot of money in that duffel. If Jenna had run off with Franco and the money, then it was out of desperation to get away from her ex-husband. Somehow this always seemed to come back to Lorenzo.
“I’ll take care of it,” Raymond told him. “I don’t want you involved.”
“But it’s my ex—”
“Yes, it’s your ex, exactly,” Raymond said, cutting him off. “That’s why I don’t want you involved.” He settled his gaze on Lorenzo. “You’d better hope this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“What?”
“If you’re behind what is going on—”
“What? I’m responsible for Franco as well as a woman who divorced me?” Lorenzo looked angry as well as offended. “I let her divorce me just like you told me to. I even let her take my kid. How could I have been nicer to her?”
Chapter Eight
Flannigan Investigations was in Ballard, just north of downtown Seattle.
Rose couldn’t help but wonder why Mike Flannigan’s call had been the last one Jenna Dante received.
Recalling that private investigator Mike Flannigan had once told her he usually ate at his desk, she’d waited until she saw his receptionist and partner both leave for lunch before she let herself into his office.
True to his word, he was sitting behind his desk eating what looked like a wrap.
“On that low-carb diet?” she asked, lounging against the doorjamb as she watched him almost choke on the bite he’d just taken.
“Rose?” he managed to croak after chewing and swallowing and quite possibly stalling for time to cover his initial startled reaction.
She didn’t date a lot. She never went home with a man on the first date. Mike had been the exception, and at the time she’d had her reasons.
That was three months ago. Destiny or not, she’d been trying to put it behind her ever since. Which would have been easy if that night hadn’t been wonderful. More than wonderful. And if Mike Flannigan hadn’t kept calling, trying to get her to go out with him.
Their one night together, she’d left right after he’d fallen asleep. Had called a cab from outside and gone home to her own bed. He’d phoned the next day. She’d thanked him, but made it clear it had been a one-night thing. He’d called again a few times, asked her to dinner, suggested maybe they could date, suggested the one night together had meant more than she wanted to admit. She’d been tempted. Oh God, had she been tempted.
“It’s been awhile,” he said now, tossing the wrap into its plastic container and leaning back in his chair.
She had the feeling she’d just ruined his lunch. “I need to know why Jenna Dante hired you.” It was a shot in the dark, but she saw she’d hit her target.
One brow shot up. Part of Mike Flannigan’s appeal was his sense of humor. That and his blond good looks.
“You really think I’m going to tell you?” he asked with a disbelieving grin as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
“Jenna’s in trouble. Her ex paid me a visit this morning. It seems his plan was to take me for a ride. Judging by the gun he was holding, I don’t think he planned to bring me back. He mentioned that he’d see both me and his ex in hell. She might already be dead for all I know. I’m hoping not. If she is still alive, I have to find her. Warn her.”
“Warn her?” Mike studied Rose for a moment, his expression serious. He let out a curse. “You tried to get her to turn state’s evidence and you think Lorenzo found out.” It wasn’t a question.
“She didn’t know enough about Lorenzo’s business, so I cut her loose.” Rose glanced away, unable to meet his eyes. If Lorenzo had found out, then he’d gotten the information from someone in the department. It was no secret that Lorenzo had some pull down there.
Mike swore again. “As if Jenna Dante wasn’t in enough trouble.” He sounded angry with Rose. No more than she was with herself. But it had been her job to get close to Jenna Dante, find out if she could help put Lorenzo away. Rose should have known the department would pull off the officer keeping tabs on Jenna.
Rose met Mike’s gaze, her chin going up as she straightened into her tough-gal cop persona. “We could do this the hard way. I could subpoena her file, have you thrown in jail if you don’t give it up….” She stepped closer and placed both hands on his desk, leaning toward him. She could smell the wrap. Turkey and Swiss with cream cheese, avocado, sprouts. She would never have taken Mike for a sprouts man. “If she’s still alive, I’m going to find her and help her. You going to make this easy for me?”
“I thought you were on medical leave,” he said. “Something about a stab wound?”
He’d been keeping track of her? “It healed. My official leave unofficially ended this morning with Lorenzo’s visit.”
Mike shook his head and leaned back, studying her. “Lorenzo took the kid. There’d been other times when he’d ‘forgotten’ to return her after visitations. The police department gave him a warning. The court ordered that all visitations be supervised. So he swiped the kid from her bed in the middle of the night. He didn’t even bother to hide. Just took the girl back to that estate where he and Jenna had lived together. He knew Jenna’s hands were tied. The cops had backed off. The courts really couldn’t protect her or her daughter. Not from a man like Lorenzo Dante. I offered to help her, but she wanted to do it on her own—”
It was Rose’s turn to shake her head. “On her own against a man like Lorenzo?” What the hell had Jenna been thinking? Did she really believe she was any kind of match for a man like him? “Have you heard from her?”
Mike frowned. “She told me she’d send me a check. That was yesterday, the last time I talked to her.”
“You should have gotten the money up front. I doubt the check is in the mail.” Sarcasm went with the job. “I went by her apartment. Looks as if she took off. Or didn’t return. Have any idea where she was going to go if she got her daughter back?”
He shook his head. “Run, I would imagine. If she got away. Otherwise…”
Otherwise she was dead. Rose studied Mike, wishing she could forget the night they’d spent together. She wondered if he remembered it the way she did. “If she calls, would you let me know?”
He rocked forward, his blue-eyed gaze locking with hers as he picked up a pen and notepad. “And you’ll let me know what you learn?”
She nodded and gave him her cell phone number. He wrote it down, tore off the s
heet of paper and folded it into a neat little square before sliding out his wallet and placing it inside.
When he finished, he settled his gaze on her as if waiting, letting her know he expected her to say something. Not about Jenna Dante. With their careers, they both dealt with the dark side of human nature on a daily basis.
Except Mike seemed to handle it better, seemed to find a way to distance himself from that part of his life—compartmentalize it so he could have more. That more, he’d told her, was a meaningful relationship based on love and friendship and hope.
Mike Flannigan thought he could have taught her how to make the two work, but she’d never given him the chance.
“I wish I’d gone out with you again, okay?” she said. “That night was—” she waved her hand through the air, meeting his gaze “—amazing.”
He smiled as if that’s all he’d been waiting to hear and, picking up his turkey-cheese wrap, leaned back in his chair.
She grinned at him, seeing that he knew how hard that had been for her to admit. “Thanks for the help.”
“Good luck, Rose.”
She would need more than luck and they both knew it. “You have my number.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I do, don’t I.”
JENNA LOUNGED IN THE wonderfully hot water as her daughter splashed in the shallows next to her. The outdoor pools were just as Elmer had said: enchanting. Carved out among the rocks and trees, they wound like a creek along the edge of the mountainside, providing a natural landscape and at the same time intimacy.
Jenna tried to relax in the hot water, pushing away thoughts of her dream. She had more to worry about than some man in an old photograph or the thought that she was losing her mind. The duffel bag full of money in her room felt like a noose around her neck. She had to get it back to Lorenzo. She wasn’t naive enough to think she could use it to buy her freedom. But she knew that Lorenzo was moving heaven and earth right now to find her, more so because of that stupid bag of money.
She had thought about calling him and telling him where he could pick it up. That was before she got trapped here.
No, she decided, it would be better for Lorenzo to pick up the money at her apartment. She didn’t want him knowing which direction she’d headed. With luck she wouldn’t leave a trail he could follow—once she got him back the money.
“Look, Mommy!” Lexi called as she dipped her head under the water.
Jenna watched her through the steam, smiling and offering words of encouragement. All the time her mind was racing. Who could she trust to take the money to the apartment?
Only two people came to mind. She hated to ask either of them, afraid to involve them in her life—or worse, Lorenzo’s. But if she did this right, Lorenzo would never know who’d put the cash in her apartment for him.
Once the money was on the way to her apartment, she could call him and tell him where to pick it up. He must be going crazy. He’d been too close to crazy as it was. Little things often set him off. This, she feared, was monumental.
Whatever she did, she had to make sure that Lexi was protected.
Lexi waved at someone at one of the other pools behind Jenna. Jenna feared it would be the imaginary woman in the purple plumed hat.
Bracing herself, she turned to look through the steam. She didn’t see anyone. Nothing new there. That awful feeling began to settle in the pit of her stomach. “Who were you waving to?” she asked, fighting to keep the growing fear out of her voice.
“That man.”
“Elmer. The nice man who gave us the room?”
Lexi shook her head. “The one with the funny hair on his lip.”
Jenna’s heart began to pound. “A man with a mustache?”
Lexi nodded and Jenna turned to look in the direction of the other pool, where Lexi had been gazing. “I don’t see anyone.” Her voice broke. “Is he still there?” she asked in a hoarse, scared whisper.
Lexi shook her head. “He’s gone. I guess he didn’t want you to see him.”
Jenna couldn’t breathe. “What do you mean?”
Lexi shrugged and bobbed up and down in the water, clearly losing interest in the conversation.
Fear compressed Jenna’s chest, making it hard to catch her breath, let alone talk. “What did the man look like?”
Her daughter sighed, scrunching her face up in thought. She’d always been dramatic, using her hands and a variety of facial expressions when she talked. Now she let out a big sigh.
“Mommy,” she said, throwing her arms wide, “he just looked like a man.” She frowned as if she’d thought of something. “He was wearing funny clothes and his hair was wet.”
“Wet?” Jenna thought of the photograph of the man in the tuxedo. His hair was oiled and combed straight back.
Lexi ducked under the water again, and despite the warmth of the hot springs, Jenna shivered. It wasn’t possible that Lexi had seen the man.
They had to get out of this place. Get the money to Lorenzo. Then she would take Lexi as far from here as possible.
“Did you see me go all the way to the bottom?” Lexi asked, bobbing up again.
“I saw,” Jenna managed to say.
“Wanna see me swim?” Lexi didn’t wait for an answer. She took off, paddling wildly, sending spray in all directions, then stopped to grin back at her mother. “Did you see?”
Jenna nodded and smiled, her heart a hammer. She tried to convince herself that she shouldn’t be scared, that this was only a very imaginative, bright little girl. But she remembered how Lexi used to scare Lorenzo by seeming old for her age—and wise beyond her years.
Her preschool teachers said she was gifted.
Or maybe she just has the gift.
“Lexi, it’s time to go.” Upset and shaking, Jenna started to get out of the pool.
“No, not yet, Mommy!”
Weak from the hot water and her fears, Jenna let herself slip back into the water. “A few more minutes, but then no arguments, agreed?”
Lexi grudgingly nodded.
Jenna sank neck deep in the water, feeling cold now. Why had she thought these pools, this place, at all enchanting?
HARRY BALLANTINE WATCHED Jenna and her daughter through the steam rising off the pool, shaken.
The little girl had seen him. How was that possible? No one had seen him in seventy years. He’d been in a vaporous limbo, drifting in the wind. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Until the woman and child had arrived last night from out of the rain and darkness and he’d gone to the window. Was it possible the woman had seen him, too? She’d looked up as if knowing he was there.
My God, it was the first time anyone had seen him—let alone felt his touch. Did he dare hope?
He moved toward the pools, half-afraid.
The woman was in a deeper end of a pool, not far from her daughter. Her eyes were closed, but he could tell she was listening to the little girl chattering away to herself nearby.
He watched the woman brush a strand of dark hair back from her face. She really was lovely. High cheekbones, porcelain smooth skin, dark fringed lashes. There was an innocence about her that pulled at something deep within him.
You are beautiful, Jenna.
She stirred, her eyes coming open as if she’d heard him.
Can you hear me?
Her dark eyes widened and she looked around.
My God, she could hear him.
Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.
He was so close now that he could see she was trembling.
Remember last night?
The pulse at her throat began to pound. She reached for the side of the pool as she tried to find bottom.
“Lexi, we have to go now.” Her words came out choked with fear.
No, please don’t leave.
“Mommy, it’s not time. You said we could stay for a little while longer,” Lexi cried. “Please, just a few more minutes. Please.”
He touched Jenna’s shoulder and she froze, eyes wide
with terror—and something else he recognized. Need.
SHE WAS LOSING HER MIND.
I’m here. It’s all right.
She let out the breath she’d been holding. It came with a sob, and she dropped back into the water, suddenly too weak to pull herself out.
His voice was velvet. And familiar. She’d heard it last night in her dreams and had known it was the voice of the man in the old photograph.
She stared into the steam rising from the surface of the pool, knowing no one was out there and yet at the same time bracing herself for his touch, yearning for it, feeling terrified that, like the voice, it would be familiar.
“I can’t…” She tried to climb out of the pool, but something pulled her back down.
You don’t have to go yet.
She felt hysterical laughter bubbling up. “This isn’t happening.”
Yes, it is.
She sucked in a breath as she felt him pull her back down to him. She closed her eyes, telling herself this wasn’t real. But it felt more real than anything she’d ever experienced.
“Tell me I’m not losing my mind,” she whispered.
You’re not. I’m here.
Her body revved up like an engine taking off. “If you knew what I was thinking…”
She heard a soft chuckle. Don’t I?
She could feel him under the water, his touch cool. Familiar.
Sometimes things are exactly as they seem.
She shook her head, unable to accept that this was happening. How could she have feelings toward…what? A man from a seventy-year-old photograph? Or something else?
“Who are you?” she whispered, feeling tears well in her eyes as she pulled free of him. “What are you?”
You know me.
“No.” She didn’t know him. But she sensed things about him. Both good—and bad.
“Mommy, look!” Lexi called, breaking the spell.
Jenna jerked free and reached for the side of the pool. In an instant she had pulled herself out. “Lexi, come on. We have to go. Now.”
From the shallow end of the pool the little girl started to protest, but Jenna hurried toward her, drawing her out. Holding her hand, she moved quickly to their towels.
