by Nancy Bush
As Naomi handed her the keys to the Xterra, the best car of their small fleet, she thought of the plane ticket she’d purchased with that debit card. A ticket that was placed on the kitchen counter of her studio right next to the rolling suitcase, which was packed and ready.
If all went according to plans, she could be in Martinique tomorrow.
Her heart was thumping as she collected her debit card then drove north to Ray’s, a ramshackle cabana bar near the beach. It was frequented by the college crowd and in the summer it was full of bikini tops and short shorts. If Robert Lumpkin was headed that way, it was guaranteed that he was looking for tits and ass, and the short white dress she was wearing showed lots of both.
She was going to make a statement when she walked in. People were going to remember her. Her hair was always a giveaway unless she dyed it a mousier color, which she had once or twice. Her jaw set as she thought about how many times she’d gone after a mark for Andre.
Well, this was the last. And she was going to do it her way.
She knew what Robert Lumpkin looked like per Daniella’s description: late forties, balding, sporting a few extra pounds but prone to sucking in his gut as he was feasting his eyes on whatever hot young thing caught his eye. He drove a ten-year-old, green Ford Explorer, which she spotted immediately in the full lot. She had to circle around and find a space on the street, a fifteen-minute enterprise that had her champing at the bit.
The men in the young crowd looked at her with initial interest but when she didn’t catch their gazes their eyes drifted back to their dates. Lumpkin was easy to find; the only man fitting his description was sitting at the bar. He picked up on her as soon as she walked in and it was simple to stop near him and feign looking toward the back of the bar as if searching for someone.
“Who you waitin’ for?” he asked.
She slid him a sideways glance. “Some friends,” she said in a cool tone. Didn’t want to seem too eager.
“You see ’em?”
“Not yet.”
He pointed to the empty bar stool next to him and said, “You can wait here. The place is gettin’ pretty full.”
She pretended to mull that over, then, as if considering it to be her only option, slipped onto the stool. The hem of her dress hiked all the way up her thigh and she made a halfhearted attempt to bring it down a bit. She was curious if he would offer to buy her a drink. From what Daniella had said, he was tight as a frog’s ass.
The bartender cruised up and Teresa tapped her lips with one richly painted red fingernail, pretending to decide. Maybe if she gave him enough time he might say something, but Lumpkin, though maybe fighting with himself, lost the battle with near chivalry and kept his money in his wallet.
“White wine,” she said.
“Chardonnay okay?” the bartender asked.
“Do you have a decent sauvignon blanc?”
“Not really,” he admitted, flashing her a smile.
Teresa smiled back despite her electric nerves. “Chardonnay’ll be fine.”
Not to be outdone, Lumpkin said proprietarily, “The reds are pretty good here.”
Teresa half-turned his way. “Not with this white dress. I’d have to be stripping it off and washing it immediately.” She’d drawn out the word “stripping” and Lumpkin looked like he was going to slobber all over himself.
Her happy juice was in her purse: a sprinkle of Rohypnol in water, more commonly known as roofies. She thought of how many times she’d played out this scene, how many men she’d knocked out and robbed. Normally Andre would want to play the mark for all he was worth, keep him on a string until she could squeeze every last dime out of him, but this was Robert Lumpkin and from Andre’s perspective, he was better off dead. He was basically their landlord. And after the way Jonathan had found them out, well, Andre wasn’t taking any more chances.
Something shifted, she brooded. Ever since Stephen’s death, Andre’s directives had changed. No longer was it just about the money. Now it was all about taking the money and killing the mark. There was some new kind of enjoyment on Andre’s part that hadn’t been there before. His appetites were changing as was the frequency of the headaches that plagued him.
Something’s very wrong with him, she thought, sipping her chardonnay. It was time to leave. Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t roll this loser first . . . and take the money for herself. Her debit card was in her tiny black purse, along with several twenties that Andre had given her for this job. She’d laid her purse on the bar, and now she pulled it toward her and pulled out the stick of red lipstick, adding another glossy layer as Lumpkin nearly pissed himself watching her. He probably didn’t have a ton of money on him, but she’d take what she could get.
She was getting the hell out of Dodge tonight.
“So, how is it?” Lumpkin asked, meaning her drink.
“Passable,” Teresa said.
He leered at her. “You’re a connoisseur, huh.”
“I like the good stuff,” she admitted with a smile. “But I definitely drink too much of it.”
“Yeah?”
“I get a little crazy sometimes. My ex loved it, but man, I don’t remember some really important parts, you know?” She leaned a little closer to him, a confidante, then pulled away again. She wasn’t wearing underwear beneath the dress and she wondered if she should thrill him with a Sharon Stone move à la Basic Instinct.
Lumpkin chugged down the rest of his beer and ordered another. Teresa figured it was just a matter of time before he had to empty his bladder and hoped he would do it before he drained the next one. No way she was going to put her happy juice into a glass he was finished with.
Sure enough, he swallowed about half of the new beer, fought back a belch with limited success, then said he’d be right back, looking back at her a couple of times as he hurried to the men’s room, worried that she would leave. It was the perfect moment to Sharon Stone him and she did, turning on her bar stool just so . . . spreading her legs for a straight view to her hoohaw before she recrossed them.
He practically had a heart attack as he stopped and gaped, then stumbled over his feet as he went to relieve himself. As soon as he was out of sight she glanced around to make certain no one was looking. The bartender had his back to her as did the man seated on the other side of her, talking to his date. She surreptitiously pulled the happy juice from her purse with her left hand. The bottle was tiny enough to hide in her palm. Sliding his beer directly in front of her with her right hand, she then transferred the bottle from left to right and plucked her cell phone from her purse with her left. She set the phone on the table, then feigned texting while she unsnapped the top of the bottle with her thumb and sneaked liberal drops into Lumpkin’s beer.
She’d barely gotten the beer glass placed back in front of his spot again before he was scurrying back to his bar stool. “I’m Robert,” he said, practically panting as he held out his hand.
“Julia,” Teresa answered, squeezing his palm warmly. She hoped to hell he’d washed, the rat bastard.
“How many of those have you had?” he asked.
“My first.” She knocked back the rest of it and signaled for the bartender.
“Things are gettin’ kinda crazy already, aren’t they?” He glanced down in the direction of her crotch in case she failed to remember what she’d done.
“Crazy’s not a bad thing, the way I see it. My ex taught me that.”
“That who you were lookin’ for?”
“My ex? Oh, hell no. He can go fuck himself.”
“Yeah. He can go fuck himself.” Lumpkin laughed like a hyena. He was leaning toward her so much he was about to fall off his stool into her lap, and he hadn’t even taken another drink of his beer. It never occurred to him to wonder what Teresa saw in him. Like so many other men, Lumpkin thought more highly of himself than he ought to.
Teresa touched her glass to his. “Cheers.”
“Cheers!” He swooped up his beer and tossed
it back, mimicking her. When the bartender brought her second chardonnay, she took an experimental sip, lifting an eyebrow at Lumpkin. “I’d better go slower, or the night might end too soon,” she said with regret.
She set her glass down then delicately touched the corners of her mouth with her index finger, before running her tongue in a full circle around her red, red lips.
Lumpkin followed the movement, his own mouth hanging open. “Hope your date doesn’t show.”
“I was just meeting a girlfriend, but it looks like she’s not going to show. Figures. She’s flaky that way.”
“Yeah?” He wasn’t really listening. He was staring, glassy-eyed, taking her in.
Teresa bantered with him for about ten minutes more, then asked, “Tell me about yourself, Robert.”
“Not much to tell.” He shrugged. “I was in home building, but I’m an invest-chor now. Investor.” He giggled at his inability to pronounce the word. “Real estate.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Own some property in . . . around here. A couple of houses. Think-ging about buyin’ inta . . . um . . . condos, er, apart-apartments.”
“Sounds like you do well for yourself.”
“You bet. I doan mean to brag, but I’ve saned a pretty penny.”
“You’ve saved a lot.”
“Hunh,” he agreed, staring ahead for a moment as if in a daze.
“You wanna go somewhere?” she asked softly in his ear.
“Yeeaahh . . . but I gotta go to . . .” He slid off the chair and swayed on his feet. Teresa pulled out his wallet and put some money on the bar for both of their drinks, then tucked a hand under one of his arms and propelled him toward the door. He was still able to walk pretty well; he would be flat out soon enough.
She’d learned that no one really expected a woman to roofie a guy; it was mostly the other way around. They would remember what she looked like after the fact, but since she had no plan to actually harm Lumpkin, she would just take his cash and leave him asleep in his vehicle. When he woke up, she doubted that he would want to even tell anyone what happened. He would feel too foolish.
Andre, of course, would be out of his mind when he learned she’d merely taken Lumpkin’s pocket change and left him sleeping it off. He’d believed her earlier excitement had been because she was ramping up to kill Lumpkin, which was Andre’s thrill, not hers.
Whatever. Her blood was pumping. She did like the game.
They staggered together to his vehicle. She got him into the car, laying his unconscious body across the front seats. Quickly, she ripped the money from his wallet. Naturally he didn’t have that much cash on him. He’d also been lying about his real estate assets, she was pretty sure. He was, after all, just waiting for his mother to bite the big one so he could have her house. Andre wanted to kill him to assure that wouldn’t happen.
Teresa had a hard moment while she wondered if she should have covered her tracks more, booked a more circuitous route. She’d thought of flying to Caracas, Venezuela, since Martinique wasn’t that far from South America, but the expense had been prohibitive whereas she’d gotten much less expensive flights through Miami. Still, if Andre found a way to track her he might figure out where she was going. After all, it was where they’d met.
But she was getting on that red-eye tonight. She didn’t plan to stay in Martinique long anyway. All she needed was enough time to pick up Tucker and flee somewhere else. Somewhere far away where they could build some kind of life together.
And just because she wasn’t working for Andre anymore didn’t mean she had to give up her ways. Maybe, if she was really, really, really lucky, she might meet another guy like Stephen Laughlin and this time she would make it work.
Chapter Eight
Callie awoke with the sensation of a mild hangover. Grimacing, she turned her face into the pillow. Memory jolted a swift heartbeat later and she sat up fast, her eyes flying open. Tucker. The Bakoua Beach Hotel. West Laughlin.
She threw back the covers and, shivering a little, hurried to the loud, clinking air conditioner sticking out of her bedroom window. Switching off the machine, she almost instantly felt sticky, subtropical heat pervade the room. The bathroom was hot and Callie turned the shower to cool and washed her hair thoroughly. She had been too tired the evening before to do more than rinse the dirt off her body and apply some antibiotic ointment to the scrape on her leg.
Stepping from the shower, she wrapped the towel around her head and grabbed a second to wind around her torso. She walked back into her bedroom and looked at the clock. Six thirty A.M. Early, but still a highly likely time for Tucker to be out and about. The free rein Aimee gave the boy worried her, but apart from a comment she’d made to the woman suggesting maybe Tucker shouldn’t be allowed to roam so far afield, given his age, a comment that hadn’t been received well, Callie had been unable to offer any other advice.
She pulled on a blue tank top and pair of khaki capris, then brushed her hair and waited for it to dry. She kept checking the clock, anxious about Tucker, and then realized belatedly that it was Friday and Tucker, who attended pre-K three days a week, should be in school. She wondered if he’d come looking for her yesterday. Undoubtedly, unless Aimee kept him at home or he was with his friend Michel on Michel’s father’s fishing boat.
She drew a deep breath. Okay, so, Tucker was taken care of for today. But what about West Laughlin? He knew approximately where she lived and he wouldn’t be too thrilled about the way she’d run out on him yesterday. Was he waiting outside somewhere? Or maybe he was off chasing some other lead in his search for Teresa. Anyway around it, though, he surely would come back.
And what if for some reason Tucker showed? She wouldn’t put it past Aimee to keep him home from school if she so chose to. She had only met the woman once, but she had not been impressed by her parenting skills. And Callie had promised Tucker pastries. Just because she didn’t have them anymore didn’t mean the boy had forgotten. The thought of him suddenly appearing, and possibly leading West straight to him, made her pace the room. She would leave, go down to the open market again, wander around. If Tucker showed up when she wasn’t home he would leave. Surely West wouldn’t interrogate any child who happened to be in her neighborhood?
She hesitated. What should she do?
What she wanted to do was have a face-to-face with Aimee. She had a lot of questions. She’d always had a lot of questions where Tucker was concerned, but now she had even more.
What if West is out there and follows you?
Callie gritted her teeth, mad at herself for being so indecisive. Before her marriage she’d made decisions for herself all the time, good, bad, or indifferent, and hadn’t second-guessed her every thought, even when she was still with Bryan, and God knew he’d been no good for her. But being with Jonathan had subverted her own personality, first because she’d tried to be a perfect girlfriend and wife, then because of Sean. She’d kept up her fake life, buried her true self, because she’d known that if she challenged Jonathan, he would have used Sean as leverage against her. She’d known it then. She knew it now.
But there was no need to be so compliant any longer. She needed to protect Tucker. Even if he was Teresa Laughlin’s son, she wasn’t ready to turn him over to West.
Tying back her hair with a rubber band, she then crushed her ponytail into the top of a straw hat, smashing the hat onto her head and effectively obscuring the color of her hair. If West saw her up close he would know it was her, but from a distance, maybe not.
She grabbed up her cell phone from the bureau drawer and headed out. As she was locking her door behind her, she recalled the small binoculars snapped onto West’s belt. Well, he might be able to tell who she was, even with her meager disguise, but she would do her damnedest to take note of anyone watching her.
She walked back down the hill, toting her plastic carryall. In the narrow streets she saw no one who looked like West Laughlin, but maybe he was there somewhere. At the open market, sh
e was glad her sunglasses were dark enough to keep anyone from following her eye movements as she checked her peripheral vision, searching for West or any man with a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Nothing.
She bought the same pastries she’d purchased the day before, tucking them into her bag. She strolled around for an hour. By the time she thought it might be all right to embark on her quest, it was after eleven and the sun was reaching its zenith, beating down on her.
She walked away. First in the complete opposite direction as Tucker’s house, then through a coffee shop with a front and back door, turning around and walking to the end of the block, then zigzagging back to Tucker’s neighborhood. Her steps lagged as she drew closer, her attention heightened. She thought of the African meerkats always on alert and smiled to herself. If everything turned out okay she would buy Tucker a stuffed meerkat if there was such a thing. Probably on the Internet somewhere.
As she approached the neighborhood where his apartment was, she stopped. Now she had the problem of facing Aimee. Tucker’s “mother” wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. She’d made it clear she didn’t appreciate any interference by Callie, and though Tucker seemed oblivious to the tension between them the one and only time they’d met, it was there big-time.
A mangy-looking mutt gave a halfhearted wag of his tail as she passed by an open doorway and three solemn-eyed children came outside to stare. Callie smiled but they didn’t respond. Feeling like the outsider she was, Callie turned the corner to Tucker’s street.
A breeze swept up from the bay, soothing her perspiring forehead and dissipating some of the shimmering heat. Beside the steps to Tucker’s apartment building stood a huge, gnarled, and broken jade tree. Callie could smell damp earth and an odor she realized later was coming from an overloaded garbage bin farther down the alley.