Lethal Lover Part 12

"I've heard of it," Reed replied.

Davey sighed.

"Lots of pretty women over in Bod-den, you know, mort?

They wear those little string bikinis and that's only when it's too cold to go naked." The hacking laugh started again, but Reed's scathing glance cut it off in mid snort "Has this dump got a back door?" Reed asked as he stuffed the two bills into Davey's shirt pocket.

The big man nodded) "Yeah sure. Back that way," he said, pointing past a stack of boxes and garbage bags at the end of the bar.

"There's a number on the back of the fifty," Reed said.

"If old silver-eyes comes back, you'll give me a call. Right, Davey?"

"Sure, mort." He patted his pocket and smiled. "But if I was you, I'd take a look around Bodden Town. Elmo, he knows everyone. If he says old silver-eyes comes from Bodden, then I believe him."

Reed downed the rest of his beer and headed for the door when a sudden movement to his left put all his sens on alert. Thanks to his old man, he'd developed a sixth sense for an ambush, and that gift came in handy now as he ducked the fist he saw coming at him while delivering a splitting right to the jaw-and a punishing left to the midsection of his tattooed a.s.sailant.

He watched the tall, muscle-bound attacker reel backward; crash between two tables and flatten a wooden chair as he fell. The younger version of the bartender lay groaning on the dirty wooden floor.

Davey came lure bering around the end of the bar an doused the man on the floor with a pitcher of beer. The sound of chairs being sculled back signaled to Reed that a couple of the igin players were headed his way.

"Hold on, boys!" Davey h.e.l.l owed his voice re sounding like a foghorn around the room and stopping the men cold.

"Wegot your message, mon," he a.s.sured Reed, coming up to stand beside him to stare down at the man who was struggling to sit up, huffing and panting like a wounded bull.. "I think you'd better be going now,"

Davey suggested.

"This fool is my nephew--doen't know when to quit, but I can't afford to lose no paying customers, you know, mont." The horselaugh began again, this time backed up by a chorus of nervous laughter from the regulars who had gathered round to watch the show.

"You're all right, Dav," Reed said at the door. "I'll be waiting for your call."

When he stepped outside, Reed felt dirty and contaminated. Although his line of work often put him in similar settings, The Dive and places like it always made him feel like he needed a shower. He walked a few feet before he stopped to glance up at the night sky and take in a lungful of fresh air. it was a perfect island evening, warm and still, conditions that would be in his favor, since he didn't intend to let Tess out of his sight.

The thought of her dealing with the likes of Davey and his cohorts made his skin crawl, and no matter how much h.e.l.l she raised, Reed wasn't about to let her walk in there blind, no more than he'd been willing to let her walk into that warehouse--or shooting gallery. as it had turned out to be.

If he hadn't been thinking about her, he might not have jumped when he heard her scream. At first he thought it was only his imagination playing tricks on him, but his rage was all real when he burst back into the bar to see Tess shoved up against the jukebox with Davey's nephew towering over her, his big, thick fingers digging into the pale flesh of her upper arm.

"You tell that boyfriend of yours I'm waiting for him," the big man shouted in her face.

"Anytimel anyplace? " How abtut now?" Reed. hissed, as he slid up hind the man and pressed the barrel of his his neck.

The bar was stunned quiet and nothing moved bu the overhead fan as it stirred the smoke-gray Davey's nephew, his lip still b.l.o.o.d.y from his encounter with Reed, stood stone still.

Reed shoved the gun barrel harder against his neck and the big man raised his hands slowly, as if under arrest, but suddenly he spun around with a speed and agility surprising for his size.

Before Reed could pull the trigger, Tess reacted, and when her knee made contact, the big man folded like' an accordion made of cardboard, dropping to the floor clutching himself, cursing and h.e.l.l owing in pain.

"d.a.m.n friendly place you've got here, Davey," Reed muttered over his shoulder as he backed Tess with him out the door. If he went the rest of his life without dealing with the kind of dirt inside Davey's Cayman Island Dive, Reed could die a happy man, he told himself as he emerged into the night air. again, with his gun in one hand and Tess's trembling hand in the other.

By the time they reached the parking lot behind the restaurant where they'd left the Jeep, Tess had stopped shaking, but her blue eyes were still wide and staring and her face was devoid of color.

Despite all she'd just endured, he came down on her with both barrels.

"How the h.e.l.l could you have done such a d.a.m.n-fool thing?"

he demanded, pinning her with his stare as he stood with his back to the Jeep, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Didn't I tell you to stay put?"

The color returned to her face in a rush of red. "You told me you were just going to the men's room," she shouted.

"It doesn't matter what I told you," he shot back. "You never listen anyway."

"Oh, so that's the real problem, isn't it? You're just ticked off because I disobeyed your order!"

"G.o.d, you always were the most" -- He clenched his jaw to keep from saying it, from saying that she was the most maddeningly beautiful, independent and stubborn woman he'd ever known.

"Go ahead, Reed." Her glare was simmering, undaunted by the challenge of going toe-to-toe with him. "Say it! You hate that I have a mind of my own, that I insist on using my brain instead of blindly following your lead."

"I told you I'd be back."

"And I suppose you think that should have been good enough?"

He didn't answer.

"Well, excuse me, McKenna, but I had my doubts. You've run out on me before, remember?" She turned around and headed for the beach.

"And by the way," she added without looking at him, "I thought we had a deal about Selena's journal." She spun around to face him, her eyes no longer simmering but shooting fire.

"Or was that just another one of your lies?"

Before he could respond, she look off again, her long legs sprinting, seemingly without direction.

When he caught up to her, he grabbed her by the hand and spun her around to face him.

"What about the journal? Where is it?"

"You know d.a.m.n well where it is."

His gut did a slow twist as the implications of what she was saying hit him. i'tess," he said trying to remain calm.

"If you're telling me you don't have Se-lena's journal, we're in big trouble."

Her mouth fell open.

"But--but I thought" -- "You thought what?" The dread growing inside him became a palpable presence.

"When you didn't come back, I got up to leave the restaurant and found that my purse was gone."

"Are you sure you had it with you when we went in?"

"Positive. I remember sliding the strap over the back of my chair."

Her eyes met his as the awful realization dawned. '"Oh, my G.o.d! You mean you didn't take it? I just a.s.sumed you wanted a closer look ... I thought you ... Oh, G.o.d ..." Hervoice trailed off in horror. , Reed wanted to yell at her, to berate her for doubting him, to scald her for losing their only teal link with Selena, for risking their only real leverage with the kidnappers. But the look on her face told him that nothing he could say could possly make her feel any worse, any more guilty than she already did.

"Don't panic, Tess," he said, even as his own mind scrambled for perspective.

"Maybe it isn't as bad as it seems. ' " Not as bad?" she gasped, "Yot/know as well as I do that Selena's notebook was the only thing keeping her alive. The only thing they wanted."

"Listen, no one but you and I know the notebook is missing."

She brought her hands up to her temples.

"Then you don't think" -- "That it was Selena's kidnappers who stole it?" He shook his bead.

"I really doubt it. More than likely it was just some con working the restaurants' and bars frequented by tourists. Have you looked at some of the shacks around here? An expensive leather bag like yours signals money to petty thieves."

She blew out a ragged breath.

"Well, someone is going to be disappointed if money was what they were looking for. Other than some traveler's checks and my pa.s.sport, that notebook was the only thing of real value."

"Obtaining another pa.s.sport won't be a problem." In her eyes he could see she was more than ready to be rea.s.sured.

"And other than Selena, the kidnappers and you and I, no one else could possibly know the significance of that journal. To anyone else the numbers inside are meaningless hieroglyphics."

Reed offered her a sniile, despite his own misgivings.

"Come on, let's take a walk. We've got fifteen minutes before we have to go back inside that rat hole, and we need to talk about how we're going to handle your meeting with the so-called messenger, how you're going to explain the missing journal if he asks for it."

They walked along the beach in silence before she stopped suddenly and turned to him.

"Reed, with Se-lena's journal missing you have no choice but to take her back to testify, do you?" It wasn't really a question, but a statement of a fact they both knew full well.

"Yeah. It looks that way, doesn't it?"

Tess sighed.

"I'm sorry now that I didn't let you at least copy the information inside.

What will happen to the Morrell case without it?"

The Morrell case. He almost had to say it out loud to make it seem real again. Somehow in the last hour he'd forgotten all about Edward Morrell, the upcoming trial, even the money this case would bring him. His entire focus had been on protecting Tess, keeping her out of harm's way.

With her back in his life, Reed was beginning to see how easy it would be to start forgetting a great' many things: like loneliness and self-loathing, and maybe even that part of his past that had kept him from her for all these years.

Seeing her standing there grieving something she perceived he'd lost touched him deeply and he pulled her into his arms. His heart swelled when she didn't pull away, "We'll get through this," he promised in a murmur again at her hair.

"Somehow we'll figure it all out. For now, let's forget about the notebook and just concentrate on what you're going to tell that messenger, how to stall him until we can find Selena."

But even as he a.s.sured her, he wondered if some, how he really could manage to forget everything but Tess, to allow himself to feel love again. And what about her? Her bitterness ran deep; he saw it in her eyes nearly every time she looked at him. Was there really a way to recapture the love and trust they'd once shared? Today on the beach, he'd almost allowed himself to start believing a fresh start might be possible. But was it? Or had the past now become Reed McKenna's greatest obstacle?

Without warning, she pulled out of his arms. "Reed, look. There's a limo in the parking lot and I think that man standing in the doorway of the bar drove it in."

His eyes followed hers to the front door of Davey's establishment.

The glow of a cigarette in the doorway partially illuminated someone's face.

Reed shook his head.

"I think that's Davey catching some fresh air."

He'd barely finished his sentence when the night was illuminated and the air reverberated with a deafening eplosion.

Before their shocked eyes, the bar and the man Standing in the doorway literally disappeared in a flash of angry flames.

Chapter Ten.

The deafening belch of smoke and fire arced skyward, tossing flaming debris in all directions. Reed grabbed Tess's hand and led her quickly along the edge of the dock, purposefully moving away from the raining embers and the crowd of people who were rushing out of the restaurant and bars to see what had happened.

"This way," Reed slouted.

A siren wailed in the distance over the crackling of burning timber and the s'v. zle and pop of liquor exploding in the flames. Reed paused in the bustling chaos when he caught sight of a amiliar face.

"What happened?" Reed asked one of the old men he'd seen earlier playing dominoes inside The Dive.

The man shook his head and ran gnarled fingers through his thinning gray hair before he said, "I just left the bar. Davey had followed me to the door. Halfway to my car--kaboom! And then this ..." he bent down over the man who lay deathly still at his feet.

"Old Davey, he never hurt no one."

Davey's eyes rolled open and looked up at the people hovering around him.

His black eyes rolled unseeing before finally they seemed to focus on Reed.

The'-acrid smell choked Tess and she covered her mouth with her hand.

Her eyes stung and tears welled, making Reed a glistening presence before her as he knelt down beside the huge, bearded man. Tess bent down with him, her arm looped through his, holding on as though he were the only anchor in a hurricane.

"Hang on, Davey," Reed urged.

"Help is on the way."

The bartender tried to smile, but his expression turned to a hideous grimace when the pain seized him.