Vanessa drew herself up straight, nodding. She didn’t say another word, but stared at the jungle gardens as he packed up and left. She didn’t walk back inside until she heard the door shut behind him.
She was deep in thought as she started forming her own plan. Until now, she’d let Luke call the shots—he was the professional—but he was also deeply biased against Julie and wanted only to think the worst of her. Yes, he had evidence, but he didn’t have an open mind. There was no point in opening the conversation with him again—he was clearly against her being involved in any plan he had.
But Vanessa had her own thoughts on the issue.
He’d admitted that once they found out where Julie might be, or whom she was working with, that he would have her arrested, probably before Vanessa could even talk to her. That meant that the only time she would be able to see her sister was in jail. Or worse, if things went badly.
Which meant that Vanessa needed to find Julie first. She peeked over the veranda to the winding road in the distance and saw a black SUV speeding down the highway.
Luke.
For the first time since her house had been blown to smithereens, Vanessa believed that she had some power in this situation, and in her life. She wasn’t going to give it up. In fact, she knew exactly what she needed to do. Leaving the room, she went in search of Mari and hoped her plan would work.
“Is Mari available?” she asked Madra, whom she found in the main room, dusting.
“No, she is working now. She will not come out of her office until later tonight, and cannot be disturbed,” Madra explained.
That worked; Vanessa worried that Luke might have told Mari that she had to stay at the house, but he probably wouldn’t have told Madra.
“I need some supplies and clothes, I’m afraid. We left the States so quickly that I didn’t bring enough things with me,” Vanessa said with a slightly embarrassed laugh, hoping to win Madra to her side.
“Ah, what woman would not want to be swept away by Mr. Berringer?” Madra said with a grin.
“True, but he has to work today, and I wondered if there was a car I could borrow to go shopping?”
Madra shook her head, and Vanessa felt her hopes sink.
“There is no car, but there is a driver. He could take you.”
Relief. For a second, Vanessa thought perhaps that she was a prisoner here, but having a driver was even better than she’d hoped.
“Would he take me to town, do you think? He could drop me off and pick me up later. I could call?”
“Sí, I will let him know. You can meet him in the front hall,” Madra said, leaving the room with an accommodating smile.
Vanessa’s heart sped up in apprehension and excitement as she gathered her bag and her sunglasses and moved toward the front hall. As Madra promised, a car pulled up minutes later, an older driver getting out and coming around to open the door for her.
“Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m Richard. Where can I take you today?”
Vanessa blinked, surprised by the formal British accent, though Richard was definitely Latino.
“I need to do some clothes shopping,” she said, sliding into the sumptuous leather seat as he closed the door.
As he took the driver’s seat, he looked back at her in the rearview mirror. “Would you like some music? And is the AC too cold for you?”
“No, the quiet is fine, and it’s very comfortable, thank you. If you know where there are some stores where I could find essentials and perhaps a nice dress, I would appreciate that.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“Please, call me Vanessa.”
“As you please, Vanessa.” Richard drove the car slowly down a sloping, curvy drive through thick vegetation.
“Is this rain forest?” she asked.
“No, this is jungle, tropical vegetation. The only real rain forest on the island is in El Yunque National Forest, at the top. It is a very nice place to visit, if you’d like to make plans to go. You can drive or hike to the top.”
“That sounds lovely.” It might be something she would do, someday. With her sister, maybe?
What a nice thought. She’d had hundreds like it over the years. The idea that she and Julie could ever have any kind of normal relationship had powered her through some very difficult times. Finding her family was the most important thing to Vanessa except for her teaching.
“There are some nice shops in town, only twenty minutes away.”
“Actually, do you know where this store is?” she asked as she pulled the picture of Julie from her purse, standing in the crowd near a small bodega.
“Yes, it’s a bit farther out, on the other side of San Juan, but not too far. There are many shops there and better prices. Many local goods in that neighborhood, though it is, as you Americans say, sketchy. I will stay close by, however.”
“Thank you, but I don’t know how long I’ll be. You don’t have to wait. I could call when I’m ready to go back to the house.”
“Mrs. Soltis would not be happy if I left you in town alone. I don’t mind if you take your time. I can wait at the café.”
Vanessa nodded, knowing she couldn’t push the driver away without seeming suspicious.
Her plan was simple. She wanted to let her sister know she was there. She wanted to be seen and hoped that word would get back to Julie, for better or worse. She would shop, buy some things using the credit cards that Luke told her not to use and ask around, showing Julie’s picture.
Vanessa would do what Luke had refused to do: use herself as bait.
If she was lucky, Julie would find her before Luke lured her in. In a public place, she should be safe. She only wanted to talk to her sister before anything else happened. Vanessa was willing to take the risk. She couldn’t believe that Julie was behind the attempts on her life. In fact, Vanessa worried that her sister could be under threat, too.
The thick trees and plants gave way to a more developed area as they entered town, and the streets were suddenly more crowded with people and traffic. Vanessa embraced it all—she’d always wanted to travel more, to get a sense of other cultures. The buzz of energy on the street had a way of reaching in and grabbing her just as it had been when she’d visited the first time, and she could barely wait to get out of the car.
Then she saw it, that familiar intersection. The bodega in the picture. A chill chased her spine. This was it. Somewhere, Luke was in this city, setting his own plan into motion, but she couldn’t think about that. He said he might be late—with any luck, he’d have no idea she was even gone.
Richard pulled into a parking space and shut off the car, coming around to her side. Vanessa had already opened the door, unused to it being done for her. She smiled as he stood by, letting her out. As soon as she stood on the paved street, the noise, colors and aromas surrounding her, she smiled into the warm sun.
“This is perfect. Thank you, Richard.”
“You’re welcome. Here is my card with my pager and cell phone number. The car will be here, but it’s locked. I’ll be at that café, over there, at the end of the street. If you stay on this main street, you will be fine at this time of day, but keep hold of your purse, just in case. Call me when you’re ready.”
Vanessa nodded, putting his card in her pocket and looking around for where she wanted to go first. Richard was already on his way down to the café. Taking a deep breath, she focused on a shop across the street with some colorful fabrics in the window, and headed there. She did need some clothes, and buying her own would serve her purpose nicely now.
Entering the small shop, Vanessa was taken with all of the brightly colored fabrics, the sundresses that hung on all of the racks around her. She ran a hand over one, loving the color and its softness, and smiled. These were likely handmade, and perhaps out of her price range, but she mi
ght just splurge.
“May I help you?”
A woman spoke from her left, and as Vanessa turned, the young girl stepped back in surprise. “Oh. How nice to see you again. I didn’t recognize your hair styled like that. It looks very pretty.”
It was clear to Vanessa that the woman recognized her, and that probably meant that Julie had been here before. But in what capacity? There was distress, if not fear, in the clerk’s expression, and then relief as she searched Vanessa’s face more closely.
“Oh, I apologize again. I thought you were...there was another woman who closely resembles you in the shop a few days ago. A man she was with was very, um, insistent that she leave with him. I offered to her to call the authorities, but she told me no and hurried from the shop. But clearly you are not her.”
“No, but I think I know her. She is my sister,” Vanessa said honestly, her heart racing. “I’ve been looking for her, and I am worried about her. Can you tell me anything more, about the man she was with, particularly?”
“She didn’t buy anything, and she rushed out when he appeared, so no, I’m sorry, I cannot help you.”
Vanessa’s gut said that the girl was not sharing everything she knew, but Vanessa could also understand why the clerk might not want to be involved.
“Might I leave her a note? Just in case you see her again?”
“Of course, though I doubt he will let her...that she will be back.”
The young woman’s words confirmed what Vanessa had feared, and she scrawled her number and a brief note to Julie, just in case. The clerk might know more than she was letting on, and Vanessa’s hand shook slightly at the idea that she could be this close to finding her sister.
She left the note in a sealed envelope, and asked the girl to pass it to Julie, if she ever did see her again. Then she bought some clothing items, and visited some other stores, hoping to find out more, including the bodega where Julie had stood in the picture, but there were no more leads to be found.
For now, she’d done all she could, and planned to have a cup of coffee before heading back to the villa. Approaching a street vendor, she took some money from her purse and ordered an iced mocha, spotting a small table on the sidewalk where she could sit for a minute. The more she could be seen, the better.
But as the vendor made her coffee and she took in the scene, Vanessa gasped when someone grabbed her arm from behind, pulling her around.
Luke. And he was not at all pleased to see her.
9
“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” he demanded, his hand tightening on her arm as he scanned their surroundings.
“I’m getting a coffee. Let go, that hurts,” she said, jerking her arm away as he loosened his grip.
Luke wasn’t exactly sure what had changed after his talk with Vanessa in the bedroom at Mari’s house, but he sure hadn’t expected this. What was she thinking?
“What part of ‘stay at Mari’s house’ didn’t you get?”
To his aggravation, she didn’t respond, but paid the man who handed her a coffee, smiling at him brightly. She turned to Luke.
“Would you like one?”
“No.”
She was driving him crazy. Every time he looked at her, he wanted her, even right now, when he was angry and wondering why she was even here.
Earlier, in the room, how her eyes kept traveling to the bed, he’d nearly forgotten all of his good intentions. When he told her what he knew to be true—that she wouldn’t want anything to do with him when this was all over—it had stuck with him that she hadn’t denied it.
That was dangerous. He cared about her, and not just as a client. He should have kept his hands off her, and he was intent on doing that now, difficult as it was. But she wasn’t making it easy.
“We need to get you out of here. What’s that?” he asked, noting the bags in her hands.
“I needed some clothes and personal items, so I went shopping.”
Luke stared at her in disbelief, stunned, until a car horn shook him back to reality. They were too much out in the open, where anyone could see them, and he looped his arm into hers, guiding her under one of the shop awnings.
“You what? How could you shop?”
“I used my own money, my credit cards.”
Luke thought he might be in an alternate universe, but he knew he couldn’t explode here on the street, and that Vanessa wouldn’t respond to that, anyway. He couldn’t understand why she was doing everything he had told her not to—was she angry at him about saying they couldn’t have sex? That didn’t seem like her.
Had she finally broken under the stress? Was this her way of acting normal, in denial about the danger it could cause?
He held in his temper and searched her face, but she remained placid. Serene, even. Which meant it was probably option two—she was clearly having some sort of breakdown. He cursed, angry with himself for leaving her alone. He should have at least told Mari that Vanessa had to stay at the house, and that she could be...fragile. But she didn’t look fragile, she looked excited. Beautiful and sexy in a way that made his blood stir.
“What happened?” he asked, sensing something had changed.
“What do you mean?”
“I can see in your face that you’re hiding something. What happened? Did you see Julie?”
“No. But someone saw me and mistook me for her, which means she was here, Luke, just a few days ago. They said she was forced to leave a shop with a man. The salesclerk said she wanted to call the authorities for her, but Julie said no. So you see, she was being forced. She’s in trouble, and we have to help her.”
Luke took all of that in, processing it. He couldn’t see Julie as a victim, but he supposed the people she was working with might not be crazy about her flaunting herself around the island, considering the stakes. It was even possible that she’d gotten in over her head, and could be a liability at some point—if Vanessa’s information was even accurate.
He turned his attention back to her.
“How did you get here?”
“Mari has a very nice driver, Richard. He brought me here, and he’s waiting in the café. He’s half Puerto Rican, on his mother’s side, but his father is English and he was raised in London. Very nice man.”
Luke pushed a hand through his hair, unsure how to deal with this.
“Why did you come here, Vanessa, when you know it’s dangerous? You know they’ll probably be flagging your bank account and your credit cards. Someone could see you and think—”
That’s when it hit him. He took a deep breath. “That’s exactly what you wanted, isn’t it? You want them to see you. You’re luring Julie out. Why? To warn her? To let her know I’m here, and I’m looking for her? Why would you undermine me like that?”
Betrayal, confusion and hurt warred in his heart—all the carefully laid planning he’d done that day was a waste—Vanessa had undone it all in one fell swoop.
Her brown eyes registered shock at his words, and the coffee in her hand tipped a little, sloshing out onto the sidewalk. He caught the cup, steadying her hand with his. The touch ran through him, and he pulled his hand away.
“Undermine you? That’s not my intention at all,” Vanessa said incredulously.
“Well, I can’t think of any other reason you’d go behind my back and do this.”
“That’s because all you can think about is your own purpose in this. What you want,” she threw back at him. “And you just expect me to stay put like a good girl while you get it.”
It distracted him for a moment, the way her brown eyes flashed hot, her cheeks warming. Her breasts pushed against the thin fabric of her top as she breathed more heavily, and it caught him off guard, muddling his thoughts for a moment.
His jaw tightened as he watched her closely. “Did you do this be
cause of what happened back in the room? About us not being together?”
She coughed out a laugh. “Seriously, Luke, am I thirteen? This has nothing to do with sex. But what happened back in the room did help me think more clearly—you did help me find perspective. In fact, it became very clear that while I’m helping you achieve your ends, you aren’t really interested in mine, which is finding Julie and helping her, if necessary.”
“My ends also include keeping you safe and alive. You’re blinded by your emotions, by your—”
“And so are you,” she interrupted hotly. “You may think you’re cool and objective, but you’re not. You’re a good man, and you want to do the right thing, but you are blinded by revenge and your guilt over what happened to you. I know you’ve saved my life, and you’re concerned about my safety, but you have no concern for Julie. I do. If I want to look for her on my own, I will.”
He drew back so that he could compose himself. She put a hand on his arm.
“I know you need to do what you feel is right, Luke, but don’t you understand? I can’t sit on the sidelines. This is my sister we’re talking about. I want to meet her first, to talk to her, alone.”
Luke frowned. “She could be dangerous. She could even be the one who wants you dead.”
“I refuse to believe that, but I’m willing to risk it to find out about her.”
“I’m not,” he bit out. “I should take you back to the boat and leave you there.” He’d take the outboard, and she wouldn’t get to shore unless she could swim there.
“You could do that. But I’d still find the means to look for her myself. Don’t underestimate me.”
Luke was frustrated and angry, but there was a flicker of something else in his chest. Admiration. Respect.
Definitely desire.
Vanessa held her line and didn’t say another word. She’d backed him into a corner, unfortunately. Nothing she’d done could be undone. Her moves had trumped his, and he could only try to make it work now that the situation had changed.
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