The Fall of Maggie Brown (2 page)

And Maggie, dutiful, responsible daughter that she was, had taken a leave of absence from the bank, packed nonwrinkling clothes in her lightweight carry-on and taken the next flight to San Pablo.

Stella was as emotional, changeable, impractical and breathless as a butterfly, flitting from man to man with an innocent disregard of commitment and the future. Not that sensible Maggie had found anyone to build a future with. But at least she didn’t go flying off at the drop of a hat, certain she was in love two or three times a year.

This latest one had lasted longer, but Maggie didn’t hold out any hope for permanence. She doubted Stella knew the meaning of the word. It had been just over a year ago when Stella, living in New York and making a marginal living modeling for art classes, had met the mysterious Ramon and fallen in love. And for once in her life, instead of boring Maggie with endless details, she’d been suspiciously silent.

Leaving Maggie with the dread suspicion that she’d fallen in love with a terrorist.

It wasn’t that great a leap. According to Stella’s sketchy details, Ramon was part of a group of patriots trying to free the tiny country of San Pablo from its oppressive dictatorship, and he’d been in New York to raise money for the cause. A cause Stella had thrown herself into with her usual wholehearted enthusiasm, and when Ramon had returned to his beleaguered country Stella had, of course, gone with him.

Three postcards in the last year. Three torn, stained, battered postcards from the idyllic, tiny country of San Pablo, with nothing more than a scrawled greeting in Stella’s characteristic hand. No mention of where she was, nor of Ramon. Nor of anything at all.

The last postcard, sent sometime in the spring, had shown a religious procession winding through a small mountain town. The town of Las Cruces, which looked a lot better on a gaudily colored postcard than it did in the dismal light of day.

The gloomy bar was even less prepossessing. It was raining lightly, and Maggie had left her umbrella back in the tiny hotel room, an almost unprecedented oversight on her part. It shouldn’t have surprised her—she was anxious and worried and jet-lagged. But she wasn’t the type to forget essentials.

She squared her shoulders, trying to summon forth the vision of her stern, no-nonsense father, and she ran a hand over her damp, tangled hair. The place was almost deserted. An old man stood behind the bar, and there were several silent customers scattered among the handful of tables, all watching her out of still, hostile eyes. In one corner a bundle of rags shifted, drawing her gaze to the bowed head, the long, tangled hair, the scruffy cheek. And then she reached the bar, her high heels clicking on the rough wood flooring, like tiny taps.

“Good afternoon,
señor
,” she greeted the bartender. The man didn’t move for a moment, then leaned forward and spat on the floor.

The woman at the hotel had assured her that the bartender spoke English, and that he would know who could help her find her sister. If he’d understood her greeting he was making no effort to show it. He leaned back, crossing his arms over his burly, none-too-clean chest, and looked at her.

“Señora Campos sent me here,” Maggie continued gamely, wondering if she ought to dig in the huge bag she carried with her for her trusty phrase book. “I’m looking for my sister, and the
señora
said you might be able to help.”

He didn’t even blink. He was quite old, she realized, and his leathery skin was lizardlike. “I’m looking for some information,” she added, trying to keep the note of desperation out of her voice. When she’d called her mother last night to report her singular lack of success there’d been no answer, and while Maggie had never been one to panic, it was almost impossible to shake a sense of nagging dread. What if her mother died when both her daughters were missing? Who was there to be with her, get her to the hospital if need be?

A dozen or more devoted friends, she reminded herself. Delia Rathburn Brown had an uncanny ability to gather people around her who had nothing better to do than look after her. She didn’t need either of her daughters to see to her well-being.

The bartender leaned forward, staring at her. Maggie held her own, with the simple assurance that she posed no threat, and indeed, little interest, to anyone.

“My sister…” she began again. What the hell was the Spanish word for sister? She could remember French, and even Italian, but Spanish was eluding her completely. And besides, the people of San Pablo had their own dialect that was almost as far removed from Spanish as the Basque language.

He said something, almost a bark of sound, and she stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“Frazer,” the man said a little more distinctly. He jerked his head toward the pile of old clothes. “He’ll help you. If you’ve got the price.”

Maggie looked toward the rags, watching them move, slowly gathering themselves into the form of a man. He rose, and in the darkness he seemed enormously tall next to the short bartender, next to her own five feet four inches. He had a hat pulled down over his eyes, two or three days’ growth of beard, long tangled hair brushing his shoulders and some moth-eaten old poncho covering up dun-colored clothes. She couldn’t see his face in the dim afternoon light, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

The bartender spoke rapidly in his oddly accented Spanish, and after a few words Maggie gave up her futile attempt to follow along. He was talking about her, and she had a good guess it wasn’t very complimentary, but there was nothing she could do about it. Not until the lanky bundle of rags decided to speak.

When he did it was in the same Spanish, though his accent was even odder. He turned his head and glanced at her from under the brim of his hat, and Maggie resisted the impulse to yank it from his head in frustration. “Miguel here says you’re looking for your sister.” His voice was a low, husky drawl, with a rough tinge to it.

“If you’d been listening you’d know that I said the same thing,” she said briskly. “My sister came to San Pablo a little over a year ago and apart from a few postcards we haven’t heard from her. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

He nodded, though she suspected it was more to signify understanding than agreement. “And what will you do when you find her?” he asked. “Drag her back home like a bad little girl?”

His voice sent odd little shivers down her spine. She couldn’t even see what he looked like, a fact which annoyed her, and he was too tall. She didn’t like men who loomed over her.

“Our mother is dying,” she said flatly. “She wants to know that Stella is safe before she goes.”

“In which case wouldn’t you be better off not finding her? If your mother is waiting to die until you find out what happened to your sister then obviously she’d stay alive until you do. And what if you find she’s been murdered by bandits? Wouldn’t dear old mom be better off not knowing?”

Maggie just stared at him in disbelieving horror. “Bandits?”

“Not that there are many nowadays. Most of them have joined Generalissimo Cabral’s goon squad. But maybe you’d be much happier turning around and heading back to America and telling your mom that your sister will come home when she’s good and ready.”

Maggie took a deep breath. “I do thank you for your kind concern,” she said icily, “but I wasn’t asking for advice. I simply need to find my sister, and my reasons are none of your business and not up for discussion. I’m sure there’ll be someone around here who can help me…”

She glanced behind her, at the men watching them. As if on cue they ducked their heads and concentrated on their drinks. The bartender had disappeared.

She looked back at him and he tipped the hat off his head so that she could see his eyes. Even in the darkness they were a bright, electric-blue, set in his unshaven, unfriendly, undeniably attractive face, and his mouth curved in a taunting, cynical grin.

“Honey,” he drawled, “if you’re looking for help, then I’m all you’ve got. Accept it.”

She considered a defiant, thrilling response of “never!” She didn’t say a word, simply looked him over slowly, from the top of his shaggy head to the scuffed boots on his feet. He was disreputable, probably drunk and doubtless more trouble than she’d ever handled in her life.

However, she was very good at handling trouble, and she wasn’t about to back down now. She needed to find her sister.

So she simply nodded. “All right,” she said briskly. “Meet me at the hotel for dinner, and I’ll tell you everything I know about my sister’s disappearance.”

“We haven’t even discussed terms.”

“We can discuss them over dinner. I’m very good at negotiating, Mr. Frazer. I’m sure we’ll come to a mutual agreement.”

He didn’t look sure of any such thing, but he didn’t argue. “I’ll be there.”

“Seven o’clock,” she said. “I imagine you’ll want to…freshen up a bit.”

“I’ll be sure and powder my nose,” he drawled. “You want me to bring flowers?”

“Just your lovely self, Mr. Frazer. And be assured, I have no problem paying well for what I need.”

“And you need me, honey. Have no doubt about that. You gonna tell me your name?’

“Brown. Maggie Brown.”

“Miss or Mrs.?”

“Ms.”

“I don’t come from the South, sugar. It’s one or the other. You married?”

“No.”

“Miss Brown, then,” he said. “See you at seven.” And he pushed by her, heading out into the afternoon drizzle without a backward glance.

She watched him go, frozen despite the thick, humid heat of the sultry afternoon. It wasn’t until he’d disappeared that she let out her breath, surprised to discover she’d been holding it.

There was no sign of the bartender, and the other customers were studiously ignoring her. No one to answer questions, just the strange, hostile American who’d said he’d help her.

Did she believe him? Trust him? She didn’t really have a choice. But damn Stella for putting her in this miserable position. This was the last time she was coming in search of her feckless twin. In the future she could look out for herself.

* * *

M
ISS
M
AGGIE BROWN
was a pistol, Frazer thought, ambling along in the lightly falling rain. From the tips of her high-heeled shoes to the top of her slightly tousled brown hair she looked more at ease with a cell phone and a briefcase than in a run-down village in a country on the verge of revolution. She didn’t want to be here, that much was certain, but she wasn’t about to whine. She’d come here to do a job and by God she was going to do it, even if it meant she had to consort with riffraff like Ben Frazer.

And she had no earthly idea just how raffish he could be.

He was prepared to give Miss Maggie Brown a lesson in how the real world operated, as opposed to the civilized, rarefied stratum she usually inhabited. He’d take her money, he’d take her on a wild-goose chase and in the end she’d be poorer but wiser for the experience.

The one thing he wasn’t going to do was take her to see her twin sister.

She didn’t look much like Stella, despite the fact that she claimed they were twins. Stella was tall and buxom, and Maggie was short and slender. Not too slender, despite those baggy clothes. Stella was nothing less than a flaming, outrageous beauty, from the top of her undoubtedly dyed red mane to her perfect feet, while Maggie was paler, more subdued. A more refined, sophisticated taste, Ben thought. Fortunately he was more beer than champagne. He wasn’t even tempted.

He rubbed a hand across his three-day growth of beard. Normally he was due for a shave, but nothing short of torture would make him take a razor to his stubble. Miss Maggie Brown was just going to have to appreciate her guide in all his rough-hewn glory. With any kind of luck he’d annoy her so much she wouldn’t even realize he was taking her miles away from anyone who’d ever seen or heard of the magnificent Stella. By the time she realized she’d been had, it would be too late.

Too late to stop what had been in the works for far too long. The last thing anybody needed was a busybody poking her nose into San Pablo affairs, asking questions. The elections would be done in three days, and if all went well, a new order would be in charge. He wasn’t about to let anything, including an unwanted American, jeopardize it.

Hell, it was nothing more than his duty to get rid of her. And on rare occasions, when he was bored and the price was right, he could be a very dutiful guy.

Besides he was curious. Beneath that staid appearance, was Maggie Brown anything like the wild and passionate Stella?

It might be interesting to find out.

* * *

T
HE MAN STOOD IN THE DOORWAY
of the tumbled-down house across from Señora Campos’s prosperous little inn. He was the kind of man no one would look at twice—middle-aged, average height, a stocky build and a forgettable face. His very ordinariness had been his best stock in trade, one he’d used to advantage over the past thirty years.

It came in handy today, as he stood beneath the doorway, out of the way of the light mist, and watched the American woman enter the hotel. No one ever remembered him. He was the Everyman of San Pablo.

She’d been easy enough to follow—the stupid American had no idea anyone was interested in her whereabouts. No idea that she was unwittingly involved in the future of this country.

She would know when he killed her. He could give her that much, so she wouldn’t die without knowing why. And he would do it as quickly and painlessly as possible. He liked to think of himself as a chivalrous man when it came to the ladies.

But for his old friend Ben Frazer he wasn’t planning any such weakness. He owed him, owed him for the scar across his belly, owed him for the broken leg that still bothered him on occasion. With Ben Frazer, he had every intention of making it last.

In the meantime, though, he was content to watch. To keep his distance, to follow the girl as she led him to his ultimate prey. It was only his good fortune that Frazer came along with the package. A sign that the job was meant to be his. He’d take care of business. And then, when it came to Ben Frazer, he’d take care of pleasure.