“I can drive.”
“No.” He grabbed the key from her outstretched hand. “Get in.”
They slammed into the car.
Their two assailants broke free of the crowd. All three were running in their direction. The enraged man she’d soaked was almost on them. He grabbed at the door handle on her side.
David wrenched the wheel, swerving the car out of the line of parked vehicles. The third attacker lost his hold on the door and fell into the road.
The way ahead was blocked with people. David had no space in which to turn the car around. He threw it into Reverse.
The vehicle sped backward, leaving the thugs shouting curses at them in the dust. Half a dozen people had to leap out of the way, but David miraculously managed not to hit any of them.
He knew what he was doing when he demanded the car key. She could never have driven like a madman and still kept the vehicle under control the way he did.
With barely an inch to spare between their back bumper and an extremely solid-looking tree, David spun the car around and took off. Her last glimpse of their pursuers showed them pushing back through the crowd, evidently trying to make their way to their own vehicle.
“Think they’ll catch up to us?” she asked, finally being granted a second to snap her seat belt into place.
David stole a glance in the rearview mirror. “I don’t see them. I think we’ll be okay.”
A few minutes later he allowed the automobile to slow to a civilized speed. He glanced over at Cara and gave a sharp, ironic laugh.
“How can you laugh after what we just went through?” she demanded.
“I’m laughing at myself. At one point I actually thought you might need a big, strong protector like me to look after you. My mistake. You handled yourself well back there.”
“I told you I’d taken some self-defense courses.”
She knew darn well, though, that she’d reached the limit of her expertise. In another few seconds she’d have been out cold flat on the ground and David would have been on his own, battling two opponents at once.
“You sure did. But you have lots to learn about following orders.”
“I follow all kinds of medical orders. I’m just not real good at taking yours.”
She pulled a scarf from the handbag that had made it through the scuffle. “Now fasten your seat belt and let me take care of that arm.”
Fortunately the wound was in David’s accessible right arm. They wouldn’t have to stop in order for her to tend to the deep cut. She expertly wrapped the rectangle of white silk around his upper arm to stanch the bleeding. “You’ll need to have that taken care of at a hospital when we get back.”
David’s mouth crooked. “Handy to have my own personal physician along when I get knifed.”
His face turned grim. “But I react badly to being attacked. Even worse to having the woman I’m with exposed to that kind of thing. If I ever get my hands on that bastard Pereira—”
He gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fury.
Chapter 9
From his chair next to the sofa, David folded his arms in front of him and looked down at Cara. He gave her a morose frown.
“That’s the problem with con artists like Manuel,” he growled. “They’re not honest enough to stay bought.”
She’d refused the doctor’s suggestion that she spend the rest of the day in bed. She lay stretched out, her head and shoulders resting on pillows David had carefully arranged on the sofa in her room.
Fortunately X rays had shown no broken bones in her bandaged ankle, only a minor sprain and bruises.
Anesthetizing adrenaline had long since worn off. Her whole body ached from her run-in with the thug. David, settled on a chair next to her, the stitches in his arm covered by a bandage more professional than a scarf, had to be in even more discomfort. He’d taken a worse pummeling than she. The only sign of pain he allowed, though, was a certain extra carefulness in moving.
Taking her cue from him, she hadn’t raised any objection when medical and police officials chalked up the incident to just another regrettable tourist mugging.
“You think Manuel set those thugs on us?” she asked.
“He’d be my first choice.”
“Trying to kill us is pretty drastic, isn’t it?”
“They weren’t trying to kill us. If wasting us was their aim, they’d have come armed with more than muscle and a knife. No. They were trying to do what one of them did with your detective back home—put the fear of God into us so we’d quit looking for Tommy.”
Cara shuddered. “Well, frankly, they came pretty close to accomplishing that with me.”
David rubbed pensively at the back of his neck.
“I don’t know. Something about that whole episode doesn’t add up. I’d have thought that a man of Dan Kane’s resources would have sent goons with a little more finesse to take care of us. Personally I’d have given them orders to jump us quietly sometime when we were alone, instead of within a stone’s throw of a sizable audience. And you’d think that a beating designed to send us packing wouldn’t stop short of leaving us ready for pickup by an ambulance.”
“For heaven’s sake, David, it almost did.”
He was complaining because she suffered only from a painfully wrenched ankle, and he was stabbed merely in the arm instead of an artery?
“Not really. Not all three of those guys were that good, and the fellow at the car was an outright idiot. No offense, Cara, but the hood you bested wasn’t a professional who could have put you away in three seconds.”
“Oh, really? Well, to me he seemed expert enough at beating people up. And your attacker sure looked like he meant business with that terrible knife.”
“Okay. That one was a pro. I’m sure he was the man in Miami who scared Baker into dropping your case. That must have happened when Robert was there and somehow or other got together with Grant.”
“Well,” she groused, irritated at having to defend the expertise of the low-life pair who’d jumped them. “You might see something wrong with those horrible men not leaving us completely mangled in the street. I’m not complaining about it.”
David hastily pushed himself from his chair. Cara shifted her hips to give him room to sit beside her. He leaned over her and rested one hand on the back of the couch, his mouth a thin tight slash.
“Believe me, I’m not sorry about it, either. Thank God you weren’t badly hurt.” He drew a finger lightly alongside the two-inch scratch inflicted on her cheek during the struggle. “I should have been able to prevent this.”
David was most dangerous when he was gentle, Cara reminded herself. That was when she tended to forget why he was with her. Forget that he’d already told her the only thing he wanted from her. She wasn’t proud of the fact that back in the boat her first instinct was to agree to his cold proposition. But she’d be no man’s one-night stand. Not even David’s.
A nerve throbbed at the top of his jaw.
“I should have been able to stop that lout from laying his filthy hands on you at all.”
“I don’t see how. Have you forgotten that at the time you were pretty busy yourself?”
“I won’t forget anything about that incident.”
The icy fury flashing in his eyes softened into a look of tenderness. “You saved my hide by keeping that second goon off me until we had a chance to get away. Thanks.”
“I’d say we. helped each other.”
For a long time now David’s face hadn’t seemed nearly as hard and distant as it had when she first met him. Contemplating that face shouldn’t continue to bring her such a deep degree of contentment. But it did.
“You handled yourself so well today, Cara, I should make you an honorary SEAL.”
“Thank you, Commander. I’m honored.”
Though she’d thanked him with a smile as light as his, she wasn’t kidding. She was deeply pleased to receive David’s open admiration. “But I know I can’t come within shouting distance
of being in your league in dealing with bad guys. You were astonishing this afternoon, David. I can easily understand why Mr. Elliott called you a hero.”
David’s eyes widened. “He what?”
“He made you sound like a cross between a Rambo with a bit of self-control, and Indiana Jones. Plus a little Captain America thrown in for good measure. That’s why I was so disappointed when you refused to help me.”
“That Elliott likes me at all is news to me. He kept sending me out on the worst missions that came along.”
“Believe me, Mr. Elliott said words to that effect, and more.” Cara tossed him a teasing smile. “Would you like me to quote him exactly?”
“Please don’t.”
It was fun to watch David’s red-faced embarrassment. She never suspected that he possessed any at all. He looked so much like an abashed little boy that she had to reach up and brush back a stray lock of black hair.
“So what’s the deal on Mr. Elliott, anyway? I take it he’s a CIA spook, or something?”
“Or something. And I believe he’d prefer the term intelligence officer to the word spook.”
“But you were navy.”
“Elliott is occasionally authorized to use specially trained members of the military on particularly important and sensitive missions.”
“Like going after some captured DEA officers?”
“That’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
Since she was still gently twisting the ends of his hair around her fingertips, it seemed only natural to slide her hand down to his cheek.
As if he’d caught himself gazing too long at her, David skidded his eyes away. She dropped her hand.
The lull in the conversation lengthened as he contemplated the blue plush carpet at his feet and rubbed a hand absently over his injured thigh.
The silence between them lengthened. She was willing to bet he was again getting ready to say something to her that she wouldn’t enjoy hearing.
“All right, David, let’s have it. What has you frowning so furiously?”
He didn’t try to pretend he didn’t know what she meant.
“There’s a significant possibility you haven’t considered yet.”
“What’s that?”
“The possibility that Tommy may not thank you for this search. Hasn’t it occurred to you that he may not be interested in returning to the States?”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“It has to me.”
“Why wouldn’t he want to go home and take back his real life, when he hears that I’m ready to help him do that?”
“What if he thinks his real life is here?”
“What do you mean?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Grant has found precisely the niche he wants with his pal Robert and intends to keep it. Dan Kane is very wealthy. His son can buy himself — and any friend of his—anything he wants. Except, I suspect, freedom from his father’s grip.”
David caught her hand.
“Try to think about this whole thing objectively, Cara, instead of with that ridiculous blind loyalty of yours not only to a man who doesn’t deserve it, but to a man who doesn’t really exist.”
“I’m not blind to Tommy’s faults,” she insisted. “Maybe I was at one point. All right, I know I was. Not anymore.”
Certainly not since she’d met the man who embodied all the strength of character she admired in the other important men in her life, such as her father and her brother.
“Good. Because the real Tommy may feel that he lucked into a very good deal. Think about it. Someone else paying the bills for a life of luxury, access to all the high-grade cocaine and heroin he wants. And all of it with no hassle.”
Cara angrily hunched her hips away from their pleasurable contact with David.
“You’re saying that Tommy may have set those thugs on us to get me to quit trying to find him.”
“I don’t think he’d have the authority to do that on his own hook, but he could have approached Robert or Dan Kane about us.”
She set her mouth and gave her head a fierce shake of denial.
“I don’t believe it. I refuse to believe it. In all the years I’ve known Tommy Grant, I’ve never seen the slightest hint of violence in him. In fact, I believe that it was his lack of personal toughness that led him into drugs in the first place.”
“I’m sure you know that drug abuse can change a person’s whole personality.”
“No matter what he’s gotten himself into, I’m convinced Tommy would never do anything to hurt me.”
“Just like you knew he’d choose you over the cocaine when you offered him the choice.”
“That’s a low blow, David. You know I meant that he’d never hurt me physically. We’re talking about a man who hardly ever so much as raised his voice to me. When he did yell at me after I discovered his drug use, it was out of his own pain.”
“Regardless. This afternoon’s attack sent a strong signal that it’s time for you to go home.”
“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted. She touched the bandage covering the slash on David’s arm, and shivered. “But if it were my brother who was in this mess, I’d never run away from it. I won’t do that with Tommy, either. Whether you can understand it or not, I have to know for sure what has happened to him before I can let go of the search. But you don’t owe Tommy anything, David. You can leave. In fact I...I’d rather you did leave.”
She couldn’t look at him when she said that. Sending him away was the last thing she wanted to do. But before the attack, she’d never really believed that she was exposing him to serious danger by having him with her. Now she knew better. It was one thing to take chances with her own safety for her own reasons, but another to put David at risk when he had no connection whatever with Tommy.
“Take off and leave you here by yourself? Do you really think I’d do that?”
“I want you to.”
The telephone beside the sofa shrilled into their debate. David reached over and snatched up the receiver. He listened for a second or two, then cold fury speared into his face. He leapt to his feet.
“You’ve got a hell of a nerve calling me, Pereira.”
Their traitorous informant was calling them? Whatever for? You’d think his first rough dealings with David would already have sent the man running far and fast from his employer’s predictable desire for vengeance.
She pushed herself up straighter on the pillows to get closer to the phone to try to hear the other end of the conversation.
“You’re not going to get away with informing on us to your trafficker friends,” David snarled into the mouthpiece. “The next time I see you, cabrón, I’m going to take it out of your hide. I promise you that.”
The way he rasped out the Spanish word made her sure it was no compliment.
He angled the earpiece away from his ear to let her hear the high-pitched crackle coming over the line. She couldn’t really make out Manuel’s words, but the tone was clearly irate.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know that a couple of gangster types roughed us up today... What... ?”
More loud crackle.
“Sure, you didn’t. We talk to you last night and three guys come after us today, but you had nothing to do with it....”
Suddenly serious, David turned his back to her and jammed the receiver back to his ear. A frustrating silence took over his end of the conversation. He stood listening so intently that she surmised he had to be hearing something important.
She reached up and tugged impatiently at his arm. “What’s he saying?” she mouthed. “What’s he saying?”
David shushed her with an imperious wave of his hand. He pressed his fingers over his free ear to cut out any sound but the voice on the other end of the line.
Annoyed at being shut out, Cara swung her legs from the sofa.
“Ouch.” A sharp pain needled through her ankle. She’d moved so quickly that she forgot to take care in putting her weight on he
r left foot.
She hopped closer to David and the phone. No matter how hard she stared at the receiver and David’s face, she couldn’t figure out what he was hearing.
“You’re sure?” He’d lowered his voice a few decibels and his face had lost some of its anger. “Are they still there... ? All right.... I’m not sure I’m buying all this, Pereira, but if I decide to come, where shall we meet?”
Meet? He was arranging to meet the man who’d set thugs on them only hours ago? Moving so that David could see her face, she launched a silent glare of disapproval at him.
He paid her no mind.
“That’s in the barrio, right?...Yes, I know the place....” He nodded. “Midnight tonight....I’m warning you, Manuel, this had better be on the level, or you’ll need to find a damn good place to hide.”
The second David hung up the phone Cara’s indignation burst out.
“You’re going to meet that—that—” she sputtered, breaking off with a furious shake of her head. “Begging your pardon, Commander, sir,” she purred with heavy sarcasm. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind?” She ended close to a shout. “You’re going to meet that two-timing pimp after what happened to us today?”
David met her fury with aggravating calm. He simply sat back down on the sofa and gazed up at her with provoking mildness.
“Pereira swears he had nothing to do with what happened at the procession.”
“And you believe him?” She threw up her hands in exasperation and flopped down next to him.
“Maybe. But that wasn’t the most interesting part of the conversation. He gave me some information which, if true, might provide us with our best lead yet.”
“About Robert Kane?”
He nodded. “And Tommy.” An eyebrow hooked upward in irony. “Still not interested?”
His news knocked some of the wind from her sails. “What about them?”
“A friend of Manuel’s reportedly spotted the two at the gaming tables of a luxury resort only yesterday.”
“A luxury resort? Where?”
“Well now, that’s the tricky part. I don’t know. Manuel wouldn’t say. He wants to get paid before he tells us any more. Asked me to meet him in the barrio, where he lives. It’s a straight business transaction. I give him five hundred bucks American. He gives me the name of the resort.”
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