Flawless Danger (The Spencer & Sione #1) (34 page)

“What?” John asked, his voice rising in excitement. “Are you serious?”

Curious, Spencer turned.

“Yeah, yeah. I can’t believe this,” John said and then faced her, giving her a wide smile. “Yeah, I’ll be right there. I’ll meet you at my office. One hour. See you then.”

Spencer asked, “What is it?”

“The land owners finally agreed to all the terms,” he said. “That was my cousin Truman. I’m meeting him in an hour to finalize everything and sign all the paperwork.”

Squealing in delight, Spencer ran into his arms and John grabbed her, scooping her up and spinning her around. Moments later, after John left to take a shower, Spencer stood in the kitchen, elated for him.

She was excited about the tree house expansion and anxious to see John’s visions and dreams come to life. John deserved to prove that he could make the resort profitable. He’d told her his Tuiali’i cousins didn’t believe in him and secretly wanted him to fail. She was glad he would get to show them they were wrong about him.

More than anything, she was glad she wouldn’t have to come up with some lie in response to whatever John was going to ask her about.

San Ignacio, Belize

Belizean Banyan Resort

“You don’t know that the dead woman is Maxine Porter,” Rae said.

“If it’s not Maxine Porter’s body, then who the hell is it?” Spencer demanded and jumped up from the chaise lounge near the pool. For the past two hours, she’d been clutching her cell phone, talking to her sisters about the newspaper article she’d read this morning. Four grim paragraphs detailed the discovery of a dead, partially decomposed body found in San Pedro.

It was a few minutes after five o’clock, and the pool was pretty much deserted, save for a few resort guests using it as part of a shortcut back to their casitas. Belize didn’t participate in daylight savings time, and the sun was steadily sinking into the sky, dropping behind the jungle landscape.

“Maybe you should wait for a positive identification from the police,” Shady suggested.

“I don’t need a positive identification from the cops,” Spencer said, pacing from the length of the chaise and back again. “The story said some tourists found the body of a dead woman and the right hand was missing. It’s got to be the same right hand I found in Maxine Porter’s closet. Those tourists found Maxine’s body.”

“You shouldn’t jump to any conclusions before you know for sure,” Shady said.

“While I’m trying to find out for sure, some psycho could be stalking me,” Spencer said. “Planning to kill me and cut my hand off.”

“Why do you think the person who killed Maxine would come after you?” Rae asked.

“Because I found her hand,” Spencer said, rolling her eyes even though her sisters weren’t there to appreciate her disdain.

“But how does her killer know you found the hand?” Shady asked. “You didn’t go to the cops and tell them that you found it.”

“I know, but …” Spencer trailed off, her thoughts scattered. “I just think I need to watch my back.”

“Or maybe not,” Rae said. “Ben Chang probably killed Maxine because of some shit that ain’t got nothing to do with you. And you know Ben won’t hurt you.”

“You think he won’t?”

Rae said, “You know how Ben feels about you.”

“Yeah, I do,” Spencer said. ”He doesn’t give a damn about me.”

“That’s not true,” Shady said.

“Your ass would be in jail right now if he didn’t care about you,” Rae said.

“The only reason my ass is not in jail right now is because he is using me,” Spencer said. “Trust me, he doesn’t care about me. He just wants me to find that stupid envelope.”

“I think Ben does care,” Shady said. “But I don’t think he killed Maxine Porter. Why would Ben want money delivered to a woman he was planning to kill?”

“Her murder probably wasn’t planned. Remember, Maxine called Spencer and said there was something wrong with the medicine,” Rae said. “Obviously, what was wrong was that some of the cash Ben promised to give Maxine was missing. So, Maxine called Spencer to confront her. But, before Spencer showed up, Ben came to see Maxine. She confronted Ben about the missing money, so he killed the bitch and chopped her hand off.”

“I think it was the guy with the green tattoo,” Shady said. “What’s his name? Tommy Wong?”

“Tommy Fong,” Spencer corrected.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Rae said. “Why would Tommy Fong kill Maxine Porter? He probably didn’t even know the woman.”

“But Tommy Fong was in Maxine’s condo,” Shady pointed out.

“Because Fong followed Spencer there,” Rae said. “Fong is after Spencer, not Maxine Porter.”

“I don’t think it was either one of them,” Spencer said. “I think it was that guy Richard.”

“Richard?” Shady asked.

“I told y’all about him.” Spencer sank back down onto the cushions, moving beneath the wide umbrella covering the chaise. “Both Maxine and that blonde girl from the cave tour said they don’t trust Richard. They both said he was the damn devil. They both said that if Richard found out they had gone against him, then Richard would kill them.”
 

“But Richard whoever doesn’t even know you,” Rae said. “His beef is with Maxine and the blonde girl.”

“Maybe he knows that I found the severed hand,” Spencer said.

“How would he have found out?” Shady asked.

“I don’t know!” Spencer snipped, rubbing her forehead. “I have to assume he did. Or he might. Which means he’ll probably want me dead, too!”

“If you think that son of a bitch Richard is gonna come after you, then you need to leave Belize,” Rae said.

“You can’t stay there,” Shady said. “And Ben will understand why you have to leave. Just tell him that—”

“Don’t tell him shit,” Rae said. “Think about yourself. Think about your life, okay? How the hell can you find that envelope Ben wants if your ass is dead?”

“How am I supposed to leave Belize without my passport?”

“You can get a new passport,” Rae said.

Shady said, “It might take a few weeks, but—”

“Wait, that was the wrong question,” Spencer said. “What I meant to ask was, how the hell can I leave Belize when I haven’t found that damn envelope that Ben wants? Have y’all forgotten that if I don’t find the envelope, then Ben will have me arrested, and the evidence he has against me will definitely put me in jail for a very long time?”

“No, we haven’t forgotten,” Shady said. “But—”

“Look, I can’t leave Belize unless I find the envelope for Ben,” Spencer snapped. “I can’t get a new passport and get on a plane back to Texas, and I can’t believe y’all would want me to do that knowing the kind of trouble I would be in!”

Exhaling in frustration, Spencer told her sisters she had to go and ended the call. Laying the cell phone on the chaise, Spencer dropped her face in her hands.

She shouldn’t have gotten so pissed with her sisters. She shouldn’t have allowed her fears and frustrations to get the best of her. Rae and Shady meant well. They were just worried about her. They hated the corner Ben had backed her into, and more than anything, they wanted this nightmare with Ben to be over. Spencer did too—more than ever. The damn envelope had to be found. There was no getting out of the favor she had to do.

“You okay?”

Spencer looked up, frantic as she swiped tears from her face.

John stared down at her, looking much too handsome in the fading sunlight, framed by a pink and lavender sky.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said.

“You sure?” He sat on the chaise next to her.

“Not really,” she said, staring at the water. “I mean, yes. I don’t know. I just …”

“What?”

She turned to him. “Did you read in the newspaper about a dead body that was found by some tourists on Ambergris Caye?”

“No, I don’t think I did.”

Spencer took a breath and said, “It was Maxine Porter.”

“That’s what the newspaper said?”

“They didn’t need to say it,” Spencer said. “The dead body was missing a hand, John. And I know the missing hand is the same hand I found in Maxine Porter’s closet.”

“But we don’t know that the hand you found was Maxine’s,” John said.

“Whose hand was it except Maxine’s?” Spencer asked, her frustration increasing. “Before I got to her condo, somebody killed her and then cut her hand off and left it behind while they took her body and dumped it in the jungle. And what if the same thing happens to me?”

“Why do you think the person who killed Maxine would come after you?”

“Because maybe …” Spencer looked at her toes. “Maxine’s killer might know that I found her severed hand.”

“Listen, nobody knows that you were at Maxine Porter’s condo that day,” John said. “My cousin took care of things. He made sure that the cops wouldn’t have a reason to question either one of us about the situation. He made it look like we were never there.”

Confused, Spencer asked, “Why did he do that?”

“Because he didn’t want me associated, in any way, with a hand that had been chopped off and left in a closet,” John said. “We both thought it would be bad for the land deal. Which probably wasn’t the right thing to do. We should have gone to the cops. But there wasn’t really anything we could tell them. I didn’t know Maxine. And neither did you, right?”

“No, I didn’t know her,” Spencer said, then stood, and walked to the edge of the pool. She hadn’t really told John a lie, but she still wasn’t being entirely honest with him.

“You don’t know what she was involved in,” John said. “You don’t know who she was involved with.”
 

Spencer stared at the water, knowing she couldn’t tell John the truth. She knew exactly who and what Maxine Porter had been involved with.

“Spencer ...”

After a deep breath, she turned and took a step toward him, feeling a bit desperate.

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, okay?” John took a step toward her. “So, don’t worry.”

“How can I not worry?” she asked. “A woman was killed and her hand was cut off, for whatever sick, twisted reason, and I found the hand and—”

“Trust me,” he said, pulling her closer to him, gazing at her with those beautiful hazel eyes. “I will keep you safe.”

Spencer stared up at him, anxious to give in to him even as she told herself to hesitate. It wouldn’t be good to be too eager, to give him the power of knowing she needed him to be the hero for her right now.

She needed him to be her hero forever.

A few minutes passed, then Spencer stepped into his arms, and as he embraced her, she held on to him for dear life.

San Ignacio, Belize

Belizean Banyan Resort – Manager’s Office

“Micah says Ms. Edwards is living with you now?” D.J. walked into Sione’s office, closing the door behind him.

Sione glanced up from the cost analysis reports he’d been reviewing and exhaled. His cousin’s question held an insinuation Sione didn’t want to deal with, not after the long, demanding day he’d endured, starting with a nine o’clock meeting with Truman and the owners of the construction company he was thinking about hiring to build the tree houses.

“Is that true?” D.J. asked and dropped down in the chair in front of Sione’s desk.

“Only because I was having extra surveillance cameras installed around the honeymoon casita,” Sione said, defensive, pissed that he felt the need to explain his decisions to his cousin. “And because there’s still a chance the Asian guy might come after her again.”

D.J. gave him a dubious side-eye and asked, “How long has she been staying with you?”

Shrugging, Sione said, “Just a few days.”

“Aunt Carmen says she babysits Terry’s girls,” D.J. said. “Is that true?”

“They like her,” Sione said, thinking of all the times he’d gone back to the casita for lunch and had found Spencer with the girls—or the sprites, as she called them—dancing around, coloring, doing each other’s nails, or some other girly stuff with makeup. “And she loves them.”

Frowning, obviously disappointed, D.J. said, “So, let me get this straight. Ms. Edwards is living with you. She calls you John—”

“It’s my name.” Sione glared at him. “Sione means John.”

“She babysits our cousins,” D.J. went on. “And, according to Micah, the two of you sleep in the same bed every night.”

Grabbing his coffee, Sione shrugged. “So what?”

D.J. smiled. “Your situation seems rather domesticated.”

Sione didn’t really know what the situation was or how to define what was happening between him and Spencer. It was some sort of gray area and unprecedented, unlike any other relationship he’d had with a woman. But he liked it and hoped it wouldn’t end, at least not anytime soon.

“Tell me something.” D.J. leaned forward. “Did she lie to you? Or did she come clean?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were going to tell her you knew the truth about the Xanax boxes,” D.J. said. “And then you were going to ask her what was really going on. So, have you done that?”

Sione glanced at the financial reports on his desk. Spencer’s fears about the dead body found on Ambergris Caye would have been the perfect time to confess his knowledge about the Xanax boxes. But days had passed, and Sione still hadn’t carried out his plan to find out whether or not Spencer would be honest with him about the contents of the banker’s box she’d received.

“I didn’t think so.”

“I’ve been busy,” Sione said defensively. “We got the land deal done. Finally. I’m starting to review construction bids, so—”

“You haven’t asked her because you don’t want to know the answer.”

Sione shook his head. “That’s not true.”

“It is true, and you know it,” D.J. accused. “You are falling for this shady bitch, and you don’t want to know the truth.”

“She’s not a shady bitch. And I haven’t asked because I don’t think it matters—”

“This woman delivered fake passports and money and it doesn’t matter?”

“Whatever her part was, she played it, and her involvement in it is finished,” Sione said.

“You know what your problem is?”

Exhaling, Sione rubbed his jaw.

“You’re afraid that all your suspicions about her will come true,” D.J. said. “You know you should stay away from her. You know she’s a liar, but you don’t care because you’re in love with her.”