Then You Hide (6 page)

“He
is
? Where’s the villa?” she asked eagerly. “How do I get there?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. You may speak with the concierge, but I doubt they will take you there. Palm Grove guests are our most private, and it is not resort policy to disturb them for any reason.”

“I understand, but he’s my friend, and these are extenuating circumstances.”

He inched toward the other customers. “I’m sorry. Our guests demand privacy, and we give it to them.”

As he walked away, she said to herself, “If the guests demand privacy, then why did you just tell me his name and villa?”

“That is an excellent question, ma’am.”

She spun around and blinked into electric-blue eyes, slack-jawed. He couldn’t have. He
couldn’t
have.

“The bathroom window.” Wade pointed to her. “Not original, but you get points for sheer nerve.”

“How did you find me?”

His smile was lazy, and a little bit victorious, as he used his pointed finger to close her mouth gently. “An eleven, huh?”

Stella
. “I’m gonna kill that woman.”

“Don’t be too hard on her. You left a trail that a blind man could follow.” Brushing her bare legs with those still-crisp khaki pants, he slipped onto the next barstool and gestured to the picture. “Sounds like you’re making progress.”

“You were listening?”

“I was just a few feet away.”

Heat and chills clashed over her skin at the thought. “For how long?”

“Let’s see. I picked you up somewhere around…Hurricane Hill? You took that hairpin turn a little too fast, don’t you think? Considering you probably don’t drive much in New York, and if you do, it’s on the other side of the road.”

He plucked the stirrer from her glass and bobbed the lime with it. “I thought you hated limes.”

“What I hate is being stalked.”

“I’m not stalking you.” He removed the straw and slipped it between his lips. “What? No vodka?”

She turned away from the unwanted impact of seeing the straw slide into his mouth. “Listen, I can’t help you. I have to concentrate on one problem before I jump into another. I need to find my friend. For the time being, I’m not going to meet Eileen Stafford or these other women—”

“Only one so far. We’re still looking for the other.”

“Whatever,” she said, trying not to let that new information take hold of her heart. “Like I said, I’m busy with something else.”

She sneaked a peek at him, just in time to catch him sucking the straw again, his mouth puckered, his cheeks not quite as clean-shaven as they were hours ago when she’d run away from him. The little bit of whisker made him even more rugged, and the look he gave her was downright sinful.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” she demanded.

“I’m just curious about how badly you want it.”

“How badly I want…” She raked his face and chest with a long, slow look, lingering on his wide shoulders and the few golden hairs at the top button. “What?”

“To get into the Palm Grove villa.”

She held his gaze, awareness and understanding sparking at the same time. He closed the space between them enough for her to smell the wind on him and the salt of the sea.

So he’d been in an open-air car, too. Right behind her on that hairpin turn that she
had
taken too fast. Warmth curled up inside her, tightening her belly and kicking up her pulse.

“You’d like to go there and see who answers the door, wouldn’t you?”

Of course she would.

“And if no one is there, you’d like to go inside to look for his things or a clue to where he might be, am I right?”

So, so right.

He took his own slow trip from eyes to mouth to body and back, leaving every inch well scrutinized and warm. “How badly, Vanessa?”

“Not badly enough to make deals with the devil.” She gave him her profile again in an act of sheer self-preservation. “Nice try, but forget it.”

He leaned right in to her ear. “I can get you in there.” He breathed just enough to move her hair and curl her toes. “I can do that.”

She’d bet her next commission check he could. “How?”

“I found you, didn’t I?”

She tightened her fingers on the glass. “In exchange for what? A big happy family reunion at the South Carolina jailhouse?”

“Dinner. With you. Tonight.”

Her fingers slipped. “That’s the price for getting me into that villa?”

“You make it sound like torture. It’s just dinner.”

Right. Dinner, where he would wear down her every last defense with that silky drawl and warm breath on her hair, with meaningful gazes and teasing touches. And, of course, his pocketful of pictures.

But the fact was, he probably could get her into that villa, and that could take her one giant step closer to finding Clive. Who might be in that very villa right now.

“Tempting, but your price is too high.” She backed away from him and this dangerous negotiation. “I’m sure I can get the help I need from the concierge. Enough cash will persuade him to bend the rules.”

“You think?” He cocked his head toward the lobby. “Why don’t you try? I’ll wait here.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll have them take me to the villa. If no one is there, I’ll convince them they should let me inside.”

He pointed the straw at her. “Good luck with that.”

Damn it all, he was right. She was
so
losing this one. The problem was, she was bargaining blindly. She needed to know more about her opponent.

She settled back into the chair and took a drink of water. “So, what’s your background that you know all this hide-and-seek stuff?”

“I’ve spent most of my life looking for things that didn’t want to be found.” He got close again. “Like you.”

She didn’t back up but met his smoky gaze with a direct look. Did he really think she was some hopeless female who’d melt from his cocky flirting? “And how did you learn to do that?”

“First, I ask questions of the right people. Then I use all my senses to track.” He drew in a slow, deep breath as if he was sniffing her. “I get all the necessary intelligence, move at an effective speed…” He brushed some hair from her forehead, curling the strand around his finger. “And then I zoom in…and…” He tugged the hair gently. “Getcha.”

She corralled the three brain cells that hadn’t turned to hormonal mush and gave him her best power stare. “Nicely done. But that doesn’t answer
how
.”

“How isn’t important.” He was so close that anyone watching would take them for lovers about to kiss. He looked at her mouth as if he was thinking about doing just that.

What would that feel like? He had a wide, sexy mouth and perfect teeth. Very…kissable.

“What matters,” he continued, “is that I’m giving you a choice.”

To kiss or not to kiss. “Which is…”

“You can sprint on over to that concierge and make some demands that they will ignore and put yourself on their radar as a problematic patron who should be closely watched while on property…or…” He ran a fingertip over her knuckles, a touch as hot as fire. “…you can sit here with me, drink a tonic-free vodka, and get more information out of the extremely observant bartender who knows more about your friend than he’s telling you.”

She surveyed his face, the thick eyelashes, angular bones, soft lips. All that easy-going Southern charm was a very deceptive mask over some serious brains. She liked that. Even more than his kissable mouth. “How do you know that he’s not telling me everything?”

“The same way I knew to find the woman in orange to get a lead on where you went.” He shrugged. “I know stuff. And I can help you.”

He could, damn it. “So, what are you proposing? We suck Henry dry for info, then crack the villa?”

“I prefer to think of it as friendly interrogation, but yeah, let’s gather some useful intelligence. After that, we’ll thoughtfully plan our next move—a strategy you would do well to learn, by the way. That may or may not include circling the villa, observing the occupants, or having a few quiet conversations with someone in housekeeping. We have options. But first, why don’t we get some food? You haven’t eaten all day.”

She
was
starved, and not just for food.

“Considering the way you’re dressed,” he said, putting a warm hand on her bare knee, “you might be more comfortable with room service.”

She shivered. “I don’t have a room here.”

“I do.” He reached into his pocket and set a card key on the bar. “And as luck would have it, it’s on the second floor of the main building.”

Just the thought sent her pulse spiking. “Why is that lucky?”

“It overlooks the eastern grounds of the resort—where the Palm Grove villa is.” He lifted his eyebrows. “What do you say?”

“I know what my father would say.”

“Run, little bunny, run?”

She smiled and shook her head. “He’d say, ‘Nessie, bulls have balls. Use ‘em.’”

That earned her a surprised look. “Was your dad a Marine, by any chance?”

“Worse. An investment banker.” And a master negotiator. He’d say she hadn’t won this round, but she hadn’t exactly lost, either. As long as she had something to gain, she should stay at the table and barter.

She signaled the bartender with the slowest, most welcoming smile she could muster.

“I think I’ll take that drink now,” she said. “Vodka. Rocks.”

“No lime,” Wade added, winking at her. “‘Cause she’s tart enough.”

CHAPTER SIX

“THE FIRST THING
you need to do,” Wade said after they’d clinked her crystal tumbler of Grey Goose to the long neck of his Kubuli, “is go to the bathroom. He’s more likely to open up to a man.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jesus. Oh, wait—that comment about my dad being a Marine? Tell me you’re not.”

He laughed. “You say that like it’s a communicable disease.”

“I’m a pacifist.”

“Well, good for you. I’m a realist.” He was actually way worse than that, but something told him that cozying up to her and telling her about his last two kills wasn’t going to get him where he wanted to go.

“All that Semper Fi and ooh-yah shit gives me the willies.”

“It’s ooh-rah. And by the way, you swear like some of the guys I fought with,” he said. “Don’t you know that ladies don’t curse?”

She let out a hearty laugh. “Guess what? We can vote now, own property,
and
say bad words.” She notched her head toward the bartender. “Want me to get him over here to talk?”

“I want you to go to the ladies’ room and stay put for five whole minutes. Is that a remote possibility?”

“You would trust me to do that again?” She lowered her glasses and looked at him over the frames, finally giving him a chance to look directly into her eyes. The pupils were surrounded by a dark ring of navy, and her eyelashes were long and thick. Why would a woman hide artillery like that behind horn-rimmed glasses?

“Of course I trust you,” he replied. “We just toasted. Where I come from, that and a handshake are as good as a written contract.”

“Where I come from, that and a handshake mean you met in the bar and may or may not exchange accurate cell-phone numbers.”

“Since this is technically south of the Mason-Dixon Line, let’s call it a deal. Agreed?”

She hesitated, then got up.

He stood instantly, and she acknowledged the gesture with a wry smile. “That’s right. South of the Mason-Dixon Line. I forgot.”

He tilted his head to the lobby. “Five full minutes.”

She took a quick sip of vodka, snagged her handbag, and trotted off while Henry worked his way over.

Wade lifted his bright green bottle. “Great recommendation. Local brew?”

“In Dominica. The secret is the island fresh water.”

Wade shot the breeze about local beers for another minute, but since his idea of five minutes and hers were probably not the same, he nodded to the empty barstool to get a subtle interrogation going. “She tells me you’ve seen her friend.”

“I have.” Henry glanced toward the lobby, then back to Wade. “She is with you? She is your woman?”

“If I’m lucky.” Wade leaned back, keeping his body language loose and unthreatening. “Maybe you can help.”

Henry smiled at the conspiratorial tone, like any guy who’d want to help the male species in the quest to get laid.

“But she’s real uptight about this guy she’s looking for.”

“Yes, she is.” Henry touched the top of one of the bottles. “I’ll make her a strong one, if you like.”

Stronger than straight vodka? Wade laughed softly. “What I’d like is a tip on her friend, so she can find him and I can get down to business.”

Henry nodded understandingly and rubbed his wiry goatee. “A bartender can be in a difficult position when someone asks about a guest.”

“I bet that’s tough.” Wade nodded sympathetically. “But I’m a guest here, and she’s not. Check the registration desk.”

Henry leaned closer. “He’s gay. Does she know?”

She’d never really said. But given Gideon Bones’s establishment and the men he’d seen Vanessa talk to this afternoon, he’d already surmised that the missing man was gay. Vanessa was too smart not to know that as well.

“She knows,” Wade assured him. “They’re just friends.”

“Whatever. Believe me, I see it all here.”

The clock was ticking, but he took a slow sip of his beer. “So, what did you see with this guy?”

“Jason? Well, he was traveling with a man,” Henry said as he wiped the bar in front of Wade. “A good-looking fellow, built even bigger than you. The man—I do not know his name, because he never once ordered a drink—was very attentive to Jason.” He lowered his voice. “Until they had a very bad argument. Then—”

“Excuse me.” At the end of the bar, a middle-aged woman wearing the cream-colored shirt of Four Seasons management glared at Henry. “Those people are waiting.”

“Pardon me, sir,” Henry said, averting his eyes at the reprimand. Then he gestured with the rag. “Here she comes.”

Through the lobby glass, Wade could see a flash of platinum locks flying and shapely tanned legs devouring the marble. Vanessa at warp speed.

She sailed back to her stool and looked from him to the departed bartender. “Doesn’t look like you did much male bonding while I was gone.”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, turning to face her, liking the direct contact of his pants legs against her knees and the way it made her try not to react, “in the scant time you gave me, I’ve learned that your friend was traveling with a muscle-bound man and that the last time they were seen together, they had an argument.”

Her jaw unhinged. “Really? He told you that?”

“Then he got his knuckles rapped by his boss, so we have to be patient.”

She was already gripping the edge of the bar, ready to climb over and shake Henry down for more information. “Who was this guy? And when did this happen? Which bar? Here? Were they registered together?”

He put his hand on hers. “Relax, and give him a minute.” He inched the drink in front of her. “He’ll come back.”

“I don’t want to relax,” she said. “This is the first person who actually has some concrete information. Waiting is bullshit.”

“Honestly, Vanessa. Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

Her look was lethal. “I was born with it.”

“Must be your business. All that screaming on the stock-exchange floor.”

“How do you know what I do for a living?” She drew back, on guard. “I never told you.”

“I have a file on you. It’s all public information,” he assured her. “Remember, I work for a security and investigation firm. Obviously, we did some research to locate you.”

“What’s this firm called?” she asked, whipping out an iPhone. “I’ll look it up on the Internet right now.”

“You won’t find it on the Internet.”

“Then as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t exist.” She touched the screen. “Naturally, no wireless.” She put the phone down, disgusted. “What kind of company doesn’t have a Web site?”

“A secret one.”

“More bullshit,” she said, locking her gaze on the bartender. “Tell me everything he said.”

“I did already. He’ll be back in a few minutes. Meantime, we can talk. Why are you so dead set against meeting your mother?”

“I thought we toasted and were pals now. Like this.” She lifted the drink, touched the neck of his beer bottle, and took a deep drink. “Please don’t make me talk about her. She’s not my mother.”

“She’s your birth mother,” he corrected.

“A mere technicality.”

“What about your adoptive mother? Is she opposed to you meeting Eileen Stafford also?”

“I don’t know what that woman is opposed to or not, and I don’t care, and neither did she when she took a one-way flight to Arizona when I was fifteen.” The pain in her eyes was raw.

“How about your father?”

Her expression softened. “Greatest human being ever to walk the face of the earth. His death was a travesty. And the reason I’m a pacifist.”

He filed that but stayed on his target. “When did you find out about your birth mother’s past?”

“After my father divorced Mary Louise Porter, he helped me launch a massive search, and we eventually found her.”

“So, when you found out she was in jail, you decided you didn’t want to meet her?”

Her laugh was quick and mirthless. “I admit it shattered my fantasy.”

“Which was what?”

“That my dad and my birth mother would meet, fall in love, get married, and I would have a mother who really wanted me, instead of one who considered me just this side of Satan’s daughter.” She shot from the chair as the bartender passed. “Henry, can I talk to you for a second?”

“You need another, Miss?”

“I need to find my friend,” she said, reaching out and closing her hand over his wrist. “You’re the first person I’ve met who has actually seen Clive since he went on a cruise about a month ago. Tell me everything, please.”

Wade knew better than to step in and stop her. If she wanted to do this her bullish way, let her.

Henry glanced around, but the management woman had disappeared, and the other bar patrons seemed fine. “I can only tell you this. He is registered here under Jason Brooks, and he introduced himself to me as Jason. I don’t know anything about a Clive.”

“What about this man he was with? Do you know his name?”

“I don’t, but…” He hesitated, his dark eyes unsure of how far to go. Wade would have coaxed it out of him nice and easy, but Vanessa squeezed his hand and leaned so far over the bar she looked as if she’d bite the poor guy if he didn’t cough up some facts.

“You have to tell me.”

No, he didn’t. But there was no proving that to her.

“You do this job long enough,” Henry said, “you learn to pick out the people who are here for fun and those who might be running away from trouble, you know?”

“And you think he’s running away from trouble?” Vanessa asked.

He sighed, glanced at Wade, then said, “There are some people who live on this island and over on St. Kitts who are very, very secretive. Do you know what I mean? Hiding from the tax collector, the police, the FBI, selling drugs, laundering money, doing stuff that might not be completely…good. The islands attract that type.”

“He didn’t do anything bad,” she insisted. “He’s totally legit. He’s a hard worker and a good friend.”

Henry looked unconvinced. “Most people on vacation in Nevis at a resort like this, they don’t use the cell phone a lot. Most are happy to be off it for a week or two, you know? But this man, all the time on the phone—”

“Talking on the phone doesn’t make him a criminal.” She couldn’t hide her indignation. “He lives on the phone. He’s a hedge-fund manager.”

Henry shrugged and started moving away. “Yes, of course. You are right.”

They’d lost him.

Wade stood, surreptitiously sliding a fifty-dollar bill over the bar. Vanessa didn’t see, but Henry did.

“You’ve been a great help,” Wade said.

Henry didn’t even look at the money as he curled it into his palm. “I’m sorry I did not hear what they were arguing about,” he told Wade, ignoring Vanessa. “But Jason was very upset, very mad. The other man left, and Jason made a phone call, drank two gimlets, and disappeared. The next night, he was down here again. Alone. He answered his phone, talked, then took off.”

“Is that all?” Wade asked.

“Well, a little while later, someone I’d never seen came into the bar. A large native man with beady eyes. He also asked me if I’d seen Mr. Brooks. I told him he’d been there a few minutes ago, the fat man left, and I haven’t seen either one since. Really, that’s all I can tell you. I just don’t know where he’s been or when he’s coming back. Sorry.”

Vanessa fell back onto her chair. “A really fat man? Smelling like cigar smoke?”

“Yes, and then—” Henry straightened as his boss sauntered toward the bar. “Excuse me, please.”

“Bones,” Vanessa said, a little pale as she looked at Wade. “That’s the guy I met up in the hills on St. Kitts. The one who had some goon stick a gun in my back. Why would he be here looking for Clive?”

Wade had a few theories developing. Maybe Clive met someone at the house and left with him, owing money to the “madam,” Gideon Bones. Or maybe Gideon and Clive had something going, or it was an old-fashioned love triangle. He reached for her bags. “I think we’re done here. Time for Plan B.”

She slipped off the stool and shouldered her handbag. “B as in B-and-E?”

He smiled. “Yes, we can break and enter if we have to. But it’s an art and has to be done right, or we’ll end up in a Caribbean jail. You won’t like that.”

“Wouldn’t be the first in the family, now, would I?”

No wonder she was so tart. It was an act to cover a truckload of pain. Maybe if he could get her to admit all that, and find her friend, then he could get her to South Carolina.

And Lucy called this a gimme? Man, it was easier knocking off drug lords.

Remarkably, it was cool.

Clive opened his eyes and realized that for the first time in more than a month, his sweat glands were actually taking some time off. And his shower had removed almost all the sand that clung to every pore and made him feel like a human nail file.

But the hut was dark. And lonely. And, he hoped, safe.

He blinked at the horizon melting from silver blue to inky black on the Caribbean Sea, the only visible lights from some faraway island where tourists were drinking and locals were resting—and someone was searching high and low to find him so they could kill him.

On the stone mosaic cocktail table next to him, the drink he’d mixed hours earlier had turned to water. The last of his cigarettes was gone. His phone flashed with a message he’d missed because he kept the ring tone silent while he slept. He knew who it was but listened anyway.

“She’s chasing wild geese. In Nevis.”

Clive punched in a few buttons, and the phone was answered in one ring.

“Why Nevis?” he demanded.

“Because it’s small, and I can have her watched and send her places where she will get nowhere. She’s racing around like Christopher Columbus discovering the West Indies, flashing your picture, spilling your name, and leaking all kinds of personal information. Nevis is a good place for her.”

Despite his misery, he smiled. The image of Vanessa on a rampage through the islands, waving his picture, tossing that hair, flapping that unstoppable mouth, was priceless. “You’re worried she’s drawing too much attention.”

“Damn right I am. And so should you be.”

“She’ll never find me.” The truth was, he’d never dreamed she’d come after him. He might not have taken a vacation day in five years, but she hadn’t had one in six. Her last day off was her dad’s funeral. “Anyway,” Clive added, “I sent her a little warning.”