“You have a thing for imaginary boyfriends?” Jake asked.
She shrugged. “They’re easier to get rid of than real ones. You going to look at your cards, Jake?”
She held Jake’s gaze waiting for him to make his play. But instead, he looked over to Isiah. Alexis glanced in the same direction to find Isiah watching her.
“Oh my god, you guys. Get over this. We’re on an op,” she said, lowering her voice though it was doubtful Oscar, who was in the galley, would be able to hear her over the engines. “Would you two prefer to be a couple and me tag along as the friend?”
The two men looked at each other, then Jake shrugged. “Sure, I’m in if he is.”
She had to admit, that surprised her. Not because Jake had any hang-ups, he was the most open—in every way—person she knew, but…why did it surprise her?
She looked at Isiah. “Sure, works for me. Actually makes more sense, since if we run into anyone you know, they’ll know you don’t have a brother. I mean, at least I assume they will.”
He had a point. She’d stayed out of the media for the past twenty-plus years, but if someone recognized her or they ran into someone she knew, they would definitely know she didn’t have a brother.
Slowly, she nodded. “Okay, that does make sense. I’ll let Yael know. We do have a house to ourselves so no one actually has to share a room or a bed.” Oscar had found and rented them a luxury compound. The main house had six bedrooms and the gatehouse had three. She, Isiah, Jake, and Yael would stay in the main house, and Oscar and Teddy would occupy the gatehouse.
“I’ve slept in worse conditions than sharing a bed with two other people,” Isiah said.
“Those early years on the surfing tour were kind of grubby—fun, but grubby,” Jake said. “I’ve shared more beds than I can remember—and not in the fun way—but it will be nice to live in the lap of luxury on an op. That will be a first for me.”
“Okay, so I guess that’s our story. Three friends, two of whom are a couple, are off for a week of fun and sun in Trujillo. Now, are you going to look at your cards?” she asked.
Jake shot her a look then raised his two cards. Slowly, a smile spread across his face. It was amazing the man was an FBI agent. He had zero game face.
“You’re going down, Alexis Julia Wright.”
“You’re a moron, McMullen.”
An hour later, they landed, and as Alexis stepped out of the door and onto the stairs to the tarmac, she would swear it was ten degrees hotter than on Tildas Island. They were roughly the same latitude, but maybe it was something about being in Central America versus on an island?
“Holy fuck, I’m gonna melt,” Jake said, coming to stand behind her.
“Don’t be a big baby,” Isiah spoke, bringing up the rear. “This is nothing compared to the desert.”
“That’s dry heat,” Jake said as they started down the stairs. “Everyone knows dry heat isn’t the same as humidity.”
“You ever been somewhere where it’s 130 degrees?”
Both she and Jake paused and looked at the man.
“You’re fucking with us,” Jake said. “Nowhere outside the Sahara is it that hot.”
Isiah lifted a shoulder. “Sure.”
Alexis eyed him then continued to the tarmac. He wouldn’t be able to tell them where he’d been, but damn, 130 degrees?
“You’re a badass son of a bitch, Clarke,” Jake said. “I’m glad you’re my man,” he added as he looped his arm through Isiah’s and smiled at him.
Isiah chuckled. “You are a lucky son of a bitch. Now, do we have a car or something?”
On cue, two cars pulled up. One for her, Isiah, and Jake, and another for Yael and Oscar. Teddy would stay with the plane until it was serviced and fueled, and then he’d join them at the villa.
Yael had hired the drivers, but still, it didn’t hurt to play it safe. And once seated in the blessedly air-conditioned SUV and through customs, they chatted away, discussing little more than their evening plans.
They debated which beach bars and clubs they wanted to visit—there weren’t many in the area, but there were a few—and they may have let drop the fact that they were federal agents. That last piece was a bit of a gamble. Political unrest was a growing occurrence in the country, and letting people know that government agents from the US were in the region could backfire on them. But it could help them, too.
If the man they sought was nearby and heard the news, he might be curious.
And it wouldn’t take someone like The Gentleman long to figure out their ruse, which might make him even more curious. And contrary to the saying about curiosity and the cat, sometimes it was a good thing.
Alexis kept her attention focused out the window as they made their way from the airport to the villa. The streets were clean and well organized. It wasn’t a wealthy town, but it was pretty. Although, based on the maps they’d pulled up, not far outside the town borders, it transitioned into untamed jungle pretty quickly. Which meant there were probably lots of villages—both mapped and not. Villages they’d need to get some feelers into, somehow.
Thinking it might be a good way to start getting a feel for the outlying villages, she turned toward Isiah. “Should we go on a hike tomorrow?” she asked as they navigated onto a dirt road.
“I’d like to get to know the town,” he said, his attention on the scenery. “Why don’t we head to town tomorrow, then hiking the day after?” He flicked a glance at her then Jake before switching it back to the roads.
Alexis looked at Jake to gauge his thoughts. They might be FBI agents, but Isiah was the only one among them with experience in gathering intel in a foreign country.
Jake nodded, “Sounds like a plan.” He then leaned against the door and caught her eye. Subtly he inclined his head toward the driver. She switched her attention to the man behind the wheel as Jake continued. “I’ve heard that sometimes the villages around here don’t like visitors so it’s worth getting the lay of the land before we go traipsing off into the jungle.”
The driver glanced at them through the rearview mirror as Jake spoke, but Alexis couldn’t tell if that was because Jake’s assertion was ridiculous—which was possible, given that she’d heard nothing but good stories about Honduran hospitality—or because he was wondering what Jake was alluding to.
The man’s eyes lingered on the mirror for a moment too long and something dawned on Alexis. Pulling out her phone, she jotted off a quick text to Yael.
“You hand-picked the drivers, right?”
Little bubbles appeared, then a response. “Yes, I thought they might be helpful.”
Alexis smiled at her sneaky-as-shit personal security detail. “I suspect you’re right,” she wrote back.
“Who are you texting over there?” Jake asked, craning his head to see.
“No one,” she answered, slipping her phone back into her purse.
“With a smile like that, that wasn’t no one,” Isiah countered.
“My boyfriend, of course. He was sorry he couldn’t make it,” she added.
Isiah’s lips twitched, and Jake let out a huff. “You go through men faster than anyone I know. What’s he? Like the third one today? It’s a good thing he didn’t come because you probably would have broken up with him on the flight.”
Isiah covered his laugh with a cough.
Alexis smiled at her goofy teammate. “What can I say? I’m a woman with a short attention span. Maybe I’ll meet someone interesting tonight, though. You never know.”
“All I can say is that you need some consistency in your life, so thank god you have me because I’ll always love you,” Jake said. “And don’t you dare hint again that I only love you because you have a private plane. That was very unfair of you last time. All I wanted was to go to Miami to see the Justin Timberlake show. You could have just said no.”
Alexis snorted and refrained from responding. What could she say? If she started something, there was no way Jake wouldn’t finish it, and
there were no limits to how outrageous he’d be. She kind of admired him for that—he had zero filter and zero fucks to give. He could be annoying as shit sometimes, but sometimes a little part of her envied the way he moved through life.
Ten minutes later, they pulled through a gate and up to a sprawling villa. From where they parked, and with jungle encroaching on either side of the property, Alexis could see very little other than the multi-story home that spanned the property. But she knew the Caribbean stretched as far as the eye could see on the other side.
Walking through the double doors into the house, they were met by the cook, Maricela, who greeted them with a tray of drinks. The three each grabbed one as the property manager welcomed them, explaining that Maricela had left them several prepared meals in the kitchen that they could heat up, but that she’d be happy to come back and prepare something fresh for them at any time during their stay. He also offered a guided tour, but Jake was the only one interested. The house was gorgeous with no luxury spared, but Alexis had been in a thousand ones just like it. Not that she didn’t appreciate it, but she did not need the property manager explaining to her how to work the electronic Toto toilet/bidet.
Instead, she slid the glass doors to the back patio open, kicked off her sandals, and stepped out on to the warm tile. A beautiful pool glistened in the sun before her and beyond that was the beach and the ocean. The only little surprise was that the ancillary building they’d called the gatehouse wasn’t actually by the gate, but rather it was tucked into the jungle on the north side of the main house. The entire property—all three acres of it—was walled in, but the walls didn’t extend to the sea, so she supposed it made sense to have the gatehouse closer to the beach and its easy access to the main house.
The energy around her shifted and she didn’t have to turn around to know Isiah had joined her. A beat later, the heat from his body radiated across her back. He was standing close enough that she could lean back into him. And in her mind’s eye, she felt it—felt herself leaning back, felt his arms come around her, felt him pull her against him.
But they had a cover to keep and imagining such things would only make it harder.
“Do you think we’ll find him?” she asked instead. No need to identify who they were talking about.
“The driver was certainly interested in our presence,” he answered. The low rumble of his voice traveled across her skin and though she couldn’t go as far as she wanted, she did lean her head back and rest it against his shoulder. Like a friend might.
“Caught that did you?” she asked on a quiet chuckle. “I texted Yael, she picked him for that reason. Who knows what, if anything, he knows, but he’s definitely not on the up and up.” Isiah’s fingers danced lightly along her lower back as she spoke. Like hers, his touch would look nothing more than friendly if anyone was watching, but her body’s reaction definitely didn’t fall on the “friendly” end of the spectrum.
“We’ll keep our friends on vacation cover up tonight since we wouldn’t want to be too obvious, but maybe tomorrow night we can start to let it slip.” His lips brushed against her ear as his voice washed over her and chills raced across her skin. Alexis took a deep breath and her back pressed into Isiah’s chest. Strategically, that might not have been her best move. It didn’t help that Isiah’s breath hitched at the contact.
Forcing herself to take a step away, she smiled as a bird, bedecked in brilliant green plumage, sailed by. “Jake will be so disappointed.”
Isiah took a step back as well and chuckled as the man himself leaned over a railing above them from one of the many terraces that were sprinkled around the house. “Isiah, Babe,” Jake called down. “You have to come see this shower. It’s big enough to fit all of us. It will even hold all of Alexis’s hair products and all your body washes.”
Isiah’s chuckle turned into a laugh that he tried to hide by ducking his head. “Where the hell did Shah find that guy?”
Chapter Eight
Isiah leaned back and took a sip of his beer. After a short amble around town, the three of them now sat at a beachside bar sipping on drinks after a monster meal of some of the best fish tacos he’d had in a long time.
In the ambient light cast by the restaurants and bars, kids and adults walked on the beach and danced in the waves. There was an alluring calmness to the town that would have made it easy to let his cares drift away if his “care” hadn’t been as important as fulfilling Huck’s request and helping Jake and Alexis with this spy business.
As they’d meandered around earlier, they’d made themselves known—subtly, of course, but a few comments here and there about the Bureau had served the purpose of linking them to the FBI. And now they relaxed, just three friends out for a casual night, while they waited to see if anyone interesting would appear.
He had no idea if The Gentleman would try to check them out or, for that matter, if he was even still in the area. But hunting one man in a jungle, with very little intel, wasn’t exactly the same as hunting groups of insurgents and terrorists in the desert. And so he had to trust Jake and Alexis on this—and Shah, as it had ultimately been her plan.
He chanced a glance at Alexis, who was staring out toward the ocean. Trying to stay in role, he’d avoided looking at her too much, afraid he’d get sucked in and end up ogling her most of the night. She sat across from him, leaning back in her chair, her long legs crossed. She had on simple black sandals, a pair of cut-offs, and a deep orange sleeveless top. On her wrists hung four gold bangles and around her neck, two gold chains at different lengths.
His eyes tracked the longer of the strands until it came to rest at the small butterfly pendant hanging from the end between her breasts. Her top was made of silk and the thin material cupped and curved with every part of her body that it touched.
He wanted to see her in that shirt and nothing else. No, he needed to see her in that shirt and nothing else. Preferably on his balcony, leaning over the railing, with him buried deep inside her from behind.
With that heated image taking root in his mind, and the primal strength of his desire for her, the muscles in his stomach jerked and other parts of his body perked up, too. Right then, he made a promise to himself that when—not if—sex became a part of their relationship, he was going to make sure that little fantasy came true.
Beside him, Jake cleared his throat, and Isiah pulled his eyes away to look at his “partner.”
“Another round, folks?” Jake asked.
Isiah nodded, but Alexis shook her head and stood. “I’m going to go for a little walk on the beach.”
He didn’t bother to hide the scowl on his face as she made her way toward the beach. Though he couldn’t help but admire the view.
“If you keep looking at her like that, I’m going to think you don’t love me anymore,” Jake said with a grin.
Isiah laughed. “Go get me a drink. I’ll pine for you while you’re gone. Promise.”
Alexis kicked off her shoes and stepped into the edges of the water. A couple of kids splashed around her, but her attention was focused somewhere down the beach. He tried to follow her gaze, but the patrons—and the sporadic palm trees dotting the beach—blocked his view.
Not sensing any danger, Isiah returned his attention to the bar. Two older men were conversing, but several others were nursing drinks on their own. There was a table of six in their early twenties who had that “diver” look to them, and what looked like a family celebration of some sort happening at a table for twelve. He didn’t speak any Spanish, but whatever it was they were celebrating looked to be a happy affair, and the table had erupted with laughter more than once in the last few minutes.
He let his attention return to the bar as Jake made his way back to the table carrying two bottles of beer. In the few seconds it took the agent to cross the space, Isiah idly wondered who those six people drinking alone at the bar were. Two of the men looked to be in their late sixties, as did one of the women—perhaps this was their local watering h
ole? The third man appeared to be in his twenties, and the remaining two—a man and a woman—Isiah would place in their forties. Maybe getting some quiet time away from their homes?
“Anyone raising the hairs on the back of your neck?” Jake asked quietly as he set the drinks down.
“Not a one, but then again, a spy wouldn’t be a very good spy if he set off people’s Spidey senses.”
Jake raised his beer in acknowledgment. “That, and it’s not like this isn’t a little bit of a goose chase. A nice one.” He nodded toward the ocean, “But still a goose chase.”
“You do what you have to do when you don’t have many leads to follow,” Isiah countered.
“So, you and Alexis?” Jake asked with a wag of his eyebrows.
“Not going there.”
“But you like her?”
“Not going there,” he repeated.
“She’s fucking hot. I mean, look at her. Her legs are like a mile long, can you imagine—”
“That’s your teammate. Show some respect,” Isiah cut him off with a sharp glare only to find Jake grinning. “You are such an asshole, McMullen. Anyone ever tell you that?”
Jake took a sip of his drink. “All of my teammates, just about every day.”
The next day they wandered back into town for lunch. After a satisfying—but way too big—meal, they hit the streets of Trujillo.
As they poked in and out of shops, Isiah recognized three men and one woman that he’d seen at the bar the night before. He also saw one of the men from the celebratory table. But they all looked to be doing things that regular people would be doing—chatting on a street corner, grocery shopping, and likely going to and from work.
Around five, they decided to call it a day and head back to the villa to plan their “hike”. Shah had picked up some additional intel and there was a small encampment that had shown up on satellite, but not on any map, and she wanted them to check it out.
Night Deception Page 10