by Jean Thomas
What could Brenna say to something like that except a lame “I understand.”
Casey suddenly looked restless, as if worried one or both of the goons after them might come back. “We have to go.”
“Go?” Brenna asked. “Go where? Where can we possibly go from here?”
“To a safe place where we can hide out until tonight?”
“And what happens then?”
“We get off St. Sebastian in the only way left to us.”
Chapter 10
Maddening. Instead of troubling to explain what he had just dropped on her, Casey had turned to Tonya.
“Tonya, my friend, what are the chances of having you send over two of your daily specials to us at suppertime?”
“I’ll fix you up somethin’ you gonna like for sure.”
“You’re wonderful!”
Well, great. Just great, Brenna thought. The two of them obviously understood what they were talking about, and here she was left puzzling over another one of his mysteries. No, make that two mysteries.
Casey removed a roll of bills from his pocket, peeled off several of them and placed them on the table in front of Tonya.
“This is to pay for our suppers.”
Tonya fingered the money. “Too much. What am I gonna do wit dis much?”
“If you won’t keep it for yourself, then take any you think is extra and buy a few meals for those people you were telling us about.”
“You’re a good mon, Casey McBride.”
Brenna didn’t have any argument with that. “And you,” she said, bending down to hug Tonya, “are a good woman. Thank you for helping us.”
Casey was already waiting by the back door for her, sunglasses in place, impatient for them to leave. Preceding her into the alley, he checked in both directions to make sure it was empty.
“You might want to tuck your hair under that baseball cap you brought along in your tote,” he suggested. “It will lessen the chance of your hair being noticed and remembered.”
Brenna complied. She wished she’d thought of piling her hair like this under the cap when the cabby had dropped them at the mouth of Crooked Lane. It might have diminished the possibility of Blondie learning where she went.
“It will do,” Casey approved when, donning her own sunglasses, she turned to face him. “We go this way.” He turned to the left along the cobblestones. She fell in step beside him.
“I assume you know exactly where we’re headed.”
He was too busy making sure they weren’t being followed, that this time they had definitely lost their shadows, to answer her at first. When he did respond, it was with a vague “Uh, yes, I do.”
“And that you made a prior arrangement for us to hide out there. Just in case.”
“Well, yeah.”
Of course.
They had come to the end of the alley and another street. “Are we going to need a taxi to take us there, because I haven’t seen any in this neighborhood.”
“Nope, not many fares to pick up in this quarter. Not that we need a cab. It’s not far to walk. Just up the block here.”
“What is?”
“Where we’re going.”
Brenna decided she’d better change the subject. “Before we get there, wherever there is, suppose you tell me how you plan for us to leave St. Sebastian tonight, now that we’ve been prevented from getting on a plane.”
“By water.”
“Well, I know from my guidebook that none of the cruise ships currently dock here and that none of the freighters serving the island take passengers. I guess that leaves something much smaller and that you’ve already inquired about hiring it.”
“Too risky. In that part of town, something like that could get back to Bradley in no time.”
“Then what’s the answer?”
“We steal a boat, which is why we have to wait until after midnight.”
Brenna stopped on the pavement and turned to stare at him. “You can’t be serious. You are serious.”
“I am unless you have a better plan.”
“Not at the moment.”
“If one occurs to you, let me know.”
And that was that. He went on, and she went on with him, both of them observant as they advanced up the busy street.
It wouldn’t be crowded out here in the afternoon, Brenna realized. By the time the sun was overhead, the population of Georgetown would retreat indoors, away from the heat.
“Where do you suppose Blondie and his partner are right now?” she wondered.
“Not resting, you can bet.”
“So, somewhere out there searching for us again.”
“Right. And if I have a choice, make it far away from here.” Casey halted, suddenly announcing, “We’re there.”
“Do I get to know now what there is?”
“Across the street. The hotel where we’ll be spending the day.”
Brenna looked across the street in the direction he nodded. The building he indicated was narrow-fronted, four stories tall and looked as though, if it hadn’t been supported by the shorter buildings on either side of it, it would fall down. It was definitely a relic from another era.
Someone in the city had a sense of humor. The sign over the entrance boasted: You want the best hotel in this town, traveler, you find it here at Jo-Jo’s.
“Let me guess,” Brenna said. “No air-conditioning and no elevators.”
“Ceiling fans and stairs are good for the cardiovascular system.”
“So, tell me, there are rooms, aren’t there?”
“Nothing fancy. Pretty plain, in fact. But they’re clean and bug-free,” he promised her. “I checked that out.”
“Plumbing?”
“Most of the rooms have some form of plumbing.”
She didn’t permit herself to imagine what that form might be. “Just one more question. How did you happen to find this charmer?”
“Tonya recommended it. Turns out Jo-Jo is her son.”
This deserved another dry observation, but Brenna felt she had been sarcastic enough. After all, they would only be spending the rest of the day here and part of the night. And who was she to get picky about whatever safe refuge was being offered to them by warm, helpful souls like Tonya, people who could be inviting trouble for themselves with their generosity?
“It looks like it will be just fine, Casey,” she assured him, linking her arm with his. “And after spending time in that cooler, I don’t need air-conditioning.”
Across the street they went, through the front door and into a small reception area that was dim even after she removed her sunglasses.
“Brenna, this is Jo-Jo.” He introduced her to the young man behind the counter.
It took only a brief glance for her to determine that mother and son had to have metabolisms that were polar opposites. Jo-Jo was sapling-thin, Tonya so heavy she needed her office-style chair with wheels to get around. But their smiles were the same.
Brenna offered her hand across the counter. Jo-Jo clasped it with an enthusiastic “It is my good fortune to welcome you to my hotel.”
“Thank you, Jo-Jo.”
“Good buddy,” Casey addressed him, “is the room I looked at still available?”
“It is waiting for you with much joy.”
“Great.” Casey turned to her. “Brenna, I’m going to need a minute here with Jo-Jo.”
Meaning, she supposed, he wanted it in private. “I’ll wait for you over there on the stairs.”
Crossing the reception area to the staircase, she seated herself on one of the lower steps. She could watch the two men from here conversing in earnest, though she couldn’t hear them.
Casey’s minute stretched into several before he joined her with an old-fashioned room key in hand. Brenna rose to her feet, dusting off the seat of her pants.
“Do I dare ask what secrets got exchanged, or would you prefer I didn’t?”
“Hey, you’re always accusing me of playing the mystery g
uy and keeping secrets from you. I share.”
“Okay, share away then.”
“It wasn’t anything you couldn’t have stayed to hear. After paying for the room, I had to find out if anyone had been around asking about us. There wasn’t.”
That was one relief, Brenna told herself.
“Then I had to let Jo-Jo know his mother was sending over two meals for us at dinnertime. He’ll give us one long ring on our room phone when they arrive. But if someone he doesn’t know tries at any time to get past him and up the stairs to our room, we’ve arranged that he’ll alert us with two quick rings on our phone. Which we don’t answer.”
And that was not a second relief.
“Easy, babe.”
“I know. Just a necessary precaution. So, we’re all set with our room?”
“All set.” He held up the key.
“Which floor?”
“Top.” She must have groaned, because he defended his choice with a rapid “Common sense, Brenna. If anyone does come hunting for us, they’ve got to climb three flights to reach us. And that gives us three flights of time after Jo-Jo rings for us to get out.”
“Just promise me one thing, Special Agent.”
“What?”
“I’ll only have to climb to the fourth floor one time.”
“Wimp.”
“I’d slug you now, McBride, but I’m saving my strength for the climb.”
He laughed.
* * *
As Casey had indicated, the room wasn’t much. But, though cramped and shabby, it was clean. Its furnishings consisted of a double bed, a chest of drawers, a couple of chairs and a small table. And that was it.
After locking the door behind them, Casey explained to her, “I chose this room because it’s at the front with its window overlooking the street. We can see who’s coming and going from up here. But be careful to stand at the side. We don’t want to chance being spotted by anyone who might be watching out there.”
“Just answer me this. If, God forbid, we should have to get out of here in a hurry, how do we do that without meeting who we don’t want to meet coming up while we’re heading down? An outside fire escape somewhere maybe?”
“There is one at the far back side of the hotel, but we’ve got a better emergency exit than that. Come see.”
He led the way to a door that Brenna had presumed meant a closet on the other side. It was not a closet. When opened by Casey, it revealed a tiny bathroom that contained a sink, a stool and an open alcove with a rod for hanging clothes.
They would not be taking baths or showers. There was no tub or shower stall, but what fixtures there were were clean ones.
“I don’t see an exit.”
“Over here.” Three easy steps brought Casey to a frosted window, which he unlocked and raised. “Look down.” He made room for her. She looked.
A few feet below the window was the flat roof of the building that adjoined the side of the hotel. She supposed he considered it an easy drop offering an escape across that roof to...well, she didn’t know and wasn’t going to ask. She was simply going to count on never having to make use of it.
“Cool, huh? Another reason why I chose this room.”
Damn, he actually sounded proud of his discovery. All these complicated advance arrangements of his were beginning to make her wonder whether they were more than just the thorough preparations of an FBI agent anticipating the possible necessity of an alternate plan.
As if what? As if maybe he thought that, instead of simply flying away, it might be more fun to actually—
She stopped herself. He’d never suppose anything like that.
This was merely a challenge to him, a realization that Marcus Bradley was an intelligent opponent who would not easily let his objectives slip away from him.
They returned to the bedroom where Casey opened the single front window and turned on the ceiling fan to circulate the air that was beginning to grow stuffy and warm. He checked his watch.
“Dinner is still hours away,” he grumbled.
“When did you last eat?”
“Can’t remember. Probably not since sometime early last night. Too bad we couldn’t have risked stopping for something quick along the street or even begging a crust off Tonya before we left.”
It was Brenna’s turn to disclose a secret of her own she’d been withholding for just such a moment. Picking up one of her totes she’d placed on the floor, she sat down in a chair with it on her lap. He watched with interest as she searched through its contents.
“You got food in there maybe?”
“You’re not the only one to prepare in advance,” she said, producing four granola bars and two plastic bottles of water.
“Give,” he said, eagerly snatching the bar and bottle she held out to him.
He perched on the edge of the bed, stripping off the wrapper on the granola bar and unscrewing the cap on the water bottle. Between bites and sips of her own share of the supply, she watched him as he alternately munched and gulped.
“Good,” he managed to say.
“More?”
“Why not.”
She passed him another bar. He polished that one off as well, finished the rest of his water and continued to sit there, looking as pleased as if he’d been treated to a banquet.
Brenna thought how on occasions like these he could be like a little boy. That was before she became aware of the smile he directed at her, altering her opinion to a quick Or maybe not.
It certainly wasn’t the smile of a child but of an adult male, slow and lazy and communicating the kind of frank sensuality that made her stomach flutter.
The smile was spoiled seconds later when it morphed into an enormous yawn.
“Sorry,” he apologized. Both of his eyes were looking a bit hooded.
“Just exactly how much sleep did you get last night before Zena King’s brother came knocking on your door?”
“Not much,” he admitted.
“And then you spent the rest of the night running around town rousing people out of their beds and getting them to promise you and your female friend sanctuary in their restaurant and hotel if they should need it.”
“Not the whole night.”
“No, what was left you used to visit ATM machines, break into my quarters and convince me we had to get off the island. Since then you’ve been very busy taking me on the run and getting us into hiding. Casey?”
“What?”
“You’re exhausted.”
“No way.”
“Come on, you don’t get to play the big macho agent here guarding me around the clock. I don’t need guarding. We’re safely holed up here, aren’t we?” She didn’t give him the chance to answer. “Sure, we are. And, listen, I had a lot more sleep than you did. I’m fully awake and capable of being vigilant without you.”
“Yeah? And what am I supposed to do?”
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to take advantage of this downtime to stretch back on that bed and sleep until I call you that our dinners are here.”
“Forget it.”
“Casey, listen to me. If you don’t get some sleep, how useful do you think you’ll be tonight when we really need you to be alert?”
She was glad she thought of this argument, because nothing else would have persuaded him. But after a moment of consideration, he was convinced.
“You win.”
She watched him bend down, untie the laces of his tennis shoes and kick them off. Not satisfied with that, he peeled off his socks and stuffed them into the shoes.
“Ah, that’s much better.” He sat back, a happy smile on his face.
Brenna laughed.
“Listen, if you’d been pounding the pavement for hours, you’d be relieved, too, to shed your shoes.”
Casey always did come up with excuses, usually weak ones, for removing his shoes and socks whenever he could get away with it. And that was why she’d laughed. Because the truth was, if t
he man had any addiction at all, it was going barefoot. Constantly.
That achieved, he swung his legs up on the bed, stretched out fully and closed his eyes. Almost the instant they shut, they snapped open again.
Casey popped up with a concerned “I want you to call me if there’s the slightest sign that something may not be what it should be either in the hotel or out on the street. The slightest sign. No hesitations. You understand me?”
“I promise. Now go to sleep.”
That must have been sufficient for him, because within half a minute she could hear his rhythmic breathing that told her he was asleep.
Brenna went on looking at him from her chair. Or, to be more accurate about it, she looked at his bare feet.
It was crazy to think that the bare feet of an adult male were in any way sexy, but his were. She didn’t know whether it had to do with their size, their shape or even their strength.
Whatever the explanation, in the old days the sight of them could actually stir a slow heat inside her.
She used to wonder then if his feet, among all his other qualities, could actually be one of the reasons she fell in love with Casey McBride. She’d certainly had plenty of occasions to get familiar with them.
He’d never hesitated to wander barefoot around both his apartment and hers. She had asked him once how and when he’d acquired the habit. He had been reluctant at first to tell her, and then he’d explained.
“Going barefoot when I was growing up wasn’t by choice. Not then. It was a necessity. My sister and I had only one pair of decent shoes apiece, and those had to be saved for school. The rest of the time, when the weather permitted it, we went barefoot. I not only got used to it, but in the end I preferred it.”
Casey hadn’t talked much about his background during their courtship, but Brenna had deduced from little things that his family was poor. But this poor? She’d had no idea. She couldn’t bear to ask him about it, but after that she was unable to shake the image of a shack in the Kentucky hills.
It was shortly after she and Casey became engaged that her phone rang one afternoon. To Brenna’s surprise, it was Casey’s mother. She knew that her son was on assignment out of town, but since she and her husband had to be in Chicago on business, they would love to meet the woman Casey had chosen to be his wife.