At The Spaniard's Pleasure. Jacqueline Baird
on the iron grill on top.
‘Believe it.’ Nick took her arm and led her into the dining room. ‘You can’t visit Lanzarote and not eat volcano-grilled chicken.’
He was right and lunch was a jovial affair shared with dozens of tourists. Liza was amazed how well Nick mixed in; she would not have thought it his scene at all. The jet set were his usual companions according to gossip. But she did not have time to dwell on the point as Nick drove her all around the island. They stopped at a small lagoon, and then it was on again to a great volcanic tunnel and deep caves with pools where tiny blind white crabs lived, the only place on earth other than miles deep in the sea.
Back in the Jeep, the daylight quickly failing, Liza turned laughing eyes up to Nick. ‘I can see why you have a villa here; you really love this place.’ The hours had flown— Liza had had a great day, and the company had been superb, and all the better for being so unexpected.
‘Yes, I come here a lot; it is ideal, as one of my hobbies is seismology,’ Nick admitted honestly; he wanted her to feel secure with him and by giving a little more of himself he might get her to trust him, and reveal the depths of her own involvement with the thieves, if any… She was the daughter of his mother’s best friend, for heaven’s sake, and the longer he spent with Liza the more difficult he found it to believe she was guilty of anything underhand. It was up to him to discover the truth of her involvement, but he was beginning to think she was the unwitting messenger for her sleazy boss.
‘That figures, I suppose.’ Liza grinned; his effect on her was certainly seismic, she thought privately. And in a way it made sense; at thirty-five perhaps he had swapped extreme sports to study the extremes of nature. ‘But do we have to see everything in one day?’ she asked, hoping Nick would take the hint and ask her out again.
Nick glanced at her smiling face, his hooded eyes masking his expression. Her lips were begging to be kissed and it took every bit of will-power he possessed to resist the temptation; it was too soon… He needed to make sure her information had been correct. But whether it was or not, his mind was made up—he was going to give Liza the benefit of the doubt. He did not think for a moment she was aware of it, but by coming to Lanzarote she had inadvertently got mixed up with some very nasty criminals, and he was going to do everything in his power to protect her, whether she wanted him to or not. He owed it to their years of friendship, and their mothers’.
‘No, of course not. I’ll take you back to your hotel now as I have some business to attend to.’ He read the flicker of disappointment in her brilliant blue eyes, and almost gave in. His gaze dipped to her mouth, the full, sensuous lips, and he ached to taste them with his own, had done all day… Dios! He needed to get a grip—business before pleasure… Later, he promised himself…
Everything was going according to plan. He had kept Liza out of the way all day, and the information she had given him, which he had passed on to Carl over the phone this morning, should have been acted on by now. He needed to contact Carl Dalk again to discover what had happened. ‘I’ll call back for you at eight and take you to dinner.’ And his lips curled in amused satisfaction at the open relief in her smile.
‘Nick. Hi. Your information was correct.’ Nick Menendez lounged back in the chair at his desk in the study, and listened as Carl’s slightly harassed-sounding tones filled the room.
‘We visited the opticians and questioned the receptionist, and picked up Daidolas at his home and found the diamonds on him. He sang like a bird. He was a jeweller before he was an optician; he does the valuation and passes the information on to an intermediary in Morocco who makes the arrangements to contact the insurance company, and do the deal.’
‘So we have them,’ Nick prompted.
‘Not quite. As you know, Henry Brown is the top man. He arranges everything, his company charters a yacht in Marbella on the Spanish mainland, a different one each time, ostensibly for corporate entertainment. But in reality he has the captain pick up the diamonds at appointed places on the African coast and then transport them to Lanzarote.’
Nick grimaced; he had been hoping like hell Liza was not involved, but it wasn’t looking good for her. Knowingly or not she had delivered the diamonds. ‘So we pick up Henry Brown,’ he said quickly.
‘Eventually, yes; apparently Brown’s one weakness is he cannot resist checking the diamonds himself before they are passed to the optician for valuation. Plus he obviously does not trust the middleman he uses to do the exchange, because on every previous occasion he has been in the same vicinity ready to receive the cash when the deal is done.’
‘So what’s the problem, Carl?’ Nick asked. ‘You have him under surveillance; when the time is right, take him.’
‘If only it was that easy,’ Carl said drily. ‘Unfortunately we have lost track of him.’
‘You’ve what?’ Nick jerked upright in the chair. ‘How the hell did you manage that? I thought you had the police trailing him.’
‘Don’t yell at me, partner, and we did. They watched him collect the package last night from a yacht in the marina at Teguise, and they knew he had handed it on to the woman this morning.’ Nick’s frown deepened; he did not like hearing Liza referred to as the woman, but he listened as Carl continued. ‘They watched as Brown left in the same yacht this morning, but somehow he outsmarted them, vanished off the radar screen. But I doubt very much the thieving bastard sank.’
‘We’ve lost him,’ Nick groaned.
‘Not to worry, the local police and I have a plan. In the past two incidences, about a week or ten days after the initial contact with the insurance company the cash and diamonds were exchanged once in Morocco and once at sea, as you know. But this time, by some not so friendly questioning of Daidolas we know the exchange is going to be made in Lanzarote. He also gave us the names of a couple of local sailors who have crewed for Brown in the past. The police are tracking them down as we speak. It is only a matter of time and with Daidolas’s help, and the promise of leniency, we have set a trap. We are going to keep him locked up over the weekend to give him a taste of what to expect if he does not do as we say, and set him free on Monday under very close supervision. When the deal is done Brown will turn up to cash in, and hopefully we will get the whole gang.’
‘It still does not alter the fact you lost him,’ Nick almost groaned.
‘Hey, it’s not that bad, Nick; as long as you still have the girl, the police can question her—she is bound to know something.’
Nick’s whole body tensed. His immediate reaction was one of outrage at the thought of Liza being taken to a police station and body-searched before being questioned and probably ending up in a cell. The outrage was followed by a completely alien emotion for him—fear, and then a surge of cold, hard anger. Not if he could help it, he vowed. He closed his eyes briefly and counted to ten, fighting to stay calm before responding casually, ‘You can safely leave the girl to me, Carl. If she knows anything at all I will tell you—I am meeting her for dinner later.’
‘You’re what?’ Carl’s voice rose a notch. ‘Are you crazy? You’ve left her on her own; she could be miles away by now…she could warn Brown, and the whole deal will go pear-shaped.’
‘Come on, Carl, I can assure you Liza will be ready and waiting when I go to pick her up. Have you ever known my Menendez charm to fail?’ Nick drawled mockingly. ‘A woman has never run away from me in my life, and I can assure you that, after spending the day with Liza, she is no exception.’ And he prayed his friend would buy it. He did not question why. He just knew he did not want Liza falling into the police’s or Carl’s clutches, friend or not.
A husky chuckle greeted Nick’s comment. ‘You’re right, but this is vital, Nick. Make damn sure you get the woman. We need to know where Brown has gone and when he will be back.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Nick ran his free hand distractedly through his dark hair, and was glad they were not on video-phone. ‘I’ll do what it takes to get the information and call you back later with the information you want.’