Intimate Details

by Dana Marton

  The houses on the bay were all local-style, nothing fancy, not like the resort she’d expected considering that they were visiting a private island. Didn’t look as though whoever owned the place spent a lot of time here.

  “Did he hurt you?” Sam asked.

  “We tangled a little, but I got away fine,” she said.

  The man did know how to move and he had a body built for fighting. “He seemed familiar.” She shook her head, annoyed that she couldn’t place him. “I don’t know. I could barely see his face. We were both covered in dust.”

  Last night when they’d arrived, Mark had introduced them to a couple of people who were on the island already. But it had been dark on the beach where they’d been gathered around a tiki bar.

  “Go clean up. We’ll keep watch.” Carly tossed her a terry towel from the back of the chair next to her, then went back to digging through the silverware drawer.

  Gina rubbed the corner of the towel around her forehead and cheeks, then looked at the soiled patch. She would have liked to take a shower, but she half expected security to come for her. She didn’t want to be caught at a disadvantage.

  “Maybe you should get out of here,” Anita said, apparently having considered the same possibility. “Find some out-of-the-way spot for a few hours until we figure out what’s going on. Wish we had that map ready.”

  They’d begun putting together a map of the island as soon as they had arrived, starting with what was in plain view from the bay, adding to it each time they discovered a new building. They’d gone jogging on the beach that morning, then wandering around, discovering the beauty of the place. They’d familiarized themselves with the bay area, which seemed the hub of the island, starting with flatland that housed the horse stables on the east side and ending with a narrow rock cape to the west that protected it from the winds.

  “There’s a helipad somewhere. T keeps two choppers here,” she said, sharing the newfound information with the others.

  “We definitely need a location on that,” Carly said.

  Sam picked up a cookie. “I think Anita is right. You should go for a long walk through the woods. If they come for you—”

  “And leave you to deal with it?” She shook her head. That wasn’t how she worked.

  “He was in the ceiling, too, whoever he is,” Sam pointed out.

  “Exactly.” She’d been thinking about that all the way back to the others. “What was he doing there?”

  “Could be he was trying to steal something,” Sam said.

  Carly fidgeted with the back of the chair. “I’d think it wouldn’t be advisable to start stealing from a man like T. He’s known to hold grudges.”

  “He has an accent,” Gina remembered. “British. I think. He didn’t say much.”

  “Do you think he’s one of T’s handymen?” Anita asked.

  “That wasn’t my impression.” More intelligence shone in his blue-green eyes than all of T’s goons put together. And even as he had circled her, he’d fought with elegance. His sandals had been leather, fancy brand. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the rest of his clothes. Dark shorts, pale yellow polo shirt. They were dirty. She didn’t remember much else beyond that.

  “Tall, well-built, midthirties, possibly British,” she summed up what she knew about the man. Everyone on the island was connected to Tsernyakov one way or another. It was even possible that this guy was spying on Mark on Tsernyakov’s instructions. “Even if he doesn’t tell T’s security about the incident, what am I supposed to do next time we run into each other?” Which was inevitable. There weren’t that many people on the island, and they all lived in proximity to the bay.

  “Play it by ear,” Anita said. “He’ll either pretend nothing happened or demand an explanation.”

  She’d thought about that, how she could possibly explain away why she’d been eavesdropping on Mark’s meeting.

  “You could say you saw some cute guy and followed him into the building to chat him up but couldn’t find him. Then other people came and you got scared that you would get into trouble for going in there and so you hid,” Carly suggested.

  “The door to the office had been locked. I went in through the window,” Gina pointed out.

  Sam shrugged. “So? You were desperate.”

  A story like that would never fly. Gina rolled her eyes but appreciated that they were trying to help her. “If he hasn’t told anyone yet and if he confronts me and threatens to, we’ll have to deal with him,” she said, voicing the thought that had been forming in the back of her mind for the past couple of minutes.

  And she would have to be the one to “deal with him.” The mission couldn’t fail because of one man. They had been authorized to use deadly force from the very beginning.

  “Or you turn the tables on him, track him down and demand an explanation. Do it quickly before he has the chance to talk to anyone. Determine whether he’s a threat or if you can mutually blackmail each other into silence,” Carly said.

  She liked that idea. At least it was proactive—beat sitting here waiting for T’s men to come for her. She mulled over the option.

  “I don’t think anyone will be coming for you,” Anita said.

  “How do you figure?” Sam turned to her.

  “They would be here by now.”

  Gina looked back toward the path that led to their bungalow. Anita was right—no sign of anyone. She could see a couple of people on the beach. They all acted normal, not as if there’d been a security breach and they were hunting for the intruder.

  “So he can’t turn me in because he was obviously up to no good himself. I still want to figure out who he is and what he was doing up there,” she said. “We need to get back out there.” She nodded toward the beach and the small compound of buildings that edged it.

  “We could corner him in some quiet spot,” Carly said.

  Gina thought for a second. “Let’s hold off on the confrontation. We can always escalate later.” Once they did that, there’d be no turning back. As impatient as she was for answers, for now she wanted to take the route that had the least amount of risk for breaking their cover.

  “You guys should go back to mapping the place. I’ll spend some time shadowing the man,” she said.

  TSERNYAKOV SCROLLED through his e-mails, regretting that he’d already sent Alexandra ahead to the isolated thousand-acre ranch he owned on the Peruvian highlands of the Andes. He’d been lonely last night. She had turned out to be an exceptional lover—young, nubile and eager to please. He was looking forward to being reunited with her.

  In the meantime, tonight he would have some other woman brought up to his suite. He didn’t see the point in self-denial, never had, but especially not now.

  The end of the world as they knew it would be here in a few days. He still found it surreal to think about what was to come. From time to time he was stopped in his tracks by a wave of unease, brought on by the magnitude of the project. There was no margin for error. Zero. If he had somehow forgotten to plan for even one of the smallest details—He shoved the thought aside. He refused to consider failure. He always planned for success and he always achieved it.

  He had done everything in his power to make sure he came out on top when the dust settled. He didn’t relish the destruction to come, but he wasn’t upset by it, either. He saw it as he saw most everything in life, good or bad—a business opportunity.

  Damn politicians were always complaining about overpopulation, anyway. That problem was about to be solved. And a significant decrease in world population would bring about a significant decrease in world pollution, as well. Every cloud had a silver lining. When it didn’t go against his interests, he was an environmental protectionist through and through.

  He picked up his phone and sent a text message with a single word in it: Cavanaugh.

  The response came back in a minute. Still in the hospital. Can’t talk. Prolonged recovery expected.

  Damn the man and the lifestyle he live
d. Tsernyakov wouldn’t have been surprised if there’d been drugs involved in the stroke. Cavanaugh worked hard, but he played hard, too.

  And he wasn’t easily replaced. Not at the last second.

  Tsernyakov tapped the table. He hated to lose money, and it looked as if he was going to lose a lot over this. He’d barely gotten Alexeev’s businesses transferred to Cavanaugh. He hated making decisions in a rush.

  He picked up the phone again and sent another message, this time to Yakov. Call me when you get to a secure location. Now that one he’d gladly sacrifice.

  SHE WAS WATCHING HIM. Under other circumstances, he would have found it flattering—she was a stunning woman. But the way things stood, Gina Torno was a serious threat to his cover. It had taken him a good hour to find her, during which several times he’d had the odd feeling that he’d been followed. He hadn’t spotted anyone, however, and put the weird premonition down to the fact that getting caught by her had thrown him off axis.

  She pulled a magazine from her beach bag. He rounded the tiki bar, trying to observe her without being obvious about it.

  They weren’t alone on the beach. A couple of his cousin’s men were repairing the sand where the high waters caused by the cyclone had washed it off the beach, revealing the rocks below. Everybody seemed to be working at their leisure, not running to finish before the arrival of the boss. He wondered if that meant Joseph wasn’t arriving today, either, or simply that even his staff didn’t know his exact travel schedule.

  Where the bloody hell was he? Cal had been waiting for a full week, albeit putting the time to good use, getting to know the island and the staff. But the kind of information he needed would come from Joseph. Cal doubted his cousin shared much about his latest project with the low-level staff on the island. And he couldn’t drill Joseph until he got here.

  He glanced back at Gina, half expecting to find her gone, but she was now stretched out on a beach bed. She didn’t seem to be worried about him. He swallowed as she began slathering lotion on her shapely legs. She wasn’t tall but perfectly proportioned, curves where they ought to be, a real woman. He recalled the smoothness of her skin when they’d fought earlier. She drew a leg up so she could smooth lotion on the back of her thigh. His loins tightened.

  Was she toying with him? Trying to distract him? He needed to find out what her game was. He wanted to talk to her, figure out what she was up to and impress upon her how important it was for her to stay out of his way. He had work to do, serious reconnaissance that was better done without a witness.

  He watched for another second or two before making up his mind. He would talk with her first, then head over to the doctors’ accommodations since they were out spear fishing. After that he’d stop by Mark’s office in the utility building and see if he could catch the guy there. He could offer to help with the cleanup and chat for a while, maybe get a clue as to why Gina had been hiding in that particular ceiling at that particular time—if she didn’t tell him willingly first, for which he wouldn’t hold his breath.

  He glanced her way again and caught her looking. He started for her, but out of the blue the other three women appeared and took up the sun beds around her like a protective circle. Very strange. It was as if they’d been hiding in the bushes, watching. Which was ridiculous. Wasn’t it?

  Maybe later, then. He shook his head and turned his back on the women, strolling toward the doctors’ bungalow. Couldn’t put that off any longer. He would catch Gina without her friends sooner or later. And then Ms. Torno and he would have a nice long talk. She was going to tell him what she was doing on the island, and he was going to tell her in no uncertain terms to stay out of his way.

  And if she didn’t, then what?

  Was he prepared to make her?

  The thought left a bad taste in his mouth. When he’d agreed to the mission, he’d had fighting terrorists in mind. Swarthy men with beady eyes and faces distorted by hate had been his mental image.

  He wasn’t scared of fighting, relished in trying himself against another in good gentlemanly fun, which his boxing club had always advocated. In addition to that, he was willing to fight for his country, for his fellow men, fight dirty if he had to, defend his own life or the lives of others.

  But he felt bewildered and somewhat lost at the thought of having to fight and possibly kill a woman. Which made him realize just how big a threat to his mission Gina Torno was. Attendance on the island was by invitation only and after strenuous background checks. Her being here meant she was somehow connected to Joseph, likely a criminal just like his cousin. He couldn’t afford to second-guess himself if action was required once they were face-to-face.

  Another sort of action that involved Gina flashed into his mind, not for the first time since she’d come off that yacht the night before. Not going to happen. She was one of the enemy.

  He reached the doctors’ bungalow and knocked on the door. No response. He tried the doorknob. It twisted easily. He had brought his tools just in case, but it looked as though he would have no need for them. He pushed the door open. For a while it was time to forget about Gina Torno and focus on the task at hand.

  He needed to get this done before returning to her.

  “OH, MY GO D. IT’S HIM!” Sam’s eyes went wide. The women were having a quick huddle on the beach, updating each other on the morning work, pretending to be tanning.

  “Him who?” Gina asked as she looked after the guy she had so disastrously bumped into the day before in the ceiling. She’d been trailing him for the past hour from afar as he’d looked for her, trying to figure out what his role was on the island. She wanted to get a handle on him before she approached him. He was definitely up to something. She’d caught him following her several times the previous afternoon.

  “The man in your picture,” Sam said.

  “Calvin Spencer? No way,” Gina whispered but knew with a sudden sinking feeling that Sam was right. That’s why he’d seemed so familiar. She just hadn’t expected him to be here. The pictures Brant had e-mailed them had been taken in England. That night on the beach had been dark, then at the utility building his face had been camouflaged with dust and dirt from the ceiling. And today, following him, she had kept her distance.

  Sam grinned. “Your future fiancé. It’s fate.”

  That line of jokes was seriously starting to annoy her. “Let it go,” Gina warned.

  Brant had come through the day before they’d left Grand Cayman and gotten a name that went with the pictures. Calvin Spencer was an Englishman with a sprawling warehouse business in the U.K. He’d had one brush with the law not long ago—insider trading—but managed to beat the charges.

  “So he is here,” Sam said. “Why? He is a long way from home.”

  Anita glanced in the direction where he’d been standing. “I wonder how closely he’s connected to T.”

  Carly raised an eyebrow at Gina. “I hope this means the wedding is off.”

  She pinned her with a look. “Yes. The bride will be going to the funeral of a close friend instead.”

  “Aw.” Carly put a hand to her chest. “If that’s not the sweetest threat I’ve ever heard. You consider me a close friend.”

  Gina shook her head and got up from the sun bed. “Don’t make me regret it.”

  “Where are you going?” Anita adjusted her sunglasses—designer knockoffs, although Grand Cayman seemed to be home to an astounding number of exclusive stores that sold the real thing. Their government allowance, however, didn’t allow for luxuries like that.

  “Back to the utility building. I only got to check out one office. I’m pretty sure there are more. Looks like Spencer gave up on me for the morning.”

  “You’re not going to follow him?”

  “He just saw us settling in here for some sunning. If he spots me a minute later across the bay, he might figure out that I’m trailing him. I’ll give him some time. I wanted to finish at the utility building anyway.”

  “Want us to come?” Carly
asked.

  She shook her head. “I can sneak around easier alone.”

  Anita rose, too. “Okay. If nobody needs me, I’ll go back to the kitchen.”

  “Of course you will.” Carly rolled her eyes.

  Gina slipped into her flip-flops. “What’s in the kitchen?”

  “Pedro,” Carly said with an insinuating grin. “I wonder what Brant would say to that.”

  “None of your business. Pedro and I are swapping recipes.”

  “Is that what they call it these days?”

  Anita pinned Carly with an impatient look, which was very unlike her. No matter how hard they were trying to cover it up with lighthearted, smart-alecky remarks, the stress was getting to all of them. “He’s been on the island for six years. He knows a lot about what’s going on.”

  “Is he talking?” Gina perked up at the possibility.

  “Not yet,” Anita said. “I’m trying to establish some kind of rapport with the man.” She looped her beach bag over her shoulders and took off on the path leading toward the main dining hall with long dancerlike steps. If that one couldn’t get Pedro to talk, nobody could.

  “I don’t think Brant needs to worry,” Sam said. “Notice that dreamy look on her face every time his name comes up?”

  “Yeah. Love can be disgusting that way,” Gina said.

  “Still a skeptic?” Carly teased. “I thought you finally encountered love at first sight.”

  She was talking about her much regretted remarks on Cal Spencer’s picture. “And look how well that turned out,” she remarked drily. “He’s one of T’s men.”

  The exasperating fact was, there was some initial attraction, which was more than she could say about any man she’d run into since her divorce. Go figure. The one man who’d elicited some sparks out of her battle-hardened protective armor was one of the enemy. She might as well have the hots for T himself.