“For God’s sake, David, you can’t go there.” Forgetting that it wasn’t at all a good idea to keep touching him, Cara laid her hand imploringly on his arm. “Pereira might have those same men waiting for you. This time they could finish the job.”
“You may be right,” David allowed with frustrating coolness.
“Damn right I’m right.”
She struggled to match some of David’s unruffled manner. Only with him did she so easily lose her usual professional composure.
“But evidently you think he was telling the truth. You think it’s safe for you to meet him.”
“Safe is a pretty strong word. I’m not sure I’d use it. Let’s just say that I’m almost convinced that Pereira had nothing to do with what happened this afternoon.”
“Almost is a pretty weak word on which to bet your life, David.”
“I agree. Regardless of what you think, partner, I’m still in possession of most of my marbles. I don’t intend to go into the barrio without carrying a weapon wielding a little more firepower than a cane. I need to pick up a gun, and I know where to get one.”
Evidently David was a more trusting soul than she. The idea of meeting the mestizo for any reason stood her hair on end.
On the other hand, Reid was an intelligent man. A man who’d proven only a few hours ago that he was well able to take care of himself despite his injured leg. He wouldn’t take unnecessary chances. She frowned. Okay, so she wouldn’t actually bet the farm on that. But he’d be armed. If those goons showed up again, the odds against them would be a lot more even than they’d been the last go-round.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll go.”
“What d’you mean we?”
She stared him down. “Don’t waste your time arguing with me.”
It could have been wishful thinking, but she may have discerned a hint of admiration behind the displeasure in the wry quirk of David’s mouth.
“After what I saw you do to the hapless gentleman who made the mistake of taking you on this afternoon, I wouldn’t dare. Hey. Why am I worrying?” He aimed a scowl at her bandaged ankle. “Between the two of us, we can still count on two perfectly good legs—just in case we have to run for it again.”
His glower didn’t faze her. She chuckled. At times David Reid could be too much the arrogant military commander. But in his defense, he could also be an amusing, arrogant military commander.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, giving her head a decided bob. “This time I intend to load up my handbag with rocks.”
The rain that sluiced down on the city in late afternoon had dripped to a halt by the time they grabbed a taxi from out front of the hotel.
The driver didn’t want to believe that David had gotten his directions straight.
“No, señor. That is in the barrio. You don’t want go there. Is bad place. At night, very bad place.”
David had come prepared for the man’s reluctance to take them where they wanted to go. More like where David wanted to go, she grouched silently. She, like the driver, could do without this risky midnight excursion. Her partner leaned over the front seat and offered the driver a strong inducement to follow his passenger’s orders.
David’s wallet was getting quite a workout lately. Darn good thing there was a bank ATM in the hotel lobby, and he didn’t have to worry about finances. If she ever doubted that money made the world go round, she didn’t anymore.
Regardless of what he’d said back in Baltimore, she was keeping track of his expenses. Whether he wanted it or not, when this was all over, she intended to send him a check.
The trip from shining wealth to wretched poverty was distressingly short. Their taxi followed the rough road snaking between mountains of moldering garbage to a tin-roofed huddle of huts jerry-rigged of plywood and tar paper. Beyond them, a dense jumble of squalid shacks ranged off up the mountainside into the gloom. In the distance, the twin spires of a church, silvered in thin moonlight, seemed to float from a pool of shadows.
A meager row of ancient streetlights was strung for no more than a few blocks down the road that passed for the shantytown’s main street. The weak shafts of light they threw lost the battle of holding back the night.
David tapped the driver on the shoulder and brought the vehicle to a halt.
“We’ll walk the rest of the way,” he said, and ordered the driver to wait for them. Cara wasn’t entirely sure the man would wait, even with the promised tip. This wasn’t a place anyone would choose to be stranded in. As they scrambled out of the car, the driver threw them another strong warning to be careful.
The stench of human waste snaked from the dank waters of a nearby stream.
David switched on the flashlight he carried.
Back in the main part of the city, thousands of people still worked hard at having noisy fun amid the brilliant glow of hotels and amusement centers. Here, the two of them, with not another person in sight, were shrouded in darkness and brooding stillness. Not even the unhappy cry of a child broke the hovering silence. Maybe the unfortunate children living here learned early that crying wouldn’t help.
It was a good thing David knew where he was going. She would have gotten lost within two minutes of wandering through a baffling, haphazard maze of narrow, filth-strewn streets and alleys.
Their harsh surroundings were softening her opinion of Manuel Pereira. If he’d been born into this pitiable level of poverty, she couldn’t blame him for trying to squeeze them, or anyone else, for every penny he could get.
She sensed rather than saw the small shape that skittered across the alley only a few inches from her feet. Rats. An area like this must be overrun with rats. Her heart went out to the children, the babies, who lived here in these appalling conditions. Any doctor attempting to practice decent medicine amid this squalor would soon be overwhelmed by the lack of the most basic sanitation facilities.
David pointed to a small, cinder-block building whose few windows were heavily barred,
“There’s the shop Pereira mentioned. According to the directions he gave me, his place should be right around here.”
Somewhere close by, a dog erupted in a frenzy of barking.
The sudden commotion brought the two of them to a standstill.
From back in the direction of the stream, muffled shouts and a scurry of running footsteps rent the threatening silence. The unmistakable sound of a splash followed. Something large had just fallen—or was thrown—into the stream. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people either slept, or listened, their nerves on edge as her own, in the pulsing night. There was no reason to think the frightening sounds had anything to do with Manuel.
She had the sickening feeling that they did.
“Take this,” David ordered, handing her the flashlight. He reached inside his jacket and drew out the black metal weapon he’d told her was a Glock semiautomatic. “This way,” he said.
She took his arm and threw her light ahead of them as they hurriedly picked their way down the alley.
They almost tumbled into the ditch at the end of the lane. A sluggish, putrid stream snaked along the bottom of the gully. She played the light back and forth over the black water.
“There,” she cried. “I think I saw something.”
She walked a few yards upstream toward the faint glimmer of some small light-colored object caught at the dim edge of the flashlight’s beam. A picture of Manuel’s yellow hair flashed into her mind. At her side David uttered a soft curse. Apparently he’d made the same horrifying connection.
Her light fell on a long, rounded bundle of some sort lying in the water five or six yards away. A body, she recognized in horror. A body lying facedown and motionless in the stream.
“It’s Manuel, David.” She was sure of it, although she couldn’t see his face.
David shoved the weapon back into his pocket. “You stay up here and hold my cane. Hold the light steady on the body.”
The slope dropping down to the stream wasn’t st
eep, but it was slick from the rain. David had to make his way down carefully to avoid sliding headfirst into the water. She followed, favoring her bandaged ankle, to give him what help she could. At the bottom of the ditch, he waded into water little more than a foot deep. Not deep enough to drown a conscious man.
Hoisting the inert body under the arms, he managed to drag it from the creek. She gave David his cane to make it easier for him to climb the hill and hooked a hand under one of the man’s arms. Together they struggled to haul him, his clothing heavy with water, to the top of the embankment where they lowered him gently to the ground. The man’s drenched clothing began to seep a black puddle into the earth around him. Carefully, so as not to worsen any of his injuries, she rolled the sodden victim onto his back.
She’d been prepared for the worst. Still, it was a shock to recognize someone she knew.
She knelt quickly beside Pereira’s immobile body and shone her light on his wet face. The black eyes were wide and staring and glistened faintly in the cone of light. They did not blink. She pressed her fingers to the man’s neck. No discernible pulse. She handed David the flashlight, hiked up her skirt and straddled the man to commence C.P.R.
It was difficult for David to kneel. Leaning on his cane, he bent and slipped a hand under the dripping blond head. Almost at once he drew his fingers away. Shaking his head slowly, he showed her his hand covered with dark stains of blood.
“You can’t do anything more for him, Cara. His skull is crushed. He’s gone.”
She’d known that the moment she’d looked at the body after David had pulled it from the water, but she always viewed the death of a patient as a personal failure. When David laid him down before her, Manuel had become her patient. She refused to concede defeat until she’d done everything possible to avert it.
Today she’d accomplish no miracles. With a heavy sigh she gave up the useless attempt to save the man.
She sat back on her heels next to the lifeless body. In death poor Manuel looked pitifully young. No more than a teenager.
David fished a handkerchief from his back pocket and tried, without much success, to clean the blood from his hands.
“The kid was no role model.” His quiet voice was filled with regret. “But he sure didn’t deserve this.”
“No one deserves this.”
“Come on, Cara, we’d better get out of here.”
“Aren’t we going to call the police?”
“No. We’ll let these people handle things in their own way. It’s their neighborhood.”
Others must have heard the scuffle. Not a single person had ventured out to help.
She had no right to condemn them. Perhaps mere survival in this awful place took all their energy. Maybe they had no pity to spare for one who came to grief in their midst.
Cara laid her hand on the dead man’s chest and offered a silent prayer for him.
The possibility that Pereira might have been killed because of his connection with her lay like lead in her stomach.
“Come.” David slid a hand under her arm to help her get to her feet.
To her relief the cab was still waiting for them. Its doors were locked, its engine was running and the driver was hunched over the wheel, peering anxiously through the windshield. He asked no questions when David squished back into the automobile, his shoes and the bottom of his trousers soaked. He’d barely pulled the door shut when the car sped off.
The compassion that she’d held onto for so long for Tommy as a friend in trouble gave way to disgust and rage.
If only she could see him right now and demand to know if he played any part in Manuel’s death. If only she could face him and force him to explain why he’d thrown away his life. Why he’d brought so much pain into hers. Why he’d put not only her, but David, who meant him no harm, in danger.
But with the mestizo’s death, her last tenuous link to Tommy was gone.
Chapter 10
David heard the strain in Cara’s disheartened whisper of good-night. Dirt smudged her chin and streaked her skirt. Mud daubed her white jogging shoes and the pink elastic bandage on her ankle. He’d knocked the largest globs of mud off his own black loafers, but they were still caked in the stuff.
She’d scarcely spoken a word on the way back to the hotel. Her lovely face was etched in lines of weariness. Dark circles of fatigue smudged her eyes.
This remarkable woman had slogged bravely through a day that had delivered a one-two punch that hit even a trained fighter such as himself in the gut. He wasn’t about to let her walk all alone into a dark, empty room in a strange city.
“I’ll come in with you for a moment.”
She gave him no argument. He read relief in her eyes when she looked up at him and nodded. Inside, he reached in back of her to flip up the light switch just inside the door.
To him, any hotel room looked foreign and desolate in the middle of the night. Always a reminder that he was just passing through. Cara seemed to be suffering the same reaction. She wandered to the center of the room and stood there, looking around aimlessly, as if she didn’t quite recognize the place and couldn’t decide what to do next.
A little shiver rippled across the stiffness of her back. The shiver turned into a shake that threatened to take over her whole body.
Before her knees buckled, he hurried over and clasped an arm around her waist. Her hands jerked up defensively as if she meant to throw off his support. Instead her fingers fastened over the prop of his arm.
“I don’t know what’s come over me,” she said in a reedy voice, as he led her to the sofa. “It’s not as if I haven’t seen death before. I’ve handled dozens of bloody emergency-room cases better than I’m handling this.”
He understood her shaken reaction. She was trained to deal unemotionally with serious disease and critical injury. The professional detachment she’d developed, though, hadn’t completely hardened her to the sight of violent death.
Neither had his. Finding the boy’s bloody body had sickened him.
“Maybe this one came with a lot more personal emotional baggage than the others. It also came on the same day you had to fight off an attack. I can tell that your ankle hurts a lot more now than it did earlier. It didn’t do your injury any good for you to be working it so hard tonight. Sit.”
She sank onto the seat.
His contempt for Grant mushroomed. What kind of man could expose a woman, especially one he once professed to love, to sickening murder?
In the room’s small refreshment bar he found a tiny bottle of brandy and poured it into a glass.
“Here. Drink this.”
She used both hands to hold the glass steady as she sipped the liquor.
“I need to wash my hands,” she said absently, holding up one hand, fingers spread, in front of her.
Her eyes widened and she darted him a stricken look.
“Oh, David!” she blurted. “Your hands.”
She sprang to her feet, tipping the glass. A few drops of brandy spilled to the rug. She didn’t seem to notice when he rescued the tumbler and set it on the table.
“You held Manuel’s smashed head. Your hands were covered in his blood.” She snatched up his left hand that still bore dark traces of red and inspected it.
“You’ve got to wash them. Right now. The bathroom’s right through there. Give them a good hard scrubbing with soap and water—get every speck of blood off your fingers—don’t forget your naits—it’s important. I’m sure Manuel was promiscuous—he could have been involved with intravenous drugs—you never know — ”
“Whoa!” He broke into her anxious, rapid-fire stream of instructions. “I’ll take care of it. You sit down before you fall down. And finish that brandy.” He stood over her, frowning, and made sure she obeyed his orders before he headed for the bathroom sink.
Several minutes later when she returned after cleansing her own hands, he was glad to see that the familiar medical practice of washing after treating a patient—albeit
a dead man — had helped settle her some.
“It’s almost two in the morning, Cara. Go to bed. If you like, I’ll sit here until you fall asleep.”
At a time like this, he asked himself, what kind of insensitive oaf would remain blazingly aware of the bed that dominated her room, and what happened in it the other night? After what Cara had been through today, he should be concentrating solely on looking after her. What the hell would it take to keep that damnable desire for her from roiling through him every waking hour?
“Thanks, David, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I’d only lie there staring at the ceiling and thinking about Manuel.”
Her face crumpled.
“Tell me the truth. Was that poor little man killed because of me? Because he was trying to get information about Tommy for me?”
He was convinced of it. Too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise. But he wasn’t about to heap any more grief on a woman who wasn’t one to deny responsibility for her actions. An overzealous sense of obligation had driven her to Colombia in the first place.
He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“Take your sister’s advice and stop blaming yourself for all the ills of the world. Manuel lived a precarious life. Who knows what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into long before he ever met us.” He hoped his shrug of dismissal was convincing. “He had dangerous connections. Most likely one of those connections chose tonight to settle an old score and we had the seriously bad luck to stumble into it.”
A stretch of what he believed to be the truth, maybe. But not entirely impossible.
“I hope so.” She kneaded tiredly at her forehead. He hated to see the mesmerizing blue of her eyes so dulled and troubled.
“I don’t understand what’s going on, David. I just wanted to help a friend. I had no idea it would lead to all this. I’d hate to think that I was responsible for—” She clapped her hand to her mouth, suppressing her cry of anguish.
He couldn’t help it. The depth of her distress made him slide his arms around her shoulders and gather her to him. He recognized the tautness in her body, not much different from the tenseness that always gripped him just before embarking on another mission.
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