by Nora Roberts
“David Merriworth.” He took her hand between both of his. They were smooth and uncallused. “Jerry might have trouble with manners, but he’s got great taste.”
She smiled, hoping she did it properly. “Thank you.”
“Pull up a chair, Merriworth.” Jonas took out a cigarette. “As long as you keep your hands off my lady.” He said it in the good-natured, only-kidding tone Jerry had inevitably used, but his eyes were Jonas’s, warning her to tread carefully.
“Wouldn’t mind a quick cup of coffee.” David pulled over a chair after he checked his watch. “Got a breakfast meeting in a few minutes. So how are things on Cozumel?” He inclined his head ever so slightly. “Getting in plenty of diving?”
Jonas allowed his lips to curve and kept his eyes steady. “Enough.”
“Glad to hear it. I was going to check in with you myself, but I’ve been in the States for a couple weeks. Just got back in last night.” He used two sugars after the waiter set a fresh cup of coffee beside him. “Business is good, buddy. Real good.”
“What business are you in, Mr. Merriworth?”
He gave Liz a big grin before he winked at Jonas. “Sales, sweetheart. Imports, you might say.”
“Really.” Because her throat was dry she drank more coffee. “It must be fascinating.”
“It has its moments.” He turned in his chair so that he could study her face. “So where did Jerry find you?”
“On Cozumel.” She sent Jonas a steady look. “We’re partners.”
David lowered his cup. “That so?”
They were in too deep, Jonas thought, for him to contradict her. “That’s so,” he agreed.
David picked up his cup again with a shrug. “If it’s okay with the boss, it doesn’t bother me.”
“I do things my way,” Jonas drawled. “Or I don’t do them.”
Amused, and perhaps admiring, David broke into a smile. “That never changes. Look, I’ve been out of touch for a few weeks. The drops still going smooth?”
With those words, Jonas’s last hopes died. What he’d found in the safe-deposit box had been real, and it had been Jerry’s. He buttered a roll as though he had all the time in the world. Beneath the table, Liz touched his leg once, hoping he’d take it as comfort. He never looked at her. “Why shouldn’t they?”
“It’s the classiest operation I’ve ever come across,” David commented, taking a cautious glance around to other tables. “Wouldn’t like to see anything screw it up.”
“You worry too much.”
“You’re the one who should worry,” David pointed out. “I don’t have to deal with Manchez. You weren’t around last year when he took care of those two Colombians. I was. You deal with supplies, I stick with sales. I sleep better.”
“I just dive,” Jonas said, and tapped out his cigarette. “And I sleep fine.”
“He’s something, isn’t he?” David sent Liz another grin. “I knew Jerry here was just the man the boss was looking for. You keep diving, kid.” He tipped his cup at Jonas. “It makes me look good.”
“Sounds like you two have known each other for a while,” Liz said with a smile. Under the table, she twisted the napkin in her lap.
“Go way back, don’t we, Jer?”
“Yeah. We go back.”
“First time we hooked up was six, no, seven years ago. We were working a pigeon drop in L.A. We’d have had that twenty thousand out of that old lady if her daughter hadn’t caught on.” He took out a slim cigarette case. “Your brother got you out of that one, didn’t he? The East Coast lawyer.”
“Yeah.” Jonas remembered posting the bond and pulling the strings.
“Now I’ve been working out of here for almost five. A real businessman.” He slapped Jonas’s arm. “Hell of a lot better than the pigeon drop, huh, Jerry?”
“Pays better.”
David let out a roar of laughter. “Why don’t I show you two around Acapulco tonight?”
“Gotta get back.” Jonas signaled for the check. “Business.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He nodded toward the restaurant’s entrance. “Here’s my customer now. Next time you drop down, give a call.”
“Sure.”
“And give my best to old Clancy.” With another laugh, David gave them each a quick salute. They watched him stride across the room and shake hands with a dark-suited man.
“Don’t say anything here,” Jonas murmured as he signed the breakfast check. “Let’s go.”
Liz’s crumpled napkin slid to the floor as she rose to walk out with him. He didn’t speak again until they had the door of the villa closed behind them.
“You had no business telling him we were partners.”
Because she’d been ready for the attack, she shrugged it off. “He said more once I did.”
“He’d have said just as much if you’d made an excuse and left the table.”
She folded her arms. “We have the same problem, remember?”
He didn’t care to have his own words tossed back at him. “The least you could have done was to give him another name.”
“Why? They know who I am. Sooner or later he’s going to talk to whoever’s in charge and get the whole story.”
She was right. He didn’t care for that either. “Are you packed?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s check out. We’ll go to the airport.”
“And then?”
“And then we go straight to Moralas.”
“You’ve been very busy.” Moralas held on to his temper as he rocked back in his chair. “Two of my men wasted their valuable time looking for you in Acapulco. You might have told me, Mr. Sharpe, that you planned to take Miss Palmer on a trip.”
“I thought a police tail in Acapulco might be inconvenient.”
“And now that you have finished your own investigation, you bring me this.” He held up the key and examined it. “This which Miss Palmer discovered several days ago. As a lawyer, you must understand the phrase ‘withholding evidence.’”
“Of course.” Jonas nodded coolly. “But neither Miss Palmer nor myself could know the key was evidence. We speculated, naturally, that it might have belonged to my brother. Withholding a speculation is hardly a crime.”
“Perhaps not, but it is poor judgment. Poor judgment often translates into an offense.”
Jonas leaned back in his chair. If Moralas wanted to argue law, they’d argue law. “If the key belonged to my brother, as executor of his estate, it became mine. In any case, once it was proved to me that the key did indeed belong to Jerry, and that the contents of the safe-deposit box were evidence, I brought both the key and a description of the contents to you.”
“Indeed. And do you also speculate as to how your brother came to possess those particular items?”
“Yes.”
Moralas waited a beat, then turned to Liz. “And you, Miss Palmer—you also have your speculations?”
She had her hands gripped tightly in her lap, but her voice was matter-of-fact and reasonable. “I know that whoever attacked me wanted money, obviously a great deal of money. We found a great deal.”
“And a bag of what Mr. Sharpe…speculates is cocaine.” Moralas folded his hands on the desk with the key under them. “Miss Palmer, did you at any time see Mr. Jeremiah Sharpe in possession of cocaine?”
“No.”
“Did he at any time speak to you of cocaine or drug-trafficking?”
“No, of course not. I would have told you.”
“As you told me about the key?” When Jonas started to protest, Moralas waved him off. “I will need a list of your customers for the past six weeks, Miss Palmer. Names and, wherever possible, addresses.”
“My customers? Why?”
“It’s more than possible that Mr. Sharpe used your shop for his contacts.”
“My shop.” Outraged, she stood up. “My boats? Do you think he could have passed drugs under my nose without me being aware?”
Moralas
took out a cigar and studied it. “I very much hope you were unaware, Miss Palmer. You will bring me the list of clients by the end of the week.” He glanced at Jonas. “Of course, you are within your rights to demand a warrant. It will simply slow down the process. And I, of course, am within my rights to hold Miss Palmer as a material witness.”
Jonas watched the pale blue smoke circle toward the ceiling. It was tempting to call Moralas’s bluff simply as an exercise in testing two ends of the law. And in doing so, he and the captain could play tug-of-war with Liz for hours. “There are times, Captain, when it’s wiser not to employ certain rights. I think I’m safe in saying that the three of us in this room want basically the same thing.” He rose and flicked his lighter at the end of Moralas’s cigar. “You’ll have your list, Captain. And more.”
Moralas lifted his gaze and waited.
“Pablo Manchez,” Jonas said, and was gratified to see Moralas’s eyes narrow.
“What of Manchez?”
“He’s on Cozumel. Or was,” Jonas stated. “My brother met with him several times in local bars and clubs. You may also be interested in David Merriworth, an American working out of Acapulco. Apparently he’s the one who put my brother onto his contacts in Cozumel. If you contact the authorities in the States, you’ll find that Merriworth has an impressive rap sheet.”
In his precise handwriting, Moralas noted down the names, though he wasn’t likely to forget them. “I appreciate the information. However, in the future, Mr. Sharpe, I would appreciate it more if you stayed out of my way. Buenas tardes, Miss Palmer.”
Moments later, Liz strode out to the street. “I don’t like being threatened. That’s what he was doing, wasn’t it?” she demanded. “He was threatening to put me in jail.”
Very calm, even a bit amused, Jonas lit a cigarette. “He was pointing out his options, and ours.”
“He didn’t threaten to put you in jail,” Liz muttered.
“He doesn’t worry as much about me as he does about you.”
“Worry?” She stopped with her hand gripping the handle of Jonas’s rented car.
“He’s a good cop. You’re one of his people.”
She looked back toward the police station with a scowl. “He has a funny way of showing it.” A scruffy little boy scooted up to the car and gallantly opened the door for her. Even as he prepared to hold out a hand, Liz was digging for a coin.
“Gracias.”
He checked the coin, grinned at the amount and nodded approval. “Buenas tardes, señorita.” Just as gallantly he closed the door for her while the coin disappeared into a pocket.
“It’s a good thing you don’t come into town often,” Jonas commented.
“Why?”
“You’d be broke in a week.”
Liz found a clip in her purse and pulled back her hair. “Because I gave a little boy twenty-five pesos?”
“How much did you give the other kid before we went in to Moralas?”
“I bought something from him.”
“Yeah.” Jonas swung away from the curb. “You look like a woman who can’t go a day without a box of Chiclets.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“That’s right. Now tell me where I can find the best place for buying ingredients for chili.”
“You want me to cook for you tonight?”
“It’ll keep your mind off the rest. We’ve done everything we can do for the moment,” he added. “Tonight we’re going to relax.”
She would have liked to believe he was right. Between nerves and anger, she was wound tight. “Cooking’s supposed to relax me?”
“Eating is going to relax you. It’s just an unavoidable circumstance that you have to cook it first.”
It sounded so absurd that she subsided. “Turn left at the next corner. I tell you what to buy, you buy it, then you stay out of my way.”
“Agreed.”
“And you clean up.”
“Absolutely.”
“Pull over here,” she directed. “And remember, you asked for it.”
Liz never skimped when she cooked, even taking into account that authentic Mexican spices had more zing than the sort sold in the average American supermarket. She’d developed a taste for Mexican food and Yucatán specialties when she’d been a child, exploring the peninsula with her parents. She wasn’t an elaborate cook, and when alone would often make do with a sandwich, but when her heart was in it, she could make a meal that would more than satisfy.
Perhaps, in a way, she wanted to impress him. Liz found she was able to admit it while she prepared a Mayan salad for chilling. It was probably very natural and harmless to want to impress someone with your cooking. After peeling and slicing an avocado, she found, oddly enough, she was relaxing.
So much of what she’d done in the past few days had been difficult or strange. It was a relief to make a decision no more vital than the proper way to slice her fruits and vegetables. In the end, she fussed with the arrangement a bit more, pleased with the contrasting colors of greens and oranges and cherry tomatoes. It was, she recalled, the only salad she could get Faith to eat because it was the only one Faith considered pretty enough. Liz didn’t realize she was smiling as she began to sauté onions and peppers. She added a healthy dose of garlic and let it all simmer.
“It already smells good,” Jonas commented as he strode through the doorway.
She only glanced over her shoulder. “You’re supposed to stay out of my way.”
“You cook, I take care of the table.”
Liz only shrugged and turned back to the stove. She measured, stirred and spiced until the kitchen was filled with a riot of scent. The sauce, chunky with meat and vegetables, simmered and thickened on low heat. Pleased with herself, she wiped her hands on a cloth and turned around. Jonas was sitting comfortably at the table watching her.
“You look good,” he told her. “Very good.”
It seemed so natural, their being together in the kitchen with a pot simmering and a breeze easing its way through the screen. It made her remember how hard it was not to want such simple things in your life. Liz set the cloth down and found she didn’t know what to do with her hands. “Some men think a woman looks best in front of a stove.”
“I don’t know. It’s a toss-up with the way you looked at the wheel of a boat. How long does that have to cook?”
“About a half hour.”
“Good.” He rose and went to the counter where he’d left two bottles. “We have time for some wine.”
A little warning signal jangled in her brain. Liz decided she needed a lid for the chili. “I don’t have the right glasses.”
“I already thought of that.” From a bag beside the bottle, he pulled out two thin-stemmed wineglasses.
“You’ve been busy,” she murmured.
“You didn’t like me hovering over you in the market. I had to do something.” He drew out the cork, then let the wine breathe.
“These candles aren’t mine.”
He turned to see Liz fiddling with the fringe of one of the woven mats he’d set on the table. In the center were two deep blue tapers that picked up the color in the border of her dishes.
“They’re ours,” Jonas told her.
She twisted the fringe around one finger, let it go, then twisted it again. The last time she’d burned candles had been during a power failure. These didn’t look sturdy, but slender and frivolous. “There wasn’t any need to go to all this trouble. I don’t—”
“Do candles and wine make you uneasy?”
Dropping the fringe, she let her hands fall to her sides. “No, of course not.”
“Good.” He poured rich red wine into both glasses. Walking to her, he offered one. “Because I find them relaxing. We did agree to relax.”
She sipped, and though she wanted to back away, held her ground. “I’m afraid you may be looking for more than I can give.”
“No.” He touched his glass to hers. “I’m looking for exactly what
you can give.”
Recognizing when she was out of her depth, Liz turned toward the refrigerator. “We can start on the salad.”
He lit the candles and dimmed the lights. She told herself it didn’t matter. Atmosphere was nothing more than a pleasant addition to a meal.
“Very pretty,” Jonas told her when she’d mixed the dressing and arranged avocado slices. “What’s it called?”
“It’s a Mayan salad.” Liz took the first nibble and was satisfied. “I learned the recipe when I worked at the hotel. Actually, that’s where most of my cooking comes from.”
“Wonderful,” Jonas decided after the first bite. “It makes me wish I’d talked you into cooking before.”
“A one time only.” She relaxed enough to smile. “Meals aren’t—”
“Included in the rent,” Jonas finished. “We might negotiate.”
This time she laughed at him and chose a section of grapefruit. “I don’t think so. How do you manage in Philadelphia?”
“I have a housekeeper who’ll toss together a casserole on Wednesdays.” He took another bite, enjoying the contrast of crisp greens and spicy dressing. “And I eat out a lot.”
“And parties? I suppose you go to a lot of parties.”
“Some business, some pleasure.” He’d almost forgotten what it was like to sit in a kitchen and enjoy a simple meal. “To be honest, it wears a bit. The cruising.”
“Cruising?”
“When Jerry and I were teenagers, we might hop in the car on a Friday night and cruise. The idea was to see what teenage girls had hopped in their cars to cruise. The party circuit’s just adult cruising.”
She frowned a bit because it didn’t seem as glamorous as she’d imagined. “It seems rather aimless.”
“Doesn’t seem. Is.”
“You don’t appear to be a man who does anything without a purpose.”
“I’ve had my share of aimless nights,” he murmured. “You come to a point where you realize you don’t want too many more.” That was just it, he realized. It wasn’t the work, the hours spent closeted with law books or in a courtroom. It was the nights without meaning that left him wanting more. He lifted the wine to top off her glass, but his eyes stayed on hers. “I came to that realization very recently.”