The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes

by Kathleen Creighton

  She could only stare at him, utterly at a loss now; her head was spinning. His eyes burned back at her with a desperate urgency as he whispered across her curled-up fingers. “I have to talk fast. I’ll whisper in your ear. Act like I’m talking…” a corner of his mouth lifted “…you know, talking sexy to you.”

  She gave a high, whimpering laugh and ducked her head, hiding her face from him as heat flooded into her cheeks. Then his lips brushed her ear and shivers showered her like a hard cold rain.

  “Israel was not happy about the money…especially when I told him we’d left it behind as insurance.” She started violently, but he held her tightly…held her still. “It’s a good thing you did that. I have a feeling we’d both be dead right now…” His suggestive chuckle was incongruous…horrifying. Ellie just did remember to giggle and squirm seductively in his embrace. “As it is, they’ve got a call in to the head honcho. I guess they’re going to let him decide what to do with us.”

  Ellie jerked back, forgetting her role for just an instant. “How-” But he struck like a hawk, swooping down to capture the rest of the question in his mouth.

  Once again she was caught unprepared. His mouth was hard, urgent, angry…hers was soft, open…defenseless. She gave a single whimper…her eyes closed. She felt herself melting…going sweet and soft as chocolate Kisses left out in the sun. Deep in his mouth she felt the quiverings of his response, and knew a strange burgeoning joy. And then…

  “Listen.” It was a grating, guttural sound, and so was the laughter that followed. At the same time he caught her arms with barely controlled violence and spun her around so that her back was against him, so that he was between her and the avidly watching, listening guards. He held her pinioned that way, with his arms crisscrossing her breasts and her buttocks pressed tightly, intimately against him, and his body arched over her, taut and tenuous as a drawn bow. She could feel him trembling. “And for God’s sake, laugh.”

  She hardly knew whether she obeyed him or not. More than anything else in the world, what she wanted to do was cry. Once again his lips were at her ear, blowing gusts of terrifying sensation through her already oversensitized body.

  “They’ve got a satellite hookup-up there, on top of the pyramid. This head honcho-I gather he’s somebody on the inside. Somebody high up in the Mexican government. They call him the general.”

  Ellie felt herself go still. It was so strange…a moment ago her senses had been dangerously overloaded, maybe one caress away from complete meltdown…and now she felt nothing. Nothing at all. It was as if she existed in a vacuum, a little bubble of perfect calm. From somewhere outside the bubble she heard a voice asking, “General what? Did they happen to mention his name?”

  And another voice, McCall’s voice, replied, “Yeah…I think it was Reyes. General…Reyes.”

  Chapter 10

  McCall felt her body go slack and heavy, as if her knees had buckled. For one terrible moment he thought she’d fainted.

  He tightened his arms around her, and forgetting that he was supposed to be happily, drunkenly amorous, said in a voice gone hoarse with concern, “Ellie-what is it? What’s wrong? Do you know him?”

  “Yes.” It was barely a whisper, airless and urgent. Her hands were gripping his forearms as if she were dangling over a precipice and they were all that was keeping her from falling. “McCall-I have to tell you some-”

  He cut her off with a finger pressed against her lips. They stood silently together, frozen in that intimate embrace, listening to the whap-whap-whap of a helicopter’s rotors, rapidly growing louder. A moment later they braced against buffeting winds as it passed directly over their heads.

  “That’s probably him now,” McCall said as he let go of her and they both turned to watch the chopper, painted drab military green, swoop by just above treetop level.

  The guards muttered amongst themselves, then four of them went jogging off, following the chopper. The one left behind walked after them a few paces, then reluctantly halted and stood at parade rest with his rifle cradled in his arms like a baby and watched his compadres disappear into the jungle.

  McCall caught Ellie’s arm and spun her around to face him. “Quick-before he comes back-what was it you wanted to tell me?”

  She swallowed, and it made a tiny sticking sound. “Are you sure he doesn’t speak English?”

  “One way to find out,” Making his voice loud enough for the guard to hear it, McCall sang out, “By the way, my brother, there is a great big poisonous snake right behind you, just about to crawl up your leg.”

  Showing no signs of alarm, the guard turned to look inquiringly over his shoulder. McCall waved at him, showing all his teeth in a friendly smile. “I heard your mother is having an affair with a donkey.” The guard smiled back, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Oops, sorry,” said McCall, returning to Spanish. “I was just asking what’s going on.”

  “What, you mean who is in the chopper? Ah-that is the general.” The guard grinned and gestured meaningfully with his rifle. “He will tell us what to do with you two. So you’d better have your fun now, huh? While you still can.” Laughing at his own little joke, he went to lean against a Mayan carving of a fierce-looking animal with open mouth and big teeth, in the long, late-afternoon shadow cast by the section of ruined wall.

  McCall whipped his attention back to Ellie. “Okay. Tell me what?” She stared up at him, and her face was pale and still, her eyes flat and lifeless as stones. Without their golden shimmer and her natural vivid coloring she looked like a faded and washed-out copy of herself. Alarmed, he gave her a wake-up shake. “Come on-we don’t have much time.”

  She licked her lips. “He said…that was the general, didn’t he?” Her voice was as flat as her eyes.

  He considered briefly whether he ought to slap her, but since he knew he didn’t have it in him to do that, gave her another shake instead. “Yeah, he did. What do you know about him? Come on.”

  “I know he’s going to kill us.” Her lashes settled onto her cheeks, dark crescents against cinnamon-dusted ivory. He heard her take a breath and release it in a small, uneven sigh. “Oh McCall…I got you into this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

  “Into what, dammit?” His throat felt raw. “Tell me.”

  She nodded, and once more gazing into his eyes, took in air like a diver preparing to jump. “First I have to know something. How did you know-about the money? How did you know I’d left half of it behind? I only mentioned insurance. I didn’t-”

  “I saw you.” His hands fell away from her arms, and he let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He didn’t want to go on looking at her, but for some reason couldn’t tear his eyes from her face. “Last night.” The emptiness of his hands distressed him, so he tucked them into his armpits. “Through the window.”

  “Oh…God.” She closed her eyes again, briefly, but when she opened them he thought he caught a hopeful glimpse of that golden fire. “Then…you know about-”

  “The gun. Yeah. I saw it. What happened to it, by the way? What the hell did you do with it?” His voice sounded harsh…angry. And yet the feeling inside him wasn’t anger. Not exactly. Damned if he knew what it was.

  “I changed my mind. I was afraid we might be searched. I was afraid of what might happen if they found a weapon on me, so I…hid it.”

  “For God’s sake, where?”

  “In the car-behind the dash.”

  He clapped a hand to his forehead and swore in utter exasperation. “Fat lot of good it’s doing us there!”

  “Would you rather they had it?” Her eyes glared into his, and now there was no mistaking that golden fire. Color was coming back into her cheeks, too. He felt suddenly as though his heart was bumping around loose inside his chest, ricocheting in dangerous, unpredictable ways.

  “Lady,” he said slowly…softly…because he was in a dangerous and unpredictable mood, “who in the hell are you?”

  Her eyes clung to his; she moist
ened her lips and whispered as if it was the most important thing she’d ever say, “Not Mrs. Burnside.”

  “Not…Mrs. Burnside.” He repeated the words without really grasping them, because they were so far from anything he’d expected. He stared at her and she stared steadily back, her eyes more like beacons now than flames, and he felt his consciousness shrinking, narrowing, laser-like, until his entire being seemed focused only on her face. He forgot about the guard. “Then…who-” His surroundings…the circumstances…the danger…had all ceased to exist.

  Which was why he was caught unprepared when an amused voice-not Ellie’s-replied in only slightly accented English, “May I, señor? May I have the honor to introduce to you Special Agent Rose Ellen Lanagan, of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.”

  At the first words McCall had started violently and spun toward the voice, tilted like an off-balance top. Now he jerked an incredulous look back at Ellie. Her face was pale but composed. She gazed past him, her eyes riveted on the speaker much the way McCall might have kept his eye on a coiled-up snake.

  “General Reyes,” she said in her dry and raspy voice, “I presume.”

  The general laughed, pausing in the process of lighting up a cigar to mumble, “Unfortunately for you…yes.”

  He was tall for a Mexican, with native Indian coloring and European features and build-a good-looking man, and aware of it, McCall thought, and obviously proud of his luxuriant black mustache. He was dressed in the same jungle camouflage as the men with him, the only difference being that, instead of an automatic rifle slung over a shoulder or held ready across his chest, he had a big black pistol snapped into a leather holster at his hip. That, and his pant legs were tucked into the tops of a nice pair of well-cared-for lace-up leather boots. The only indication of military rank McCall could see was some indecipherable insignia on his cap.

  The general strolled toward them, tossing his match carelessly aside. He removed the cigar from his mouth and jabbed it at McCall as he said to Ellie, “Perhaps you would return the favor. Please be so kind as to introduce me to your friend-” his eyes narrowed as he paused to puff delicately on the cigar “-who I can only say for certain is not your partner, Ken Burnside-who is at this very moment, I am happy to say, recovering from his emergency appendectomy in a Florida hospital. Fate is funny, is it not?” His fine mustache tilted as he made a soft ironic sound. “It appears his so painful and untimely illness has saved his life.”

  “He’s nobody-just a guy I hired to bring me here,” Ellie said breathlessly, pushing in front of McCall. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “That is too bad…” The general moved with a relaxed and easy swagger into the shade of the lanai, leaving his contingent of armed soldiers outside. McCall felt those hackles rising again when he halted in front of Ellie, but the general was looking over her head at McCall. “No man should have to die without knowing why, eh?”

  McCall felt a shock wave of rejection shake Ellie’s body…and when had his hands come to be holding her upper arms? He’d no recollection of having put them there.

  “Is that not true? So, Mr…?”

  “It’s McCall.” He ground out the words between his teeth.

  “Ah. So, Mr. McCall, if you like I will tell you what this foolish woman has so carelessly involved you in that is going to cost you your life.”

  “Why not?” Badly in need of calming, McCall patted the pocket where he normally kept his cigarettes and found a half-smoked cigar there instead. He took it out and put it in his mouth, and instantly heard the scritch and flare of a match. “Damned nice of you,” he muttered as he bent his head to accept the general’s light, then watched the match, still trailing a tiny plume of smoke, drop into crushed and trampled grass.

  The general chuckled. “I admire a man who can keep his sense of humor under such circumstances. It really is too bad that I must kill you. But…unfortunately it is necessary to discourage the United States and Mexican governments once and for all from any further interference in my…shall we say, my private business enterprises. The United States, you see, has a very low tolerance for war casualties. To have two of their agents killed-”

  “One,” Ellie said sharply. “One agent-me. I told you-he’s nobody. He doesn’t know anything. If you just let him go-turn him loose-by the time he finds his way out of the jungle-if he does-you’ll be long gone, as usual. What harm can he do?”

  “Interesting… You seem to care a great deal what happens to this man.” There was a long pause while the general squinted at her through smoke, smiling slightly. McCall didn’t much like the looks of that smile. He could feel his blood pressure soaring…adrenaline squirting into his system…ancient male-female protective instincts rampaging.

  Then he heard Ellie snort a wholly unconvincing denial, and the significance of that finally penetrated the red fog of rage that had enveloped him. He felt a new and strange sensation…a growing, spreading, tingling warmth inside his chest that felt incongruously…impossibly like joy.

  “Well.” The general gave a thoughtful shrug. “That may be most useful to me later on. You see,” he said, bringing his attention back to McCall, “for years the combined resources of our two governments have tried-unsuccessfully-to halt the lucrative and growing business of trafficking in rare and endangered species.”

  “And drugs,” Ellie bit out in a contemptuous tone.

  The general waved that impatiently aside. “Only a small sideline. Why waste the cargo space, eh? However, time after time, the government has attempted to raid these traffickers’ camps, only to find an empty nest, the birds flown-pardon a little joke. Why?” He paused, arching his eyebrows, enjoying himself. “Because there is no camp. The smugglers operate here in the jungle much like what you call in the States a floating crap game. Here one day, gone the next, without a trace-you see?”

  “Of course they were gone,” Ellie said bitterly. “With you telling them when we were coming.”

  The general acknowledged that with a complacent chuckle. “However, Mr. McCall…” once again he paused directly in front of Ellie, and this time McCall could feel the menace radiating like heat from his narrowed black eyes, “…even advance warning would not prevent government forces from finding these traffickers, if someone were to gain access to their camp and plant tracking devices… Ah yes, I see you understand. That was to have been the task of Agents Lanagan and Burnside. First, establishing themselves as buyers-a young married couple who own a pet shop-they then express dissatisfaction with the condition of the merchandise and suggest that they might be able to use their superior knowledge of wildlife-Miss Lanagan has an advanced degree in biology, did she tell you that?-to the advantage of all concerned, by increasing the survival rate of the merchandise and the profits as well. To do this, they naturally would have to visit the source of the merchandise-yes…clever, eh? Once in the traffickers’ camp, the agents would plant tracking devices in, say, something that must always travel with the personnel-communications equipment, perhaps. Or the men’s clothing…their shoes. There are a thousand possibilities. And the devices these days can be so small as to be almost undetectable.

  “So you see, Mr. McCall…” his lashes dropped almost seductively, and he blew a gentle stream of cigar smoke directly into Ellie’s face “…before I kill Agent Lanagan, here, it is most important that I learn exactly where and how many of these devices she has managed to distribute.”

  “None!” It burst from her throat, a sound like ripping cloth. Tense with his own self-restraint, McCall could feel her arm muscles quiver in his hands. “I didn’t have a chance-I don’t even have any with me. They were in my bag. Your men threw it into the jungle.”

  “Hmm…perhaps.” Smoke floated away from the general’s smile as he gazed down at her, his eyes resting, heavy-lidded and thoughtful, on her sun visor. “We will see. I think your friend Mr. McCall will be very useful in determining whether or not you are telling the truth.

  “However-” and h
e was brisk again, all upright and military “-I will leave you two to think about that while I attend to a few things. There is a storm coming in-did you know that?” Now he sounded almost conversational, as he dismissed that with a casual wave of his hand. “Not a hurricane, they tell us-only a little tropical storm. Nothing to worry about, but there are some things that must be taken care of. You will be comfortable enough here…for now. But I think the two of you will have a lot to talk about, eh?” He chuckled, and his eyes touched Ellie first, then McCall…gleaming with promises and anticipation.

  “You’re hurting me,” Ellie finally said. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed since the general had left them. How long they’d been standing there in that frozen pas de deux.

  “Sorry,” muttered McCall. He peeled his fingers away from her arms, then stood frowning at his hands as he flexed them, as if they’d gone numb.

  Moving stiffly herself, she turned away from him and lifted her hands to her sun visor and carefully removed it. She hesitated, reluctant to let it out of her hands even for a moment, before finally setting it down on one of the moss-covered Mayan carvings nearby. Then she stood and rubbed slowly at the marks his fingers had left…feeling, for the first time in her life, utterly and completely lost. She didn’t know what to do…what to say. She wished he’d say something. Wished she could just turn back into the safe, warm shelter of his arms.

  “Are you mad at me?” she idiotically whispered. She couldn’t look at him.

  He gave a light, soft laugh, one she’d never heard before. “Mad at you? Sister, that’s what Ricky gets when Lucy’s just tried to slip one of her crazy little schemes past him.”

  With her back to him she lowered fragile eyelids over simmering tears. “I am sorry. I can’t imagine what you must think of me.”

  “Not…as bad as I did, actually.” His tone was wry, and strangely gentle. “Back when I thought you were one of the bad guys.”