Lethal Lover
Laura Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With love, to my husband Gordon, for believing in me and my dreams.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

“Hey, Mac! It’s me, Charlie. Pick up the phone! Wake up, Mac. All hell’s broke lose out here!”

Reed McKenna swore softly under his breath and reached across the darkness and the pretty blond woman lying next to him to grab the phone.

“I’m here, Charlie,” he said, bracing himself for the news he’d been half expecting and half dreading for the past week, ever since Andy Dianetti turned state’s witness.

“They got him, Mac. Dianetti’s dead.”

Reed shifted the cordless receiver to his other ear as the implications of Charlie’s grim pronouncement washed over him like tainted water. “When did it happen?” The glowing green digits on his clock radio read 3:29.

“About fifteen minutes ago.” The sirens Reed heard wailing in the background were no match for Charlie Franklin’s booming baritone. “The firemen found pieces of the car two blocks away. It isn’t a pretty sight down here, Mac.”

“It never is.” Reed clicked on the reading lamp and fumbled with a pack of gum. He hadn’t had a cigarette in almost three weeks, but his craving for that nicotine rush seemed more intense than ever. His jaws ached from chewing gum and his tongue felt raw from sucking Life Savers. “Anyone else hurt?” he asked.

The blonde stirred beside him, but didn’t open her eyes.

“The officer who was escorting Dianetti is still alive. Poor bastard. They don’t think he’ll make it through the night.” Charlie hesitated before adding, “I just heard they’ve found the kid and will be taking her into custody tonight.”

A feeling of raw discomfort landed in the pit of Reed’s stomach as he stared into the wintry darkness beyond his bedroom window. When he and his companion had come in around midnight it had been snowing; now all he could see when he stared at the glass was his own reflection staring back—dark-haired, dark-eyed, a shadowy silhouette of a man whose heart felt as empty and cold as the night. “And just who was responsible for that brilliant decision?” Reed asked, his tone caustic.

“We have to have the bookkeeper’s testimony, Mac. With Andy Dianetti dead, Morrell will walk out of that courtroom free as air if we don’t bring her in.”

“Then go get her.” Reed’s suggestion was flatly unsympathetic. “Why drag an innocent kid into the middle of it?”

“If it was that easy,” Charlie grumbled, “we wouldn’t be calling you and you know it.”

Reed scooted to a sitting position, leaning his bare back against the brass headboard. “Just why did you call me?” he demanded. “You’ve got your leverage, use it.”

“And take a chance on the media finding out we used the child to blackmail her mother into testifying? That kind of damage would be beyond control. The press would eat us alive!”

Reed could think of worse things. “So what do they want from me? Spell it out, Charlie.” He draped his free arm over the woman sleeping beside him. Her skin felt warm and reassuringly alive beneath his hand.

“They want you to bring her in—quietly. No international incidents. Just one civilian to another. Convince her to cooperate, Mac.”

Reed ran a hand through his hair. “We’ve had this conversation before, remember? You told me your guys had it covered.”

“Yeah, but that was before Dianetti got himself blown to kingdom come. The stakes just got higher.”

“As did my rates.”

While Charlie swore, Reed held the phone a few inches from his ear.

“How much?” Charlie asked finally.

“Twice my regular rate,” Reed replied, completely refocused on the business at hand. “And since I’ll be traveling, my per diem expenses will double, as well.”

“Twice!” Charlie exploded. “Think what the hell you’re doing to me, Mac! You know what kind of hoops I’ll have to jump through to get that kind of money?”

“Like I’ve told you before—”

“I know, I know. It’s not your problem.” Charlie sounded exasperated; his ulcer was probably raging again. Too bad, Reed thought. He had no quarrel with Charlie Franklin. The problem lay with his superiors, those white-collared hypocrites on the Hill who demanded results, but kept their own hands lily-white.

He’d worked for them in the past—on both sides of a badge. And he’d work with them now. With luck, this would be the last time.

“Fifteen thousand up front,” Reed stated plainly. The kind of answers that could cost a man his life didn’t come cheap. “Two hundred thousand on delivery.” It was an outrageous demand, but one he knew they’d meet. They wanted the witness, wanted her badly enough to turn Uncle Sam into a kidnapper.

What he didn’t know was if two hundred thousand would be enough to give him a fresh start away from the rotten business that he’d become so damn good at. He could only hope so.

“You’re crazy, Mac,” Charlie grumbled.

“And you’re desperate,” Reed countered. “Two hundred thousand,” he said again. “Cash on delivery. And I want your leverage turned over to me, as well.”

Charlie gasped. “The kid! You want the kid? You can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious.” His sudden and impulsive demand surprised him even more than it had surprised Charlie. It wasn’t often that Reed McKenna acted irrationally, but the passion that had risen up and prompted him to do so now was as strong as any force he’d felt in a long, long time. “You heard me, Charlie.”

“But what the hell for?”

For Sean, his mind whispered. Reed glanced again at the woman beside him to be sure she was sleeping before he said, “Listen, Charlie, Morrell’s bookkeeper has outsmarted your guys for six months, and she’s walked a narrow line for a hell of a lot longer than that. She’s made half a dozen trips out of the country just this year and she’s probably stashed away enough money to support herself into old age. You’ve admitted yourself that if you had enough to indict her, you wouldn’t be calling me. And after what’s happened to Dianetti, I need a bargaining chip every bit as much as you do.”

“But the kid—you’d really use the kid?”

“And just what the hell were you guys planning to do?”

“Well, we...” Charlie sputtered. “That is, they’ve already picked her up for security reasons...to protect her, I guess.”

Reed had heard it before, almost the same words, the night they’d taken Sean away from the old man. He hadn’t known enough to distrust the system back then and it had cost him his brother. But he knew better now. One dead child was enough for any man to carry on his conscience.

“So you’re saying she’s safer where she is than with me?”

“Hell, yes!”

“Can you guarantee that, Charlie?”

The older man’s sigh was weary. “All right, Mac, I admit I don’t know how it will all work out, but I do know these people are set up for kids. They’ve got homes, you know?”

He knew.

“And people, experts who know how to deal with things like this. Come on, Mac. Forget the kid, will ya? She’ll be safe.”

“Tell that to Dianetti, you son of a bitch,” Reed growled, slamming the phone down, half choking on the unexpected surge of anger Charlie’s indifference had provoked.

The phone rang again almost immediately. Reed grabbed it on the second ring, but didn’t bother to say hello.

“It’s gonna take time,” Charlie’s tone seemed resigned. “It’s a lot of money and getting temporary custody of the kid transferred to you won’t be easy.”

Reed wasn’t in the mood for bureaucratic excuses. “One hour,” he said simply.

“One hour!” the older man exploded. “Damn it, man! It would take a presidential order to get things moving that fast.”

“Then I suggest you call him,” Reed replied, reminding himself that time was something he didn’t have to waste.

He’d begun researching the situation a week ago, just in case he was called. Pulling in every marker owed him, he’d been able to learn where the bookkeeper was headed; it was invaluable information that would at least assure him a head start.

But it was a fragile lead at best. With Dianetti out of the picture, Reed knew he’d be only one of many stalking Edward Morrell’s elusive bookkeeper. True, Reed had had an edge in tracking her, a personal connection he hoped to hell Morrell would never discover. Nevertheless, if he’d been able to discover her plans in less than a week, it wouldn’t take the other side much longer.

Even now he felt the clock pushing him. In the last five minutes, getting the bookkeeper’s kid safely out of the country had suddenly become Reed’s top priority. Then he’d worry about finding the bookkeeper, convincing her to come back to the States and keeping her alive to testify.

And as if that wasn’t enough, there in the background was Tess. How did life get so tangled? Thoughts of Tess, of the fire storm into which she was unwittingly walking made his pulse race as if a time bomb were already ticking.

“You have my terms,” he reminded Charlie. “One hour,” he muttered again into the receiver and imagined the sweat beading on the older man’s forehead.

“You’re one cold S.O.B., anybody ever tell you that, Mac?”

Reed allowed himself a grim smile. “Yeah, once or twice.” He stabbed the disconnect button and looked up to see the blonde’s pale blue eyes open and staring up at him. “Time to go home, Cinderella,” he said as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

“But—”

“No buts, babe. I have work to do.” He grabbed his jeans and pulled them on, wondering how long it would take him to put together a traveling nursery. The kid. He’d demanded temporary custody of the kid. He almost couldn’t believe it himself.

“Work?” the blonde grumbled as she sat up and reached for her scattered clothes. “What kind of job calls you out in the middle of the night?”

Reed ignored her question; to explain himself to a woman he’d known less than five hours seemed pointless.

After she’d called for a taxi, she sat down on the bed and tugged on her knee-high boots. Reed grabbed his duffel bag out of the closet and proceeded to pack.

“Hey, you’re leaving town, aren’t you?”

“It looks that way.” Funny, Reed thought, she hadn’t seemed the talkative type a few hours ago.

“Will I see you again when you get back? Will you call me?” Her voice was smoky and her breath smelled faintly of the scotch they’d both consumed in ample quantities at the bar where they’d met earlier in the evening.

“Maybe.”

“Well, you’ve got my number. Maybe I’ll see you at Duffy’s again. A bunch of us usually hang out there on Fridays after work.”

Reed merely smiled and nodded as he finished packing. When he reached past her to withdraw the .38 semiautomatic he kept taped behind the headboard, her eyes widened.

She watched as Reed slipped it into an interior pocket of his favorite leather jacket. Newly impressed by the dangerous-looking man before her, she asked, “So tell me, Mac, where are you going in the middle of the night in such a hurry?”

Unbidden, a voice from his past came back to answer. “I’m headed to hell, babe,” he said. “Like my old man always said, ‘straight to hell on a fast train.’”

And if Edward Morrell didn’t get to him first, Reed told himself, Tess Elliot would be only too happy to punch his ticket.

Chapter Two

The waiter who showed Tess and Selena Elliot across the open-air dining room was a tall, handsome young man with a perfect tan and light brown hair naturally streaked by the sun. Taking in his all-American looks, Tess would have thought him more at home in Southern California than Grand Cayman.

But when he spoke, his English was seasoned with that unique, melodic Caribbean accent that Tess found charming, and she realized that he must be a native. His uniform was the loose-fitting, multicolored shirt and white canvas trousers that all the West Palm staff members wore.

“Well, what do you think of paradise so far?” Selena asked. “Aren’t you glad you came?” Her cousin’s blue eyes, so similar in hue and shape to Tess’s own, were bright as she sat down in the chair the waiter pulled out for her.

“You were right, Selena, everything here is sheer heaven.” Tess leaned back in her chair and inhaled the pure ocean air and scanned the magnificent view from their balcony table. “Everything is exactly as you said it would be.”

Selena beamed. “Rum punch for both of us. West Palm has the best rum punch on the island,” she informed Tess when their waiter had left.

Tess rolled her eyes and smiled. “Well, if it packs the same wallop as the two I had on the plane, I think we’d better order dinner soon.”

“Oh, come on, chicken,” Selena teased. “It’s only a little past three. Besides, when you’re on vacation it’s always cocktail hour!” Her smile was mischievous. “Let yourself go, Tess. Or, as they say on the island, don’t worry, be happy!”

Tess laughed and took another deep breath of the naturally perfumed air as she wondered how anyone could help but relax when immersed in such an idyllic environment. The scene beyond the balcony was a living postcard of sugar white sands and sparkling, sapphire water. Overhead was an endless expanse of cloudless blue. In the distance, small fishing boats drifted and bobbed aimlessly on the shimmering sea.

A dozen tourists basked in the afternoon sun on folding chairs and bright beach towels at the water’s edge. Laughter from a group of bikini-clad teenagers playing volleyball mingled with the rhythmic beat of Caribbean music drifting from the bar at the opposite end of the dining room.

“Ah, here we are,” Selena exclaimed, and Tess turned to see their waiter returning with two huge glasses frosted and filled to the rim with the same sparkling, red concoction that the Cayman Airlines flight attendants had served nonstop during the hour-and-a-half flight from Miami.

The waiter offered menus, but Selena waved them away. “We’ll order later. Right now, we’re celebrating.”

Tess felt like giggling; Selena’s expansive mood was contagious. “Selena, I never knew you to be...well, so much fun. If this is a preview of things to come, this trip will be one I won’t soon forget.”

Selena arched one thin, dark brown brow and leaned across the table, fixing her gaze on her younger cousin. “Okay, so maybe the next time I ask you to join me on vacation, you won’t be so hard to convince?”

“I was a bit difficult, wasn’t I?” Tess admitted sheepishly. To say that she’d been stunned when Selena had first mentioned their joint excursion to Grand Cayman, would have been an understatement. Flabbergasted was a more apt description of how she’d reacted when Selena had called a month ago with the idea of a holiday for the two of them.

Initially, Tess had refused her cousin’s offer outright. The small bookstore she owned and managed in Evergreen, Colorado was in its infancy; every penny that came in was still being turned back into the business it had taken Tess two years to launch.

But when Selena had explained that she’d won the trip as a reward from her company and that the prize entitled her to bring a guest, Tess had reconsidered.

“It’s a pathetic state of affairs for a red-blooded woman of thirty-two, but I have to admit it—I have no significant other,” Selena had quipped. “Seriously, I think this trip would do us both good. Mom and Dad would have been so pleased to see us off together on a romp.” At the mention of her recently deceased aunt and uncle, Tess had begun to cave in.

When Selena tapped her hand, Tess started. “Earth to Tess, come in, cousin,” she teased. “All right. Now that I have your attention, I want to propose a toast. To family.”

Tess raised her glass to Selena’s. “To Phil and Marjorie.”

Selena nodded, her bright expression dimming. “Yes, to my parents. They always wanted us to be friends, especially Mom. Remember?”

Tess did remember, and not without a twinge of regret. “I guess we let them down, didn’t we?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Selena admitted. “I was the brat who couldn’t share. Never could.”

“Selena, don’t—”

“No, no, I admit it.” Her gaze fell away from Tess’s and focused on the glass she held with both hands. “I can still remember the night my parents called me at school to tell me what had happened to your mom and dad and Meredith.... Mom could hardly talk she was so devastated. She and her sister had been best friends. And I was devastated, as well. But mainly because I knew it meant you’d be coming to live with us.” Selena’s expression was distant for a moment. “Frankly, I hated you then,” she admitted and lifted her glass to drink deeply.

Selena’s frank admission caused Tess to wince, but more painful by far was the memory of the accident that had claimed her family.

“Selena, please...let’s don’t go on with this.”

“You were so pretty, so sweet and so, oh, I don’t know—so everything I wasn’t. Good grades, a natural athlete, popular. I was the struggling business major with the student loan. You were the bright-eyed freshman, the one with the full scholarship. At the time, C.U. didn’t seem big enough for the two of us.”

Tess reached across the table and covered Selena’s hand with her own. “Please stop, Selena. What’s past is past.” A past too painful to look back at, Tess finished to herself.

“You know, except for funerals, we’ve hardly seen each other in the last six years. And now, here I go spoiling our vacation by behaving as though we’re attending another one.”

Tess’s mouth went dry and she reached for her drink, thinking that the festive mood that had bubbled between them just a few minutes ago had fallen as flat as the rum punch.

“You know, I never realized just how much my family meant to me until I lost my own parents,” Selena admitted.

Tess nodded, remembering how valiantly Aunt Marjorie had battled the unrelenting illness that had finally claimed her life four years ago. Then a year later Uncle Phil had been snatched from them by an unexpected and fatal heart attack.

“I know how you’re feeling,” Tess said sympathetically. “Even after all this time, I still miss my parents and my sister.”

“Sometimes it’s just so difficult.” Selena gazed past Tess wistfully.

During the silence that stretched between them, Tess thought about her parents and Meredith and the terrible call that had come in the middle of the night. She’d been nineteen, a year out of high school, ready for college after taking a year out to work at a bookstore. She’d been poised to embark on a life that had seemed nearly perfect—too perfect, she reminded herself. Then suddenly the people she’d loved most in the world were gone. Mom. Dad. Meredith. And even Reed.

Reed McKenna, her first real love, her first lover. He’d walked out on her mere days before she’d lost her family in the accident. Then she’d lost him all over again when she stumbled over her sister’s diary. Eight long years, and the loss and betrayal still hurt.

“Oh, come on,” Selena prodded, dragging Tess from the depths of her dark memories. “Enough of this gloom and doom. We’re supposed to be on vacation, remember? Two young women, footloose and fancy-free for two whole weeks on an island paradise.”

Tess summoned her best face. “That’s us.” She lifted her glass again. “To Selena and Tess, look out Grand Cayman!” And to forgiving and forgetting, she added to herself. If it was time for a new beginning with her only living relative, surely it was time to let go of the painful past.

“To family.” Selena’s smile seemed as forced as Tess’s.

They touched glasses, but before they could drink, Tess noticed their waiter approaching again. “Perhaps we should look at the menu now,” she suggested.

“Excuse me,” the waiter said. “But there is a phone call in the lobby for Miss Elliot.”

“For me?” the cousins asked simultaneously, and then looked at each other and laughed.

“I doubt it could be for me,” Tess said. “My manager has strict instructions that unless the store burns down with the insurance policy inside, I’m not to be disturbed.”

Selena groaned and pushed back her chair.

“Wait a minute, I bet it’s the rental-car company,” Tess suggested, recalling the mix-up at the airport that had caused an hour’s delay getting a car. “I can go talk to them if you’d like.” But when she started to get up, Selena stopped her.

“No, you stay put,” she insisted. “It’s probably my office. They don’t know the meaning of the word vacation. Order an appetizer, some shrimp or something. I won’t be a minute.” Before Tess could say more, Selena was hurrying away from the table.

As she watched her cousin leave, she noticed a man at the bar across the room watching her, as well. Tess couldn’t blame him. Selena was an attractive woman.

Like Tess, Selena was tall—almost five nine—and trim. It occurred to Tess as she watched her cousin disappear into the lobby that she’d never seen Selena looking more fit. She’d lost at least ten pounds, Tess figured, remembering how grief could take a toll.

Today, dressed in a bright pink sundress and jaunty straw hat, Selena looked pretty as a picture. She’d turned heads from the moment they’d stepped off the plane in Georgetown. Like Tess, Selena wore her hair past her shoulders. But while Tess’s was straight and blunt cut, Selena wore springy curls and she’d lightened the dark brown that they’d both inherited from their mothers’ side of the family to an attractive, sun-kissed, ash blond.

Selena was not only attractive, but an independent and successful businesswoman. Tess wasn’t exactly sure just what kind of business Selena was engaged in, but whatever it was, her cousin had to be doing well, as evidenced by this trip.

Beautiful, successful, confident—all those adjectives could rightly be used to describe her only cousin, Tess told herself. Surely the old jealousy that had kept Selena from allowing a relationship to bloom between them could at last be put to rest.

“Well, here’s to you, Selena,” Tess murmured as she brought her glass to her lips again and took another sip. “To the future.”

* * *

THE PERSISTENCE of the breakers pounding the rocks below the balcony restaurant had nothing on the unrelenting memories pummeling Reed McKenna as he sat transfixed, watching Tess Elliot where she sat at her table across the room.

She was even more beautiful than the indelible image he carried in his memory. If she had changed at all, it was only for the better. She was still startlingly attractive. Her smile was still a cover girl’s. Her hair still long, thick and glossy brown. Even from this distance, he could tell that her olive skin still glowed with good health, as though she’d just stepped off one of her beloved Colorado mountain trails.

When she’d walked in, wearing the gauzy yellow sundress, he couldn’t help noticing that her long legs were still slim and well toned, and that she still moved like a thoroughbred.

When she’d laughed, the sound had floated to him on a breeze and sparked what few memories hadn’t already been stirred to life by the sudden sight of her. Tess, his mind whispered, what kind of fool would ever let you go?

“Can I get you another beer, sir?” the bartender asked, interrupting Reed’s musings.

He nodded, resisting the temptation to ask the bartender to bring him a pack of Camels.

Out of the corner of his eye, Reed saw the waiter deliver a message to Selena Elliot. When she stood up and walked out of the dining room, Reed hoped that Tess wouldn’t follow.

Selena left the dining room alone, and Reed decided with grim satisfaction that perhaps this wasn’t going to be as difficult as he’d first thought. Maybe he wouldn’t have to inflict himself on Tess after all.

That was the way he wanted it, wasn’t it? Of course, he reminded himself. The memories he’d harbored, the fantasies he’d spun about his young love, were just that: fantasies and nothing more.

But despite that blunt realization, before he left the bar, he couldn’t resist a last look over his shoulder at the woman who’d once held his young heart, before it had turned cold. And captured his imagination, before it had become so jaded.

Her eyes met his for barely a second and he foolishly held his breath, wondering if she recognized him. When it appeared she hadn’t, a strange mix of disappointment and relief settled heavily in his chest.

* * *

WHEN THE SHIMMERING crystal bowl of chilled shrimp arrived, Tess began to wonder what was keeping Selena. After five minutes more, she beckoned their waiter. “Excuse me, but could you direct me to the phone where my cousin took her phone call?”

“Of course,” the young man agreed. “Right this way.”

The bar was beginning to fill and the waiter and Tess had to weave their way past a group gathered around a table where a lively game of dominoes was in progress.

Once in the lobby, the young man pointed to a bank of courtesy phones on the wall. From where she stood, Tess could already see that Selena was not in the lobby.

“Perhaps she had the call transferred to our room,” Tess suggested. “I think I’ll go check. If she comes back before I do, will you tell her where I’ve gone?”

The waiter smiled and nodded.

Crossing the lobby quickly, Tess emerged onto the sidewalk outside the main building that led to the individual guest rooms. A profusion of tropical plants, bay vines and spider lilies, lined the meandering walk that led to three separate buildings. The music and laughter coming from the beach faded as she made her way up the open stairway to the fourth floor of the first building.

At their room, Tess unlocked the door and stepped inside. The large, airy room was empty and Tess saw no obvious sign to suggest that Selena had returned since the two of them had gone down to the dining room for dinner.

With a nagging and growing sense of anxiety, Tess walked back to the lobby, crossed the dining room and sat down at their table alone. She beckoned to the first waiter that passed, but when the young man turned around, she realized he wasn’t the same waiter who’d helped them earlier. “Excuse me, but did the other lady who was sitting here return while I was gone?”

The young man’s expression was blank. “I haven’t seen anyone, ma’am, not since I came on duty a few minutes ago. Can I bring you something to drink, or a menu?”

Tess shook her head. “No thanks,” she muttered distractedly, looking past him, searching the room for Selena. After picking unenthusiastically at the shrimp and sipping the lukewarm punch for ten long minutes, Tess decided to check the lobby again.

Still, there was no sign of Selena. The ladies’ room was Tess’s next stop, but her cousin was not to be found there, either.

Wandering back into the lobby, Tess began to feel stronger stirrings of concern. A noisy group of tourists jostled off a tour bus, into the lobby and crowded around the front desk. Tess tried in vain to pick out her cousin’s face among the group.

A tall, sandy-haired man in a brightly printed floral shirt and baggy white shorts caught Tess’s eye when she realized he was staring at her. But when she made eye contact, he looked away. An uneasy feeling lifted the hair at the nape of her neck, but she dismissed the strange reaction and searched the lobby again for Selena.

Where could she have gone? Tess wondered, walking back to the entrance to the dining room to stand helplessly staring across the room at their empty balcony table as gnawing apprehension bloomed into genuine concern.

“May I help you, miss?” A cocktail waitress in a short, floral wrap skirt and yellow halter top greeted Tess when she stepped into the crowded bar.

“I’m looking for someone....” Tess murmured distractedly, her eyes scanning the crowd. “A woman, about my height, in a pink sundress and a big hat. Have you seen her?”

The young woman attendant’s eyes followed Tess’s around the room. “No, I don’t remember seeing anyone like that. But then, the place has been filling up fast since the last group of dive boats came in,” she explained in perfect, West Indies English. “If I see her, I will be sure to tell her that you’re looking for her.”

Tess thanked the young woman and moved back into the lobby, completely at a loss as to what to do next, or how to explain her cousin’s strange disappearance. As she wandered toward the main door and the circle drive in front of the hotel, a limousine slid to a stop outside and reminded her of the problem with the rental car.

Heartened to have a course of action, Tess walked briskly to the nearest courtesy phone and dialed the number for the rental-car company.

After a short and disjointed explanation to the clerk on the other end of the line, Tess gave up, thanked the woman for her help—which had, in fact, been no help at all—and hung up, feeling even more exasperated. If the call that had pulled Selena away from their table had come from the rental-car company, the person to whom Tess had spoken knew nothing about the matter.

When Tess glanced at the large clock on the wall behind the registration desk, she saw that it was nearly four-thirty. Selena had left their table almost forty-five minutes ago. Where was she?

Feeling someone’s eyes on her, Tess spun around, hoping to see Selena, only to find the man in the gaudy shirt staring at her again. She glared at the tourist and the man actually smiled, causing Tess to feel even more peevish as she pushed her way to the front desk.

After leaving a message for Selena, Tess left the lobby quickly with the eerie feeling that gaudy-shirt-man’s eyes were still on her back.

Once inside their room again, Tess set her mind to the task of unpacking and tried to tell herself that any moment Selena would come bursting through the door, smiling and apologetic with a breathless explanation for her strange disappearance. But soon another fifteen minutes had ticked by, and Selena hadn’t returned.

After her things were put away, Tess paced out onto the balcony and scanned the beach and squinted to see as far as she could in each direction.

Tess figured Selena’s bright pink dress and big floppy hat would have been easy to spot if she had been among the people wandering along the beach. But there was no pink dress. No floppy hat. No Selena. Something was dreadfully wrong, she was nearly certain.

When the phone finally rang, it startled her. Her heart pounded and she banged her knee on the nightstand hurrying back inside. The receiver was halfway to her ear when someone knocked on the door. “Just a minute,” she called out.

“Hello,” she answered hopefully into the receiver. “Hold on!” she shouted to the persistent knocker on the other side of the door. “Hello!” she said again into the phone.

“Miss Elliot, this is Guy from Premium Car Rental. I understand you’re having a problem with your car?”

“No, no, there’s nothing wrong with the car!” Tess felt her heart sink. “Yes, I did call earlier, but—” The knocking grew louder.

“Hang on a minute,” she told the car-rental clerk, dropping the phone on the bed and hurrying across the room to open the door.

Reaching for the door, Tess just knew it would be Selena’s pretty face she’d see on the other side.

She jerked the door open and every teasing word she’d prepared to fling at her cousin for losing her keys or forgetting the time or whatever froze on Tess’s lips as she stood staring and speechless at Reed McKenna, as tall, dark and startlingly handsome as ever, standing in her doorway.

With just one look, Tess knew her life was about to change forever.

Chapter Three

There were no words to express her shock; only his name emerged. “Reed?” It came out a whisper.

“Hello, Tess.”

Her heart was a jackhammer in her chest. “Wh-what—”

“What am I doing here?” he finished the question as he strode past her into the room. “I guess I could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I, Tess? Close the door, why don’t you?”

Numbly, she followed his instructions, the jolt of seeing Reed again, here in Grand Cayman, in her hotel room, had completely dumbfounded her. Rational thought told her he hadn’t materialized simply by her early thoughts of him, but then again, there was nothing rational about the way her heart raced at the sight of him.

“Nice,” he noted as he stepped deeper into the room, picked up the phone that was still lying on the bed and dropped it back onto its base.

Still thunderstruck by his presence, Tess could only stand and stare as he crossed to the balcony and peered outside. Her whole body seemed to be trembling and she couldn’t stop her thoughts from taking a jet-propelled trip back in time.

He’d been the town’s bad boy, the kind of young man mothers warned their daughters about while secretly harboring fantasies of their own involving the darkly handsome, street-smart kid from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. Quick-witted, handsome, cocky—all these were traits Reed McKenna possessed in abundance, traits that combined to give him that hypnotic magnetism that women couldn’t resist and men couldn’t help but admire.

Seeing him now, dressed in softly faded jeans and a white polo shirt and looking twice as handsome and even sexier, Tess couldn’t help remembering the way he’d stirred her passions. Seeing his faint blue-black beard shadow enhancing his rugged maleness, and his dark brown eyes as intensely seductive and compelling as ever, Tess felt the old familiar attraction drawing her to him again.

Get hold of yourself. You’re a grown woman, not some lovesick teenager! But even as that inner voice scolded, the years melted away and the sweat rose on her palms. Damn you, Reed McKenna! Damn your lean body and your thick, black hair and the wicked brown eyes that always seemed to be looking right into my very soul. And damn that smile of his that curled his perfect lips and drove dimples into his lean, tanned checks.

He turned and sent his smoky gaze sliding leisurely up and down the length of her. “Surprised to see me?” Another smile, and appealing lines winged out from the corners of his eyes.

“Surprised? Believe me, surprised doesn’t even come close. What are you doing here?” she asked him again.

“So that’s all you can say? Not even ‘how’s it going, Reed?’ or ‘Gee, but it’s damn good to see you after all this time’?”

It wasn’t damn good to see him, it was damn disturbing and damn perplexing, exasperating, wonderful and a host of other jumbled and conflicting emotions, all of which Tess despised.

She ran a hand carelessly through her hair, scrambling to collect her wits and raise her guard. “I see you haven’t changed. Still playing word games, still incapable of giving a straight answer.”

His look was one of practiced innocence that she recognized and responded to, despite herself. “Well, you know what they say about teaching old dogs new tricks,” he drawled.

She would not be drawn in, she promised herself, by the patented McKenna charm. “The last I heard you were some kind of federal cop in D.C.,” she said to change the subject.

His thick lashes dipped lazily. “And the last I heard you were back home running some kind of specialty bookstore.”

“Mysteries, Ltd.,” she informed him tersely, realizing too late that he’d deftly avoided answering her question by shifting the focus back on her. Just like the old Reed, she told herself, always a jump ahead of everyone. Always setting the rules.

“Mysteries, huh? Well, what do you know,” his voice held a note of mild indifference as his gaze swept the room before he sauntered toward the bathroom, opened the door and glanced in.

Tess was flabbergasted by his actions and inflamed by his arrogance. “Excuse me, but just what the hell are you doing?” she demanded, coming up behind him with her hands on her hips. He was giving the bathroom such intense scrutiny that she figured if the shower curtain had been drawn he’d have pushed it open to search the tub as well.

He turned away from the bathroom and glanced at the two queen-size beds separated by a standard hotel nightstand. “Nice room.”

“You said that before.”

His gaze wandered back to her and a bemused grin tugged at his mouth, making her feel suddenly exposed in the sundress that had seemed perfectly appropriate until now. “You always were the direct one, weren’t you, Tessa?”

She started at the sound of the pet name no one had called her in almost ten years. “You’re still impossible.”

“And you’re still angry.”

“Angry?” she muttered, detesting the way his mere presence had toppled her emotional equilibrium. “Now, what would give you that impression, McKenna? Let’s see—” Desperate for distance, she turned her back to him and stalked to the other side of the room. “Someone I haven’t laid eyes on in, what? Almost five years—” When she turned around to face him again, he had dropped down into the wicker chair that sat beside the sliding glass doors.

“Four and a half years, at the airport in Denver,” he supplied. “You were on your way to see a sick relative.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed that you remembered?”

He shrugged, but his expression told her he knew she was secretly pleased. Inside she seethed, hating him for knowing her so well and despising the fact that he could still read her emotions so effortlessly.

“Where was I?” she said. “Ah, yes, we were trying to figure out why I should be angry with you for waltzing in without an iota of an explanation. And let’s not forget the part about the wedding you conveniently forgot to attend. When was that, Reed, since you’re the one who’s so good at remembering?”

His smile had disappeared and his mouth was set in a tight line as he studied her.

“I see you can’t remember. Well, let me refresh your memory. It was eight years ago, Reed. June 15th to be exact. Three days before—” Her voice broke and she lowered her eyes to avoid looking at the face that would, if she stared at it long enough, eventually undo her.

He stood and stared out at the beach. “I was sorry to hear about your parents, Tess.”

“I lost my sister, as well,” she reminded him pointedly. Although she was dry-eyed, her heart ached.

“I know,” he said quietly. “And I’m sorry. Meredith was a good kid.”

Tess felt her heart harden at the sound of her sister’s name coming from his lips. How dare he? And how foolish was she to stand here jousting with the man who’d single-handedly destroyed her girlhood innocence and shattered her dreams?

Crossing the room purposefully, she jerked open the door and stood with one hand planted on each hip. “Angry? No, Reed, I’m not angry. But I am a lot wiser than that fawning nineteen-year-old you left standing at he altar.” Her diatribe left her breathless and the flood of heat that rose to her cheeks left her feeling weak. “I don’t know why you’re here, Reed, but I’m vacationing, and I know I’ll enjoy myself a whole lot more if I just throw you out and pretend this little meeting never occurred. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she finished with a flourish, “I’d appreciate it if you got the hell out of my room and stayed the hell out of the rest of my life!”

He stood staring at her for a long tense moment before he started toward the door. Tess held her breath, hardly daring to believe that he’d actually leave without a fight. The old Reed would never have backed down so easily.

And neither would the new Reed, it seemed, for when he was directly in front of her, he surprised her by taking her hand and pulling her out of the doorway, before pushing the door closed and leaning against it with his arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Where’s Selena?” he asked, all pretense of word games abruptly ended.

“Selena?” Tess asked, unable to conceal her shock.

He nodded. “You asked me what I was looking for. Well, I was looking for your cousin, Selena Elliot.”

Tess blinked. To her knowledge her cousin and her ex-fiancé had never met. When Selena was growing up, she and her parents had lived in Denver, while Tess and Reed had grown up in the small mountain town of Evergreen some thirty miles west. She’d become involved with Reed McKenna her senior year and she had been working the year before starting college when he’d broken their engagement by suddenly, and without telling her, enlisting in the army. It was only later, when she’d inadvertently discovered his betrayal, that Tess had finally learned the real reason Reed had left town.

“Where is she?” he asked, jolting Tess back to the present.

“Why do you want to know?” she shot back defensively. “What connection do you have to Selena?”

“I don’t have any connection, not personally, anyway. I’m only here to take her back to the States. If you care about your cousin, you’ll tell me where she is and stay out of the way so I can do my job.”

“Your job?” Tess realized she was staring at him like an idiot, but the things he’d just said made no sense. “Then you are a cop.”

He didn’t answer.

“And you’re here to arrest Selena? This is unbelievable! What has she done, what’s this all about?” If Selena was in some kind of trouble, wouldn’t she have mentioned it? Or at least canceled this trip?

Reed didn’t answer any of her questions, but his dark-eyed stare continued to bore through her.

“Listen, Reed, whatever you want with my cousin, I know you can’t force her to go anywhere without some kind of warrant or subpoena.”

“I’m not here to arrest her,” he admitted.

Well, at least he’d given her that much. But Tess wasn’t satisfied. All her instincts warned that Reed was concealing far more than he’d revealed.

“All right, so you don’t have a warrant, then why are you looking for her and why should she go anywhere with you?”

His eyes flashed his irritation at being questioned. “Because the U.S. government has requested the honor of her presence at a trial.”

“A trial,” she repeated numbly, feeling slightly light-headed. “What kind of trial? Whose trial? I—I don’t understand. What’s going on and what has my cousin got to do with it?”

“It’s a long story,” he said as he walked across the room to the balcony again. She followed him and watched as his eyes scanned the beach below.

Finally he returned his attention to Tess’s question. “You really don’t know anything about all this, do you? She hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what?” Tess demanded, her patience stretched almost to snapping. “What don’t I know?”

He stood for another long moment without answering, without even looking at her. Exasperated, she reached for his arm, but the minute her fingers made contact with the warm, tanned flesh her heart jumped, and she knew she’d made a mistake. Immediately she pulled her hand back, feeling inexplicably singed.

“Reed, please. Tell me what this is all about. If my cousin is in some kind of trouble, I have a right to know.” And if this is just a bad dream, Tess told herself, she wished to hell someone would wake her!

“Selena is in trouble,” he conceded finally, taking her elbow and ushering her inside the room with him. “She works for a man who’s been indicted on federal charges.”

Tess sat down woodenly on the edge of the bed. “What kind of charges?”

“Racketeering, money laundering and murder, just to name a few.”

Tess felt exactly as she had as a child the time she’d fallen from the monkey bars on the playground and had the wind knocked out of her. “I don’t believe it,” she gasped.

“Believe it,” he said and pulled the bow-shaped wicker chair around to face her before he sat down. “Selena worked as a bookkeeper for Edward Morrell. She was a key figure in his organization.”

Tess could only sit and stare at him, her mind whirling as she tried to make sense of something that made no sense at all.

“Look, I can see how hearing all of this has shocked you, and it’s obvious to me that you know nothing about your cousin’s involvement.” He rose and put the chair back in its place before he added, “I’d like to help you put it all together, but I haven’t got time to explain. And I’m not sure it’s wise to tell you any more than I already have. But I need to know where she is, Tess,” he said, coming back to the bed to stand over her. “I need to find her and get her out of Grand Cayman tonight.”

The unthinkable occurred to Tess in a flash of frightening insight and she rose quickly, oblivious to the precious space that she’d closed between them and the fact that she’d planted her hands on his chest. “Reed, are you trying to tell me that Selena might be in some kind of danger?”

He glanced down at her hands resting on his chest, before his eyes met hers again. “Just tell me where she is, Tess, if you know.”

His dark eyes grew even darker and suddenly every protective instinct went off in a series of screaming alarms inside Tess’s mind. She nearly stumbled, sidestepping away from him. “I won’t tell you anything until you tell me what this is all about.”

“Where is she, Tess?” he demanded, his voice hard-edged and impatient.

“I don’t know,” she insisted. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Did you seriously imagine I’d blindly turn my cousin over to you without talking to her first?”

“I’d hoped you would be reasonable.”

“Reasonable or gullible?”

She watched a muscle clench at his jaw and for an uneasy moment she wondered if Selena might be running from him. “You always were too damn stubborn for your own good,” he muttered as he turned and headed for the door.

She was on his heels. “And just when did what’s good for me ever interest you, McKenna?”

His eyes blazed and Tess felt the fire of his anger, but she refused to be cowed, despite his seething temper and his obvious strength advantage—an advantage that by the looks of his lean, hard body was considerable.

“All right,” he relented finally, breaking their staring match. Tess felt a long-overdue twinge of satisfaction. “I guess you have a right to know the circumstances. But when I’ve finished telling you, your stay in Grand Cayman will be over. You’ll have to pack your bags and fly back to the States on the next available flight.”

She rankled at his direct order. “But—”

“No argument,” he said sharply. “From now on you do as I say, Tessa, as though your life depended on it.”

And from the grim expression on his face, Tess believed that it just might.

* * *

ONE FLOOR BELOW Tess Elliot’s room, a naked toddler sitting in a tub of warm water squealed with delight at the spray of water she raised every time she slapped a small, pink, plastic elephant and sent it bobbing. “Doggy, doggy, doggy,” she chanted and giggled and splashed.

The middle-aged woman bent over the tub and laughed and pulled her saturated cotton blouse away from her skin. “Whatever you say, Sweetie.”

“Doggy!” the child responded gleefully, her small pink mouth curled into a delighted grin that revealed four small, shining, front teeth—two on top, two on the bottom.

“Are you trying to drown the kid, Gertie?” a male voice teased from the bathroom door.

“You go on and mind your own business, Jake. Me and little Miss Crissy is having us a great time.”

Jake stuck his bald head in the doorway, and enjoyed the sight of his wife of forty-plus years sitting on the floor, seemingly oblivious to the puddle of water around her or the blouse that stuck to her like a second skin.

“Who’s giving who the bath?” he asked mischievously.

Gertie shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Listen to him, will you, Crissy? The man’s a certified comic, ain’t he?”

The little girl with the big blue eyes and honey gold ringlets tossed her head and giggled at a joke she couldn’t possibly understand. Gertie opened a towel and lifted Crissy out of the tub.

The sight of the child in Gertie’s arms caused Jake’s heart to constrict. The poor little thing had no idea she was being used as a pawn in a game where the rules were being made up as they went along.

“Gertie,” Jake said, his voice low as he edged over to the toilet and sat down on the lid, “do you think we did right by agreeing to do this?”

Gertie wrapped the plush white towel snugly around the child’s chubby middle and swept Crissy into her arms. “Of course we did the right thing. What’s the matter with you, old man?” When the child reached for her glasses, Gertie had to arch her neck to save them. “Besides, how could we have turned him down? After all he’s done for us, and never once asked for anything in return.”

Jake hung his head. “You’re right, hon. It’s just that—”

“It’s just nothing,” Gertie cut him off. “Reed McKenna asked us to take care of this little gal for a few days and that’s what we’re going to do.”

“You’re right, Gert,” Jake said as he stood up and followed her into the bedroom. “I just hope he knows what he’s doing. It don’t seem right for a child to be separated from her—”

Gertie interrupted him again. “Don’t say it,” she snapped, turning on him, “or else you’ll get her to crying all over again.”

Jake sighed and paced to the window to look out at the beach. “Reckon we could take her outside to play when she wakes up? The little thing is so pale. She needs some fresh air.” And so did Jake.

“Probably. Now, go take a walk, will you? You’re making me and the baby nervous with all your pacing.”

Jake Patterson started for the door. “Bring us back some sandwiches and chips,” his wife called after him. “And remember to get a carton of milk and some fruit for Crissy and a couple of them punch drinks for us. We’ll save them for later, and after this little dolly goes to bed, we’ll sit out on the balcony and have us a picnic.”

Jake forced a smile and walked out of his third-floor hotel room, making sure the door closed and locked behind him.

* * *

“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!” Tess gasped. “Selena could never be involved in something like this. She just couldn’t! For heaven’s sake, Reed, you’re talking about organized crime!”

Reed merely shrugged, but the burning in his gut belied his show of nonchalance. “Whether you believe me or not, your cousin was Edward Morrell’s bookkeeper for almost four years. And that position has put her in deep trouble. You must know this wasn’t her first trip to Grand Cayman.”

She hesitated before she admitted, “Selena did mention that she’d been here before, but that’s hardly an admission of guilt.”

“Oh, she’s been here, all right. Seven different trips in two years. Although no one will ever find any documentation to prove it, she was probably hauling Morrell’s dirty money to the island’s various banks and opening accounts in every one of them.”

He hated the stricken look on her face. He remembered how Tess had always placed a high premium on loyalty, especially when she was championing the cause of an underdog. Unfortunately for her, this time she was attempting to defend someone unworthy of her loyalty, and something in her eyes—the sadness and disillusionment—told Reed she knew it.

“Do you know where she is?” he asked her again.

“No,” she said softly. “I haven’t seen her since she left our table.” She glanced at her watch. “That was almost two hours ago.”

Her face was too pretty to be so drawn with worry, and Reed couldn’t help feeling responsible. “I hope I can count on you to help me convince her to do the right thing. She has to go back, Tess. The only way I can help her is if she agrees to cooperate.”

She walked over to the window and with her back to him she said, “Why didn’t she tell me? How could she be in this much trouble and not tell me?”

Reed felt his heart go out to the woman he’d once loved. There were a dozen good reasons why Selena Elliot hadn’t confided in her cousin, and all of them were life threatening. “She couldn’t tell you,” he explained. “She would have been putting you at risk.”

She spun around to face him. “But if what you’re telling me is true, I’m already at risk, aren’t I?”

Reed didn’t try to dispute her logic, because he couldn’t.

When she strode past him to the door, he caught up with her in two strides and covered her hand with his on the doorknob. They were standing so close he could almost taste her.

“Get out of my way,” she said.

“Not until you tell me where you’re going.”

“I’m going to find my cousin,” she informed him as she jerked her hand from beneath his. “Just as you should be trying to do if you were really interested in helping her.”

He stood in front of the door, blocking her path, his feet braced and his arms folded over his chest. “No way, Tess. I can’t have you poking around in something you know nothing about. There’s too much at stake.”

She scowled at him and flipped her hair over one shoulder with an indignant toss. It was a familiar gesture that sent him into a time warp of remembering.

“I’m not asking your permission, Reed.”

God, but she was sexy. “Sit down, Tessa—”

“And will you please stop calling me that!”

“Sit down,” he repeated firmly, his tone unyielding.

It came as no surprise that she ignored him and remained standing. “Will you please just listen,” he said, working to sound more conciliatory. “Selena probably saw something or someone who spooked her. She’s obviously hiding, and more than likely you’ll be the one she’ll contact when she feels it’s safe.”

He watched her silent and grudging acceptance of his logic.

“Think about it, Tess. If I found Selena, anyone else can.”

He hadn’t meant to scare her, but the alarm he saw spark in her pretty eyes told him he’d made his point.

“Stay here in case she tries to call you. I’ll go take another look around the hotel grounds.”

She sank down on the edge of the bed again, her shoulders slumped with the weight of the load he’d placed there. “If you find her, please call me. I have to talk to her.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“And after you find her, then what?”

“It’s my job to take her back to testify.” He hoped she wouldn’t ask him again if he was a cop. The thread of trust he’d just established was pathetically thin. If she pushed him to reveal the fact that he was a paid tracker—a bounty hunter—that fragile beginning would disintegrate like smoke in the wind.

“And what if she refuses to go back? What if she won’t go with you?” she pressed him.

The eyes that met his were intelligent and assessing and he knew better than to try and lie. “Well, then I’ll just have to convince her it’s the best thing for her to do, won’t I?”

“Stay here, Tess,” he ordered at the door. “Don’t make me have to go looking for you, as well.”

“Go to hell, McKenna,” she snapped. “And be forewarned that if Selena calls before you get back, I’m not making any promises or waiting around for your approval to talk to her about any of this.”

He nodded, conceding her right to make both declarations.

Chapter Four

At sunset, the island sky became a canvas for an indescribable work of multicolored art, the likes of which Tess had never seen duplicated by man. But troubling thoughts robbed her of the joy nature’s spectacle should have inspired this evening. As she stood on the balcony, gazing out over the water, Tess wondered how a dream vacation could have turned into a nightmare so quickly.

Below, dozens of people roamed the beach, couples walked hand in hand, kids frolicked in and out of the gentle surf and built fortresses in the wet sand. Among the other tourists enjoying the evening splendor was an older couple with a toddler in the shallow beach area cordoned off for small children. She would never have noticed them from this distance had Tess not been so be sure that the tall, dark, imposing figure standing over them was Reed. He seemed especially engrossed in conversation with the gray-haired couple, which seemed odd to Tess.

Was he questioning them about Selena? Had they seen her? Talked to her? Her glance swept the beach again and stopped when it found the tourist, whose stares she’d scorned this afternoon in the lobby, standing on the ground-floor patio outside the bar, staring up at her.

When he saw her looking down at him, he turned and walked purposefully back into the bar. Tess rubbed her arms, feeling suddenly vulnerable and inexplicably chilled, despite the seventy-plus temperature and the gentle southern breeze that warmed the evening air. When she looked back to the cordoned area where the older couple and the toddler were still sitting, Reed was gone.

As she continued to scan the area below for Selena, and now for Reed, the faint strains of reggae music rode the breeze around her. The jaunty rhythms that had welcomed and invigorated Tess hours earlier, now seemed teasing and cruel, a mocking reminder that while the rest of the island—at least that part of it vacationing here at West Palm—was spending a carefree evening, laughing, dancing and building memories beneath the Grand Cayman sunset, she was trapped in a frightening situation that she could neither control nor completely understand.

“Where are you, Selena?” she whispered. “And what in God’s name have you done?”

Accepting that for now there would be no answers, Tess told herself to be patient, to maintain her faith in Selena until all the facts were known. But despite her best resolve to maintain a positive attitude, the smattering of details Reed had given her swirled around in her mind and tested that faith severely.

The grim fact that the government had sent him to bring Selena back to testify was deeply disturbing, as was Reed’s determination to find her. If the prosecution wanted Selena’s testimony that badly, it seemed reasonable to Tess to assume that the defense would be just as desperate to keep her from giving it.

The dangerous scenarios that crept into her imagination made Tess curse every legal thriller she’d ever read. She cursed the quiet life she’d carved out for herself in Evergreen, the life that had kept her so preoccupied running her own business that she’d left little time for anything or anyone else. Despite the blood ties that bound them, Tess had to admit that she and Selena were little more than strangers. As Selena had so grimly pointed out earlier, it was true that they only saw each other at funerals. Since college, they’d done little more than exchange Christmas cards, Tess realized guiltily.

But even if she had made more of an effort to remain close, would Selena have confided in her? Tess wondered. And even if she had, how could Tess have helped?

When the phone rang, Tess jumped from the chair so quickly she knocked it over as she lunged back inside the room to grab the receiver before the second ring.

Her “hello” was clipped.

“T-Tess.” Selena’s strangled sob and a jumble of other incomprehensible words crackled through the receiver.

Tess’s heart froze at the sound of her cousin’s whimpers. “Selena! Where are you? What’s happened?” Her own voice was shaky and her hand trembled as it gripped the phone.

A rustling sound coming across the line told Tess the phone had switched hands. “Your cousin is just fine, Ms. Elliot,” a cool, calm, distinctly Caribbean male voice informed her. “Now listen carefully. In Selena’s suitcase, hidden in the lining, is a book, a bound journal. Find it. Show it to no one. Do not attempt to copy or memorize any part of it. Tonight at ten o’clock bring it with you to this address.”

Tess’s knees bent involuntarily as she folded numbly to sit on the edge of the bed. This isn’t happening! her mind whispered as she reached for a notepad and pen. This isn’t real. It can’t be!

“Are you still there?” The dispassionate caller seemed strangely polite.

“Yes—yes, go on,” Tess managed to say.

“I will give you directions and instructions only once,” the voice informed her, forcing Tess to concentrate on the situation that her hammering heart confirmed was all too terrifyingly real. “You will do exactly as I say, telling no one of our conversation, involving no one.”

“Just tell me what you want me to do,” she pleaded. “I’ll do anything, but please, please don’t hurt her.” She hadn’t realized she was crying until she felt the tears drip onto the phone and seep between her fingers.

As the anonymous caller listed his demands and dictated a series of strange directions, Tess scribbled wildly. Although she hardly recognized the scrawl her trembling hand had produced as her own, she repeated the directions when Selena’s abductor ordered her to do so.

“Ten o’clock sharp,” he reminded her.

“Ten o’clock,” Tess repeated as though hypnotized.

“Your cousin’s life depends entirely upon you. We don’t want to hurt anyone, but we will do what we have to do to get what we want. No doubt you’ll be tempted to call the police, or maybe even go to your embassy. Do not consider doing either of those things, Ms. Elliot. If anyone accompanies you tonight, you will never see your cousin alive again.”

Before Tess could respond to the horrifying warning, the line went dead. And for a long moment she could only sit with the receiver still in her hand, too numb and shaken and frightened to move.

Finally she hung up the phone, choking back the irrational fear that somehow by just disconnecting the line she’d severed her last tie to Selena.

Alone in the room that had grown murky with shadows, she felt utter despair. Her tears had ceased and in their place a cold, dry fear stung her eyes and burned her throat.

The numbers on the clock radio beside the bed glowed an eerie green. Seven forty-five. Selena’s abductor had said Tess was to meet with him at ten. Ten sharp. The numbers changed: seven forty-six and with that change, the reality of precious time passing hit Tess with deadly meaning, jolting her into frantic action.

Once on her feet, she switched on the lamp beside the bed and dragged Selena’s suitcases out of the closet and into the middle of the room.

Dropping to the floor beside the largest one, she jerked it open and sat staring, momentarily overwhelmed by the empty space staring back at her. She began searching. The stark fear that drove her caused her stomach to roil and her hands to shake as she felt the onset of a throbbing headache.

Although Tess was a frequent climber and had scaled some of the roughest terrain in Colorado, the obstacle she faced now was even more daunting than those lofty peaks. For Selena’s sake, Tess prayed she was equal to the challenge.

* * *

MINUTES LATER, after patting the sides and the back of all three suitcases, Tess sat back on her heels, a feeling of defeat pressing down on her. She turned to the smaller carryon that Selena had brought with her, scolding herself for being so slow to think of it.

The journal had to be in the carryon, she told herself. Certainly if Selena had been carrying something valuable or incriminating, Tess reasoned, she wouldn’t have checked it at the airport.

But after a thorough search failed to turn up anything concealed in the lining of Selena’s smaller bag, Tess’s heart sank again. In desperation, she searched all three suitcases again, ending with the largest one. She shook it, patted it and turned it upside down, but only after she’d kicked it angrily across the room and then stooped to retrieve it, did she feel the irregular outline on the bottom of the bag.

Her hands groped along the hard vinyl casing with trembling anticipation. Finally, she felt it: the outline of something firm and square and distinctly booklike lodged between the lining and the small, black plastic wheels on the bottom of the case.

Frantically she searched the room for something sharp to slit the lining, jerking open dresser drawers and rummaging through her own belongings. Finally, in the bathroom, her fingers closed around a metal nail file in the bottom of her cosmetic bag and a second later she was sawing away at the lining inside the suitcase.

When at last she withdrew the notebook from between the bag’s cloth lining and the frame, her heart beat double time as she stared down at the object that verified so much of what Reed had told her.

Gingerly, she opened it and sat staring uncomprehending at row after row of handwritten figures and dates, all recorded in Selena’s distinctive left-hand style. Reed had said she’d probably made numerous deposits for Edward Morrell and, by the list of figures—many of them seven digits long—Tess realized her cousin had been dealing with a substantial fortune.

Were the notations that stared back at her from Selena’s journal the only documentation of Edward Morrell’s dirty money? Where had all that money come from? And at what cost had this fortune been amassed?

“Oh, Selena,” she murmured, feeling heartsick and hollow. “What have you done?”

When the figures began to swim before her eyes, Tess swallowed and took a deep breath and told herself to prepare for the next step: the exchange of the notebook for her cousin.

Panic rose inside her when it suddenly dawned that she had no idea how she was going to find the rendezvous point Selena’s abductor had described. She might have given in to that panic, had she not glanced at the clock radio and realized that time was slipping by. It was already 8:15, which meant she had a little more than an hour and a half to find the appointed meeting place, along streets she’d never traveled before, in a country where everyone drove on the opposite side of the road!

But as any good climber knew, when stuck in a tight spot, looking down was the first mistake. On the side of a mountain or in Grand Cayman, the only way out was up, Tess reminded herself with grim resolve.

Hastily she changed into a pair of jeans, a navy blue T-shirt and sneakers. With a last look around the room, she grabbed her purse, the scribbled directions for the ominous meeting place and Selena’s journal, or the ransom, as she’d already come to think of it.

As she hurried toward the door, she shoved the journal into her purse and zipped the bag closed. The clock informed her that she now had little more than an hour to find the rendezvous point. Having no idea where the abductor’s instructions would lead her, or how long it would take her to get there, made her mission all the more nerve-racking.

Right now all she could allow herself to think about was getting away from her room, away from West Palm and into the winding streets of Georgetown, where somewhere her cousin was being held against her will.

A knock on the door scattered her thoughts like buckshot. “Tess, open the door. It’s me.”

Reed! Tess’s mind shrieked. Damn him! He would never let her get past him without an explanation of where she was going. And knowing him, if she ignored his pounding, he’d pick the lock or break down the door.

While she hesitated, wondering what to do, he banged on the door again, with more authority. “Tess. Open up. I know you’re in there.”

For one crazy moment Tess was seized with a bizarre impulse to fling open the door and throw herself into his arms and beg him to help her. But the bizarre and impossible impulse died when the ominous words of Selena’s abductor came back to haunt her: Your cousin’s life depends entirely upon you.

“Tess, let me in,” Reed demanded.

“Just a minute,” she stalled. “I’m—I’m not decent,” she lied as she switched on the light and shoved Selena’s suitcases under one of the queen-size beds.

“Tess. Open the door.” It was the voice of a man unused to being kept waiting.

“All right. All right. I’m coming.” She swallowed two huge gulps of air, willing her heart rate steady and pausing at the door just long enough to smooth her hair and whisper a silent prayer for courage.

“What’s wrong?” he said before the door even closed behind him.

“You mean, other than the fact that my cousin is missing and you keep charging into my room?”

His shook his head and allowed himself a slow smile. “Never one to mince words, were you, Tessa?” The smile faded. “Has she contacted you?”

“Would I be here if she had?”

His curt nod was the only indication that he’d accepted her hedge. For the first time she noticed he carried a small canvas bag, which he tossed onto the bed before unzipping it.

When Tess realized that the bag was filled with his personal belongings she gasped, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I need a shave.”

When he reached inside the duffel bag and withdrew a shaving kit, she blurted, “Well, go get one someplace else!”

He tucked the small shaving bag in one hand and turned to face her. “Listen, I’ve been up for thirty-six hours straight, I haven’t had anything to eat or drink but airplane food and warm beer and I need a shower and a shave.”

Tess was flabbergasted. “Surely you don’t expect me to stand by and—and—”

“Watch?” He shot her a wicked smile and shrugged. “Suit yourself, Tessa.”

“Oh! You are insufferable!”

“Hey, I’m not any happier about all of this than you are, babe. I’d hoped to fly in, snag Selena and be back in Miami by tomorrow morning. But sometimes we don’t always get what we want, you know?”

“If you’re so tired and so dirty, then why don’t you go to your own room to bathe and take your stupid shower?” she demanded. “Give me your room number and I’ll call you if I hear from her.”

His laugh was short, dry and brittle. “You always were a lousy liar, Tessa. And as for the room, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s the height of tourist season. There’s not a spare room anywhere along Seven Mile Beach. Face it. You’re stuck with me until your cousin turns up or you tell me where she is.”

“But...you can’t stay here!”

“Too late. I’ve already moved in.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he interrupted again.

“I promise I’ll be out of here the moment I catch up to Selena. In the meantime, I’m part of the furniture.”

The man was not only insufferable, but infuriating, as well, and Tess would have loved nothing better than to tell him exactly what she thought of his boorish behavior. Right now, however, delivering the notebook still stuffed inside her purse took precedence over her anger and her desire to tell him off—now and over the past eight years.

The more pressing problem was how to get away from him to make the exchange with Selena’s abductors. “Whatever you say, Reed,” she agreed suddenly, obviously astonishing him with her unexpected capitulation. “There are plenty of towels in the cupboard above the john.”

The suspicion in his eyes was undisguised and she added a terse, “And please, put the lid down when you’re finished in there.”

He laughed. “I’ll be the perfect guest,” he assured her with a mocking bow. “I’m glad to see you acting so reasonably. You always were the practical one, weren’t you, Tessa.”

“I thought I asked you to stop calling me that,” she shot back. “And I’ll thank you to stop telling me what ‘I always was.’” As if you ever really knew, she added bitterly to herself.

He nodded and continued to rummage for agonizing minutes through his duffel bag, withdrawing fresh clothes. Watching him, Tess couldn’t help noting how his dark, expressive eyes glittered in the soft lamplight that cast his features in shadows—the high, wide forehead and the aquiline nose.

A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face when he caught her studying him. “You haven’t changed either,” he said quietly.

“Go on,” she snapped. “Take your damn shower. I’ll listen for the phone in case Selena calls.”

He nodded and started for the bathroom with his shaving kit in hand and a fresh shirt thrown carelessly over his shoulder. Then he seemed suddenly to change his mind and headed instead for the door where, with a quick turn of his wrist, he locked the dead bolt with the key extending from it and withdrew the key and tucked it into the side pocket of his snug-fitting jeans.

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