In Too Deep

by Janelle Taylor

  At the car he hesitated, gazing across to the house with the lights and the small street beyond. Strolling, he entered that street and examined the house behind it. A cottage from the forties, redone, except the paint was chipping a bit. From inside he could hear squabbling voices, a girl’s and a boy’s. They were playing some kind of game and apparently cheating.

  The mother’s frazzled voice tried to make peace. Troy thanked whoever that he’d never had children. They were clinging, miserable, whining creatures who ruined everything they touched. One, the boy, was crying for somebody named Brandon. This appeared to be the older brother, but the mother reminded him tiredly that Brandon was at soccer camp. Fresh wails split the air at this news and the girl declared that she hated that soccer camp and she hated Rawley, too, ‘cause he’d made Brandon go. If Brandon were here, he would make sure Tommy played fair! Tommy then insisted that she was the one who cheated. She always cheated. She was just a dumb girl!

  Troy was beginning to like Tommy—as long as he stayed out of sight. She began wailing again. When was Brandon coming home? “When?” she demanded tearfully.

  “At the end of the week,” the mother answered, still weary.

  “Will Rawley go away too?” the girl questioned, certain there was a trick in there somewhere.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” the mother responded. Rawley would go home when his mom got back from Puerto Vallarta. And that was next Sunday, she added, forestalling the next question. Soccer camp ended the same day.

  “Three Winds Soccer Camp!” Tommy declared with a ring of triumph.

  “Oh, shut up,” the girl demanded with another sirenlike wail.

  Three Winds Soccer Camp …

  Troy smiled into the night. He’d stood outside their window several nights running, but this was the first useful information he’d acquired. Rawley, Jenny’s son, apparently hadn’t gone to Puerto Vallarta with his mother.

  Idly he wondered where this Three Winds Soccer Camp might be. The information was surely in Jenny’s apartment. Folding another stick of gum in his mouth, he retraced his steps to Jenny’s apartment. He examined the door casing carefully and recognized how easily he could break the lock. One or two swift kicks and it would splinter inward.

  But the dog … the neighbors …

  The tawny beast lying in front of the door growled again. Troy smiled coldly at it. Something would come to him. It always did.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hunter wrenched the wheel of the Jeep, yanking the vehicle to the edge of the road, stopping for a moment on his drive down the coastline. The Pacific lay on his right, shadowed by low clouds, unusually threatening for this time of year in Puerto Vallarta. Spattering rain hit the hood, becoming huge drops that left splashes in their wake. More and more of them, until a torrent washed over the windshield and plopped through the open sides of the vehicle onto his legs.

  He was glad for the rain. The storm matched his emotions, and its tumultuous energy was a kind of relief. With only a moment’s hesitation he stuck his head outside the window and let rain soak his hair and head. Flopping back against the seat, he shook rain from his hair, feeling as elemental as the sudden cloudburst.

  He’d never been good at surveillance.

  Untrue, his rational mind reminded him. He had been ruthlessly excellent at surveillance most of the time. He’d been terrible when it had involved his sister.

  Hunter scowled and switched on the ignition once more, turning the Jeep back toward the city. Instead of merely following and watching, he’d purposely harassed Troy Russell after Michelle’s death. At first, Russell had ignored him, and the man had even seemed to enjoy the cat-and-mouse game. Several times he’d grinned at the sight of Hunter’s barely suppressed rage until Hunter had gotten his hand around the man’s throat and squeezed.

  He wouldn’t have killed him. Even Russell, as lowly a worm as ever crawled on this earth, couldn’t make Hunter actually murder someone. But he’d wanted to scare the bejeezus out of the bastard and that he had managed to do. It had cost him his job and the respect of his friends on the force, but it had served its purpose. Troy Russell was on notice. Every subsequent move he’d made had been analyzed and examined and tested to the point that the man would never be able to hurt, injure or kill again.

  Or so Hunter had thought. It hadn’t quite turned out that way. No one in Los Angeles wanted to spend their time chasing after a man who’d made evading punishment a full-time occupation. It had been Hunter who’d been put on notice, and he’d left Los Angeles in disgust, spending the last six years in Santa Fe, drifting through his days. With the memory of his sister’s untimely death forgotten by everyone but himself, Hunter had to curb his obsessive interest in Russell and try to stop feeling as if his life had no purpose.

  He’d left the Santa Fe force in the belief that he needed to figure out what the rest of his life was all about. He’d had no clear plan, but he’d at least walked away from a job that demanded half his skills and none of his attention. Okay, that was a little harsh, but he’d never felt the alertness and intensity he’d experienced in L.A. Santa Fe was just slower-paced, and therefore the city’s crime rate was lower than the City of Angels’.

  Wind blew against his face and hair and Hunter glanced out the open side of the Jeep, watching the breakers froth against stones and spread rapidly onto stretches of tan beach. Negotiating a turn, he inhaled and smiled grimly. Allen Holloway’s job offer had arrived at just the right moment. Hunter had been looking for something—and a chance to take care of unfinished business was like finding the path out of darkness.

  Jenny Holloway. His mind’s eye critically reviewed her looks, from the swing of loose auburn curls that framed her face, to the wary blue eyes, to the lithe figure and tense stature. He’d only seen her fully relaxed while under the effects of a few drinks, a guilty pleasure long denied. She had too much on her mind, including the responsibility of raising her son. Russell’s son. A son Russell did not realize was his, if Allen Holloway could be believed. Was that why he was back in the picture now?

  Fifteen minutes later Hunter yanked on the emergency brake, climbed out of the Jeep and slopped through the puddles in the broken cement walk to the hotel. The torrent had stopped as if some slowly wakened god had finally noticed and turned off the taps. The air was slightly refreshed but the oppressive tropical humidity promised more rain, and soon.

  The desk employees smiled at him as he headed for the stairs. Screw the elevator. Hunter needed exercise to release tension. He took the steps two at a time and strode impatiently to his door. In his room he stripped off his shirt and walked onto the balcony. Three floors below lay the beach. If he fell, he suspected he would survive.

  But no one survived a fall from ten stories onto pavement.

  His phone rang, surprising him. Jenny! he thought, then berated himself for both feeling so much hope and letting himself think of her in such intimate terms.

  “Hello,” he said flatly, giving nothing away.

  “Calgary?”

  Frustration licked through his veins at the sound of Allen Holloway’s voice again. For a moment he didn’t respond, but that didn’t stop Holloway.

  “I know what you said.” His voice was clipped. “But something’s happened here. My wife thinks she ran into Russell the other day.”

  Hunter froze. “Where?”

  He snorted. “The grocery store. Russell made a point of addressing her, although he acted like he didn’t recognize her.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing much. Just apologized for bumping into her. Small talk. But it was the way he looked at her. She didn’t make the connection immediately, but she thought about the meeting because it seemed odd to her. She told me about it today.”

  Picking up the Hotel Rosa desk pen, Hunter rolled it over with his fingers. “Don’t call me again.”

  “I just thought you should know. He’s up to something, and I want to know what it is!” Holloway sounded frightened be
neath his autocratic tone. “Keep my daughter safe!”

  “Then don’t give her whereabouts away,” Hunter said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m worried about Rawley. What if he’s not safe?”

  Hunter thought of Rawley. Rawley Holloway who was really Rawley Russell, Troy Russell’s child. That bad feeling returned. “I’m going to cut this trip short and come back.”

  “No!” Holloway was beside himself. “No! Troy doesn’t know about Rawley. Stay with Jenny.”

  “What if you’re wrong?

  “I know where Rawley is. I know those friends of hers who are taking care of him. He’s all right. It’s Jenny who’s at risk. That’s what I’m paying you for.”

  Twisting the pen through his fingers until they hurt, Hunter said, “I’ll stay through the end of the week.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  “Next time, I call you. Understand?”

  Holloway swallowed back whatever else he wanted to say and grudgingly agreed. Hunter dropped the phone in its cradle and stared at the thing with loathing. It wasn’t that he truly believed Troy Russell capable of tracking Holloway’s calls; the man was a coldhearted bastard with a penchant for violence, not a clever criminal with information resources and steel nerves. There was a vast difference between the two types, as Hunter well knew from years of dealing with both. But it didn’t hurt to be careful.

  Easing his shoulders back several times, Hunter sought to release tension. In Santa Fe he worked around his ranch, mending fences, checking on the neighbor’s cattle who wandered aimlessly from that man’s vast spread to Hunter’s smaller, livestockless several acres. He’d never had the time that a real running ranch required, so he’d never done more than help out his neighbor. He’d never put down roots. Still, it had kept him reasonably satisfied and sane and that’s all he’d wanted after Michelle’s death. And it had helped keep him in shape without the need of a local gym.

  The phone rang again. Hunter narrowed his gaze on the machine. “Yes?”

  “Hunter?” Jenny’s voice came across the line like a wave of cool water.

  “Oh, hello there.” Frustration receded, replaced by a kind of hopeful despair he didn’t want to feel. He wanted to smack himself hard.

  “I didn’t want to bother you, but I wondered if you’d like to come to dinner here tonight? At the villa? We’ve got more than enough. I’d—like you to come,” she added, though he could tell it took an effort for her to be so direct.

  Silky legs. Soft, musical voice. Butterfly-quick smile. If he forgot who she was for an evening …

  His heartbeat throbbed at his temple. She was offlimits. He could only indulge himself in a sweet, somewhat painful fantasy which would never, ever come true.

  “Hunter?”

  “What time?” he asked hoarsely.

  Jenny gazed at the table, counting the plates, asking herself if she’d gone a little crazy in this hot, relentless sun. Bringing Hunter here was as good as announcing to Magda, Phil, and the others that she and Hunter had a real relationship of some kind. And bringing him here felt scary, as if she were bringing him home to meet the family.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “Who’re you talking to?” Matt asked, coming up behind her.

  “Me, myself and I.”

  “Are you all listening?”

  She turned and laughed shortly. “I’m afraid none of us are paying a whole lot of attention.”

  Matt, from being the bane of her existence the night before, was fast becoming Number One Friend. “This got something to do with your boyfriend?”

  “I’ve invited Hunter to dinner with us. Magda told the staff to set an extra plate.”

  Matt smirked. “Tell me again how you met this guy?”

  “At the Hotel Rosa bar. After Magda fell in his lap.”

  He chortled and walked over to the counter where Rita, the prettiest member of the villa’s staff, was preparing another jug of margaritas. Winking at her, he picked up one of the empty glasses. Faintly smiling, Rita whirred the blender, then poured him an icy drink, letting her gaze linger on his muscular chest. None of the men at Villa Buena Vista bothered with shirts, even at dinner, since the table was outside, protected only by a dark green cloth awning and a twisting branch of hot pink bougainvillea.

  Over her protests, Matt graciously handed Jenny the first glass. He picked up another and clinked the edge of his against hers. “Bottoms up,” he said and knocked back three-quarters of the frosty tequila and lime in one gulp.

  “We’re all going to be raving alcoholics after this trip,” she said, sipping at her own. She didn’t even want it, especially today, but ice felt good no matter what flavor it was.

  “But this is the time to do it,” Matt argued. He drank the rest of his, licked his lips and held the glass to Rita for a refill. “Life back home is hard, so when you’re away from it, the rules don’t apply.”

  “What’s so hard about your life?” Jenny asked, lifting a brow. Matt didn’t appear to be struggling too much.

  He shrugged. “Nothing more than anyone else. It’s just a grind. Payments. Work. More payments. When I’m on vacation, man, I’m like a sailor on leave! What about you?”

  “I don’t go on vacations, normally.”

  “What do you do, then?” He frowned, as if she were some indefinable new species.

  “Bookkeeping. Work. Restaurant management. Raise my son.”

  “Ugh. Sounds like you need to cut loose even more than I do.” He lifted one eyebrow. “That’s where Hunter comes in, right?”

  She gazed at him helplessly, uncertain whether to laugh or groan. “Give it a rest, Matt.”

  He grinned again as Magda and the others appeared, sans Phil. “Montezuma’s revenge,” Magda declared in a stage whisper. “We’ll have to go out partying without him!”

  “I’m not going anywhere tonight,” Jenny stated firmly. “No amount of pleading will change my mind.”

  Magda waved a languid hand at her. “You won’t have to. You’ve got a date coming here!”

  “Lucky you,” Lisa murmured.

  “Who is this man?” Tom Simmons wanted to know. He placed a beefy arm around Alicia, who cuddled up to him as if they were newlyweds. Another time Jenny might have found it too cute for words, but tonight she felt a tug at her heartstrings. Tom and Alicia had been married a long time and it worked for them. The Brickmans looked over and wrapped their arms around each other as well.

  “Stick around and you can all meet him,” Jenny invited.

  “I think we’ll do that!” Alicia said brightly. “Won’t we, honey?” They gazed at each other and wrinkled their noses. Tom’s moustache twitched.

  Jenny quickly got over her sentimentality. Yech!

  Everyone went over to Rita and the blender; and Jenny moved to the far side of the patio, gazing out toward the Pacific where white-ruffled waves moved inward to a beach she could just see toward the north. For reasons she couldn’t explain she had a sudden urge to call Rawley. Glancing toward the kitchen phone, she wondered if she dared try to phone with everyone hovering around, staff and guests alike. She’d figured out the system. With a credit card and an eye on the time since the rates were unbelievably high, she could place a call to the Fergusons. Though Rawley was with Brandon at soccer camp, she could talk to Janice or Rick and catch up on his activities. Rick, soccer fan that he was, was bound to have visited the camp to check on the boys.

  But was it foolish to be so overprotective? Maybe she should wait another day.

  Why? she questioned herself immediately. He’s your son. You have a right. And Troy’s out there somewhere, nosing around.

  “Excuse me, I need to use the phone,” she told Rita as she squeezed past her behind the counter.

  Rita couldn’t have cared less. Like Lisa and Jackie before her, her eyes were fully on Matt Kilgore.

  By the time Hunter arrived at the villa, the party was in full swing. He stood on the stoop beneath the wrought iron balc
ony and listened to the drone of the doorbell. Moments later, one of the housemaids opened the door and from below he heard Mexican music, loud talk, and laughter.

  With a smile the maid gestured him inside, then pointed to the curving blue tile stairs that led downward. He descended into an open-sided room that led to the patio and pool. Beneath an awning sat a table already set with plates, glasses, napkins, and silverware. The food was in the kitchen ready to serve, as the guests pirouetted around the pool and balanced brightly colored glasses full of tequila, judging by the labels on the empty bottles next to the blender.

  “Welcome! Welcome!” the one who had fallen into his lap greeted him. Magda. That was her name. “Come on in and have a drink!”

  That drink materialized at his elbow, in the hands of the girl who had admitted him. He accepted it as his gaze fell on Jenny’s back. She was standing in a corner of the kitchen, facing the counter, and he realized after a moment that she was on the phone.

  Magda grabbed him by the arm, nearly dumping his drink over both of them. “Come and dance. My husband’s out of commission for a while, so I need a partner.”

  The last thing Hunter felt like doing was dancing. He sought for a way out, but Magda was nothing if not persistent. Drink in hand, he settled for swaying on his feet and keeping one eye on Jenny. She was speaking animatedly to someone, brushing hair from her eyes, her fine brows drawn into a frown. She wore a yellow sarong around her hips and her tank top was a dusty blue. She looked so touchable that he had to force himself back to the moment, worried at his reaction. How many times did he have to remind himself that she was a job? A rich woman who just happened to have a few problems he was hoping to solve.

  Magda slipped into his arms and it was all he could do to keep his drink from spilling down her tanned back. “Just drink it,” she encouraged, waiting while he swallowed the frosted lime margarita.

  “I’m not much of a dancer,” he pointed out, setting the empty drink down.

  “Oh, who cares.” She hugged him close and grinned. “I like dancing with handsome blue-eyed men. Phil just doesn’t get sick often enough.” She spun away from him and spun back. “Do you hear that, Phil?” she yelled, stepping back from the awning and gazing at the upper floors. “I’m falling in love with another man down here. Think you should rescue me?”