Extreme Bachelor (37 page)

Leah stole a quick look at
Adolfo over her shoulder, who was now fixing the tuck of his shirt
into his trousers just so, the goddam peacock. God, she hated him.
But she hated even worse that she had fallen for his stupid lines
and his easy charm.
Stupid
,
stupid
,
stupid
. She looked down at Michael,
whose gaze was steady on hers, his jaw clenched tightly shut. She
had the feeling again that he wanted her to do . . .
something
. But
what?

Leah jerked her gaze to Adolfo, who caught
her gaze in the reflection of the mirror. “No, no, Leah. You must
not have good feelings for him,” he advised. “He is not a good man.
He lies and he cheats and he steals. He pretends to be your friend
and then he stabs you in your back. He is like a leech, creeping
into your life and sucking the blood from you.”

“Ewww,” Leah said, wrinkling her nose.

Adolfo turned around and leaned up against
the scratched bureau and flashed the charming smile that had sucked
her in once upon a time. “I think we must change your binds of the
hands,” he said thoughtfully, gesturing to her hands. “I do not
trust you not to untie him when he wakes, and I cannot watch you
like a little bird. I have much to do.” He studied her hands and
her feet for a moment, muttered something to himself, then
disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a
wooden chair from the kitchen.

He put the chair near the
bureau, then strolled to the bed, had a close look at Michael—whose
eyes were closed now, his jaw slacked. Leah wasn’t certain if he
was faking it or if he’d passed out again. But then Adolfo grabbed
the rope that bound Leah’s hands to her feet and yanked it
carelessly, jerking her legs, too. “
Ouch
,” she snapped at
him.

“Oh, I am very sorry,” he
said with mock concern. But he untied her hands, then her legs.
With a sigh of relief, Leah started to inch off the bed. Adolfo
stopped her by grabbing her roughly by the arm and jerking her up
into his chest. They stood nose-to-nose—well, forehead-to-chin, as
Leah was shorter than him—and Adolfo laughed so darkly that a
shiver of fear winged down Leah’s spine. “Do not think to fight
me,
mi amor
,” he
said with a cold smile, “for I have not yet decided if I will kill
you, too.”

“That’s really . . . not very nice,” she
said through clenched teeth.

“I am not a nice man.”

“I’m definitely starting to get that
picture.”

“Be good, and maybe I
won’t kill you,” he said, and with another jerk, dragged her to the
wooden chair while her head whirled around words like
decided
and
kill
. But when he pushed
her to sit in the chair, natural instinct kicked in, and she
struggled. Adolfo instantly grabbed the gun from his belt and
shoved the nozzle up hard against her cheek. “What do you want,
Leah? Do you want me to kill him now? Or do you want me to kill
you?”

When she didn’t answer, he pushed the gun
even harder against her face. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Don’t . . . don’t, don’t. You don’t even
know if the safety is on,” she said through gritted teeth, trying
her damnedest not to move.

It worked. He pushed her away, checked the
safety, then stuffed the gun back into his trousers. But his point
was made—he wrapped a long cord of rope around her, tying it
tightly behind her back. When he had bound her, he stood back and
admired his handiwork. One trussed up man on the bed, one trussed
up woman in a chair. “Excellent,” he said, nodding approvingly. “I
think you will be good, you and him, until I return.”

“Hey, wait,” Leah cried. “How long are you
going to leave us like this? Michael could be seriously hurt.”

Adolfo didn’t answer, just walked out of the
bedroom. The next thing she heard was the front screen door
slamming shut.

“Augh!” she screeched, and
jerked her gaze to Michael, who had instantly rolled to his side to
see her. “What in the hell, Raney? Who is this guy, and why did you
sleep with his
wife
, you idiot, and now what are you going to do about us
getting killed?” she shrieked in a whisper.

“All good questions,” Michael said, and
rolled to his back and managed, through sheer strength alone, to
sit up. But he looked a little dazed.

“God, are you going to be all right?” she
asked, her anger sliding into genuine concern.

He winced, tried to smile. “I’ll be fine.”
He took a deep breath and then managed to gain his feet. “What are
you doing?” Leah asked frantically, and leaned back as far as her
neck would crane, trying to see into the next room, which of course
she could not do. “What if he comes back?”

“I am going to squat down behind you and try
to loosen the knot. When you get free, untie me.”

“And then what?”

Michael shook his head as if to clear it,
then took a tentative step, testing himself. “Damn . . . he clocked
me good,” he said, seemingly impressed.

“Michael, what do we do when we get
untied?”

“Let’s just get untied first. We’ll think of
something then.”

That did not seem like the best of plans to
Leah, especially for Mr. CIA. “But we might be dead by then.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, hobbling toward her.
“I have been trained for situations like this.”

“You know, I don’t find that terribly
comforting at the moment,” Leah shot back, as she tried to scoot
the chair around to meet him. “When you told me you were CIA and
pushed a lot of paper around, I had this image of you running an
office somewhere, not actually taking on bad guys.”

“It wasn’t all paperwork. There was some
fieldwork involved.”

“Apparently
,” she said, frowning at
him over her shoulder. “Fieldwork involving some guy’s wife, it
would seem. Just curious here—how many other guys are there out
there holding a major grudge like this one?” she asked as Michael
started to slide down behind her.

“Is that what he told you?”

“Yes,” she cried, and felt the tips of his
fingers on hers and turned as far as she could to look over her
shoulder.

“It’s a little more involved than that,” he
said. He was squatting, holding himself up with the strength of his
thighs as he fumbled with the knot at her back.

“I’m serious, Michael. What else do I not
know?” Leah asked. “What else is out there?”

“Leah, baby,” he said with a sigh, “Do you
really think now is the time to have this conversation? I kinda
need to concentrate here, and it’s not exactly easy with the knot I
have on the back of my head.”

“I thought you were trained for situations
like this.”

“I am.”

“Then . . . then why couldn’t you sneak up
without him finding you?”

“Do you mind?” he snapped, clearly
irritated, as if this was somehow her fault, “Just give me some
quiet a moment and let me do this.”

“Well, hurry, will you? I don’t feel like
having my brains blown out today.”

“And whose fault is that?” Michael asked
irritably.

Leah gasped, tried to jerk
around to see him, and wrenched her neck in the process. “What
is
that
supposed
to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean, why in God’s name
were you trying to hook up with a guy like Juan Carlo? He’s a
sleazy bastard that goes through women like water.”

“Wait just a minute, mister! First of all,
his name is Adolfo—”

“His
name
is Juan Carlo Sanchez. He is a
highly successful arms dealer, and by that I mean he once armed
most of the terrorists in the Middle East. I spent the better part
of three years infiltrating his circle.”

“Arms?” she squeaked weakly. “You mean like
rifles?”

“Not exactly,” Michael said, panting now. “I
mean like rocket-to-ground missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.
The sort of stuff you see on TV.”

The sound of a car door shutting startled
them both. “Okay,” Michael said, popping up and managing to propel
himself through air and land half-on, half-off the bed. “Whatever
you do, keep him talking. The man likes nothing better than to talk
about himself and impart his wisdom to everyone,” he said. He got
his legs up, held his body up for a moment to look at her. “And
baby . . . nothing is going to happen. Trust me. Just stay calm.
Help is on the way—Juan Carlo is too stupid to pull off something
like this.”

“Funny, he said the same thing about you,”
she muttered just as the screen door shut and the devil himself
strolled in, looking very pleased with himself.

He held up a bottle of wine. “Spanish wine.
The best in the world. I brought it from my home in Costa del Sol.
Would you like?”

“You’re not seriously going to serve wine,”
Leah said, incredulous.

“Yes, why not?” he asked with a bit of a
shrug. “You should enjoy your last few hours on Earth.”

Really, all the talk of dying and killing
was seriously vexing. She smiled up at Juan Carlo as she felt for
the knot at her hands. He had tied the rope tightly at her wrist,
but Michael had worked to loosen it a little. If she could just get
her fingers on one of the loops . . .

“I will find a straw,” Juan Carlo offered.
“Then you can enjoy it with me while we wait for him to wake.”

“I know this will come as a big shock to
you, since you obviously do this sort of thing all the time, but I
don’t want any wine,” Leah said. “You don’t have the best track
record when it comes to serving drinks.”

“But you must. It would
not do to let your host drink alone,
si
?”

“You’re not exactly my host, pal. That would
imply that I came here of my own free will instead of being drugged
and dragged here.”

“You
drugged
her?”

Michael’s voice startled Juan Carlo. He
whirled around and laughed tightly as Michael slowly lifted himself
up.

“Sleeping beauty has joined us,” he said,
and made a grand sweeping bow. “Welcome to the last place on this
earth you will ever see.”

“If you wanted me, why not just come after
me?” Michael asked. “Why involve her?”

“It is true; I could very easily have killed
you on the streets of Los Angeles. But you know the answer, my
friend. You know you have something I want.”

“Is this about Maribel?”
Michael asked genially. “Because she was with
everyone
, not just me. Ricardo,
Modesto, Pa—”

Juan Carlo roared, surged
forward, and kicked Michael in the back. “Do not be coy,
señor
. You forget that I
know you well. Just give it to me, and perhaps I will let your
whore go.”

“Hey!” Leah shouted.

“I don’t know what you want, Juan Carlo,”
Michael said. “It’s a mystery to me what you’re talking about.”

Juan Carlo frowned darkly.
“Now you are
estúpido
. I want the key.”

“A key? I don’t have any key,” Michael said,
smiling. “And even if I did, do you think I would carry it on me to
remind me of old times?”

“What key?” Leah asked, but both men ignored
her.

“You are barking up the wrong tree.”

Juan Carlo sighed, put his hands to his
waist, and walked to the window. “Tell me where I will find it, and
you will live another hour.” He turned around, looked at Michael.
“Play this silly game with me, and you will not live to even drink
your wine.”

Michael laughed as if that amused him. “I’m
saying I don’t know where it is. Maybe you should ask Maribel?”

At the mention of that name, Juan Carlo’s
face darkened and his smile faded into a sneer. He strolled back to
where Leah sat—she froze, dropped her fingers from the working of
the knot. Juan Carlo removed his gun from the back of his pants and
casually held it up to Leah’s head.

“Oh shit,” she whimpered, and closed her
eyes. This was it. This was the end. She was never going to be a
real actress, she was going to die in some mouse-infested stupid
cabin because he didn’t know anything about guns, and it was all
Michael’s fault.

“Juan Carlo, come on,”
Michael said, reading her fear. “You
hate
guns. Ironic for an arms
dealer, I know, but true.”

“Be careful, Michael Raney. You play with
fire.”

“Put the gun down. I don’t have your damn
key,” Michael said again. “The last person to have it was
Maribel.”

Juan Carlo sighed and lowered his gun. Leah
opened her eyes. Juan Carlo had moved to lean against the bureau,
his legs crossed at the ankles, his arms folded across his chest,
and the gun dangling from one hand. He was studying Michael
closely.

Leah took the opportunity to ask, “Who is
Maribel? Is that your wife?” Neither man so much as looked at her.
“Listen, you two, you dragged me into this—the least you can do is
tell me what the deal is with this key and who Maribel is and what
is going on!”

Juan Carlo shifted his gaze to her and
regarded her curiously. “Women,” he said, shaking his head. “At the
door of death, and still, she would have the gossip.”

Okay, that was it. Leah started fidgeting
with the knot at her back with a vengeance and looked at Michael,
who actually scowled at her, as if she was bothering him with her
questions. “Just relax, Leah. I’d rather not get into it right
now.”

“Of course not!” Juan
Carlo bellowed, and suddenly stomped out of the room, into the
kitchen, the gun swinging wildly with his gait. “You cannot admit
to her the sort of man you really are,” he shouted from the kitchen
as Leah frantically worked at the knot. “You would have her think
you are a decent man, but you are not.” He reappeared in the
bedroom, holding the wine, a gun, and three wineglasses. “That is
the beginning of your problem,
si
?” he said to Michael. “You cannot
be entirely honest with those you love.”