The Sooner the Better

by Debbie Macomber

  “Actually I thought I was quite clever,” Jason said smugly. “Your father bought right in to that cornpone Southern bit.”

  “How’d you get my room number?”

  “I have my ways.” He glanced around and gave a low whistle. “Pretty expensive digs you’ve got.”

  “I want you out of here,” she demanded, putting on a brave front. “You’ve done enough damage as it is.”

  “No problem,” Jason said, and sprang to his feet. “Just give me what’s mine.”

  Lorraine’s heart sank. “I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “How’d you get both pieces of the Kukulcan Star in the first place?” She had to find a way to distract him. The phones were out of reach; he’d grab her before she could get to one. Her only hope was to make a run for the door and pray the guard had returned. There was a chance, a small one, if she kept her wits about her.

  “You know about the Kukulcan Star?” That appeared to surprise him.

  “I have my ways, too.”

  He nodded approvingly. “So it seems.”

  “Really, I’d like to know,” she said, pretending to be curious. A man as self-absorbed as Jason would delight in bragging about what he’d done. “You couldn’t possibly have managed this on your own,” she murmured. She wondered if she was overdoing it.

  Apparently not. “Ah, but I did. Suffice it to say I’d been studying Professor Raventos’s books for years. When I wrote, he was impressed by my knowledge of the Maya and my appreciation of Kukulcan. The two of us struck up a friendship and he invited me along on the dig. He trusted me.”

  Lorraine had trusted him, too.

  Jason shrugged. “Unfortunately, after he found the Star, my esteemed colleague became…redundant.”

  Lorraine shuddered, and he laughed.

  “Some people assume it’s luck, being in the right place at the right time. But it’s not. It’s careful planning. However, even the best-laid plans sometimes go awry. Sometimes another person interferes….” He advanced menacingly toward her. “Give it to me, Lorraine.”

  She backed slowly toward the door, arms behind her.

  “I’ve killed for it before. I’d hate to hurt you, but if I have to, I will.”

  “What happened to you?” she asked. “You’re smart. Why would you murder people? Why would you rob a country of its heritage? Is it greed?”

  “You don’t know, do you?” he asked, shaking his head. “You really don’t understand.”

  “No. Explain it to me. Murder, Jason? Murder?”

  He shrugged again. “Actually, the first time was the hardest.”

  “Oh, Jason.”

  He stretched out his hand. “Give me my Star. It’s mine, and when I have it I’ll reveal myself to my people. Glory will return to the Maya.”

  He was crazy. He had to be.

  “I already told you, I can’t.” She was close to making her move.

  Jason released an exasperated sigh. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Lorraine, you’re a disappointment to me.”

  “I am? You’re the one who tricked me into lying for you.” She had to keep him talking. “You planted both artifacts on me. You knew I hadn’t seen my father since I was a child, and yet you purposely destroyed our visit. You’re despicable. You—”

  “Yeah, well, there are worse things. Like what’s going to happen to you if you don’t give me back my Star.” He shook his head again, his expression sorrowful. “It would be a pity. I’ve grown quite fond of you. In other circumstances we might have been very good…friends.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He chuckled. “Trust me, Lorraine, you want me to have the Star. The alternative isn’t pleasant.”

  “Trust you?” She laughed incredulously. And then she ran out the door, slamming it in her wake. The first thing she noticed was that the guard was still gone. With no time to lose, she didn’t even consider waiting for the elevator. Instead, she sprinted for the stairway. At the top of the stairs she caught sight of the guard’s lifeless body. His throat had been slit.

  Lorraine gasped at the sight. Fear and horror propelled her into action. She had to do something drastic or soon she’d be as dead as that guard.

  Jason was directly behind her, but she had an advantage. Back in high school she’d learned how to slide down a stairway railing. It was quite a balancing act—and it was how she’d broken her arm. She hadn’t tried it since then, but now… What other choice did she have? She eluded Jason long enough to hop onto the metal railing. The difficulty was in maintaining her balance. Perched sideways, with her arms held straight out, she slid down the first railing.

  Jason was quick; the sound of his feet bounding down the stairs echoed in the narrow stairwell. He could shoot her, she realized, but she was of no value to him dead. He wanted the Star; what he didn’t know was that she no longer had it.

  The instant she started down, she screamed for help at the top of her lungs. Unfortunately she’d lost her travel dictionary and didn’t know how to say it in Spanish. Not that it seemed to matter. No one heard.

  She was a full staircase ahead of Jason when he shouted, “Don’t make me do something I don’t want to.”

  For all the racket she made, anyone might have thought she was being murdered right then and there. Still no one came. She didn’t want to believe that Jason would actually kill her, but after seeing the guard, she had no doubt he’d do it. He was insane. Completely and dangerously insane.

  Lorraine stopped thinking after that, concentrating, instead, on her escape. Balance, slide, run across the landing to the next set of stairs. She did it three times, four. And never did she see or hear even a single person. Except Jason, who pounded remorselessly after her.

  The stairwell came out by the pool. The area was filled with beautiful, tanned men and women lounging with grease-slicked bodies in reclining chairs, sipping tropical drinks and listening to a mariachi band.

  Lorraine burst onto the scene, took a second to assess the situation and raced in the direction of the hotel lobby. She was shocked that Jason was so close behind her.

  She had to hand it to him, he was quite the athlete. And quite the actor. He laughed and called after her in Spanish, words she couldn’t understand. Most people weren’t listening or paying attention, though, focused, instead, on the band.

  Jason caught up with her between the pool and the entrance to the hotel. With almost no effort he threw her, kicking and screaming, over his shoulder and carried her off. His strength astonished her. He handled her as if she weighed next to nothing.

  She pummeled his back with her fists like a madwoman. “Help!” she screamed, frantic to have someone, anyone, notice what was happening. “I need help! He’s going to murder me!”

  “If you ran up my credit cards, I would, too,” a man, obviously half-drunk, yelled back.

  “This is no joke,” she screamed.

  “It never is,” the same man shouted.

  All Lorraine’s struggles did was tire her. After a while she gave up, convinced it was useless.

  “The time for fun and games is over. Where’s the Kukulcan Star?” Jason demanded once more through gritted teeth. His hands tightened painfully around her legs.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “All right, who does?”

  “The Department of Antiquities.”

  “Lorraine, you don’t know how this disappoints me.”

  “I’m sure it does. Are you going to kill me the way you did that guard?”

  “Nope.” He continued walking toward the street. “I’m afraid I like you too much for that.” He set her feet back on the pavement. “Besides, I’ve already promised your friend here the pleasure.”

  When he put her down, she whirled around to see Carlos. The man’s smile was as ugly as his face.

  “Oh, did I forget to tell you I’d run into a friend of yours?” Jason asked ever so sweetly.

  He was going to drown his sorro
ws in a bottle of good tequila, Jack decided. But once he sat down at the sidewalk restaurant, the desire to get drunk left him. He ordered a beer, instead.

  He recalled the last time he’d been in a cantina. La Ruta Maya. That was where Lorraine had left the boat and gotten herself into a mess of trouble. He’d been lucky to find her when he did. Relieved, too—not that he’d let her know it.

  Then he thought about Pucuro, that nasty little town with its nasty little dock. Or rather, without it. He laughed outright at the image; he was only sorry he’d missed the actual experience. Several people turned in his direction, openly curious about what he found so amusing.

  His last bottle of finely aged scotch had been used for medicinal purposes, more specifically to cleanse his shoulder wound. Lorraine had painstakingly nursed him back to health. He remembered their many conversations, about their lives, about movies, and the night they’d lain together and stared at the reflection of the moon in the water.

  What Lorraine had taught him during their time together was his own capacity to make himself vulnerable to someone. He’d told her more about his background and soldiering experiences than he’d ever told anyone.

  He wouldn’t lie to himself about the pain he felt. It was as agonizing as anything physical. Walking away from her had been the most difficult, dangerous thing he’d ever done. Dangerous because he wasn’t sure he could become again the man he used to be. Without Lorraine and without his old beliefs, his old attitudes—where did that leave him?

  He held up his glass and stared into the amber liquid, suddenly craving oblivion. All he could think about was Lorraine. Sitting in a sidewalk bar this close to her hotel made his thoughts inevitable.

  Finishing his beer, he decided to catch a cab to his own hotel when he strolled by a telephone. Two steps past it, he stopped, turned and went back.

  He dialed the operator and put the call on his credit card, then waited for the connection to Boothill, Texas, to go through.

  His best friend’s wife answered on the third ring. “Jack, is that you?” Letty shouted.

  The connection wasn’t the best. “It’s me. Is Murphy around?”

  “He’s vaccinating calves, but listen, I’m glad you phoned. Someone by the name of Thomas Dancy called for you today.”

  “Thomas?” he asked in surprise. “I spoke to him last night.” But, in retrospect, he realized that he hadn’t given Thomas a number, a place to reach him. He’d only mentioned the name of Lorraine’s hotel, not where he himself was staying. And Thomas would’ve been able to track down Murphy easily enough; on more than one occasion, Jack had mentioned Murphy and the cattle ranch he owned in the Texas hill country.

  “What’s this I hear about you escorting his daughter out of Mexico?” An infant wailed in the background. Their third in four years.

  “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Are you coming for a visit? Murphy would love to see you. So would I.”

  “I’m thinking about it,” Jack admitted. One thing was certain: he had to leave Mexico for a while. Get away from the memories and the pain. Reestablish his emotional equilibrium. “Give the kids each a kiss from me,” Jack said, forcing himself to sound as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Hold on just a minute,” Letty said. “I’ve got more news for you.”

  Jack heard a clank as she set the telephone aside. Almost immediately the baby’s cries ceased. News? The last time Letty had something to tell him it was about the third addition to their family.

  “Are you still there?” Letty asked when she got back on the line.

  “I’m here,” he said. He thought of joking that it was costing him five bucks a minute for her to burp the baby, but in reality he wouldn’t have cared if it was ten times that amount. Letty and Murphy were as close as Jack had to a real family, and right now he needed them. Needed to know that couples in love could find happiness in this world.

  “Okay,” Letty said, “getting back to that call from your friend Nancy…”

  “Dancy,” Jack corrected.

  “As long as you know who I mean. He was quite concerned about his daughter.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Do you know anyone named Gary… Darn, I can’t think of the last name. Anyway, he’s connected to this Dancy’s daughter, but I don’t think he told me how. Not that it matters.”

  Jack stiffened. “I know who you mean. What about him?”

  Her voice seemed to be fading, and then it grew loud again. “Dancy said he’d been getting phone calls from this Gary guy, and then today someone entirely different contacted him and claimed to be the same person. Your friend seemed concerned about it.”

  Jack’s hand tightened on the receiver. “Go on.”

  “There’s not much more to tell you. Dancy left a message at the hotel you mentioned, but you weren’t registered and his daughter hadn’t checked in yet. He didn’t have any way of getting in touch with you, and he seemed pretty upset about all this. He told the first guy everything he knew about the two of you in Mexico City. Now he’s worried, and rightly so, it seems.”

  Jack’s mind raced. It could only be one person.

  Jason Applebee.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said in a rush.

  “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

  “I’ll visit soon. I promise.” He replaced the receiver, then stood there thinking about what he’d just learned.

  This adventure wasn’t over yet.

  Gary knew the minute he drove onto the freeway that he was going to Marjorie’s house, even though his ostensible destination was the mall. He had the perfect excuse to stop by—a signed Ken Griffey, Jr., rookie card that Brice had been dying to see.

  He intended to say something along the lines of dropping over because he was in the neighborhood. A stretch and certainly not very original, but he didn’t care. He had to know.

  Since their kiss, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. She dominated his every waking thought, and while they’d agreed to put the whole thing behind them, it hadn’t happened. As a result, their working relationship was strained. Their coworkers would soon guess, and Gary felt it was time to clear the air.

  Saturday morning had found him restless and at odds. His original intention had been to do a little shopping…but then, why had he taken the baseball card with him? He didn’t know who he was trying to fool. He enjoyed shopping about as much as he enjoyed paying taxes.

  When he headed toward the freeway entrance, he admitted that seeing Marjorie was what he’d planned to do all along. Granted, his method lacked finesse. Stopping by unannounced and uninvited wasn’t the most brilliant idea he’d ever come up with. On the other hand, maybe she approved of spontaneity.

  He parked on the street, walked up to the front porch and rang the doorbell.

  Marjorie came to the door. He could tell she was surprised to see him. “Gary…hi.”

  “Hi.” He resisted the urge to say he’d made a mistake and hightail it back to his car. “Is Brice here?” He sounded like a kid, he thought irritably. “I have that baseball card I told him about and I thought he’d like to see it.”

  She opened the screen door to let him in. “The signed Ken Griffey, Jr., card? I heard him talking about it to his friends.”

  She’d done it again—put him at ease. It seemed to be a specialty of hers.

  “Brice has baseball practice on Saturday mornings.”

  Gary supposed he should have thought of that since Brice had mentioned it. But then it wasn’t really Brice he’d come to visit. He knew he was staring at Marjorie and he couldn’t stop. Even in a faded pair of jeans and a sleeveless top she was beautiful. For the first time he noticed she had on a pair of yellow rubber gloves. One hand held a can of cleansing powder, the other a sponge.

  “I was just about to take a break and have a cup of coffee,” she said. “Would you care to join me?”

  Gary nodded enthusiastically and followed her into
the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your cleaning.”

  “I should thank you for dragging me away from it,” she told him, peeling off the rubber gloves. “It’s my least favorite thing to do.”

  He moved a stack of newspapers from one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. She poured them each a mug, then sat across from him. She frowned, staring into her coffee as if she’d discovered something floating there.

  He took a deep breath; it was time to speak honestly. “Showing Brice the baseball card was only an excuse,” he said.

  She glanced away from him.

  “I know we agreed to forget about the kiss…”

  “And I think we should,” she said, still not looking at him.

  “I can’t.” He couldn’t be any more honest than that.

  “Me, neither.” Her voice was so soft he had to strain to make out the words. “But you’re engaged.”

  “I know that.” He didn’t need Marjorie to remind him. But he hadn’t heard a word from Lorraine, and when he’d finally broken down and called her father early this morning, the conversation had left him more confused than ever. Her father seemed to think Gary had phoned the night before. He hadn’t, and said so. Then Thomas Dancy had gotten excited and insisted he had to get off the phone.

  “Gary, it isn’t a good idea for you to be here.”

  “I know that, too,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have come…and yet I couldn’t stay away.”

  “My lasagna’s good, Gary, but not that good.”

  He smiled, and the tension between them diminished. He reached across the table and took hold of her hand. “You’re wonderful.”

  Pulling free, she walked over to the sink, facing the window.

  “Marjorie?”

  She whirled around. “You’re engaged—to someone else. I like you, Gary, more than I should, but I—”

  “You like me?” His heart reacted with a surge of joy.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know!”

  “I didn’t.” He’d hoped, but that wasn’t the same thing.