Chapter 164
"Don't even try to bargain with me this time," Kate said. "You're lucky I'm not charging you twice that amount for putting up with those kids. The little boy kicked me when I told him he couldn't catch a jellyfish. I have bruises."
Fiona's dark brown eyes flashed. "They were beautiful children with their golden hair and green eyes. If you didn't dye your hair so b.l.o.o.d.y red they could pa.s.s as your American cousins."
"Flattery will get you nowhere. Pay up."
Fiona made a hissing noise and s.n.a.t.c.hed the money bag from the dusty counter behind her. "Here's a twenty. I'll pay you the rest later."
Kate grabbed the bag out of her hand, pulled out another twenty, and tucked it into her front pocket. "I'll take it all now, thanks." She headed for the door. "Tell Esri I'll be back in the morning."
"Oh, one more thing," Fiona said.
Kate sighed. "What?"
"Someone's looking for you...a man. He said he'd be back in a few minutes."
Kate frowned. "Did he say what he wanted?"
Fiona shrugged. "Who cares? He was a handsome American...Mel Gibson good looking. He had on a fine suit with a silk tie. And his a.s.s! Il avait un beau cul."
Kate's heart raced. Not because the guy had a nice a.s.s, but because a strange man in a suit was looking for her. "Where is he now?"
"I told him you'd be back soon."
Kate stepped outside. Heat rose from the dusty ground. The air felt thick and suffocating. She needed to hide. Instinct told her to run but logic told her it would only make her stand out if someone was watching. She kept a steady pace and tried to blend in with the crowd. A few blocks up the boulevard, she slipped into a narrow alley. She pa.s.sed rows of rundown huts with sheet metal for roofs. Like most homes in the area, the huts were without electricity or piped water.
She stopped at the place she'd called home for the past ten years and threw back the dusty flap of cloth that served as a door. The hut was one room, with the bed separated from the rest of the room by a half sheet that hung from the ceiling. Her shoulder knocked into the homemade punching bag, a burlap bag stuffed with rags, which hung from the middle of the room. The bag swung back and forth, making the tin roof creak as she shoved her belongings into a canvas bag. She drew the string tight and looked around to see what else she needed.
She needed to stay focused. But all she could think about was who could be looking for her now after all these years. Images of a snake tattoo blurred her vision. She shook her head to clear her mind. The man. The serpent tattoo. The storm. Her father's hand in hers before he disappeared forever. Trust no one. She rubbed her temple.
Kate stepped outside and looked from one side of the street to the other. Who was looking for her? The only person she'd been in contact with over the past ten years was her father's good friend, Dr. Forstin. Dr. Forstin had sent her a few dollars but the risk of leaving a trail was too great and so they had agreed to keep their contact to a minimum. According to Dr. Forstin, he and her father were on the brink of finding a cure for AIDS, but there was a missing link. What that link was, Dr. Forstin didn't know. Kate believed her father had left her with a clue...something she hadn't figured out yet. Until she did...she couldn't be found. She wasn't ready.
As always, the sidewalks were jam packed with would-be guides, street kids, and vendors. The sun's scorching rays beat down on the dirt roads. Stench hung in the air.
She crossed the main boulevard, maneuvered around an uncovered manhole and rammed squarely into a man's chest. The smell of his cologne and the feel of his hard body against hers caught her off guard. Beneath a dark jacket he wore a white b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt tucked into a pair of dark slacks. Snug within his waistband was a pistol.
She didn't look at his face. Instead, she bolted, knocking over a pedestrian in her haste to get away. d.a.m.n! Why hadn't she been paying attention? She'd gotten lackadaisical over the last few years. Das.h.i.+ng across the boulevard, she cut a sharp left into a narrow alley and followed a maze of twists and turns until she came out near the docks.
The sun's punis.h.i.+ng rays pounded against her back. She looked from left to right. The coast was clear. The beat of her heart drummed a little easier as she jogged down the center of the dock and hopped onto the deck of Esri's sailboat. She reached for the mainsail and heard the click of the handcuffs around her wrist before she saw his face.
"Going somewhere?" a c.o.c.ky-male voice asked, his breathing labored.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am." She turned and jammed her knee into his groin.
He cursed and fell to his knees, bringing her halfway to the ground with him. As he groaned in pain, she shoved her free hand into his jacket pocket in search of the keys to the cuffs.
Nothing.
Next, she tried one of his pants' pockets, but found something else entirely.
"Don't stop now," he said.
She wasn't amused. "Where are the keys?"
He shrugged.
She pulled a leather wallet from a pocket inside his jacket and flipped it open with her free hand. "Ahhh...Jack Coffey, big bad FBI man, huh?"
"That's right."
"In case you didn't know, this isn't the U.S. I don't believe you're in your 'sphere of influence.'"
He looked surprised, but he didn't respond.
"Where's your gun?" she asked next.
"I don't carry a gun."
"Liar."
The corner of
He grunted.
He was lean, not bulky. Didn't live in a gym, but he definitely worked out on a regular basis. His face and neck were red from sun exposure, which told her he'd been around these parts for a few days now. He was attractive and under different circ.u.mstances, she might have enjoyed showing him around town. "What do you want from me?" she asked him.
"We need your help."
"Yeah, I bet you do. Where are the keys, Jack?"
"Could you let up a little?"
"Not until you unlock these." She yanked up on the wrist connected to his.
His teeth clenched. "I left the keys back at my hotel."
She let out a huff. "You've got two seconds to tell me why you're here."
"Your father was a scientist-" he said through gritted teeth "-on the verge of creating a vaccination that had the potential to save thousands of lives."
"It doesn't matter anymore. He's dead. He can't help anyone. Now unlock me."
"I don't have the keys. I'm just doing my job," he told her.
"What did they do, send a rookie after me?" She pushed her bangs out of her face. "What does the agency want with me?"
"Isn't it obvious?"
She c.o.c.ked her head. "I guess I'm not as smart as I look. Talk."
"You're the only one who might know what happened to one of the most important scientists of our century. Ten years ago," he went on, "the world was on the brink of finding a cure for AIDS." He drew in a breath. "Then you and your father traveled to the Caribbean and never returned. Your boat was found days later...destroyed in one of the worst storms in the Caribbean's history."
He attempted to sit up, but she held firm. "It wasn't long," he said, "before your father's body washed ash.o.r.e. That's when the agency knew it wasn't the storm that killed your father. Divers were sent to look for your body, but obviously," he said as his eyes roamed over her, "nothing turned up."
"They never found another body?" Kate asked.
"Why?" His eyes narrowed. "Should they have?"
She opted to ignore his question. Her instincts told her he had no intention of doing her harm, so she eased her knee from his side. "Listen, rookie. I don't know you. I don't like you, and I don't want anything to do with you. Once I get these cuffs off, I'm going to let you go and you're going to pretend you never laid eyes on me."
"Can't do. I need you to come back to the States with me."
"In your dreams, FBI man." She chuckled as she leaned over him, frisking him from his knees to his ankles. "How did you know it was me?" she asked. "I don't look anything like the little stringy-haired teenager I once was."
"Can I sit up?"
She thought about it for a moment before she pulled her knee fully from his side. He sat, she squatted, his right wrist connected to her left wrist.
"I used to work in the Missing Persons Department," he told her. "I have what they call eidetic memory-clinical term for photographic memory. I'd recognize any face on that list."
"But that doesn't explain why you've come. Why now?"
"We've been looking for a man...a drug lord. We picked up his picture via satellite during a funeral. You happened to be standing in the background when the pictures were snapped. I recognized your face immediately. If you ask me, I'd say you're hanging out with the wrong crowd."
"I didn't ask you. Was my picture made public?"
"No."
Her gaze focused on a bulge near his left bicep.
He shot her a worried look. "What?"
She pulled off his tie and dragged his jacket halfway off of his left shoulder. Taking a firm hold of the top of his white b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt, she tore it wide open. b.u.t.tons popped. Before he could protest, she slid her hand down the sleeve. The keys were duct taped to his arm. "Clever."
He gave her a wry smile.
She ripped the tape off of his arm.
"Ouch! Have some mercy, will you?"
"Get to your feet," she said. "Then I'll unlock the cuffs. After I free myself," she warned, "I won't be able to stick around. I have no idea who murdered my father. I can't help you. Go back to your people and tell them to stop wasting their time...and mine."
"What about Dr. Forstin?" he asked.
She concentrated on getting to her feet, determined not to look him in the eye. "Never heard of him."
"Liar."
They managed to get to their feet at the same time. As far as she was concerned, Jack Coffey didn't need to know that she had any contact at all with Dr. Forstin.
The handcuffs forced them to stand close, face to face. Uncomfortably close. Goose b.u.mps swam up her spine. As she fidgeted with the lock, her fingers trembled slightly, frustrating her. The fact that she could smell the starch of his s.h.i.+rt and the light earthy scent of his soap wasn't helping matters. The men she usually hung out with worked outside for a living. Their hands were callused, their hair long and tied back. She'd never been this close to a guy in a suit, a guy who took showers on a regular basis. It was hard to tell how old he was, but with his s.h.i.+rt torn open she couldn't help but notice that he was well-built, hard in all the right places. Under different circ.u.mstances, she might be tempted to run her fingers through his hair and press her lips to his.
He raised a curious brow.
"I'm trying to guess how old my captor is."
"Thirty-two," he said. "And I'm not your captor."
She held up the arm still hooked to his. "I beg to differ. If you weren't my captor, I wouldn't be handcuffed to you."
Unease crept into his mesmerizing blue eyes as if her close proximity made him nervous. She leaned into him, brus.h.i.+ng her chest against the thin soft fabric of his s.h.i.+rt. "Or would I?"
Jack felt sorry for her. She looked exhausted, as if she'd been running from ghosts every hour of every day for the past ten years. The emptiness in her eyes and the hollow sound to her voice only served to make him more determined to bring her back safely. The agency had lots of questions. They needed her, and whether she knew it or not, she needed them. For ten years she'd managed to hide from the world. He wasn't going to lose her now. "If you hadn't run," Jack said, "I never would have used the cuffs in the first place."
Her attention was elsewhere. Her eyes had grown round and sharp like that of a trapped fox.
"Are you alone?" she asked.
He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and nodded. Looking over his shoulder, he followed her gaze, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. "Is something wrong?"
She fumbled with the key again. There were two holes in the metal cuffs, but she kept sticking the key in the wrong one. Since he wanted to keep her talking, he didn't tell her what she was doing wrong.
"My father never would have told me to hide from the world if it wasn't necessary," she told him. "d.a.m.n cuffs. For ten years I've survived by listening to my instincts. And right now my instincts are telling me something's not right."
"I never would have come looking for you if I thought I was putting you in danger."
"Oh, that's charming." A shaky laugh escaped her. "What are you, FBI man in s.h.i.+ning armor?"
Ignoring her sarcasm, he noticed she kept looking behind him. Once again he looked over his shoulder. "What are you looking-"
A bearded man wearing sungla.s.ses and dressed in khaki shorts and a short-sleeved print s.h.i.+rt stepped onto the deck, gun drawn and aimed in the vicinity of their heads.
Jack tensed. "s.h.i.+t!"
Kate moved fast. She slapped the keys into Jack's hand, then reached behind him and whipped out the gun he didn't think she knew about. She jerked back the safety latch with her thumb. With a shoot-now, ask-questions-later mentality, she shot the man in the shoulder. His gun skittered across the deck and out of reach.
"Jesus!" Jack said. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"
She was ignoring him again. That much was clear. She was also stronger than she looked. Dragging him along, she stepped over the injured man and kicked his gun off the boat and into the water.
Just when Jack thought things couldn't get worse, a second man stepped out from behind the cabin. He was Haitian. His long hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
Kate jabbed an elbow into the newest arrival's gut. Nothing happened, so Jack came up hard and fast with the hand that was connected to hers and knocked the thug flat on his back.
"Jump," she said right before she leapt off the boat and onto the dock.
If not for his keen ability to follow orders, Jack might have found himself flat on the deck. Instead, their shoes thumped against the dock as they ran toward the crowded streets.
When they reached the boulevard, Kate shouted, "Run!"