Yours in Black Lace (11 page)

She gave a little shrug. Not an easy gesture underneath all of those layers of her disguise. “I don’t know. Why don’t you give me a few ideas.”

“We could walk down to the pier and look for dolphins. Or I could find a cab and we could go shopping at the Village on Venetian Bay. Or—” His cell phone rang, the musical chimes muffled inside several shirts. “Or I could answer the phone.”

He dug it out of his pocket while Stevie gazed at the passersby and pretended not to eavesdrop. Alex barely waited for his greeting. “Where are you, Em?”

“Hey. We’re just walking around disguised as tourists.”

“Well, duck and cover, partner. You’ve got trouble.”

Stevie gave a startled gasp as he grabbed her hand and rushed back inside the Mangrove Café. Her eyebrows drew together in a questioning look as they hid inside the entryway, but he merely shook his head. He’d explain once he understood what was going on.

“What’s happened, Alex?”

“I saw the news. A couple of women were assaulted in Fort Myers. They were all tall, athletic blondes with short hair.”

Emelio didn’t believe in coincidence. He dropped his chin, briefly closing his eyes as he recognized the full extent of the danger. “
Mierda.
That’s only forty-five miles north of here.”

“Ditch this phone. Braga must have gotten a trace on it somehow, at least to the nearest cellular routing station.”

He angled his head to catch Stevie’s eye. “You’ve got a mobile phone, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “In my suitcase.”

Emelio spoke to Alex. “I’ve got another one at the cottage. I’ll call you back with the number.”

He clicked off the connection and sighed heavily. Though he stood motionless, his mind raced to ascertain their options and decide on a plan of action.

“What’s going on? What did Alex say?” Stevie kept her voice low and urgent as the restaurant hostess stole a curious glance in their direction.

“It looks like Braga may have tracked us as far as Fort Myers. We’ve got to get off the street.”

Color drained from her face, making her slate-blue eyes appear huge against the pallor of her skin. Emelio cupped her cheek in one palm, infusing his tone with as much reassurance as he could. “I’ll never let him get to you.”

She readily came into his embrace. “What do we do now?”

“Get back to the house. We should be safe there for the rest of today. From Fort Myers they’ll have to search Marco Island, Sanibel and Cape Coral before they get to Naples. But just the same, we need to find another place to stay.”

She shoved an ottoman out of the way with her foot. “Leave me alone. I can’t think and answer you at the same time.”

He left her alone. But at some point he was going to suggest anger management. That woman had a hell of a temper when she felt out of control.

Meanwhile, he walked across the hallway to his office. Emelio booted up his computer and did an Internet search of news articles. He jotted notes on a legal pad, trying to determine where Braga had been over the past months. Later he’d check with Stevie to see where their paths might have crossed.

An hour passed before he knew it. He logged off the computer and sat back, rubbing his eyes. Braga was slick and he covered his tracks well. Without having access to the databases at the FBI anymore, the only information he could find was pretentious accounts of Braga’s legitimate business dealings and charitable contributions.

Emelio knew better, though. He knew what Braga was capable of. A callous manipulator and a consummate liar, he’d involved members of his own family in the cartel’s business. He’d orchestrated a takeover and let Ramos take the fall at Cayo Sueño. Nothing and no one stood in the way of his ambition.

Braga apparently didn’t see it that way, though. For some reason, he considered Stevie a serious enough threat to send people hunting across the state. She’d spent hours at his laptop reading through her case files, but nothing in them had explained why Braga was stalking her.

They had to be out of the cottage by tomorrow morning. He needed to make arrangements for a safe place to take her. He was just about to make some calls when Stevie wandered into the office. “Should you be using that phone anymore?”

Emelio put down the receiver and reached for her. “It’s set up as a business line listed as Castle Consulting Services. It can’t be traced to me personally.”

As she settled on his lap, he saw that her complexion had returned to its normal vivid appearance. The lines of tension had eased from her forehead, but shadows still haunted her eyes, leaving them more gray than blue.

“Feeling better now?”

“No, but I’ll get through it.” Stevie sighed heavily and leaned her forehead against his. “I guess our little vacation from reality is over, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“For the past few days, I was able to pretend we were just two people getting to know each other. Now, the danger is back. We have to run. We have to hide.” Her shoulder muscles tensed and her voice sounded strained. “I just want this to be over. I just want to get back to my life.”

“We’ll figure it out, don’t worry.” Emelio stroked his palm over her hair and kissed her temple. “And I promise you this, Braga isn’t going to get anywhere near you.”

At the end of the bed, his pulse shuddered as he bumped into another body. The smell of her sleep-warmed skin was the only thing that kept Stevie from getting knocked on her ass. She was crouched down, as well, and he could barely hear her whisper when she spoke.

“We’ve got visitors, Emelio.”

“Stay down. They may have nightscopes.”

He felt her tense beside him, but she remained low to the floor. “What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to do a quick recon, determine which way they’re coming in. Then I’ll get you out of here.”

“I’ll get myself out. You don’t know how many there are.”

“Stephanie—”

The buzzing ceased abruptly. The wires had been cut. It was the only way to deactivate the system from outside.

Emelio’s heart pounded as adrenaline poured into his system. Should he uphold his honor or follow his instincts? He was torn between wanting to head off Braga’s minions and needing to keep Stevie safe.

Honor be damned, just once. This was his chance to get back in the game. “Stay here.”

Her hiss of protest was immediate. “No way!”

The backup alarm would go off any second now, flooding the grounds with light and alerting the intruders they’d been caught. He grabbed her arm, whispering harshly. “I mean it, Stevie. I don’t want to shoot you in the dark.”

“Damn it, Emelio. I can do my job! I’ve been trained—”

He gave her a gentle push, knocking her on her ass after all. “You can tell me about your Hostile Infiltration classes later. Right now, I have to know you’ll be safe.
Stay here.
”

Gripping the .45 caliber tightly, he jogged barefoot out of the bedroom and along the gloomy hallway. Listening carefully, he cursed the light color of his sleep pants—the pale fabric would easily be seen in the darkness.

There. Emelio jerked his head in the direction of a slight scraping noise. They had gotten through the pool enclosure and were now trying to gain entrance to the house itself. He flicked the safety off the Ruger and headed for the back door, praying his footsteps weren’t as loud as they sounded in his mind.

The intruders probably thought the alarm system was already disabled, not realizing that as soon as the wire was tripped a call went out to the local authorities. He just hoped he got to them before the cops came. He was spoiling for a fight and he needed whatever information he could either overhear or beat out of someone.

Suddenly, the backup alarm screamed to life and floodlights turned the night into high noon. He took advantage of the intruder’s surprise-induced paralysis and flung the door open. In the moment they stood face-to-face, Emelio determined that the guy was alone at this entrance, he wasn’t one of Braga’s regular henchmen, and that he was under the influence.

The intruder spun around and dashed across the lanai. Moment over. Emelio was hard on his heels when the guy caught his leg against one of the lounge chairs. It was all Emelio needed to get hold of a fistful of black turtleneck and yank the guy off his feet.

“Where are the others?”

“There’s nobody—”

He rapped the intruder’s jaw with the barrel of the gun to ensure his undivided attention. Judging by how dilated the guy’s pupils were, Emelio had to be certain he was getting through.

“Answer me! Where are they?”

“I came alone, I swear! There’s no one else.”

Screeech. A terra-cotta planter scraped against the patio tile. His breath caught as he automatically turned toward the sound. He was an open target, standing here under the lights in his pajamas. Scanning the perimeter, Emelio damned his inability to see past the floodlights.

Shards of glass rained onto the lanai when he shot out the halogen bulbs above the pool. A second later, the darkness exploded into a thousand stars of pain when the intruder’s knee connected with his groin. Emelio fought the nausea as he cupped himself and staggered back a step. His attacker gave him a hard shove then took off again, flying through the propped-open door to the pool enclosure.

Every fiber of Emelio’s being urged him to follow the guy onto the beach. But both his injury and his concern for Stevie made him hesitate. He shouldn’t have left her unprotected. As he turned to go back inside the cottage, however, a pale blur of motion caught his eye.

Madre de Dios.
None of Braga’s men had short blond hair or long, shapely legs or wore his pajama shirt to bed. He hobbled after Stevie, cursing savagely. He was going to kill her if those guys didn’t do it first. She was running flat out along the dunes…toward the intruder.

Despite the fear stabbing his gut, he also felt a surge of pride because damned if she wasn’t gaining on the guy. With a leap right out of an action movie, she made a flying tackle and finally brought him down. The two of them were wrestling on the ground when the intruder suddenly delivered a blow to Stevie’s solar plexus. As she sank to her knees, the guy got up and sprinted toward the surf.

Rage added fuel to his stride as Emelio raced over the sand. She was hurt. That bastard had punched her and, in doing so, made the worst mistake of his life. He lost precious seconds while he checked on Stevie, who was gasping like a fish out of water. Knowing from experience that she’d be fine in a minute, he tore ass after her assailant.

The wail of sirens carried on the night air. Time was running out. It was a one-in-a-hundred shot, given the fifteen yards between them, but Emelio took it. The report was still echoing when the intruder stumbled, grabbing his leg where the slug ripped through his left thigh.

Emelio closed the distance and stood over the guy, the Ruger trained for a second shot if necessary. He swiftly checked the surroundings again. Either this guy really is alone or the others had gotten in the wind. Fixing his gaze on the wounded man, he called over to Stevie.

“You have to get up.” A quick glance told him she hadn’t moved. Or that she couldn’t. “Get up, Jayne! I know it hurts, but you’ve got to go and stall the cops.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her finally raise her head and look in his direction. She struggled to her feet, bracing her palms on her hips and still gasping for air. She only managed a single word.

“Why?”

“I need answers and the Collier County sheriff isn’t going to like how I get them.”

After emerging through the French doors from the bedroom, she’d dashed around the hot tub and across the patio. The terra-cotta planter was heavier than it looked, but she’d finally moved it and vaulted the brick wall.

She’d been so proud of herself when she caught the bad guy on the beach behind the house. Then he’d knocked the breath out of her and all of her training fled. The blow had brought memories as well as pain.

Doubled over on the sand, she’d felt completely vulnerable. Again. And that had sent her temper soaring. After insisting to Emelio that she could handle herself, the first chance to put theory into practice had been a dismal failure.

At least the other guy looked worse. Their midnight visitor was sporting a blackened eye, a busted lip and a bullet in the leg. Despite all of that, the intruder kept denying any connection to Braga.

After finding night-vision goggles and burglar’s tools in the prowler’s backpack, the sheriff’s deputies had also located a dinghy hidden in the tall grass near the shore. Since there had been a rash of break-ins around Naples over the past few months, the sheriff chose to believe the most obvious explanation. Case closed.

Emelio wasn’t buying it, though. She felt the anger and frustration radiating off him in hot waves. “Get packed, Stevie. We’re out of here.”

“Where are we—?”

“Virgen de la Caridad!”
His eyebrows slammed together in a scowl. “Could you just once follow instructions?”

She’d never seen him like this—he’d never directed real anger toward her before. Stevie hated to admit that her first instinct was a rush of fear and the urge to recoil. It lasted less than a second, but that gut reaction, after working so hard to outrun her past, was enough to set her temper off again.

“Kiss my ass, Emelio. If I had followed instructions, we never would have caught that guy.”

Oh, had she hit a raw target. The color drained from his face even as fire lit his amber-green eyes, but he visibly struggled to rein in his own temper. That show of self-control completely dissolved any lingering fear and gave her the green light to get right in his face.

“Never split up the team when you have no idea what you’re up against. That’s the first thing we learned in my Urban First Response class. Lucky for us he was just a burglar!”

“You and your goddamn classes. You can take paramilitary international super-spy courses from now until you die, but they’ll never replace common sense or instincts honed from years of experience.”

“How am I supposed to gain any experience with you constantly trying to shut me in a cushioned box?”

“You could start by taking advice, orders and directions.”

She knew she’d screwed up tonight and that she was damn lucky that guy didn’t work for Braga. The bruises would be painful reminders over the next few days. But she still resented the fact that he didn’t consider her a real partner.

“You know what your problem is? You always have to be the hero. You’re not happy unless the weight of the world is on your oh-so-responsible shoulders. It just kills you not to be in control!”

“Look who’s talking!” The closed-off expression on Emelio’s face told her he was still struggling with his temper. “No, Stephanie, what killed me was seeing you get hurt. How do you think I felt watching that guy punch you, knowing it could have been avoided if you had stayed in the bedroom…”

His gaze dropped to where her hand still soothed the bruises. Then the anger drained from his expression and he closed his eyes briefly. “It wouldn’t have happened if I’d done my job.”

Her own defensiveness faded, as well, and she reached out to touch his arm. “What is this really about?”

“I should have protected you.” Emelio brushed his fingers along her cheek. “With the exception of some phone calls and a little Internet searching, I haven’t been able to do much on this case. So tonight, when given the chance to find out the extent of Braga’s threat, I made the wrong choice.”

She dropped her chin, tilting her face to the palm of his hand. “You’re not the only one who made a wrong choice. As usual, I followed my impulses. I wanted so badly to prove myself, to show you I could do the job, that I put myself in danger. It’s my own fault that I got hurt.”

Emelio opened his arms and she moved gratefully into his embrace. She laid her cheek against his bare chest, felt the heat of his body melt away the tension.

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I’ve been worse. But I think I’m going to have to turn in my secret-agent decoder ring.” It had been an emotionally draining day and all she really wanted was to go back to sleep. But they had several hours of driving ahead.

“So, where are we going, chér?”

“Back to Miami. We’re going to hide in plain sight.”