by Rachel Woods
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” John said. “The guy has come after you twice. He seems determined to hurt you for some reason.”
Spencer looked away, wary of the insinuation in John’s tone, wondering if he suspected she knew why Tommy Fong had targeted her but wasn’t admitting it.
“I just think it would be safer for you if you stayed with me tonight.”
“I don’t need you to rush in and save me, okay?” She said, hoping her belligerence would distract him from any further inquiries about Fong’s reasons for attacking her. “I don’t need you to keep me safe from harm. I don’t need a hero.”
“Well, you’re in luck,” he said. “Because I’m not exactly a hero.”
“I figured you weren’t,” she snipped, even though she was sort of touched by and grateful for his offer to take care of her. He seemed sincere, and though she wouldn’t admit it, there was something nice about him doing something for her out of the goodness of his heart.
And, of course, staying with him in his casita could help her complete Step Two.
“Besides, I want to have security check out the honeymoon casita,” he said. “And I want to have more cameras installed around the perimeter. Most of all, I just want you to be okay. You’ve been through a lot today, and I know it was rough for you. I want you to be safe and trust me and let me help you.”
His words shocked her. She wasn’t surprised at his sentiment and sympathy. She was astounded because he’d said something she had never thought she would hear someone tell her. She’d never believed anyone would be there for her when she needed it the most.
Spencer felt close to tears, which was ridiculous; tears didn’t matter.
She knew, from experience, you could cry all night, and still no one would come—not for her—no one had ever shown up to wipe the tears away. It was pointless to play the victim or complain or be upset about being neglected and abandoned by the people she’d counted on the most.
She was hesitant, nervous, and reluctant to take advantage of John’s selfless hospitality; she wanted to be suspicious of his gracious offer, wanted to keep her guard up. Spencer didn’t want to get too comfortable in his surroundings. She didn’t want to start thinking she could rely on him to keep his word, even though she had a feeling he would.
Somehow, his trustworthiness didn’t put her mind at ease.
“Okay, I’ll stay,” she said. “But just for one night.”
chapter 54
San Ignacio, Belize
Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita
Sione stood in the office casita, staring at his desk. It was cluttered with things he hadn’t gotten around to doing. Mundane administrative things. Invoices. Proposals. Payroll. There was plenty to do, but he couldn’t concentrate. The burden of what had happened in condo 309 at Estrella Estates weighed heavily on his mind. The burden of knowing the truth about the severed hand.
At least, Sione thought he knew the truth. He had a pretty good idea who had chopped it off, but he hoped he was wrong because if he wasn’t, then …
Then he would have to tell the cops.
Sione sat and grabbed an invoice as the leather seat creaked beneath his weight. If he avoided finding out the truth about whoever had left the severed hand behind, then he wouldn’t be forced to reveal it. Which was cowardly, he knew. Rubbing his jaw, Sione focused on the invoice, hoping to use it as another distraction.
After he and Ms. Edwards had returned to the resort two hours ago, around three o’clock in the afternoon, Sione had been distracted by the focus of taking care of her. She’d been through hell; the severed hand and the attack on her life had taken a toll. Fatigue and mental anguish had made her apprehensive and distrustful. Worried about her state of mind, Sione had insisted she return to the owner’s casita so she could rest. And so he could watch her. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to her again.
Sione didn’t think the guy with the snake tattoo would be stupid enough to come back a third time, but, just in case, he didn’t want Spencer in the honeymoon casita, where the guy would most likely look for her.
Once he’d gotten Spencer settled in one of the guest rooms, he’d struggled to find something to take his mind off the day’s strange, tragic events. Without the distraction of making sure Spencer was comfortable and felt safe, he’d turned to work to take his mind away from the events in San Pedro. And now, all of sudden, for whatever reason, his cousin Peter had slipped into his head.
Sione tossed the invoice back on the desk. When D.J. had told him Peter’s name was on the list of Moana’s visitors, Sione hadn’t known what to think. When the hell had Peter gone to see her? Why wouldn’t Peter tell him about visiting Moana?
Why the hell was he sitting there speculating?
Rubbing his eyes, Sione sighed. He needed answers. He needed to talk to Peter.
chapter 55
San Ignacio, Belize
Belmopan
“I need to talk to you.” Sione stared down at Peter Rios, who was sitting on an overturned wooden crate beneath a large allspice tree.
His fingers wrapped around a long-necked bottle of Bud Light, Peter looked up and gave Sione a baleful sneer.
“Did you hear me?” Sione said. “I said I need to talk to you.”
Peter took a swig of beer and looked toward the house, which wasn’t much more than a shack constructed of mostly rotting wood. Sione followed the sullen teenager’s laconic gaze to an older woman sitting on the crumbling concrete porch step, braiding several strips of leather into something she probably planned to sell at a roadside flea market.
Frustrated, Sione sighed. He could think of a dozen things he could be doing right now, and a visit to his ambivalent, apathetic cousin was not one of them. But he needed distraction from thoughts about the bloody hand found in Maxine Porter’s condo. And he wanted to know why the hell Peter had visited Moana in prison.
Sione stared at Peter, who appeared to be concerned only with the malted hops in his long-necked bottle. Sione suspected it was all an act, though—a defense mechanism against the frustration of unemployment and boredom.
“Why did you visit Moana in prison?”
Peter’s lip curled in derision and then he took a sip of beer. “I don’t know what you talking about.”
“The hell you don’t,” Sione said. “You went to visit her. Why did you do that?”
Peter frowned. “Who told you I went to see Moana?”
“Tell me why you went to see her,” Sione said.
“I don’t know who told you that, but I didn’t go to see her.” Peter took a few more furtive sips of the Bud Light. “Somebody must have gave you the wrong information.”
Sione snatched the beer bottle away from Peter, then clamped his hand around his cousin’s neck, and yanked the lying punk to his feet. Protesting and cursing, Peter tried to pull Sione’s hand away, but it was no use. Sione forced him around the side of the house, away from the old woman watching them, and then threw his cousin against the rotting plywood, pinning him there.
“Tell me why you went to see her,” Sione demanded.
“Man, get off me.” Peter struggled to push Sione’s arm back. “I told you, I ain’t—”
“Peter, if I wanted to, I could crush your throat.” Pressing his forearm against his cousin’s Adam’s apple, Sione stared down at him. “But I need you to tell me why you went to visit Moana, so I’m going to spare you the pain.”
Eyes bugged, Peter trembled.
“Now, I’m going to take my arm away,” Sione said. “And when I do, I want you to tell me why you went to see Moana, and I don’t want to hear any more lies about how you didn’t go to see her, because that will really piss me off, and I will have to hurt you, do you understand?”
Sweat broke out on his cousin’s forehead as he nodded slowly.
Removing his arm, Sione stepped back, disappointed that he’d allowed those violent tendencies from his past to guide his actions.
Swallo
wing, rubbing his throat, Peter finally said, “I went to see her.”
“I know you did,” Sione told him. “What I don’t know is why?”
“She called me and said she wanted me to come see her,” Peter said. “So, I did.”
“When was this?”
“About five or six months ago.”
“What happened when you went to see her?” Sione asked. “What did you talk about?”
Regaining a bit of his arrogant apathy, Peter put a bit more distance between himself and Sione and then said, “She needed my help.”
“With what?”
“She wanted me to get something for her,” Peter said. “An envelope.”
“She wanted you to get an envelope?”
“From some house in Jamaica,” Peter said. “She said she would write to me and give me all the details. The letter came about two weeks later. It had the address of this house in Montego Bay.”
“She wanted you to steal something from a house in Montego Bay?”
Peter shook his head. “I didn’t break in. She told me where to find the key in the letter. What she needed me to get would be in a safe in the bedroom. The combination to the safe was in the letter, too.”
“So, you went to the house in Montego Bay and got the envelope for her?”
Peter nodded. “Then I called her and told her I had the envelope.”
“What was in the envelope?”
Peter shrugged. “I didn’t open it. It was sealed, but …”
“But what?”
“The seal was like one of those round, red seals,” Peter said, struggling to explain himself. “You know like the kind that’s on a really old letter? You know how they used to seal letters like hundreds of years ago?”
“A wax seal?” Sione asked.
“Yeah, a wax seal,” Peter said, nodding. “The envelope was made of real fancy paper, too.”
“Okay, you call Moana and tell her you have the envelope she needs,” Sione said. “Then what?”
“She told me to hide it,” Peter said.
“And did you?”
His cousin gave him a defiant glare, but it didn’t last and was quickly replaced by shame as he said, “Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Look, I only hid it because she wanted me to,” Peter said. “I probably shouldn’t have, but she was always nice to me. We were friends.”
Exasperated, Sione said, “Peter, where the hell did you hide the damn envelope?”
“Promise you won’t kill me,” Peter demanded.
“Peter,” Sione warned, trying to temper the frustration and anger rising within him.
Worry in his light brown eyes, Peter said, “Moana told me to hide it in your casita.”
chapter 56
San Ignacio, Belize
Belizean Banyan Resort – Owner’s Casita
Strange, blaring chimes roused Spencer.
Disoriented and sluggish, she struggled to sit up and open her eyes. It took her a moment to realize she wasn’t dreaming. She was awake and in a bed, the sheets damp and twisted around her body. Staring straight ahead, left, and then right, it took her a few more minutes to reason she was in a bedroom. The furnishings didn’t look familiar. She wasn’t in her apartment. Filled with dread, her heart lurched. Where the hell was she?
Trying not to panic, she glanced around the room again. Dim, but not completely dark. Light spilled from a door opened just enough to spark a memory within her. It was a bathroom. She’d taken a shower, and then she’d stumbled to the bed, climbed under the covers, and crashed.
The strange chimes cut through the silence again, startling her. What was that? Her cell phone, the answer came to her. Her cell phone was ringing. Reluctantly, she slid out of bed. Where was her purse?
Spotting a lamp on the bedside table, she groped beneath the shade and turned it on. Hazy, golden light flooded the room, clearing away the temporary amnesia. She knew exactly where she was. John’s casita.
After the horror show at Maxine Porter’s condo, where she was nearly killed, John had insisted she come back to his casita and stay with him. He was worried Tommy Fong might come back to attack her again and the honeymoon casita would be the first place Fong would look.
Spencer had protested but not as vigorously as she could have. She’d told John she was okay, but the bloody severed hand had terrified her. Despite her brave posturing, Spencer really hadn’t wanted to be alone in the honeymoon casita.
Spotting the blue Birkin on a chair in the corner, Spencer hurried to it. She opened the purse, grabbed the cell phone, and then frowned. It wasn’t ringing, but she still heard the strange chimes. A second later, the source of the sound came to her. The burner phone. She had a text.
Reluctantly, she took the burner phone from the Birkin and sat on the edge of the bed. Checking the time on the phone, she was shocked she’d slept for so long—more than six hours. Stress and fear had wiped her out, mentally and physically. She supposed lapsing into a near comatose state was her body’s way of responding to the terror of discovering a severed body part and being slapped around and shot at. Deciding to get it over with, since she knew who the text was from, she accessed it.
call me right now
Her heart slammed. Trembling, Spencer eased down on the edge of the bed and called Ben. When he answered on the second ring, disappointment seeped into her, spreading like poison. Spencer almost hung up the phone. Instead, she said, “Ben, I need to tell you something that happened today. Maxine Porter called me this morning, saying she wanted to see me, and when I went to her condo—”
“Sweet girl, I don’t have a lot of time,” Ben cut her off, his tone curt, tense. “So, listen very carefully—”
“Wait a minute,” she tried to stop him. “I need to tell you—”
“Right now, we need to talk about Step Three.”
“Step Three?” she echoed in disbelief. “Ben, listen to me! I think something bad happened to—”
“Are you in Sione Tuiali’i’s casita right now?”
“What?”
“Are you in his casita right now?” Ben repeated.
“How do you know that?” she asked, terrified and perplexed.
“Well, I didn’t find out because you told me,” he said, a menacing edge to his tone. “Which was what you were supposed to do.”
“I’m sorry, okay,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’m not at his casita because he invited me to dinner, I’m here because—”
“I need you to look for something,” Ben said.
“You need me to … what?”
“An envelope made of lambskin. Sealed with a wax stamp that has a dragon symbol.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, confused and flustered. “You want me to look for an envelope? Are you serious? Is that really Step Three?”
Ben’s short exhale told her that she was trying his patience.
“Do you know how damn big this casita is?” she asked, unable to believe he actually wanted her to search for an envelope sealed with wax. “Where do I even begin to look for this envelope?”
“It’s hidden somewhere in that casita,” Ben said. “I need you to find it.”
“Why?” she asked. “What’s in that envelope that you need so bad?”
“Hold on, hold on,” he interrupted, and she heard other voices in the background, speaking a language she couldn’t make out at first. A few minutes later, she heard Ben’s reply, a frustrated command, and she realized he was speaking Jamaican patois.
“Sweet girl, listen,” he said, his voice loud and frustrated as he spoke above the din of competing voices. “Let me know—”
“Ben, where are you?”
“—when you get Step Three done,” he said. “I have to go.”
“Wait, don’t hang up,” she said. “I need to tell you about—”
A string of rapid-fire patois burst forth, wild and angry, making her pulse jump, making her wonder where Ben was, what was going on, and if he was okay.
“Ben …” she said, her heart thudding as she waited for his reply. “Ben … are you still there?”
She heard more boisterous patois, and then the line went dead.
Puzzled, Spencer wondered if Ben was all right.
If something happened to Ben, how would she get her passport back? She’d have to deal with the hassle of getting new identification. And who would pay for the honeymoon casita? Who would pay for her plane ticket back to Houston?
She hadn’t understood all the loud, belligerent patois, but it scared her. Was Ben caught up in some dangerous situation he might not get out of alive? Despite herself, she was concerned about him. Not that he deserved her nervous hand wringing or her prayers. Ben Chang could take care of himself. Sighing, Spencer clutched the burner phone, trying to make sense of Step Three.
A lambskin envelope with a wax seal featuring some kind of dragon motif? What the hell? What was in the envelope? And how did Ben know it was in John’s casita? How did he know—
“Ms. Edwards …”
Gasping, Spencer shuddered and turned. The resort owner stood in the doorway, staring at her.
“Oh my God!” Spencer pressed a hand against her stomach, afraid it might leap up out of her throat. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”
Wearing nothing but one of those sarongs tied around his waist, John was shirtless, showing off all his muscles, giving her thoughts she didn’t have time to deal with right now, thoughts she couldn’t reconcile. Lust intruded on the irritation and frustration of Step Three.
I need you to look for something … it’s hidden somewhere in that casita.
“I’m sorry.” John walked toward her. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought—”
“What do you want?”
“I came to check on you,” he said. “I heard you talking. Were you on the phone?”
“What?” she asked and then remembered the burner phone in her hand. Clutching it tighter, she said, “I was trying to call my sister, but I had to leave a message.”