Blush

by Cherry Adair

  He set his watch for nine minutes twenty-six seconds.

  When he stepped up onto the back porch, he knew which floorboards creaked and where to step. Moving quietly to blend with the shadows, Cruz pushed open the front door with the muzzle of the semiauto.

  Not latched. Sloppy.

  A sense of the air being displaced, and a faint trace of stale sweat, told him his gut was right. Someone was in the house.

  While there were no lights on, there was enough ambient light from the moon so that he could see fairly well as he moved from room to room. He had excellent night vision, and his eyes quickly adjusted.

  Silently he searched the first floor. No sign of an intruder, and nowhere to hide. Upstairs, then.

  He’d never be caught on the second floor of someone’s home. Too hard to escape. Too easy to become trapped. Moving cautiously up the stairs, Cruz grabbed a screwdriver lying on top of a paint can and tucked it under his shirt against the small of his back. His hands were his best defense. But a stabbing tool came in handy on occasion. And if all else failed, the SIG would do the job.

  By the time he was halfway up the stairs, he knew who lay in wait for him. The stink of booze and sweat was unmistakable. Latour.

  Cruz tucked the SIG away beside the screwdriver as he strolled into Mia’s bedroom. “Why aren’t you in jail, you sack of shit?”

  Latour, who’d been riffling through drawers in the bedside table, straightened and spun around, shocked as hell to see him. His nose was swollen, both eyes were purple and swollen almost shut, and his puffy lower lip sported crusted blood around a gash. He was drunk enough to be dangerous, but not unsteady as he glared at Cruz from puffy, slitted eyes.

  Latour’s fists curled at his sides. “I want my wife.”

  “And you think she’s in a six-inch-deep drawer?”

  “You can’t keep her from me, asshole! I’ll find her, and when I do, she’s going to learn some respect!” Fist raised, he rushed forward, and Cruz sidestepped. The man crashed into the doorjamb nose first with a wild shriek of pain.

  Cruz grabbed the short sleeve of Latour’s orange T-shirt to spin him around and raised his arm. “You hurt my woman, you fucked-up son of a bitch.” His fist glanced off the man’s cheek, but he heard the satisfactory crunch of bone as Latour staggered backward, then righted himself and charged him like an enraged bull. “Mia didn’t know you had that fucking knife with you, but I did.”

  He stabbed Latour’s forearm with the screwdriver as the other man jumped on him from the side. Latour threw a punch, Cruz sidestepped, and Latour’s fist punched Mia’s stripper pole instead. He let out a howl of pain, then spun around and attacked with his fists and feet. He was strong and determined, but with the limited floor space between the bed and the window wall, he didn’t have much room to maneuver. While Latour was enraged and out of control, Cruz wasn’t even breaking a sweat.

  Cruz collared him with his forearm around his neck from behind. Latour struggled and tried to pry his arm away from his throat. “News flash, dick: You’ll never see Daisy and your boy ever again. I’ll make sure of it. And. You. Will, Never. Hurt. Another. Woman.”

  Cruz tightened his arm around Latour’s neck while using his free hand and palm to grip him by the forehead. There was an art to strangling a man so it looked accidental. Cruz was a master. Careful not to leave scratch marks, he used the pads of his fingers and his strong palm and twisted, hard, feeling cartilage, tendons, and bones give way with the pressure. He kept twisting until he broke Latour’s neck with a final snap and the son of a bitch collapsed.

  With Latour still in a headlock, he flung open the window, then, like a bag of sand, tossed the bastard over the sill. He waited until he heard the thud on the ground, then glanced down the forty-foot drop. From the awkward angle of Latour’s body, it was evident he’d broken his neck in the fall. Accidents happened.

  He slid the window shut, then worked fast to straighten the bedspread and stuff everything scattered on the floor back in the drawer of the table, and turned on the light to survey the room. “Good enough.”

  After carrying the long ladder he’d used for his roofing project around to the other side of the house, he propped it below the bedroom window, against the house, and near the body.

  He tapped on the truck’s window to indicate that he was alive and well. Mia flung open the door and practically bowled him over.

  He’d been gone for seven minutes eleven seconds.

  • • •

  The next morning she looked fresh and chic in a royal-blue sundress that bared her shoulders and the three sexy freckles on her clavicle. When the mailbox store opened at nine, Mia and Cruz were the first customers there. “I rented this when I first arrived.”

  “Who did you give this address to?”

  “You asked me that last night. Nobody until yesterday, when I gave it to the investment company. You’re more paranoid than Todd and Miles combined.”

  If anyone wanted to find her, she would’ve been found, just as he’d found her. But there’d been no indication that anyone else had. Yet. He’d expected something last night. She’d shared this address with one person. That had been twelve hours ago. Someone could be here from anywhere in the world by now.

  After Latour, no one else had shown up, though he’d been on high alert all night, watching her sleep as he listened for every sound.

  The young guy behind the counter, with serious acne and an Adam’s apple that bobbed every time he surreptitiously glanced over at Mia, mumbled “Good morning” as they headed to the wall of small, numbered brass doors.

  “Not even Todd has this address,” Mia said over her shoulder, key in hand. “At his request, I might add. Only Michael Ordway, at the investment company. For all he knows I flew here just to get my mail. This is my box right here.”

  But when Mia unlocked it, it was empty. “That’s weird. Ordway assured me he’d overnight the paperwork so I could sign and send it back today.”

  “Maybe your friend over there hasn’t put everything in the boxes this morning.”

  “I’ll ask.”

  Apparently, all mail and packages delivered that morning had already been placed in the correct boxes.

  “Perhaps there was a mistake, and the papers will be here on Monday.”

  Mia looked grim. Cruz knew this deal must be in the multibillions. Not something that some lackey would mail. “I’ll call him when we get back to the truck. I want to go back home—for some reason I feel really exposed here.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Cruz said dryly, tucking her hand in his elbow as they left. As soon as they were in the truck, he handed her his cell phone.

  “Michael, the paperwork you sent yesterday didn’t arrive,” Mia said, sounding not like Mia but like Amelia Wellington-Wentworth. “What’s the holdup on your end?”

  Cruz started the truck and eased into traffic to head back to Bayou Cheniere.

  “Repeat that,” she said tightly. A quick glance showed him her pale face and tight jaw. “Yes, I was aware that investment and brokerage companies were conducting evaluations and analyses on us, but their interest was based on pure speculation. This is very different? And it happened when? Yes, maybe things would have been different if I was there, but, considering the circumstances, it was necessary for me to disappear.” She nodded. “What happens now?” She listened for several minutes.

  “Up my offer by ten—all right, twelve percent. Keep upping my bid until I win. Yes, until they drop like flies. Call me at this number with developing updates.” She rang off and stared at the traffic ahead of them on the freeway. Cruz noticed that her breathing was a little heavier than it had been before the phone call.

  “What was that about?”

  “Dark pool liquidity.” Her voice was sharp as she shifted to face him. “The reason for all that negative press with my face being splashed across the news resulting in Blush stock prices plummeting? That’s what the hell that was all about,” she said bitingly.
“A private forum has been buying large blocks of stock in secret all week. It was a setup. The bastards bought low, cashing in on Blush shares slipping on the market because of all the bad press. Then went to Ordway yesterday with a better offer than mine.”

  “No rival investment brokers?”

  “Perhaps them, too. But this is an anonymous, private group.”

  “Any idea who they might be?”

  “No. But you can bet I’ll damn well find out who’s going behind my back!”

  “I doubt it’s personal.”

  “Really? It feels extremely, damn well personal to me. More so because only a small handful of people I trusted even knew I was doing this.”

  “Now what happens?”

  “Now I wait to hear if upping my bid will get me my own damned company.”

  Cruz looked as grim as Mia felt. “We’re going away for a few days until the dust settles.”

  “Go where?”

  He shrugged a broad shoulder. “Anywhere you like. Podunk? South of France?”

  “Right now I live in Podunk,” Mia said with a small smile. “I’m not running. Ordway knows how important this leveraged buyout is to me. He’s got his orders. He’ll keep raising my offer until I’m able to buy the remaining stock. The others will drop out.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then I’ll have a very, very, freaking very expensive company on my hands when this is done. They won’t win. I’ll make damn sure they don’t. And when this is all over, I’m going to find out who was part of the dark pool and make them very sorry they screwed with me.”

  Mia was already considering how she’d compensate for the rising cost of the buyout. She might have to sell off one of the divisions, cut staff . . . close some of the retail stores. . . . Whatever she did, her belt would have to tighten. She’d liquidate her personal assets, of course. Sell the houses, the plane, the horses, the cars. “The question is, who are the people making up this damned dark pool? Who’s putting the money into this forum to buy the stocks?”

  “We’ll make a list when we get home of who has the money to pool or singularly fund it. We’ll include everyone you can think of, including the least likely.”

  He was thinking about Todd, but Mia merely said, “Yes, let’s.”

  That list had to be put on hold when they got back to the house, because Detective Hammell and several plainclothes detectives were waiting for them.

  “Oh, Lord, what now?” Mia asked rhetorically, seeing two police cars and the group of men standing and talking in her driveway.

  She hopped out of the truck when Cruz stopped, walking around the front of the vehicle, hand extended. “Detective Hammell, what can I do for you?”

  His huge hand swallowed hers for a brief shake. “Sandy said Marcel was in a lather last night after he was released on his own reconnaissance, pending his court date. After the police chief himself posted bail. Seems like he told his sister he was coming here because he thought you were harboring Daisy.”

  Mia waited. Hammell knew where Daisy was.

  “Drunk as a coon dog,” he continued. “I came here looking for him. Did a walk around your property. Apparently he tried to gain entry to your house at some point last night. Fell off the ladder. Broke his fool neck.”

  A black van pulled up behind the police cars, and two men got out with a stretcher. One of the suited men directed them to the back of the house.

  “I didn’t hear anything last night.” Mia glanced up at Cruz, her cheeks burning at the thought of what they’d done after the fear of the possibility of an intruder had subsided. His under-the-table oral sex on her and the blow job she’d given him in the truck had only whetted their appetites for more. “Did you?”

  “Not a thing.” He gave her a significant look. They’d made love for hours, and she’d been pretty vocal. It creeped her out that Latour might’ve been watching them through the window.

  His gaze followed the men with the stretcher. “Where was the ladder?”

  “Around back, third window.”

  Her bedroom. She suddenly felt nauseated. She sagged against Cruz, and welcomed his arms around her.

  “Dog didn’t bark?”

  “We left Oso with Charlie for a few days,” Cruz told him.

  “Latour didn’t knock on the back door or yell trying to rouse you?”

  “No.” Cruz put his arm around Mia’s shoulders, tucking her against his side. “We had dinner in New Orleans after spending a couple of hours with Charlie. We went to bed pretty much right after returning.”

  We went to bed was a little more information than Mia was willing to share, and her cheeks felt hot.

  “Well, if you remember anything, give me a call. Gotta go tell Sandy. That should be a noisy conversation,” the detective said dryly. “Hate to talk ill of the dead. But he was a mean, drunken rattlesnake. Other than his sister, no one will miss him. Solves Daisy and little Charlie’s issues effectively.”

  “Yes,” Mia agreed. “It does.” She was relieved that Latour was permanently out of Daisy’s and Charlie’s lives. “Let us know if you need anything,” she told the detective. She didn’t want to be there when they brought Latour’s body around to the front of the house. “We’ll be inside.”

  After Cruz made a pot of coffee, they sat at the center island as Mia gave him the list of names she’d compiled on her computer. People she worked with, people she did business with, personal, professional—the list went on for pages and pages.

  “This is long, but I can’t imagine my nail girl or the pool guy wants to overthrow me,” she told Cruz. “Besides, I don’t pay or tip them that well.”

  Of course, he didn’t smile. “I’m not ruling anyone out. Even the manicurist or pool guy could’ve been brought into the forum if they provided insider info instead of cash.” He slid off the stool. “I’m going to go get my computer. We’re doing a background check on all of these people. See if we can find any kind of pattern to all this—”

  “I have Black Raven doing background checks. You can’t find out as much as they can.”

  “I have resources they might not have. My military contacts can help me get into files they might not have access to. If we double up on info, no loss. I’m not sitting around waiting. Once we do that, we can eliminate some of them.”

  Mia took a sip of now cold coffee and pulled a face. “Most, I imagine.” She got up for a refill, holding the pot aloft. “I feel the same way. I’d rather duplicate our efforts than sit here twiddling my thumbs, waiting for something to happen. Coffee?”

  Cruz shook his head, so Mia returned to the island with her coffee. He came up behind her, swept her hair off her neck to press a lingering kiss to her nape. “God, I love the smell of your skin.” With a hand under her chin, he turned her head to face him. “It smells like sex on crisp, clean sheets or on fresh spring flowers.”

  She smiled, looking into his darkening eyes. That was the sweetest thing he had ever said to her. It was raw and real and unguarded. She lifted her lips to his and kissed him.

  Straightening, he brushed her cheek with his thumb, eyes holding hers, dark and filled with promise. “That’ll hold me until I get back.”

  Mia watched him exit the kitchen with his long, loose-limbed stride and go out to his truck to retrieve his computer. “Who are you, Cruz Barcelona?” she murmured under her breath.

  She’d asked Todd to have Black Raven do a search on Cruz the minute she’d regained her senses enough to decide to hire him. She was stringent with security and with knowing everything she could about the people around her. Even, or especially, a new lover. Had all the changes she made in her world here along Bayou Cheniere resulted in that or was it her odd sensual relationship with Cruz that changed that about her?

  She picked up his phone, tempted to see whether his cell had any revealing activity, but she controlled the urge. While she felt sanctimonious for not doing so, it was really because she had only minutes to complete the call to Black Rav
en. She had to call information for their office number in Denver, then hung on impatiently until Somerville answered.

  “Anything else on Barcelona?” Mia asked the second the agent came on the phone. Her eyes were fixed on the door, waiting for Cruz’s return, and her heart pounded as if she was doing something illicit.

  “Nothing of note,” he told her, cutting to the chase. “No arrest warrants. Idaho driver’s license. That’s about it.”

  “Employment history?” she asked as she heard the back door open, then close.

  The report on Cruz had come back clean. No arrests. No prison records. No parking tickets, for pity’s sake. He’d gone to high school. Done a stint in the military and been working on his own as a handyman since he got out. The guy looked like a freakin’ saint on paper.

  The problem was that his background was too clean. In her lengthy experience in the business world, no one was that good. Everyone had secrets or had done things they weren’t proud of. And, given his strength and skill set, and the way she’d seen him handle Latour the other night, she had a niggling feeling that perhaps Cruz Barcelona wasn’t his real name at all. Maybe he was in the witness protection program.

  “Not that we could find. But that’s not uncommon for a man who moves around. Cash-under-the-table jobs aren’t that difficult to come by.”

  “Don’t search on his name. His father had a large construction company in Chicago. Thirty, thirty-five years ago. Father was connected. Politicians, police chief. Wife died under suspicious circumstances when son was in his teens. Suicide, or murder. Keep looking. Go deeper,” she said, lowering her voice, knowing Cruz was nearing the kitchen. As soon as the words crossed her lips she felt awful for saying them, yet, another part of her was glad she couldn’t take them back. This was what she should do, what she was supposed to do, to protect herself. Still, it felt wrong.

  “Will do,” Somerville said just as Cruz came into the kitchen, his laptop in hand. After setting it across from her on the island, he strolled over to pour himself some coffee, then sat watching her, eyebrow cocked inquiringly.