Lethal Lover. Laura Gordon
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.