Lethal Lover Part 14

With a' sigh, he picked up the phone again and punched in Charlie Franklin's number.

"You got something against letting me sleep, McKenna?" Charlie grumbled after he'd picked up the phone on the third ring Reed glanced at his watch to see that it was almost eleven-thirty. He was tired, stressed out and torn: pictely shaken that someone had tried to murder Tess. In short, he wasn't in the mood for apologies.

"Just tell me what you found out about Talbot, Charlie. Why's he here?

Who sent him?"

"Whoa, hang on, Mac. First things first. Are you sure it was Talbot you saw?"

Charlie's question set an alarm screaming inside Reed's mind.

"Of course I'm sure," he snapped. "What's the problem, Charlie?"

"The problem is, no one sent Talbot to Grand Cayman. So either you didn't see who you thought you saw or the guy's there on his own. If that's the case, n.o.body here can figure out why."

Reed closed his eyes and saw the explosion at Davey's.

"Are you sure, Charlie? Who did you talk to?"

"Everyone but Talbot himself. Seems he' son leave. When I got nothing but blank stares from Talbot's own department, I went to the top."

Reed knew Charlie could be like a bloodhound when it came to tracking down a loose end.

"So what do you think, Charlie? Is there something going on that I should know about?"

"As far as I can tell, n.o.body's jerking you around on this end, Mac.

They don't have the inclination or the time. Morrell's lawyers have asked for the trial date to be moved up a week and it looks like the judge is going to grant them the motion. It's not looking good for the good guys," Charlie warned.

"We need that bookkeeper's testimony or Morrell's going to walk, and if he does, heads will roll at the department ?"

Reed ignored that dire prediction and posed the question that had been burning in his mind since the explosion on the beach outside of Georgetown.

Charlie, do you think it's possible that Talbot could have been bought by Morrell?"

He heard the veteran cop release a long tired breath before answering.

"I suppose anything's possible, Mac, but it doesn't seem likely. Talbot came from money, didn't he? Fancy college, first in his cla.s.s?"

"Yeah, Harvard, I think." But, who could say what motivated a cop to go bad, Reed finished to himself.

"Yeah, well, if you find him, you tell him there are some folks in D.C.

who have some serious questions to ask him, you know what I mean, Mac?"

But the phone had already gone dead and Reed McKenna was busy preparing his own list of questions for the elusive federal agent.

Wrn Tss O"Emd the door she thought at first that' she'd walked into the wrong hotel room. The wanton destruction that greeted her took her breath away.

Furniture had been overturned, the mattresses had been dragged from the beds and sliced open. The table lamps lay in jagged pieces on the floor and the pictures had been ripped from the walls.

As she backed out of the room slowly, her hands flew to her moth and her eyes burned with the combination of the horrors she'd already experienced tonight and the violent destruction before her.

Her first instinct was to call hotel security, but she didn't make a move toward the lobby. Instead, she walked cautiously back into the room and closed the door behind her.

A glance at the open closet revealed that most of her clothes were gone.

Gone, too, were Selena's clothes and her luggage. Reed's duffel bag and a few odd pieces of her own clothes remained, but Selena's things had all been stolen'.

All that was left behind was the senseless, blatant destruction that caused hot anger to- sizzle inside her. Even though her anger was numbing, Tess remained clearheaded enough to realize that hotel security or even the local police were no match for the individuals who had wreaked this havoc.

Besides, even if she trusted the island poli to handle a case as dangerous and complex as Selena's kidnapping, how could she-begin to answer all the questions they'd ask? Why hadn't she called them sooner?

What about the journal and the. theft of her purse and the explosion tonight in Georgetown?

The thought of the Pandora's box she'd be opening made her dizzy.

Quickly packing her few rema! ning belongings into a small carryon that had been left behind, she reminded herself that the most important thing now was Selena's safety. In the lobby a few moments ago, Reed had hinted that he had a plan, a plan to act instead of merely reacting to the deadly situation into which they'd been unwillingly thrust.

The ball was in their court, he'd said.

"All right, McKenna," she whispered.

"Work your magic." He'd asked her to cooperate with him, to believe in him and, as she stood in the middle of the pillaged hotel room, it shocked her to realize that she'd handed control of the situation over to Reed from the beginning. Now that she'd made such a commitment, she was in much too deep to consider backing out.

"You're getting that second chance, Reed," she said with conviction.

And for Selena's sake, Tess could only pray he wouldn't let her down the way he had the last time she'd been fool enough to trust him.

Chapter Eleven.

He saw her looking for him in the lobby and hurried over to meet her.

Her face was pale and in her eyes he saw trouble.

"What's happened, Tessa? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"Are you ready to go?" she asked him, her demeanor strangely calm.

He took the duffel bag she pa.s.sed him. In his other hand he held a bag of sandwiches and fruit he'd ordered to take back up to the room.

"Yeah, I guess so. Where are the rest of your bags?"

"They're gone," she said, her voice level but low as she looped her arm through his and guided him out of the lobby onto the circular drive in front of the hotel. "Ask the valet to bring the Jeep around, McKenna.

And don't ask me any questions, okay?"

He responded to her strange behavior by doing as she'd asked, following her lead and smiling at the attendant when he brought the Jeep around and ushered them into it.

When they were both inside with the doors closed, Tess turned to him and said, "Now, get us out of here, McKenna" before we get stuck with a hotel bill neither one of us can afford to pay."

A FEW MINUTES LATER on the highway outside Bodden Town, Tess finished telling Reed about the ransacked hotel room.

"It was a nightmare," she said, "like someone had gone through the room with a machete."

"I think that proves that it was a common thief who stole your purse out of the restaurant don't you?"

Tess nodded.

"Until this minute, I hadn't taken the time to put it together, but now I reali? whoever trashed my hotel room was searching for Selena's journal."

"I only hope their search convinced them you still have it."

Tess nodded again, but said nothing.

"Grab the flashlight out of the glove compartment and check' that map again, will you? I don't want to miss the turnoff."

According to the information he'd gleaned at the hotel, there were small beach houses scattered along an isolated strip of beach just a few miles outside Bod-den Town. Although it had cost him a hundred dolt lars. for the clerk and a promise of two hundred to a cousin in Bodden Town, Reed'

had arranged to rent one of the small, private cottages for the night.

A sidelong glance at Tess, at the uncharacteristic downturn of her pretty. mouth of the dark circles beneath her eyes and he was glad he'd been able to make the arrangements for a place to stay. She looked exhausted, and he was feeling the strain as well.

"Not much farther," Tess replied as she studied the crude map the hotel clerk had drawn.

"Judging by those lights up ahead we should be pulling into the village in just a few minutes."

"Do you know the locals claim pirates stashed their treasure in Bodden Town?" Reed said, trying to lighten the heavy mood that had permeated the atmosphere inside the Jeep ever since Tess had told him about the break-in and vandalism of her hotel room.

Tess sighed.

"Right now I'd trade all of Black-beard's gold just to know that Selena was all right."

He reached for her hand and squeezed it. She rewarded him with a tired smile that sent a rush of warmth straight to his heart.

"According to this map, when we reach Bodden Town we're to bar to the right, toward the beach, The cutoff is supposed to be about four miles from the edge of town."

As they entered the small village; Tess felt apprehension closing like a vice around her heart. Her imagination had given her a frightening picture oil the man with the silver eyes that Davey had described for Reed. That the man was in some way responsible for the explosion at Davey's bar, frightened Tess beyond any fear she'd ever experienced.

Yet, here she was in Bodden Town for the precise purpose of finding this dangerous messenger.

"The clerk at West Palm told me his cousin's house was at the north end of town," Reed said, dragging Tess out of her morbid introspection.

"See if you can make out any of these street signs."

In a few minutes, they found the residence where they were to pick up the key to the bungalow. When they pulled into the rutted drive, a dog the size of a small horse stood in the pool of light coming from a bare bulb beside the door and almost immediately lights came on inside the small, dilapidated house.

"Our innkeeper awaits," Reed said.

"Stay here, I'll go get the key."

When the huge dog began edging toward the Jeep, growling and barking louder, Tess actually laughed. "That's the first order in two days that I don't mind obeying, McKenna."

His wry smile caused a spark of intimacy to flash between them, a spark that warmed Tess, even as it unsettled her. Two days, her mind whispered. How could she have allowed him to get so close to her heart so quickly when she'd spent eight long years resenting his memory and a.s.sociating him with her deepest heartaches, when everything she knew of him told her he would hurt her again? When she knew full well that her next heartache would come when he walked out of her life again. And this time he would be walking out for good.

But why should she even care, her common sense begged to know. Surely the chemistry simmering between them was merely the result of their having been forced together under the most bizarre and stressful circ.u.mstances, of being thrown together in a situation where they could trust no one but each other.

The intimacy came from fighting to achieve a common goal, the struggle to survive and ultimately to save Se-lena.

Surely these feelings were transitory, emotions erupting out of turmoil that had no effect on the future and couldn't change the past--a past Tess couldn't pretend never happened. Even if she'd wanted to, her memories of Meredith wouldn't let her forget.

If there was some way for Tess to forgive and forget how Reed had deserted her, she might be fool enough to try it. But how could she forgive him for deserting Meredith? It was a question without an answer, a question Tess was still asking herself ten minutes later when they were back on the road, headed for the bungalow Reed said the leas' rag agent had described as "quaint."

As they b.u.mped along the ragged road in the darkness, Tess felt every jolt as if her spine were made of gla.s.s. Her muscles felt as though they'd been pureroeled and the lack of sleep and food had conspired to give her a whopping headache.

"Better slow down," she warned as the road curved sharply to the left.

"We don't want to miss the turn."

Reed eased off the accelerator and leaned forward over the wheel, studying the area intently.

"I think that's it. Up ahead on the right. It looks like a marker of some kind."

The dilapidated wooden sign had been almost obliterated by the elements, but the words had been burned deeply into the wood and with the headlights shining on them, they were amazingly legible.

"Cave Cove," Tess muttered, "one mile. Jack's Bay, two miles."

"According to the leasing agent; the hills around Bodden Town are dotted with caves."

Right now, with mental and physical exhaustion pressing down 'on her, Tess would have settled for a cave if it had provided a safe place to rest.

"How much farther?" she asked.

"We're supposed to follow the road--or what there is of it--until it dead-ends." Reed's voice echoed his own weariness and Tess felt suddenly overwhelmed by despair.

"G.o.d, this is just all so unreal!" she breathed, slumping back against the seat and bringing her hands up to cover her face.

"Here we are, running around in the middle of the night, looking for a place to stay. And in the morning--if we somehow manage to survive the night--G.o.d only knows what we'll have to face." She prosed her palms into her tired eyes and released a sigh laden with frustration.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take."

Reed put his arm across the back of. the seat and kneaded the burning muscles knotted at the back of her neck. Though she fought against the feeling, the warmth of his touch soothed her.