Hush

by Cherry Adair

  His eyes were closed, his lashes casting dark fans on his cheekbones. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer, he said flatly, “Six years.”

  She could tell by the way he said it that he’d loved his wife very much. Her chest felt tight and constricted. One day she’d have a man love her that much. “She was a reporter for CNN, right?”

  “Freelance. Jen liked extreme wars as much as Gid and I liked extreme sports. She was fearless.”

  Of course she’d been fearless. A man like Zakary Stark wouldn’t love a woman who wasn’t as kick-butt and adventurous as he was himself. “Beautiful?” A given.

  “Striking, rather than beautiful. Black hair, blue eyes. Men turned to look. Hell, women, too.” He was quiet for so long that Acadia thought he’d fallen asleep. Good, he needed it. “She was killed by a car bomb in Haiti two years ago.”

  God—“Were you there with her?”

  “Gideon and I were kayaking around Cape Horn; she was supposed to go with us, but she wanted to see the quake devastation for herself. Someone rigged a car bomb in her rental. We got the news when we landed in Cape Town the next day.”

  “Oh, Zak—”

  “There’s a shitload of guilt mixed up with a bunch of other crap,” he said, with what Acadia suspected was understatement. “We’d fought about her going. Haiti had already been dangerously volatile before thousands of people were killed and lost their homes … Jen went where angels feared to tread. She lived for that kind of adrenaline fix, and eventually it killed her.”

  “I’m so sorry, Zak.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. Lots of unresolv …”

  She waited for him to finish, then saw his chest moving with his even breathing. He was asleep.

  Acadia’s eyes stung and her chest felt constricted as she tucked his hand beneath her chin and closed her eyes. Poor Zak. No wonder he didn’t think he was a hero. He hadn’t been able to stop his wife from going to an already war-torn country.

  Zak was going to be well enough to leave tomorrow. But unless they planned on walking to Caracas, Acadia had to figure out a way to get money fast. She’d been an idiot to trust Fejos and his crooked buddies with her last twenty. No credit cards. No passports. The village was so tiny that there wasn’t even a phone, let alone a bank.

  Somehow, she didn’t think the locals would shower her with money if she told them today was her thirtieth birthday, either.

  She assumed that if Zak got to civilization, he could walk into any bank with lint in his pockets and get a cash advance on his good looks alone. He’d certainly float her a loan until she got home and could repay him. But to get from where they were to a place big enough to have a bank was going to cost several hundred dollars. Which they didn’t have.

  Beside her, Zak slept on. His color was better, the swelling and redness on his arm pretty much gone. She lightly pressed her palm on his forehead while he slept a healing sleep. Cool, no temperature. He’d wanted to leave hours ago. It had taken her all her powers of persuasion to convince him to stay one more day. “You are one determined guy, aren’t you, Zak Stark?” she asked quietly. “And so damned far out of my league it isn’t even funny. Would you have looked at me twice if we’d met at the church bake sale? Not in a million years.” His kind of woman dived into other people’s wars and sent back the reports she saw on the ten-o’clock news every night. Jennifer Stark had been a doer, just like Zak. While Acadia—She suddenly realized she’d been a doer, too, in the last week.

  She’d not only participated one hundred percent, she’d helped. A lot. The thought actually stunned her. She’d. Helped.

  Hot damn.

  She smoothed down the sheet and moved the glass of water closer, in case he woke up thirsty. There was absolutely nothing for her to do. She’d cleaned what could be cleaned, including herself and Zak, and she’d tidied what could be tidied. Selfishly, she wished he’d wake up so she’d at least have him to talk to.

  Instead, she pulled the straight-backed chair over to the open window and watched a few women coming back from the market. Two very old men sat under a broad shade tree playing chess. She waved away a fly and rested her elbows on the peeling paint on the windowsill as three men strolled down the street toward the cantina. One of them was Police Chief José Fejos, and with him were the toothless guy and the muscled biker. They were smoking fat cigars and laughing as they pushed open the doors and disappeared inside.

  Acadia narrowed her eyes as a plan formed. Her last thought before she plummeted into sleep was that Zak’s striking, fearless wife had been an idiot to leave him.

  THE ROOM WAS FILLED with late-afternoon sunlight when Zak woke. He was disappointed to find himself alone. “Acadia?”

  No answer. Zak gingerly got out of bed and carefully stretched. The sister had detached him from the IV at his insistence when she’d come in to check on him earlier. She had not been happy, and her mouth had pinched up like she’d sucked a lemon. She’d checked his temp and changed the bandage before she was willing to undo the IV.

  Nun or no nun, he needed his strength back sooner than later. Gideon was going to be frantic when he got to Caracas to find Zak hadn’t shown up. He wouldn’t know where to look. He’d think the worst. Zak might not give a flying fuck about himself, but he hated to worry his brother. And what if Gideon took it into his head to come back and search the jungle for them? Zak wouldn’t put it past him.

  He felt a hundred percent better than he had the day before. Much as he hated to admit it, he was glad he’d allowed Acadia to convince him to stay the extra twenty-four hours. He went into the bathroom, which looked shockingly clean, and guessed it was Acadia’s handiwork. Ignoring his reflection in the stained mirror, he took a leak, brushed his teeth, then enjoyed what he could of a long, tepid shower. It took effort to keep his left side dry, but aside from the occasional splatter, he managed by draping the plastic shower curtain over his shoulder like a toga. It pretty much did the trick.

  Sister Clemencia was entering the room when Zak returned, wrapping a towel around his waist. She held a tray with two covered plates. “Buenas tardes, señor. You are looking well.”

  Zak smiled as he picked up his watch to get it out of her way, strapping it to his wrist as she put the tray down on the wobbly table. He blinked as a flashing streak of brightness impacted his vision. It lasted a second, then was gone.

  The sister gave him a worried look as he flattened his hand against the footboard. “You are dizzy? Sit down. Sit down.”

  “No, I’m fine. Much better, thank you for your care, Sister. Have you seen my wife?”

  She got a pinched look on her homely face. “Elvis saw her go into the cantina two hours ago. Your wife, she has a drinking problem, señor.” The nun crossed herself. “I have prayed for her.”

  “Gracias. I’m sure she needs all the prayers she can get.” Elvis was the unlikely name of one of the elderly men who’d assisted her with his care.

  As for his errant wife, it wasn’t wise for Acadia to wander around on her own, especially at night, especially here. Where are you, woman? Fuckit. It wasn’t safe out there, Acadia knew that as well as he did. What if one of the locals had tipped off Piñero for a reward? What if, while he was lying about, Acadia had been hauled back to Guerrilla Bitch’s base camp?

  Zak glanced through the grimy windows. The setting sun had disappeared behind the trees, creating a surreal violet twilight that seemed otherworldly.

  He was worried about her, and yet she’d been the one to save his life. Several times.

  Zak felt an icy shiver, a sensation of having been snatched from the jaws of death by the scruff of his neck and in the nick of time.

  He had died.

  The thought of croaking, in theory, had never bothered him. If it had, he’d never have been able to indulge himself with all the extreme sports he enjoyed. But now that he had died, the very thought of never seeing Gideon again, or Acadia, shook him to the core.

  The urge to see Acadia, to hold her, s
trengthened, and he flicked the flimsy curtain to look out on the street. He let the curtain drop. He couldn’t go rushing after her like he had a right to demand her company. Fuckit, he’d already asked more of her than he could possibly repay. Once this was over, and it almost was, they’d go their separate ways. The thought should’ve pleased him. It didn’t.

  He turned back to Sister Clemencia, who was straightening the already neat-as-a-pin covers on his bed. “Thank you, Sister. I appreciate all you’ve done for me. For us.”

  And he’d make sure that she and the mission would be amply compensated for their trouble. Hell, he’d build her a whole new hospital if she wanted one.

  The shadows lengthened in the room. and the busy take-charge nun turned on several lamps, which didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of difference in the dimness. Finally, with nothing else to tidy, she snatched one of the covered dishes off the tray as if it were the last wafer. “I will take this back to the kitchen. Have your wife come and find me if she is hungry.”

  “I’m sure she’ll—” His vision darkened for a moment, and he sat down hard on the edge of the bed as he mentally caught a streak of jumbled lines. Closing his eyes and pressing his thumbs to his lids, Zak waited for his vision to clear. It didn’t. The lines formed letters—no, not the alphabet. Numbers. A string of numbers tearing across his vision like the crawler at the bottom of a newscast on fast forward. He blinked several times.

  Still there. Hallucination?

  “¿Señor Stark?”

  Zak raised his head, rubbing at his temple as his normal vision returned. “I’m all right.” His vision was just fucking fine. If he wasn’t seeing the numbers superimposed over the bottom ten percent of whatever he happened to be looking at. If he had to hallucinate, he could think of a million things he’d rather be seeing than the same numbers crawling across his vision in a never-ending stream.

  He wasn’t all right, but he wasn’t dead. If his brain kept going on the fritz, he’d hit a specialist once he got home. But first, he’d follow the plan.

  Get to Caracas to meet up with Gideon.

  Find whoever had orchestrated their kidnapping and make them pay.

  ELEVEN

  Acadia squinted against the last of the tropical sun as it reflected blindingly off the light-colored buildings. The street was deserted, except for the chicken nesting on the remaining rung of an empty rocking chair outside the cantina. She’d left Dogburt guarding a sleeping Zak.

  Heartbeat pleasantly elevated with anticipation, she yanked open the door to the cantina. As soon as it swung shut behind her, the room was plunged into shifting shadow. She doubted the atmosphere, or the decor for that matter, was deliberate. The useless fan overhead did its lopsided, uneven rotation. Thrup-thrup-thump. Thrup-thrup-thump.

  The place stank of booze, cheap cigars, American cigarettes, and body odor. Overwhelming it all was the pungent stench of burned meat. She found the men in the back of the room at what was apparently their usual table. Acadia mentally rubbed her hands with glee. I am going to kick your ass, Mr. Police Chief.

  The bartender, a tall man with lanky, greasy hair and a filthy, lime green T-shirt riding up his enormous belly, gave her a startled glance from behind the stretch of plywood that passed as the bar before scurrying through a thinly curtained doorway, leaving her alone with the foursome at the poker table.

  None of them looked up. Oh, you know I’m here, you jerks. She deliberately walked with heavy steps as she approached the table and ignored the squelching popping sounds her boots made on the liquor-sticky floor.

  Police chief, con man, and extortionist José Fejos was about to deal, but when she didn’t go away, he glanced up, deck in hand, fake-startled to see her. “Ah! The American. You are still here?” His tone said go the hell away.

  “Sí,” she said with a slight shrug. Where did he think she could go with no money and an incapacitated husband?

  “Señora Stark. Qué sorpresa maravillosa. How is your husband?”

  “Much better, thank you.” She smiled and brushed a tendril of hair back behind one ear in a deliberately feminine gesture. “Asleep, actually. I hope you don’t mind me intruding, but I’m so bored I could scream.” The last time she’d been this sweet and girlie was when she’d conned a mother-made school lunch out of Skip Thomson in ninth grade by convincing him that the school bullies had threatened her and stolen hers. He’d had a turkey sandwich, cut-up apples, and a Ding Dong in there, for pity’s sake.

  She’d even managed a few tears, if she recalled correctly. Poor Skip; he hadn’t had a chance. It had gotten her a mom-made lunch then, and it was going to get her the money she needed to get out of town now.

  “No. No. Not at all. This is, after all, a place that people can go, yes?” He glowered at her. He wore the same clothes he’d had on yesterday, and had what looked like the same disgusting, smelly cigar smoldering in the filled ashtray beside him. The tortilla chips beside the ashtray were liberally scattered across the rounded table of his hairy belly.

  She suppressed a small shudder. A hairy belly and food should never be thought of in the same sentence. She tried to maintain eye contact. “Hmm.”

  “I would not recommend Teo’s food,” he warned, close-set eyes shadowed by the bill of his cap. He tap-tap-tapped the deck of cards on the table in an irritated fashion as he talked. “You are better off eating over at the mission.”

  No kidding. Eating here would probably give her some deadly intestinal disease. “Thanks for the warning,” she said cheerfully, giving him a beaming, open smile. And waited, looking pointedly at the cards and the poker table. “I’m not hungry, anyway.” She cocked her hip out to one side and smiled shyly.

  Police Chief José Fejos looked at her expectantly, lifting the cards in a subtle we’d like to get on with our game gesture.

  “Oh! Am I interrupting you?” She put a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I love watching men play cards,” she explained, sliding her fingers casually into the pockets of her khaki pants as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “My daddy used to let me stay up once in a while and watch him and his friends when I was just a little girl. He’s been gone eight years now, and I still have great memories; it was such a rare treat to see men who really knew how to play well.”

  Chips dropped from his shirt like golden snowflakes as he sighed. She was familiar with that sigh; it wasn’t the kind of sound that suggested he thought highly of women in general, and her specifically. “Do you play poker, Señora Stark?”

  Acadia laughed softly. “Well, I wouldn’t say play. It’s been so long, I don’t really even remember the rules. But I used to enjoy watching. May I …?”

  His smarmy smile was almost as repulsive as his fat, hairy body. Oral hygiene was another thing not high on his grooming list. “But we play for money, querida, and you are without funds, not so?”

  Because you swiped my last twenty, you dishonest, unchivalrous, disgusting pig.

  She faked disappointment, then brightened, digging in her back pocket. “I have this. It’s real silver.” Placing the chain on the table, she arranged the medallion carefully.

  The care wasn’t fake. Her father would have enjoyed the hell out of what she was about to do. St. Christopher had better step up to the plate.

  Acadia smoothed it with her fingertip. “Is that enough for a round or two?” Or twenty. Depending on how fast they decided to take it and send her on her way.

  Cigar between two fingers, he picked up the chain on the nail of his pinkie. “This is worth nothing, señora. What else you got?”

  Thank you so much for asking. She gave a disappointed sigh. “Nothing here, I’m afraid.” She brightened. “But I have plenty of money back home. I just won the Kansas lottery, you see, just in time for my birthday!” Her smile widened. “Which is today, in fact. So I thought maybe I’d try to see if I could play, to celebrate. But of course, I don’t have access to the lottery money here …” She trailed off, leaving the bait l
ying on the water like her father had taught her.

  “You won a lotto?” Fejos’s heavy jowls quivered, his piggy eyes bright. “How much?”

  Acadia cast a nervous glance to the biker guy and a tremulous, hopeful glance at the old man, and smiled shyly at the bald man, who was all but levitating out of his chair with glee. “I won ten thousand dollars,” she told them in a conspiratorial whisper filled with awe and excitement. They’d take her for ten. They’d kill her for five hundred thousand. “Can you believe it? I wish I could get my hands on some of it. But it’s the weekend, and besides, there aren’t any banks nearby.”

  “You give me the bank and numbers and I will take care of everything,” Fejos assured her. More tortilla pieces rained down as he puffed up his already puffed-up chest. “I’d be honored to help you. Feliz cumpleaños, señora.”

  Happy birthday to her. He wanted to rob her blind.

  She opened her eyes wide at his cleverness. Snap went the trap. “You can? Well, if a girl can’t trust the chief of police, who can she trust?” She smiled happily. “Just take out … how much do you think, to keep me playing for a couple of hours until my husband wakes up? Maybe five hundred dollars? No. Make that a thousand.” She made damn sure her smile went all the way to her eyes. “I feel lucky. Okay. Take out a thousand dollars. Oh, this is so exciting! I’ll write down my account number for you.

  “Do you have—Thank you.” Acadia took the pencil and piece of notepaper they’d been keeping score on, flipped it over, and wrote the bank account number she’d used for her father’s medical expenses. Barring any recent bank fees, the balance was still holding at seventeen dollars and eleven cents.

  After a brief bit of business with multiple speaking glances among the men, Fejos motioned for the skinny old guy to bring over another chair from one of the nearby tables. Acadia didn’t have to guess where she’d be placed. Between Darwin and the rotund police chief, where she’d be on the dealer’s left. Which meant she’d have to place the first bet.