Paradise Burning (27 page)

“
Help me get her up,” Nadya ordered.
“We can try walking her around, maybe shower her with cold water.
Well, don’t just stand there. Let’s do it.”

The former Major Shirazi stood with his hands
on his hips regarding the girl from Yekatarinburg as if she were
some species of rare beast. Slowly, he shook his head, then
shrugged, and stepped forward. It would not hurt to try Nadya’s
suggestion. Anna Tvardoskaya was a very small burden, and the
girl’s death would be a loss of income for Misha and his bosses.
Also, if she lived, there would be no telltale corpse to be buried
in the Florida jungle.

As Karim positioned the inert body between
them, taking most of the weight himself, he carefully avoided
looking at Nadya. She was a little too sharp, that one. She made
him recall the man he once had been. The pain of remembrance was
intense, not at all what a man of means should have to endure from
a female, particularly a helpless foreign female totally dependent
on his tolerance for her existence. She was like that South
American fish—a piranha, was it not?—a man-eater. Undoubtedly, she
would keep snapping away until he was consumed.

The problem was, he thought as they paced the
room, the length of the hall, and back again, he liked her. Her
fragile body housed an agile mind and independent spirt. Not what
he’d thought he wanted at all, but . . .

She was gallant, his Nadya. Nadezhda.

Hope.

Peter, one hand knuckled against his cheek,
reached for his coffee cup with the other. He peered at the
newspaper, lying open on the table in front of him, blinked, tried
again. Sighing, he plunged his head into both hands and allowed
thoughts of Mandy to sweep away any interest he might have had in
the affairs of the world.

Miserable little Mouse. Heartlessly, as
pre-dawn edged away the night, Mandy had reverted to shy violet,
casting him out to slink past all those silent trailers, arriving
home just as the sun rose behind the trees across the river. Just
in time to pick up his newspaper from the driveway, stagger up the
ramp and fall into bed for a few short hours.

Now, at close to ten, he was drinking coffee
alone. No Mouse. No wife. No lover.

Well, shit.

That was good, right? He’d worn her out.

Or she was going door to door at the
campground: “
He’s my husband. Peter
Pennington’s my husband.
” Ridiculous Puritan
conscience!

Talk about being worn out. Peter directed a
silly grin at the newsprint on the table. They’d certainly tried to
make up for all those wasted years. In one night. He hadn’t done it
that many times since that voracious countess from Catalonia.
Actually, he’d made a damn good comeback for a man who had screwed
up so badly the first time around.

Mouse. His Mouse. Who was developing
backbone, taking initiative. Even in bed.

If he hadn’t already given up his slippery
sexual ethics, promises of more birthdays like that were guaranteed
to enslave him for life.

Ten-thirty. No Mouse.

She wasn’t going to panic and run. Was
she?

She wouldn’t. Would she?

Tires on the macadam below, the familiar
sound of Mandy’s tires. Breath whooshed out of his lungs. Peter
took a gulp of coffee, then swiftly leafed through the newspaper.
When Mandy came in, his attention was fixed on the Entertainment
section.

“
Good morning,” she announced crisply
from the doorway behind him. Professional research assistant to
employer.

“
Get any sly looks?” Paper rustled as
he turned to the next page.

“
You would not believe.”

“
That bad?”

Mandy snorted.

“
Sorry. Correction.” Peter turned to
face her, holding out his hand. “I’m not the least bit sorry. I
loved every minute. My only regret was your sending me home too
soon.”

Mandy pushed herself away from the door,
grasped his hand. “You sure about that?”

He pulled her down into his lap, nuzzled her
cheek. “Oh, yeah. Good morning, Mrs. Pennington,” he added softly,
just before pressing his lips to hers. “So are we okay?” he
murmured when he came up for air. “Or was last night just your way
of saying Happy Birthday?”

Mandy laid her head on his shoulder, traced a
circle on his bare lower arm, sending an encore of last night’s
lightning zapping through him, almost as if he were a horny
seventeen instead of an exhausted thirty-seven. “Verdict’s still
out,” she said. “What we want and what’s wise aren’t always the
same thing.”

“
Marriage is wise, take my word for
it.”

“
Umm.”

“
By the way, take a look at this.”
Peter leaned forward, surrounding her with the freshly showered and
shaved scent of him, the heat, the
wonder
of him. Mandy uncrossed her eyes and
focused on the newspaper. “
Madame
Butterfly
? In Florida?”

“
Hey, skeptic, we even have a genuine
opera house. Horseshoe seating and all.”

“
You
went to an
opera?”

“
Saw a photo in the newspaper,” Peter
admitted with a grin, giving her a swift buss on the tip of her
nose, “but, actually, this is a ballet. Believe it or not, there’s
a ballet company too. Didn’t know you were living in the cultural
capital of Florida, did you?”

What was he up to now? Mandy wondered.
“So . . . just what does
Madame
Butterfly
have to do with us, other than being a
nineteenth century example of trafficking?”

Peter heaved a long, exaggerated sigh. “You
wound me, wife. I thought I’d promised to woo you. You know . . .
romance. Flowers, candy, movies, the theater.”

Oh. Great going, Mandy. It’s the morning
after a night of hot sex, your husband is asking you out on a date,
and you’re all business. Sitting in his lap at the kitchen table
and thinking trafficking. Aargh!

“
They’re doing four performances this
weekend. Want to go?”

He was asking her out? On an
honest-to-goodness date?
Courtship?
Living like real people instead of and AKA princess and her
Prince Consort. The idea that had charmed her last night looked
even better by daylight.

“
I’d love to go,” Mandy told him. “I
don’t think I’ve seen a ballet since Grandmother Armitage took me
to
The Nutcracker
when I was
seven.”

Peter chuckled, gave her a swift hug.
“There’s bacon on the counter, eggs in the microwave. I’d better
finish the newspaper and get to work.”

Mandy slid off his lap, giving him a swift
pat on the top of the head as she headed toward the counter.
Ordinarily, she didn’t eat much breakfast, but Peter liked to
surprise her with a little something each morning, even if it was
only toast and jam. And she had to admit she enjoyed those moments
at the kitchen table, quietly eating, sharing the newspaper.

Never more so than this morning.

Mandy took her helping of scrambled eggs from
the microwave, added the bacon, poured herself a cup of coffee, and
sat down at one end of the table. Without looking up, Peter handed
her the front section.

Old married couple at the breakfast table. He
was luring her into his trap. Smoothly, deftly, seemingly without
effort. And she was making it easy for him. Lapping it up. Well,
why shouldn’t she? He owed her. Mandy took a sip of her coffee,
then turned her attention to the front page.

A bold headline caught her eye. She scanned
the article, went back to the top and read it again. “Peter?”

“
Mmm?”

“
Did you see this story about a murder
in Manatee Bay?”

“
I wasn’t in the mood for murder this
morning.”

Nice
. “A woman
was killed by her husband. Kitchen knife. One of her two little
girls may have witnessed it. The girls are five and
three.”

Peter put down the newspaper. “You think it
could be Jade.”

“
I don’t recognize the names, but the
ages are right, including the victim’s.” Mandy could feel
goosebumps rising on her skin. Her stomach threatened to
regurgitate the bacon.

Peter hauled out his cell phone, ran down his
phone list, dialed. As Mandy listened to Peter’s end of the
conversation, hope plummeted. “You were right,” he said as he ended
the call. “Jade’s gone, husband’s on the run.”

“
Those poor little girls,” Mandy
breathed before her vocal cords twisted into silence.

“
We’re never going to make a
difference, are we?” Peter said into the gloom. “What we’re doing
is an exercise in futility. Problem’s too big, too widespread.
What’s evil to some is life’s blood to others. Sex can be
beautiful, all-powerful, and top of the devil’s list. Shall we
chuck it, Mouse? Run off to Tahiti and forget the whole damn
thing?”

Mandy studied Peter’s anguished amber eyes,
the lips that had caressed every inch of her body just last night.
The arms that for a few hours had held her, comforted her,
treasured her. Nice offer, but she knew his question was
rhetorical. Peter wasn’t any more ready to give up than she was.
“We’d still have to save Nadya,” she reminded him. “That’s all we
can do. One small victory at a time.”

“
I’m glad you think you can win that
one.” Obviously, Peter’s crusading spirit had taken a heavy blow.
She’d have to give him time.

Give and take. Marriage.

Was it possible they could make it work this
time?

What the hell was he doing? Paying a call on
a Russian whore wasn’t on Peter’s list of events for wooing his
wife. But perhaps it should have been. What faster road to Mandy’s
heart than rescuing Nadya?

As Peter guided the rowboat into the bank,
mooring it close so Mandy could use the exposed roots of an ancient
oak to pull herself up the bank, Peter was glad his scowl faced the
river. As Mandy clambered out, he sore softly but pungently about
stubborn idiotic females born without a drop of common sense. Given
what they now knew, this was a fool’s errand. Dangerous as hell.
But he’d been unable to resist Mandy’s plea that Nadya needed to
know she wasn’t alone, that the forces of good really existed and
were not far away.

Peter made his way up the bank, then stopped
to stare. Many had warned him, but Nadya’s ethereal beauty, her
flowing white gown, her tearful relief as she opened her arms to
embrace her American friend, were enough to touch the most hardened
heart.

“
It’s going to be okay. All
right.
Vee ponemayetyeh
?”
Mandy said as she grabbed Nadya’s hands and sat down beside her.
She met the Russian girl’s hopeful gaze, green eyes to blue, as the
first glimmering shadows of predawn lit the clearing. Mandy
retrieved one hand, pulled a folded note out of her pocket. “Find a
safe place to read this,” she instructed, then . . .” She
pantomimed tearing the note in small pieces, the downward motion of
flushing the toilet.

A smile of comprehension lit Nadya’s pale
face, but after a quick compulsive hug, she shoved Mandy away. “Go.
Go quickly.” Nadya glanced over her shoulder toward the path to the
house. “Karim,” she hissed. “Go now.”

Peter clasped Nadya’s small hands in his,
squeezed hard. He echoed Mandy’s reassurances, then swept his wife
up from the fallen tree trunk and hurried her toward the johnboat.
The soft swish of oars soon echoed over the silent jungle where all
the creatures had gone quiet with the multiple invasion of their
territory.

In the small clearing along the river Nadya
read the note for what must have been the tenth time, then finally,
reluctantly, tore it into pieces. She walked the few steps to the
river, scattered the tiny pieces onto the mahogany waters where
they looked like snowdrops on an overlarge chocolate cake. Slowly,
they swirled, fanned out, a few dipping beneath the dark surface,
others floating downriver like messengers of hope. For long moments
Nadya watched them go before turning reluctant footsteps toward the
path to the house.

Karim Shirazi abruptly straightened from the
tree trunk on which he had been leaning for so long and
double-timed it back to the house ahead of her.

Mandy slumped into a chair at the kitchen
table, raising her head from her hands only when Peter plunked a
mug full of steaming coffee in front of her. “Bless you,” she
murmured.

“
Put it on before I left. Figured we’d
need it when we got back.”

Blast him!
He
looked so smug.
She
never
smiled before her second cup of coffee. Mandy took a sip, sighed
her appreciation. “I
hate
mornings. How I ever got us into this mess I really don’t
know.” She stilled, eyes narrowing, visions of might-have-beens
popping into her mind. She slammed down her mug, slopping brown
liquid onto the pristine white table. “Dammit, Peter, what if I
hadn’t been curious, stayed in my nice warm bed . . .?”

“
You’re an Armitage. It’s in the
blood.”

“
Oh, sure.” Mandy grabbed the paper
towel Peter handed her and sopped up the spilled coffee.

“
With Jeff as a father, you were raised
to save the world. And trafficking’s Eleanor’s particular crusade.
When you spotted Nadya, you didn’t stand a chance of gliding by on
the other side of the river.”