Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes)

by Blair Bancroft

  I’d accused him of faking it. My only excuse—killing someone tends to scramble the brain. At least it does for frou-frou wedding planners like me.

  Dad and Mom, the brothers—what would they say?

  And if I didn’t get some sleep, I was just asking to be railroaded into Public Enemy Number One.

  Stoo-pid! On the train I’d had some bad moments. Shock. Guilt. Doubts about everything. But reality dictated there was no way the Peruvian policia were going to jail the person—a female norte americana—who shot a cop-killer, a cop who was one of their own.

  I was right. By eight that night I was on a plane to Miami. I called home to say I’d catch some sleep at the airport and fly into Golden Beach in the morning.

  “Laine, honey, what’s wrong?” Mom asked, with that built-in mom radar, which in Karen Halliday is honed to laser intensity.

  “Nothing . . . I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  “Laine?”

  “In the morning, mom.” I breathed wearily into the phone. “In the morning.”

  “The Arendsens? Is everything all right?”

  “They’re fine, Mom. They should be back in Cuzco by now.” Even I could hear my false enthusiasm, the slight quaver on the word Cuzco.

  “Lainie?” A long, drawn-out question in a single word.

  “Tomorrow, Mom. Bye-bye.” I tucked my cell phone into my purse, sat on the edge of my bed with the usually sweet sound of airplanes zooming over my head, and shook. I was back in the United States. I was alive.

  Rhys was . . . somewhere. Hopefully, alive and well.

  He’d offered me a job. Was it for real? The men who’d taken him away had been very real. I’d heard the word “Interpol” whispered through the ranks of the policia. So Rhys really was an Interpol officer, using a devious plan to recruit me as an informant. A plan that, for some mysterious reason, had gone horribly wrong.

  Due to some obscure nastiness in my world or his?

  My best was on Rhys. How could it be me? I lived in a fantasy bubble of exotic weddings and vacation, with criminals as scarce as hen’s teeth.

  And I wanted to keep it that way.

  Didn’t I?

  I was tired, tired, tired. My heart hurt, my body ached, my nerves were stretched about as far as they would go. But I knew what I had to do.

  I had to get my head together and remember who and what I was. I was a troubleshooter for Fantascapes. That was my job. Anything more was highly questionable. My meeting with Rhys Tarrant had been so disastrous, Interpol would likely never let him near me again. Not even on the same continent.

  Interpol. The people who kept their finger on the pulse of global crime. Protect and Serve.

  Don’t think about it! Rhys had indicated they wanted an undercover informant, someone no one would suspect. And I’d blown away an assassin in full view of a trainload of passengers. I’d been center stage, sharing the spotlight with an Interpol agent, before the Peruvian police, the British Embassy, the American Consulate, and Interpol itself.

  Too bad. My new secret life had been a tempting thought while it lasted.

  Rhys Tarrant, despite his arrogant Brit moments, would be a tempting thought forever.

  Exhaustion finally won out over my yo-yoing thoughts. I crawled under the covers and slept.

  The next morning, when I retrieved Bella, the South Florida air was so humid and heavy, I was glad to shut myself inside the cockpit’s artificial atmosphere. I filed my flight plan, and headed home.

  So familiar, so blessedly familiar. The green of the everglades . . . acres and acres of crops. Tract houses, the rich blue of the Gulf of Mexico, towering condos and monster mansions. This was my world. I might leave it for a while, but I always came back. What did I have to do with some shadowy police international organization? Who were they? What did they do? How could they possibly have any use for me?

  Just know I’ll find you, whether it’s here or in the States. It had a nice ring, but good intentions weren’t much use if Interpol said, “It’s the girl or your job. We’ll send a check in the mail.”

  I landed, taxied Bella into her hanger, climbed out of the cockpit. Jeff was standing there, looking as dark and brooding as a Florida summer thundercloud. “What’s up, kid? Mom and Dad said do not stop at the apartment. I’m to bring you straight to the house.”

  “Not much,” I mumbled, curling my lip. “Just Arlan Trevellyan, up to his tricks again.”

  “Trevellyan only makes you mad, Laine,” Jeff said, grabbing my suitcase. “He never put that look on your face.”

  “You staying?” I asked.

  “Damn right.”

  “Then you’ll find out when we get there.” I hauled myself up into Jeff’s black 4Runner, and we headed for the woods.

  Golden Beach is one of those towns that keeps a low profile because enough northerners discover its idyllic setting without the Chamber of Commerce tooting its own horn. Although centered around the small core city directly on the gulf, county-controlled portions of greater Golden Beach stretch twenty-five miles from north to south and ten miles east to west. When we moved here, cattle ranching was second only to tourism as a source of income. A drive from Halliday House to town meant passing through piney woods, ornamented by live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, past rustling cabbage palms and spiky palmetto. Past grazing land dotted with cows, cow patties, and the inevitable flock of white cow birds. There even used to be a bull who was an escape artist, regularly holding up traffic as he ate his way through the grass that was greener on the road side of the fence.

  Now . . . as Jeff drove east on Main Street, I realized I hadn’t really looked in quite a while. I’d winced when the cows disappeared, when the castor bean fields—once a cash crop for castor oil—were destroyed. I’d winced when the cabbage palms and palmetto were torn out of the ground, when every last bit of green was flattened for new housing developments. And then I stopped looking because I couldn’t bear the change. Don’t look, and it hasn’t happened. The truth was, the old Florida was nearly gone now. Houses, condos, villas, shopping centers—mile after mile after mile—where cows once grazed.

  I’d turned ostrich. Truth was . . . Golden Beach was no longer a sleepy Florida backwater. But Halliday House? That was still a long ways out, set on so much land we’d still feel private, even if they built a whole new city up around us.

  As Rhys and I passed the entrance to I-75, we finally left the spanking brand new behind. We were passing tree nurseries now, an orchid farm. Narrow paved roads led off outer Main Street to houses with room for horses, a riding school that specialized in dressage, an ostrich farm. Here, rugged individualism still reigned. At age twenty-seven it was easier for me to understand why Mom and Dad built out in the woods. There was nothing cookie-cutter about the Hallidays—except perhaps that pesky Serve and Protect gene—so a model house out of a developer’s brochure was out of the question. And, naturally, the only water anywhere near the Hallidays would be a river officially designated “wild and scenic” by the Florida legislature.

  We turned off Main Street, made a series of abrupt right-angle turns over the course of the next three miles and cruised under the solid canopy of trees that marked the Calusa River basin. If the horse country people were independent, the stubborn residents who lived along a river that flooded every rainy season made them look like pikers. Halliday House was solid coral pink stucco, surrounded by a ten-foot wall the same color. The living space reared up out of the surrounding jungle like some fairytale medieval fortress, the house on sturdy twelve-foot cement supports topping the wall like the second layer of a wedding cake. Jeff pressed a button on a gadget on his SUV’s visor and huge black wrought-iron gates slowly swung open. The house sprawled before us, with parking underneath and an L-shaped ramp for Dad’s electric wheelchair in case power to the elevator failed. Though, naturally, we had a generator and a back-up generator. (Dad was once a Boy Scout, of course.)

  We drove through and pulled up beside Mom�
��s white BMW. “Ready?” Jeff asked. Throat dry, I could only shake my head. “Courage, kid. Whatever it is, you know the family always has your back.”

  Oh, shit! I didn’t want to go in there blubbering like a baby. Of all the brothers, because we were closest in age, I knew Jeff best. In spite of our squabbles, we were buds. If I haven’t mentioned it, Jeff’s what you’d expect when someone says SWAT team—tall and brawny, as capable of wrestling an alligator as a bad guy. He has a sort-of-a square face, with wavy brown hair and blue eyes. And hands that can heft an MP-5 as easily as I could handle the .22. Fortunately, he’s supremely good-natured when not fighting bad guys. Maybe he just hasn’t been at it long enough to become cynical.

  “It’s bad,” I admitted. “Dad’s going to have a fit.”

  Jeff shrugged and reached for the 4Runner’s door. “Hey, as long as you didn’t shoot anybody . . .” At my failure to proclaim my innocence, his hand froze on the door handle. He swung around and looked at me. “You didn’t, did you?” he whispered, awed.

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Gawd!” Jeff breathed.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “You can hear about it inside.” We exited the SUV and got into the elevator. Jeff punched the single button for House Level.

  I was riding to my doom.

  I don’t mean to make Dad and Mom sound like ogres. They’re about as great as parents come and a lot more understanding about strange events than most, but . . .

  I’d sometimes wondered how many Dad had killed . . . and did my brothers keep a body count? I was nearly certain Doug and Logan had followed Dad into the same line of work, though Doug had downsized two years ago to something a bit more tame, starting a still struggling private security and investigations agency in Orlando. Proving that troubleshooting definitely ran in the family, although now Doug’s primary mission was solving problems for Orlando residents and the vast number of international visitors who found their way to the resort capital of the world. But as for shooting anybody, he might have when in government service, but I was quite sure the Orange County Sheriff’s Department frowned on that sort of thing.

  As for Jeff, I was certain he’d never shot anyone. The SWAT team had snipers for wet work, and Jeff wasn’t one of them. He’d never been in a shoot-out. The activities of the Calusa County SWAT team were far from secret, and Jeff himself was pretty much an open book. What you see is what you get. Which was probably why he was still looking me as if I had two heads when the elevator disgorged us into an entryway just outside the kitchen.

  At two in the afternoon, the kitchen was empty. We headed into the greatroom, where Gramma Blaine was watching television, knitting up a storm on some fancy yarn that looked like a fur coat. “They’re waiting for you in the office,” she said.

  Sure they were. I could tell even Gramma knew there was trouble.

  “Okay, kid, let’s do it,” Jeff said, and ushered me down a hall to a large room at the back of the house. Dad’s corner office has every gadget known to modern technology. Broad windows gave him a panoramic view of woods as far as the eye could see. Woods so thick the winding Calusa River, about a half mile away, was totally invisible. Dad was in his electric wheelchair, close to the dark blue leather sofa where Mom was sitting, her eyes anxious. Dad, as always, was inscrutable.

  Mom jumped up and gave me a hug. She smelled of citrus from her favorite daytime cologne. I bit my lip and reminded myself I was all grown up now. But that hug felt good.

  Mom and Dad are both pushing sixty, but remarkably well-preserved. Neither has let a gray hair show. Ever. Mom’s the classic girl-next-door—round face, golden brown hair, blue eyes that radiate faith in humanity’s better side, and her determination to endure what could not be helped. Dad, in contrast, still radiates a lot of the tough guy he once was. His hair remains steadfastly dark brown, his eyes the golden amber color of a Florida panther’s coat. His shoulders are still broad and, believe me, my brothers have to work to beat him at arm wrestling. Dad used to stand six-three, and the brothers all have his build, though Logan’s on the lean side. I, fortunately, got my small bones, ample curves, and bronze hair from the Blaine side of the family.

  I sat in an upholstered chair that matched the leather sofa, leaving Jeff to sit next to Mom. If I was going to be in the witness chair, I might as well look the part.

  Dad had a hand on each arm of his wheelchair. “You were able to fix things for the Arendsens?” he asked, mildly enough.

  “Yes. They seemed thrilled with Machu Picchu when I last saw them. They could hardly wait to get out and explore the ruins.”

  “Good,” Mom said, beaming at me.

  “Your mother tells me there’s something wrong,” Dad continued. “And since her instincts are infallible, out with it, Laine. What happened?”

  I was saved by footsteps pounding down the hall. “Sorry I’m late,” Doug said. “An accident on I-4. Eighteen wheeler.” Doug could be Jeff’s twin, except he has Dad’s amber eyes and the tough-guy confidence of someone who has experienced more than Jeff will after a lifetime on the Calusa County SWAT team. Doug scooted the office chair from Mom’s computer across the tile floor and plopped himself down. “Did I miss anything?” he asked, swinging his long legs close to mine.

  Believe me, being grilled by my family is worse than testifying in a high profile murder case, so I didn’t even try to equivocate. (Well, almost.) I sat there and laid it all out, from Paolo’s initial call about the wrong plane in Nazca to finding a semi-conscious Brit on the Inca Trail. Jeff’s mouth was agape, Doug shaking his head. Mom seemed fascinated, and Dad’s eyes had taken on a gleam I rarely saw. “Go on,” he ordered.

  That, of course, is when things got sticky. I had to mention the dawn attacker, who might or might not have been Russian. Our taxi trip down Machu Picchu mountain. I didn’t fudge about the rifle shot into the tire. There was no way Dad wasn’t going to find out.

  I told them about my decision to see the Brit back to his embassy. Jeff’s eyes got wider, but everyone else merely nodded. This kind of noblesse oblige was expected from a Fantascapes troubleshooter.

  I told them my stray recovered his memory—his name was Rhys Tarrant. He was an Interpol officer.

  “Paper tigers,” Doug sneered.

  “He isn’t!”

  “Don’t carry guns, can’t make arrests.”

  “Enough!” Dad glared as if we were toddlers we sounded like before raising an eyebrow in my direction. “A liaison officer working drugs?”

  I frowned, shook my head. “He said he was out of his territory, that he worked trafficking in women and children. And it seemed to fit. His Spanish was sketchy, probably no more than he was able to glean from his fluent French.”

  “So he was in Peru why?” Doug growled.

  God help me I was about to lie to family. Worse yet, I was about to lie to my Boss. Why mention Rhys’s job offer when it wasn’t likely to be repeated? “I suppose I wasn’t included in need-to-know,” I murmured. And before anyone could ask more questions, I plunged back into my tale, describing the visit from Lieutenant Manko and Sergeant Sayani, about the dead body found at Phuyupatamarca.

  Doug pounced. “And your Interpol guy was a likely suspect!”

  “Rhys was found in the same place,” I conceded. “And he’d obviously been in a fight, so, yes, there was reason to connect the two cases, but that’s a long way from genuine evidence. And . . . you might call it strange, but Rhys and Lieutenant Manko seemed to connect in some basic cop fashion. I’m quite sure Manko was convinced Rhys was some kind of undercover drug investigator. And the dead Quechua was a known bad guy. Anyway, Manko agreed to let us return to Cuzco and be interrogated by the police there, closer to our embassies. He sent Sergeant Sayani with us. I never quite figured out if he was an escort or a guard,” I ended on a sigh.

  Courage. Can’t fudge the next part. Have to tell.

  I described the train ride back to Cuzco. The office was so quiet it was like a mausoleum at mi
dnight. “So I shot him. Three times,” I said, then forged on before anyone could get in a comment . “He had no ID. His skin was pale—he might have been South American, but I doubt it. His clothes were Eastern European. At least Rhys thought so.” I had to pause for breath.

  “You killed him?” Mom said. It wasn’t really a question.

  “He killed Sayani and almost killed Rhys.” My guilt was fading rapidly. I’d been a credit to the family, and I was learning to live with it.

  “You did good, kid,” Jeff hissed. “Damn good.”

  “No choice, Laine,” said Doug, leveling his fine amber eyes in my direction.

  “Hit him with all three shots?” Dad inquired casually.

  “Yes.”

  “So what haven’t you told us?”

  “Like what this Rhys Tarrant was doing on the Inca Trail,” Doug added.

  “And why was somebody trying to kill him?” Jeff looked expectant, as if he really thought I knew the answer.

  “He doesn’t know why someone’s after him,” I said, answering the easy part first.

  “So he was on vacation?” Jeff scoffed.

  Doug snorted. “Interpol’s probably a cover to make him look like a pussy cat. They’re nothing but a bunch of paper pushers—”

  “Are you aware,” Dad inquired softly, “that not a single international arrest can be made without Interpol? That if someone commits a crime—no matter how horrible—in one country, then runs to another, he can’t be arrested without Interpol issuing the warrant? Which is why more countries belong to Interpol than belong to the UN.”

  “Bunch of old fogies,” Doug muttered.

  “They served a useful function even when they were,” Dad said. “And they left that image behind some time ago.”

  “So what happened to this Rhys?” Mom asked.

  “He”—my lips turned up in a tiny, reminiscent smile—“he dictated the witnesses’ statements, giving them our version of what happened in English, French, and German. Then he told me he’d turn up, see that Fantascapes got all the money we fronted for him. And that was it. We were rescued by our respective embassies and basically booted out of the country before we could cause any more trouble.”