Abruptly, Benita slowed to a stop in the middle of the street and leaned forward to study the buildings on the right. Unpainted cinder blocks formed walls in front of and between the first three, one a store of some sort, the other two houses. A broken sign hanging crookedly from the fourth structure identified it as otel. She smiled with satisfaction and pulled into the narrow drive that passed into a courtyard. Nothing bigger than the Bug could have made it through without scraping the walls.
“This is—” There was a squeak in Cate’s voice, and she tried to remove it with a deep breath. “This is where we’re staying?”
Benita was still smiling. “It belongs to my husband’s sister-in-law’s cousin’s father. They’ll give you their best room, I promise. Wait here while I go inside.”
He could see Cate trying to process exactly what “best room” translated to in a place like this. If the stubborn set of her jaw was anything to go by, she intended to make the best of it…which left him trying to figure out exactly what her best might be. As long as he was wondering, could he hope for cooperative? Maybe even quiet?
Benita returned a moment later with a key and wiggled into the driver’s seat again. There was little room in the courtyard, but she maneuvered the car to the rear edge before stopping again and holding out the key. “Mario will bring dinner and Cate’s suitcase when he gets off. Tio Pablo can provide decent beer and a fine bottle of tequila if you feel the need. When this is all done, you’ll have to come for dinner again, right?”
“Right.” Justin took the key, then unfolded himself from the seat. How had it been easier getting in than getting out? When he was standing straight, he shrugged to ease the tension in his shoulders while watching Cate climb out. She made it look so much more graceful: one sandaled foot braced on the graveled drive, all the creamy skin of her leg, muscles flexing as she ducked her head and rose out of the car like a princess out of a battered rust-flecked pumpkin of a carriage.
She ducked to say goodbye to Rafael, then Benita. “Thank you for helping us.”
“You’re welcome.” Then, with a grin, Benita added, “Good luck dealing with…” Her gaze shifted between them.
In unison he and Cate replied, “I’ll need it.”
Benita laughed as she shifted into gear and drove away.
The number on the key was faded, well-worn by years of sliding into and out of pockets and the lock. The corresponding room was ten feet down the courtyard, so he headed that way.
“Do you know I once did a medical mission on a remote, poverty-stricken reservation out west, and the place was cleaner and better kept than this?” she remarked as they sidestepped a trash bag that had been torn open on the scraggly grass, its contents scattered.
“No whining, Dr. Do-Good.” He had to wiggle the key to get it into the lock, but it turned without too much effort and the door swung open. Surprised by the interior, he forgot to step inside. Cate got halfway around him before she stopped, too. After a moment, she went in, and after another moment, he followed her.
“Wow. I never would have thought…”
The room wasn’t fancy by any means. It was so small the two beds were twins, with barely enough room to pass between them. Instead of cheap-motel bedspreads, they were made up with quilts, and a spotless vinyl floor took the place of cheap-motel carpet. The bathroom was a real bathroom—no sink and mirror against one wall, with a commode and shower in a tiny room—and it was spotless, too. The lone painting on the wall above the beds was an original of good quality, the lamps were bright enough to actually see, and the air-conditioning unit in the window lowered the temperature with no more than a quiet hum.
Justin made sure the door was locked, then set his backpack on the nearest bed. “It must be a family room, one they normally don’t rent out.”
The only response from Cate was the closing of the bathroom door. Grinning, he folded back the quilt on his bed, kicked off his shoes and stretched out on soft, faded sheets and comfortable pillows. Remembering the cell he’d taken from her and stuck in his pocket, he pulled it out, turned it to silent mode, then put it away again. If he didn’t keep it close, the first time he dozed off she’d try to reclaim it and make those damn phone calls she’d been talking about.
Phone calls that should be made? She was right: they weren’t qualified to deal with kidnappers. But he knew where the data the Wallace brothers wanted was, and he couldn’t get that picture their thug had sent him out of his head. He didn’t want to wind up that way, didn’t want Trent or Susanna or even Cate to wind up that way.
He also knew more about the brothers than Cate did. Too bad he hadn’t known more before he’d recommended Susanna’s project to them for funding.
Cate came out of the bathroom, still wearing the same clothes, the same braid, but somehow looking fresh, as if she were just starting her day. Must be one of the benefits of being an E.R. doctor: deal with guts and blood and gore, and revive on breaks.
She’d removed the floppy hat—definitely a plus—and buttoned her shirt. That should be a plus, but he could see through the damn thing, and somehow having that thin, gauzy fabric just barely covering the bright colors of her bikini bra and the creamy gold of her middle seemed more interesting than safe.
She sat down on the other bed, facing him. “So.” The word sounded momentous for one short syllable. “What’s going on?”
There was a time to BS and a time to be honest. This, it appeared, was the time for honesty. Too bad. He enjoyed BS-ing her so much more.
He rolled into a sitting position, stuffed the pillows where bed met walls and leaned against them so he was facing her. “Okay. Do you know who Joseph and Lucas Wallace are?”
Her nose wrinkled, drawing her mouth into a dissatisfied set, too. “Trent used to call them Mississippi’s version of the two of you. Rich, irresponsible, reckless, immature—”
“You could have stopped after ‘you,’” he grumbled. “I got the picture. True enough. Except that the brothers inherited a chain of hotels right after college and found out they have an ability to make more money than they ever imagined. They own an interest in every top hotel or resort in the entire southern hemisphere, or so it seems.”
“Trust-fund babies creating trust funds for their own babies. Who would have thought.”
Her surprise honed the edge of his irritation. “You know, Trent and I don’t jet around all the time figuring ways to deplete our trust funds even faster. We do stuff, too.”
* * *
Cate took a moment to mimic him, pushing back the quilt, sliding off her shoes, banking pillows behind her for comfort. She might wish for that warm beer or fine tequila of Tio Pablo’s, but she was truly comfortable for the first time since dawn. “What does Trent do besides help out at La Casa?”
“‘Help out’? Is that all you think it is? He deals with all the fundraising. He brings in new money, and he updates the regular donors on what their donations are doing and keeps them happy enough to continue sending money. He does all the PR, arranges events for the girls and coordinates all the volunteers from the U.S. It’s a full-time job for which he receives a room to sleep in and free meals, as long as he does some of the cooking or the cleaning.”
Her first thought was to argue. That sounded like a do-gooder, which Trent certainly was not. Doing good was something he did for himself, not underprivileged kids in another country.
But he said he loved Susanna, and he said it with far more sincerity than he’d ever given Cate. People could change for love, could become better and kinder. She had to consider it was possible. Rather, she had to consider it might be permanent. She had to admit, every time she heard from him or Susanna, she expected it to be the time she heard that he’d gotten bored and said goodbye to Susanna, the school and the girls to return to his thrill-seeking, globe-trotting life. After all, he’d committed to her, and how long had it been before he’d left?
Could Susanna be different? Could the love he claimed for her be so much more s
ubstantive than the undying love he’d pledged to Cate? Could Susanna hold him when Cate couldn’t? And would Cate mind if she did?
“Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s say Trent has transformed into Saint Trent of La Casa para Nuestras Hijas.”
Justin’s jaw tightened at her supposition, but she didn’t let it stop her. His jaw had tightened, his brow had furrowed or his eyes had gone hard every time she’d ever seen him. It was part of the animosity that he usually managed to cover with sarcasm, faked good humor or mocking.
“What about you? What do you do?”
“I—” He stopped abruptly, and his expression turned totally blank. It wasn’t as if he suddenly realized he had nothing to say, but as if he’d put up a wall instead. As if he had nothing he wanted to say to her.
The expression remained a moment before shifting into something sly, almost good-natured but not, almost relaxed but not. He moved into a more comfortable position, looking amazingly lazy and loose and, yes, damn it, handsome. “Let’s see, in the past few years I’ve dived the ten best spots in the world. I trekked through the rain forest in southeast Asia and traveled the Amazon by canoe from the headwaters to the Atlantic. I spent last Christmas in Moscow and my birthday in the Gobi Desert. I hiked across Central America and had only a few run-ins with angry men with guns.” His smile was the smuggest she could imagine. “Who knew money speaks every language?”
She stared at him, her back teeth hurting, but it wasn’t the usual urge to smack the grin off his face. She’d already shoved him a couple times today and pinched him in the car. She, who never lost her temper, never lost control, who was so many years past pinching as a weapon, had pinched him. And she hadn’t regretted it, either.
No, the pain in her back teeth wasn’t as bad as normal because something seemed…off. Phony. The lazy, loose-limbed look. The recitation of his adventures. The smile. Maybe what he was saying was the truth, but not the whole truth. Maybe it was the only truth he wanted to share with her. Maybe…
He was a jerk and always had been to her. Start the game the way you intend to play, her grandfather the high-school football coach used to say, and Justin had started their association being a jerk. But if his dive-shop friend’s behavior was anything to judge by, he didn’t share her opinion. Neither did Benita or her little boy. She’d invited him to dinner—again, she’d said—and he’d agreed without hesitation.
Which proved what? That Cate was on his list of people who didn’t deserve common courtesy?
She didn’t like having people dislike her, especially based on superficialities. He’d taken one look at her the night they’d met and recognized that she wasn’t like them. She didn’t have money; she’d been wearing the uniform for the waitressing job that helped pay her tuition. She hadn’t been sophisticated or witty, hadn’t known a damn thing about diving or clothing designers or sports or booze. He’d dismissed her as unworthy two minutes after meeting her and had emphasized it at every subsequent meeting.
And she’d borne a hell of a lot of resentment toward him. Not just for trying to dissuade Trent from marrying her. Not for telling her the night before the wedding that she wasn’t good enough for Trent. Not for dragging Trent off on a new adventure every time they were starting to settle in together.
She’d resented him because he’d made her feel less.
And judging by the knot in her stomach, she still did.
She hesitated to raise her hand to brush off Justin’s list of vacations for fear it would tremble, but it didn’t. “Okay, Trent truly does help Susanna run the shelter, and you do things that cost a lot of money and benefit you and the travel industry. Let’s get back to the Wallace brothers. What do they have to do with Trent and Susanna?”
For a moment Justin looked as if he were wishing for the decent beer or fine tequila, too. He might even be throwing in a wish that he’d left her at La Casa for the men to do with what they would.
Then he sighed. “When Susanna started the shelter, she needed funding. The Wallaces give a ton of money to charity. Since they have offices here in Cozumel, I suggested they donate to La Casa. Give back to the community, you know. And they did.”
“Why didn’t you? Or Trent?”
His blue eyes darkened. “I don’t know what Trent does with his money, and it’s none of your business what I do with mine, unless you want to share your financials, too.”
She snorted. Rich people had financials; she had a checking account and a savings account. He had investments; she had a retirement account. He had revenue; she got a paycheck.
And he was right that it was none of her business. She had better manners than that. She never pried into people’s private business, except on the job, where knowing what really happened to a patient could mean the difference between living and dying. She did her best to minimize the risks of anybody dying in her E.R.
Besides, she knew how Justin spent his fortune: fun, fun and more fun.
“The Wallaces invest. They get a tax write-off. The shelter gets badly needed money. The partnership benefits everyone, and they’re all happy…for a while. What happened to send you and Susanna into their office to take—” deliberately she rephrased “—to steal files from their computer?”
He ran his fingers through his hair, leaving a few blond strands standing on end. It gave him a look of boyishness that was seriously at odds with the definitely-not-a-boy body.
Not that she was noticing for any reason beyond a doctor’s appreciation of anatomical perfection.
“After the first year or so went so well, the Wallaces decided to expand their involvement. They started an adoption agency here in Coz, working with a few of La Casa’s sister shelters on the mainland, but primarily with La Casa. They did placements solely with American families, and they placed a lot of kids. Susanna was thrilled. She thought their success rate was so high because of all their contacts—family, friends, business.”
The knot returned to Cate’s stomach. Whatever was going on at the shelter, she’d kept it limited in her mind to Trent and Susanna. She hadn’t let the thought that the girls might be involved even peek into her consciousness. There were so many ways to take advantage of children, of young girls with no families, who could disappear into the system so easily.
Justin’s voice took on a darker tone, but his features stayed the same. Except for his eyes. The usual humor, charm—directed at others, never her—or irritation was gone, replaced by solid chunks of ice-blue anger. “A while back, six, maybe eight months ago, some women from Susanna’s church in Idaho volunteered at the shelter. One of them really fell for a girl there, an eight-year-old named Luisa. The woman went home, talked to her husband, her pastor, the rest of her family, and they decided to start the adoption process.
“A few months later, the agency told Susanna Luisa’s adoption had gone through. They gave her a big going-away party at La Casa, then kissed her goodbye the next morning and handed her over to the social worker who was going to escort her to her new family. Susanna waited a few weeks, then she called the woman to find out how Luisa was getting along, and the woman told her—”
Breaking off, Justin rose from the bed and paced the length of the room before returning and combing his hair again. Cate was seriously tempted to plug her fingers in her ears. She didn’t want to hear what came next. But she’d heard a lot of things on the job that she didn’t want to know. She kept her hands at her sides and waited.
“The woman said there must be some mistake. She and her husband had been rejected by the agency. They’d thought with the enthusiastic recommendation Susanna had given, it would be a sure thing. It broke her heart when they were turned down.”
How hard had that been? Falling in love with a child who needed you, in whose life you could make a real difference, and being told you weren’t good enough? Cate wasn’t particularly maternal—she got her mothering out at work—but it would have broken her heart. “So Susanna spoke to the agency and they said…”
“
The couple didn’t qualify and Luisa had been placed in another home. Naturally, they couldn’t give out any other information. Privacy issues, you know.” He practically snarled the last words.
“Isn’t it possible the agency did place Luisa in a good home?”
He shot her a sharp look. “You think we haven’t hoped for that? Nearly two dozen kids had been placed through that agency. Two dozen girls we thought were happy and healthy and finally had a good home of their own forever.”
Us. We. Those didn’t sound like the word choices of a man who only got involved after the fact. Just how connected was he? Not to Trent, not to Susanna, but to La Casa itself? More than she’d given him credit for?
She would hate to have been that wrong about him. It would make her feel petty and judgmental, even though he’d given her plenty of reasons to judge him.
Deliberately, she refocused. “I’m guessing this nagged at Susanna’s conscience until she had to know for sure where Luisa was.”
He nodded and dropped onto the other bed, but he didn’t sprawl back this time. Instead he sat directly in front of her, leaning forward, elbows resting on his thighs. Close enough that she could smell his cologne and see the faint variations of blue in his eyes. Close enough that she felt the need to sit back. She resisted. Just barely.
“She asked Joseph Wallace why the woman from Idaho was turned down, and he said he would find out and let her know. She asked a couple more times, and he brushed her off, saying he’d get back to her soon on that. So a week ago, when she had her regular monthly meeting with him, I flew down from Alabama. She went to the meeting early, sneaked into an empty office and copied all the files relating to the adoption agency and the shelter onto a flash drive. She passed it to me in the stairwell, then I headed straight back to the airport while she kept the appointment. We figured if they suspected anything at the time, they could search her or La Casa and wouldn’t find anything. And any employees who might see me were a lot less likely to recognize me than Trent or someone from the shelter.”
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