Good Chemistry (18 page)

Debra dashed out the door as Meacham launched after her. He had her gun as well as his own.

He fired at her from the doorway but missed. Just then, a patrol car pulled up and officer Williams jumped out with his gun drawn. He pointed it at Meacham when he saw that he was shooting at Debra.

Using Debra’s gun, Meacham drilled him right between the eyes just as Kane leaped out the door to stop him. Too late. Meacham, true to form, just fucked the Golden Goose for the both of them.

Debra ran across the lawn and up the block. Any second, she expected to feel a hot explosion rip through her back as Meacham fired again.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alex. His convertible matched her speed. She veered into the road and leaped into his car as a final bullet flew overhead.

Kane, thinking fast, jumped in his car and quickly threw it in reverse. He blocked all the other police cars, giving his prey a chance to escape. A desperate move he hoped could salvage the situation.

This could still work out, Meacham thought. Debra had to die of course, her gun killed a cop. With the right spin put on the story, bringing about her demise shouldn’t be too difficult.

Chapter 19

Alex drove straight to his boat, leaving his Mercedes in the marina parking lot, presumably for the last time. He scooped Debra up out of the passenger seat. She was deathly pale.

The forty-four slug Meacham had fired went cleanly through Debra’s arm. She was passing in and out of consciousness, as the world became a spinning blur. The last thing she remembered was Alex laying her on a small bed in the boat’s cabin and kissing her on the forehead.

Two days later, Debra’s eyes finally blinked open. A narrow shaft of intense sunlight flooded the cabin through the tiny porthole. Debra winced with pain the instant she awoke. She reached for her arm instinctively, but stopped as pain shot through her upper body the second her fingers grazed her wound.

“Oh shit!” Debra slumped back down in the bed. Alex came skipping down the two stairs into the cabin.

“Morning, Sunshine.” Alex smiled warmly as he slid into bed next to her. “How bad does your arm feel?” He gestured to her arm, bandaged in heavy gauze.

“It’s bearable.” Debra’s tough exterior and training wouldn’t allow her to admit that it hurt like a son of a bitch. But Alex knew.

“Here.” He handed her two large white pills. “This will take the edge off, I promise.” Debra took the pills without argument.

Being around Alex was like having a passport to a different reality. All she’d ever known was the iron hand laying down the law. She lived by it completely. Now Alex was showing her a different way of being in the world.

Alex spoke to the most fragile side of her and his touch was gentle. It was like her heart was a baby bird and Alex was nursing it back to health. Because of her father she’d never had an injury treated with tenderness.

“Hey, come topside with me. There’s something I want to show you.” Alex pulled Debra up by her good hand and steadied her as she made her way up on deck into the brilliant morning sunshine. They were in a little harbor packed with every imaginable type of boat.

“Where in the world are we?” Debra marveled at the tropical paradise all around her.

“We’re in the Port of Santa Lucia, Cuba.”

“Cuba?” Debra was a little stunned. “Is it legal for us to be here?” Just as the words came out of Debra’s mouth, she heard how ridiculous they sounded.

“I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, but we’re both wanted fugitives in the United States right now. Me, for grand larceny, and you, for the murder of a police officer.” Alex kept his gaze fixed on Debra, not sure how she would react.

Her mouth fell open just a little as a look of puzzlement paralyzed her face for a moment.

“Are you kidding me? My God! I remember Meacham firing shots at us as we drove away, but I don’t remember another cop being there at all.”

Alex could almost see the wheels turning in Debra’s mind as she struggled to piece together fragments of the last three days.

“Meacham has already called your phone.”

“What?” Debra snapped to attention. He was throwing all of this at her at once but there was no time. “What does he want?”

“What do you think he wants? He said he will give us your pistol in exchange for half the jewels.”

“That’s insane. I can prove I didn’t shoot that officer.” Debra fumed as she thought it all through. She realized that in any scenario to clear her name, it meant turning in Alexander Valentine. He was the only witness to the cop’s murder. Plus, he could attest that the blue diamond he put in her possession was, in fact,
real
.

Debra leaned back against the toasty deck chair. Her eyes looked far away. She gazed absently in the direction of Miami. With Alex there all of that seemed to melt into the background. Debra found herself in an almost alternate reality. She soaked in the atmosphere of peace and quiet.

“I’m sorry if you feel uncomfortable here, but, I had to come. This is where all the loot is stashed.” Alex grinned at their game of cops and robbers.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. We can’t go anywhere until I retrieve it.” What Alex wasn’t telling her, was that his fence had recently fallen out of contact with him. He’d been robbed and murdered by a rival. And now every diamond and ruby Alex had accumulated was now in some stranger’s hands. Headed for who-knows-where.

“So what do you think we should do?” Debra looked up questioningly as Alex stared into the shadowy streets of the port. “Well, for starters, you need to take in some sun. Why don’t you get started on collecting sea shell for our grass hut in Belize? I need to go into town and take care of a few things.”

Alex was doing his best to give her the impression that this was all routine and that everything was fine.

“Could I go with you?” Debra asked.

Alex chuckled.

“Oh, don’t be silly . . .” He did his best to hide it but the thought had already crossed his mind.

“No, no . . . you just stay here and relax.” Alex got into the dingy, reached the shore, and headed into the heart of the city. He made a beeline for his friend Ari’s house. Ariel Bastrone, one of Alex’s life-long friends from the old days with his father in the circus.

Alex crept up the familiar wooden steps and entered Ariel’s home. Everything was quiet. Completely quiet. This was the first time Alex had ever heard it so dead.

He knew something was wrong before he rounded the corner to the kitchen. There lay Ari, with the back part of his head blown off. The odor crushed Alex in a wave as he stirred the air around the body. Alex quickly found a rag to hold over his mouth.

He turned the place upside down searching for the stash of jewels he’d entrusted to him. Satisfied that they were gone, Alex took one last look at Ari and then turned to go. Alex crossed the cobblestone street and made his way along the row of shops and little stands selling food. A few doors down, Alex ducked inside one of the few wood-framed structures.

“Hey, hey,
que pasa
.” Alex threw his arms around Manuel, his friend from the port. He scaled Alex’s hull for him and kept him updated on the latest news on the street.

Manuel’s expression grew dark as Alex explained that Ari had been murdered. Manuel suspected someone had been robbed because the loot making its way around the neighborhood. But learning it was his friend left for dead filled him with rage.

“Please tell me you have something.” Alex’s pulse pounded in his ears.

“Two women say they saw Hector Salazar trying to sell a handful of gemstones. And now the latest I heard is that he’s in the market for a jacked-up low-rider.”

Alex nodded and quietly took in all the information.

“Thanks. Will you see to it that Ari is taken care of?”

“Of course.” Alex gave Manuel a firm hug then turned abruptly and walked away. He had what he needed.

“Hey, where you going? I want to come.”

Manuel had always wanted desperately to attach himself to whatever action Alex was about to take. But he was too slow.

What Alex needed right now was a partner he could count on. Someone who could create a distraction. Any sight of Manuel coming up the path and Hector would just start blasting away. The same went for Alex. They knew each other in passing.

Well enough for Alex to have taken Hector’s last two hundred dollars in a late-night impromptu poker game. No. Alex might as well paint a target on his head as soon as approach Hector.

Alex returned to the docks, pulled his dingy back in the water and motored back to his boat. As he tied it off Debra came around the edge of the cabin with an enormous conch shell.

“Look at the size of this thing.” Debra was bubbling until she saw the look on Alex’s face. Time was up. There was no way to keep her in the dark any longer.

“Debra, I hate to have to ask you this but I need your help.” Alex sat down cross-legged at Debra’s feet. Her brow narrowed.

“What is it? What do you need me to do?”

“Ari, a dear friend of mine, was robbed and killed.”

Debra gasped.

“He was the one person in the whole world I trusted enough to keep my stash of jewels with. If I ever got caught, having them stuck in a safety-deposit box would do me no good. Sure, they’d be safe the whole time I was in jail but that wouldn’t help me get out. So, I always kept them with Ari. He knew exactly what to do should the situation ever arise.”

“So, what can I do?” Debra gave Alex her full attention.

“I need someone to approach Hector’s house and get him to come out into the open without seeing me.”

“I can do that.” Debra jumped up on her feet. The hole in her bicep sent bolts of pain blasting down her arm and along her back. Debra caught herself, switched back to her ninety-year-old pose and cradled her arm. “Don’t worry about me. I can do it.”

The fire in Debra’s eyes left no room for doubt in Alex’s mind.

“Here, put this on.” Alex draped a light blue dress shirt over Debra to hide the injury to her arm. Hopefully, a bloodstain wouldn’t develop before she had a chance to lure Hector outside.

Alex got back in the rubber dingy and held Debra’s good arm with one hand, while he guided the boat with the other. Alex was tense and apprehensive. Using Debra in a situation like this was never what he had in mind for their journey together. But this was part of Alex’s secret world too. Things had just never gone worst-case-scenario before.

Alex hopped out of the boat and helped Debra ashore. He tied off the dingy and they began to make their way to the house where Hector lived.

“Give me a gun,” Debra demanded.

Alex smiled and pulled up his pant leg. He pulled a small two-barrel Derringer from a hidden ankle holster. He handed it to Debra with a sheepish look on his face. “Sorry, but it’s all I could get on such short notice.”

Debra just nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

Alex figured that Debra was ten times the marksman he was. She tucked the gun away in the back pocket of her jeans. They made their way deep into the small port town. Fog and vines seemed like an ever-present threat to overtake it and make it disappear into the jungle.

Finally, they turned down the last cobblestone road between rows of dilapidated shacks at the furthest edge of town. Alex waved Debra over behind a clump of brush. This was as close as he could get without being spotted.

“Just go up and knock on his door. Tell him anything you can think of. To be honest, a beautiful woman coming to his door will be enough to make him come out. Just be careful of your position. Don’t block my shot.” Alex felt a little awkward schooling Debra. He knew that she was highly-trained.

Part of being highly-trained meant going over your plans so there were no mistakes. Debra understood his caution.

Alex took a deep breath. He was more nervous than she was. From the first moment he saw her at the press conference, he’d imagined her by his side as his partner. And now, here they were in real life.

Everything was shifting like quicksand. Most people would feel ripped apart by the dilemma Debra found herself in. Nevertheless, she had a decisive quality about her, and she was already all the way on the other side, Alex’s side.

”Alex, don’t worry. I’m a grown woman. I understand the choice I’m making.” With that she marched up to the door of the man who killed his best friend. Alex could never have figured on what happened next. Debra marched up, in her most cop-like walk, knocked firmly on the door and when it opened, she simply said.

“Hector Salazar?”

He barely had a chance to nod his head before Debra knifed her knuckles into his Adam’s apple. He crumpled to the ground instantly. Debra quickly circled around him and had his arm twisted up behind his back. The tendons in his shoulder were stretched to the point of permanent damage when she jerked him to his feet by his hair, whipped him around and asked coolly.

“Where are the jewels?”

Alex almost freaked when he watched her go off script and use her bad arm like it was good as new. Hector spit on Debra’s shoe. She thrust her palm right into his teeth. He fell over backward, unconscious before he hit the ground.

Alex ran up and nodded toward the inside of the house.

Debra helped him dragged Hector inside and found a phone cord to tie him up. She sat on the edge of the filthy dilapidated couch with her gun trained on Hector, while Alex tore the place apart. It didn’t take long. Hector lacked imagination. As well as housekeeping skills.

The jewels were still in Alex’s Crown Royal bag inside a walnut jewelry box. It was stuffed under the sink behind a moldy can of cleanser. Alex quickly set the box in the middle of the living room floor and opened it. One of the bundles of hundred-dollar bills had been nibbled at quite a bit. The rest of the bundles, along with most of the jewels, appeared to be intact.

Alex pulled out a stunning sapphire and diamond necklace and webbed it over his fingers. He presented it to Debra. She put her hand to her mouth as she gasped. The sparkle in her eyes rivaled the glitter of the priceless stones.

Debra giggled as she allowed Alex to put it around her soft neck. The effect was mind-blowing. The dazzling gems set off Debra’s beauty perfectly.

“That looks like it belongs there. What do you think?”

Debra looked around the filthy hovel for a mirror but found none.

Alex held up a sterling silver cigarette lighter so Debra could catch her reflection in it.

“Oh my God. They’re beautiful.” Then Debra quickly took it off and put it back in the box. “We need to get the hell out of here before some of Hector’s friends show up looking for him.”

Alex put his arm around Debra’s waist to lend her support as they made their way back to the dingy and then finally, to the safety of Alex’s boat.

Alex lowered Debra onto a deck chair and disappeared below. After a few minutes of rummaging around, Alex returned with a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a tray with cheese and crackers. He poured her a glass of wine and then held up his own.