Driven by Fire (8 page)

Chapter Eight

Soledad looked around her large room in the headquarters of the American Committee for the Preservation of Democracy and sniffed disapprovingly. It was filled with old furniture, like the rest of the house, with old rugs on the polished floors, marble in the bathroom, and heavy curtains to block out the sunlight. She had watched a great many shows on American television and she knew this was not what a rich house should look like. It should have stainless-steel appliances and granite countertops for fat American women who never cooked. All this old furniture belonged in a dump, she thought contemptuously.

It was getting late, and it seemed as if the house was empty. There was no sign of her jailer, the saintly Ms. Parker, or the bad-tempered man who’d let them in. She’d done a preliminary canvass of the place and found nothing suspicious—not a computer in sight, not even a telephone, not anyone to question why she was snooping around, but she knew she was far from alone. She’d already identified one hidden camera in the bedroom, three in the hallway, and she had no doubt the place was littered with them. She kept her stupid sheep expression on her face. Even the most innocent of women would be curious about a place like this, especially someone who supposedly grew up a sheltered innocent in a third-world country.

There were no innocents in third-world countries, but Americans were too stupid to know that.

It was getting very late. Ms. Parker wasn’t the kind of woman to spend the night in the arms of a man like Ryder, though Soledad would have been tempted if he weren’t the enemy, but then Ms. Parker didn’t know how to enjoy life. She was so caught up in being good, trying to prove she had nothing to do with her rich family. If Soledad had had a family like her jailer’s, she would have made full use of it.

Right now, though, Soledad was better off depending on herself. If the house really were empty, then she needed to use her time wisely, find out where the hell Parker had hidden the cell phone. Once she found it she could be long gone, no longer at the mercy of her saintly lawyer. God, but that woman annoyed her! It was no wonder someone had shot at her.

Soledad didn’t know who had fired the gun and she didn’t care. It had come nowhere near her, and she had the kind of enemies who didn’t miss.

She slipped out the door, heading down the hall, the saccharine smile on her face. She knew she could pass for a teenager, when in fact, she was twenty-five in years and ancient in experience. She had yet to find one person she couldn’t fool.

She knew better than to look at the cameras stationed around the hallway. She was on the second floor, and she suspected that’s where the heart of the operation kept itself. She couldn’t very well tap the walls, looking for a hollow sound, but she could keep her chastely lowered eyes glued to the doors, looking for a trace of light escaping from beneath the heavy wood.
Ugly
, she thought to herself. She would have torn down the whole place.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing?” a voice came from behind her, slow and lazy with the New Orleans accent she was getting used to, the one Ms. Parker seemed to be missing, and she jumped, cursing herself for being so jittery.

She turned to find a man watching her. He was tall, lean, with a charming smile on a too-handsome face.
Child’s play
, she thought. He would be so used to women falling at his feet that he would assume she would do the same.

She put a fluttering hand to her chest, surreptitiously tugging the ridiculous peasant top down a bit to accentuate her breasts. Men were stupid to begin with, but breasts seemed to render them witless. “You frightened me,” she said in a breathy voice, her shy smile hiding the instinctive curl of her lip. “I didn’t know anyone was around.”

“I realize that,” he said, and with someone else it might have almost sounded cynical. Not this man, though. “I’m Remy Vartain, at your service. Ryder put me in charge of you once I arrived back. You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?”

“I have no idea,
señor
,” she said, wondering if she was laying it on a bit too thick.

But no, his smile just broadened. “Call me Remy,” he said. “So Ryder’s run away with the lawyer, has he? That’s no surprise.”

“But why would he? They hate each other,” Soledad said, honestly perplexed. Ms. Parker couldn’t mention the man without fuming, and from what little she’d seen the feelings were mutual.

“Sure they do,” Remy drawled. “Just how young are you, sugar?”

“Twenty.”

“That’s what I would have guessed,” he murmured. “Except you have old eyes.”

And Remy Vartain was more observant than she had thought. “That’s because I’ve seen many, many bad things in my life,” she said with great dignity.

“I’m sure you have. In the meantime, why don’t you get your sweet self back to bed before you see anything else that you shouldn’t?”

She arranged her face in worried lines. “There is something here I shouldn’t see?”

“There are always things young girls shouldn’t see. Just go back to bed and I promise I won’t let the bad guys get you.”

He wouldn’t notice the grim edge to her smile. “I find it hard to trust these days.”

“You can trust me. I make it a habit to keep innocent young girls safe from harm.”

She lowered her eyes sweetly. “Thank you,
Señor
Vartain.”

“Just Remy.”

“Thank you, Remy,” she said. He was a fool to trust anyone he’d just met, a fool to think she’d trust him. She’d cut his throat before she left this place, and she’d make sure he saw her after she did it.

Everyone needed to be taught a lesson on occasion.

Jenny awoke in darkness, sleepy, disoriented, and for a moment she didn’t want to move. The bed was a soft cushion beneath her and she was wrapped in a cocoon of safety. She was someone who liked a rock-hard mattress and the lightest of covers, no matter how high the air-conditioning was set, but right now all she wanted to do was snuggle down closer into the blankets as unwanted memories hit her.

She’d let a criminal escape. Billy had been so remorseful for the hideous trade he’d been involved in, and she’d covered for him, saved him.

But Ryder would have killed him. She had no doubt of that—Billy had had a gun and he’d never been one to back down from a dare. If she hadn’t lied they might all three be dead in a hail of bullets.

Instead they were alive, all three of them, with Matthew Ryder viewing her with the deep distrust she deserved. He was intense and tenacious—sooner or later he was going to find Billy’s connection to that freighter filled with women and children, and then, for all she knew, he might shoot her for lying to him.

If Billy stayed away long enough, stayed out of trouble, then he had a fighting chance. He was only twenty-two, for God’s sake. It had to be the first time he’d gotten involved in something so foul that not even her father would touch it. He must have learned his lesson. Please, God, let him have learned his lesson.

Her only contact with him had been that brief conversation when he’d begged her for his cell phone, and she’d felt like a cranky bitch for refusing him. If worse came to worst, if he slipped and got back into something as heinous as human trafficking, she could always use it as leverage to force him to quit, though whether he’d believe she’d actually turn him in was a moot point.

She hadn’t bothered talking to the rest of her family. Her father wouldn’t want to know what she’d done, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing she’d helped a criminal, albeit an unwitting one, escape. It was none of their business, only hers.

She was paying for her own crimes already. She believed in karma, not in hell, and payback was a bitch.
Her house
. Gone, everything was gone—the pictures of her mother, her books, the few pieces of jewelry her mother had left her. The Limoges dinner set, the Tiffany pitcher . . .

She had to stop thinking about it, or it would make her crazy. She remembered more—being shaken awake time after time, only to grumble and fall back asleep again. It must have been Doc Gentry. That’s where she was—she remembered now. In Dr. Gentry’s shack by the water, but she had no idea what slow-moving river ran along the side of the place. It was too small for the Mississippi, and a bayou was more stagnant. Ryder must have gone back to the city and left her in Doc’s capable hands.

She snuggled down further. Now that her eyes were accustomed to the darkness, she could make out a faint sliver of light behind the door and the muted sound of music from a computer or a CD player. Hell, in this place it might even be a record player. Dr. Gentry was pretty old school. Jenny recognized the music—it would be no other but the great Satchmo himself. The song was “Basin Street Blues,” but she would know the tone and the sound of his trumpet anywhere. The slow, sad notes drew her, and she climbed out of bed, the old dressing gown rumpled around her, and headed toward the music.

It was coming from the back porch overlooking the river. There was a moon that night, shining down on the river, and she moved toward it without thinking, drawn to the music as it slowly picked up tempo.

At first she thought no one was out there. The chairs were empty, and the hammock that was strung along one side didn’t move. She walked to the railing, looking out over the shining stillness of the slow-moving river as a fish leapt in the water, all grace and silver beauty, before it splashed back down again and was gone.

She sank into one of the chairs and put her feet up on the railing. The flimsy dress slipped past her knees, and there was a faint breeze off the water, cooling her. Where had Ryder gone? It shouldn’t matter—she was safe now. The car was gone, he was someplace else, and for the time being no one was going to bother her. She was going to sit by the river, the soft music in the background, and try to figure out what she was going to do with her life without the distraction of Ryder.

“Couldn’t sleep anymore?” Came his deep voice from the doorway, and Jenny’s heart caught.

Ryder took a long, unemotional look at the woman who just might be an international terrorist and wondered if he was being way too suspicious. She looked rumpled, sleepy, and Doc had put her in some kind of nightgown or dress that gave him way too good a view of her body. Knowing Doc, she probably did it on purpose just to teach him a lesson.

“You think that little girl is a killer, Matthew?” she’d demanded over glasses of her excellent bourbon once Jenny had fallen asleep. “You’ve lost your touch. She’s as innocent as a stray lamb.”

“And I’m the big bad wolf?” he’d countered. “I don’t think so. She’s hiding something, I know it, and I don’t give up until I know the answers.”

Now, a few hours later, Jenny jumped at the sound of his voice, and she reached for the filmy shawl on the back of the chair, one that did very little for her modesty. Maybe she didn’t realize how the moon illuminated every curve and shadow. Clearly she thought she’d been alone. That, or she thought he was stupid enough to be distracted by a half-naked woman. Not a chance.

“I thought you were gone!” she said in the edgy voice he’d gotten used to. “What happened to the car?”

Why was she so damned twitchy around him? Not that he went out of his way to be agreeable, but if she was who she said she was, then she was in no danger from him. “I got rid of it,” he said, watching her. “Had someone take it north to Baton Rouge and leave it there. We don’t want it leading anyone to us.”

“Us?” she echoed.

“Afraid you’ve got me as your constant companion, at least until we find out who’s so interested in trying to kill you. Consider me your new BFF.”

“No one’s trying to kill me,” she said flatly. “It’s impossible. I have no enemies, and not enough of a connection to my family to be a target of something like that. You must have made a mistake about the explosive device.”

“Bomb,” he corrected. “And I don’t make mistakes—if I hadn’t recognized it I wouldn’t have gotten you out of there in time and the question would be irrelevant. No one gets shot and has their house blown up in the space of a few short hours without having some very bad people after her. What I want to know is, what have you done to make such a determined enemy?”