The palm trees provided almost no breeze to stir the muggy, midsummer air. The red-tiled roofs over the tables offered minimal shade. Heat radiated from the sidewalk in shimmering waves. The aroma of cigar smoke from thick, handmade Cuban cigars made in nearby factories swirled around them. In moments their clothes were sticking to them. Still Michael stood patiently watching the play and sipping his coffee, his expression enigmatic.
Eventually, when the game he was observing most closely concluded amid cheers and back-slapping, he nodded to one of the players. “Señor López?”
Eyes the color of walnuts squinted at Michael through thick lenses. The wiry old man, his hands gnarled, his shoulders bent, finally nodded. “Sí. I am José López.”
Michael explained in Spanish that he was Miguel García’s nephew. Several men, dressed in their khaki shorts and guayaberas, or jeans and plain white T-shirts, backed away, looking thoroughly uneasy, as if they expected a gunfight to break out Western style. Only Señor López seemed pleased by the introduction.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to a place that was immediately vacated by his opponent in the hotly contested game of dominoes. He glanced distrustfully at Molly and waited until Michael explained who she was.
“You are wondering if I know what has happened to your uncle,” he said finally, using his halting English for Molly’s benefit.
Michael nodded.
“I spoke to your family last night to tell them of my concern.”
“Last night? You had heard the news last night?” Michael asked skeptically. “I cannot imagine that my uncle’s disappearance was on an evening newscast. One old man lost at sea for a few hours? What is the news?”
“Word travels quickly among friends. I knew of Miguel’s disappearance by nightfall. Only this morning did I learn of the explosion.”
“And how did you learn of that? Also from friends?”
“No, from the radio. I have heard nothing except what was on the noticias, the news reports. Díaz-Nuñez has talked of little except the explosion this morning.”
“And has he offered an explanation?”
“Nothing.”
“He is not calling my uncle a hero?”
Señor López began to look faintly uneasy. “No, those were not his words.”
“A traitor, then?”
The old man’s gaze sharpened. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“It is possible, is it not? If one does not support the cause wholeheartedly, if one perhaps makes a mistake in trusting the wrong people, then there are those who would be quick to label this person a traitor. We have seen this with something as simple as the condemnation of a singer who had dared to perform in Cuba, si?”
“Es posible, yes,” Señor López admitted. “But you are speaking of your uncle. I ask again, why would you say such things?”
“Tell me about him,” Michael suggested. “As you know him.”
“No comprendo.”
“I know that you were boyhood friends in Havana. I know that he considers José López to be like a brother. I also know that you used to go with him to meetings of the Organization of the Revolution. He told me that.”
A stream of Spanish greeted Michael’s statement, then in English, “He should not have said that. That is Miguel’s problem. He does not know how to be discreet.”
“You do not take pride in your membership?”
“That is not the point. Obviously you comprehend that no better than Miguel.”
If Michael was irritated by the criticism, Molly couldn’t tell it. He was displaying far more patience with this irritable old man than he ever displayed in an interrogation or even with Molly. Clearly, he expected to wheedle something important from Señor López, but Molly couldn’t help wondering how long his restraint would last.
“Would that problem have caused him difficulty with Paredes?” he asked bluntly.
Molly watched Señor Lopez’s eyes at the mention of Paredes. They betrayed nothing.
He shrugged and conceded, “It is necessary to know the value of silence within a group such as ours.”
“Where can I find Paredes?”
This time there was no mistaking the flicker of unease in his eyes. López avoided Michael’s gaze. “I cannot say.”
Michael’s hands clenched and Molly guessed that his patience was at an end. He looked as if he wanted badly to reach across to shake the old man.
“Someone put a bomb on my uncle’s boat yesterday,” he said softly, though there was no mistaking his carefully contained fury. “I want to know who and I want to know why. I believe Paredes can provide the information I need.”
The old man’s expression shut down completely. He struggled up, and Molly realized with a sense of shock that one leg was missing below the knee. His pant leg was folded up and sewn together. She wondered when and under what circumstances his injury had occurred.
As he balanced himself carefully, one of his friends handed him a pair of crutches. “I must be going now,” he said. “My daughter will be expecting me.”
“You do not care what has happened to your old friend?” Michael snapped at him. “He could be dead and it does not matter to you?”
Tears brimmed in the old man’s eyes before he could blink them away, and he sank back down on the concrete bench. “Por favor,” he whispered. “Do not do this. Leave me in peace.”
“I will go,” Michael said, his expression as hard and forbidding as Molly had ever seen it. “When you tell me how to find Paredes.”
Señor Lopez’s hands trembled as he tried to stack the dominoes in a neat pile.
“Señor?” Michael prodded.
The dominoes tumbled to the table. “Tomorrow night at La Carreta.” Lopez said finally, referring to a chain of Cuban family-style restaurants.
“Which one?”
“Here, on Calle Ocho.”
“And Paredes will be there?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But someone there will know how to find him.”
Michael gave a curt nod of satisfaction, then rested his hand over the old man’s. “Thank you.”
“De nada.” For nothing. No problem.
It wasn’t nothing, though, Molly realized as she studied the soul-weary man across from them. José López looked as if the exchange had drained him of every last bit of energy. Worse, when she gazed into his eyes, all she saw was fear.
As she and Michael walked back to his car, she said to him, “He was afraid. Was it because you’re a policeman?”
Michael shook his head. “I believe he is afraid that whatever happened to my uncle could happen to him.”
• • •
Michael fell sound asleep en route to his recently acquired townhouse in Kendall. Not even the caffeine in several cups of Cuban coffee could combat the exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours or so. The fact that he was not awake to argue was probably the only reason Molly was actually able to get him to go home. Awake he would have been insisting on going to assist in the rescue flights that had been taking off all morning from Tamiami Airport in search of his uncle and any other misguided rafters who might be lost on the treacherous seas.
He groaned when she gently shook him awake to go inside. “Where are we?”
“Your place.”
He yawned and climbed out of the car, leading the way inside the neat cream-colored structure with its red-tiled roof. Inside the air-conditioning blasted, creating an almost Arctic chill.
“I’ll take a quick shower and then go out to the airport,” he said, his voice still groggy with sleep. “Why don’t you get some rest?”
Molly lost patience. “Michael, if you keep this up, you’re going to collapse. Then what will your family do? Sleep for a couple of hours at least. Then you can go to the airport and wait for the rescue flights to come in.”
“I should be on board one of them.”
“Taking the place of someone whose eyes are alert?”
He sighed then. “Okay, you have a
point.”
“Remind me to mark the occasion.”
“Careful, amiga, or I will find a way to silence that tart tongue of yours.”
She grinned at him. “I’d be worried, if you weren’t asleep on your feet.”
“There are some things a man can always find the energy to do.”
Molly wanted very much to suggest he prove it, but concluded reluctantly that this was definitely not the time. “I’ll remind you of that one of these days. Go, get some rest. I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.”
“You need rest, too, amiga.”
“I need to make a couple of calls, then I’ll lie down right here on the sofa.” She thought it was an amazingly noble suggestion considering where she’d rather be.
To her surprise, he shook his head. “I want you beside me,” he said, though there was less amorous intent in his words than a sort of lost desolation. “Please.”
Deeply touched, her pulse hammering, Molly nodded. “I’ll be there as soon as I check on Brian.”
The call to Hal to exact his promise to keep Brian until the crisis with Tío Miguel was resolved took far less time than she’d anticipated, mostly because for once Hal didn’t argue with her. In a resigned, only faintly aggrieved tone, he simply agreed.
“I hope everything turns out okay,” he said. “I saw the story this morning.”
“Did Brian see it?” she asked worriedly.
“No, I didn’t even open the paper until I got to the office. O’Hara’s okay?”
“Exhausted, but okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Molly?”
“Yes?”
“I know you don’t want to hear this from me, but be careful. You’ve seen the extremes some of these people will go to to make a point.”
Molly thought of the radio newscaster years before whose leg had been blown off by a car bomb. She recalled the bombs detonated to make a point about a collection of artworks that had contained paintings by artists still living in Cuba. She thought of the campaign of death threats and harassment conducted against the city’s newspaper. And then she remembered the fiery explosion just after midnight on the bay and shuddered.
“Yes, I’ve seen it, all too recently. Tell Brian I love him, okay? I’ll call him as soon as I can. Please reassure him that Michael is fine.”
When she’d finished talking to her ex-husband, she made one more call, this one to Ted Ryan at the morning paper.
“Molly, this is a switch, you calling me.”
She knew she was taking a risk involving the reporter. Michael would be furious if he found out. But her own sources in the Cuban community tended to be middle-class exiles, who maintained an allegiance to their homeland but kept themselves far removed from the politics of terrorism—at least officially. The paper, however, had sources in this exile underground that she would never be able to tap without an introduction. Even Michael would be regarded with suspicion. Señor Lopez’s distrustful, frightened reaction had proved that, as had the nervousness of those who’d witnessed the exchange in the park.
“I need your help,” she told Ted.
“Anything,” he said at once. “You know that.”
“I want everything you have in the files about Orestes León Paredes and that organization he leads. Can you do that?”
“No problem. I’ll get printouts for you this afternoon. What’s he have to do with the bombing?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Can you ask around over there and find out where he lives or where he has his headquarters?”
“Sure. Is there a number where I can call you back?”
“I’ll call you later.” She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was already after noon. “How about three o’clock?”
“I’ll be here.”
“Thanks, Ted.”
When she’d hung up, she glanced around Michael’s kitchen, amazed as always at its pristine cleanliness. Not one single dirty dish sat in the sink. She knew if she looked into the dishwasher, she would find none in there either. Unlike most bachelor refrigerators, his would be well-stocked with healthy foods, all carefully wrapped. Most impressive was the restaurant-quality espresso machine on the counter and the array of blended coffees displayed beside it. Michael did love his coffee. Hers, he claimed, was weak, sissy stuff.
The first time she had come here, only a few weeks earlier after one of Brian’s soccer games, Molly had commented on the neatness of his kitchen. Michael had merely shrugged and gone about the business of putting together a snack for Brian and his teammates with astonishing efficiency. It was, she had since concluded, the same way he approached everything in his life. He kept things precisely ordered so there was no distracting clutter to interfere with the constant mulling of clues and evidence that went on in his head.
Surprised by her own reluctance, she finally forced herself toward the steps leading to the townhouse’s second-floor bedrooms. This was new terrain to her in more ways than one. She wondered if, once she had climbed those stairs, things would ever be the same between them again.
Not because of sex, she told herself. She didn’t think that was what was on Michael’s mind anyway. No, because of the vulnerability he had allowed her to see for the first time today. That bond of emotional intimacy was something she had craved far more than physical contact, although there was no denying that more and more lately she’d had restless nights from wanting the sexy, elusive Cuban detective to hold her in his arms.
Taking a deep breath at the partially-closed door to his room, she pushed the door open, uncertain of what to expect. Disappointment warred with amusement at what she found.
Michael was sprawled facedown across the bed, his upper body bare, a pair of colorful boxer shorts riding low on his hips, his black hair still damp from his shower.
So much for crawling into bed beside him, she thought ruefully, as she examined the odd patches of space here and there on the king-size bed. He’d taken his side of the bed in the middle. She stood for a long time, just drinking in the sight of all that leanly-muscled masculinity. The perfection had been seriously marred by the explosion. Stitched gashes and bright bruises were stark testimony to his close call.
Sighing, she finally plucked up the alarm clock from beside the bed, quietly closed the door, and crept back downstairs for her own desperately needed nap.
She set the clock for two thirty. It was barely more than twenty-four hours since she and Michael had begun worrying that something had happened to Tío Miguel. It seemed like a lifetime ago, a lifetime crammed with emotional extremes.
As she curled up on Michael’s oversize cream-colored sofa with its plump pillows, she realized there was no way of knowing how long it might be before either of them slept again.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Molly was awakened not by the alarm clock, but by the sound of voices. No, not voices. One very loud, angry voice. Michael’s.
She glanced at the clock and saw that it was just after two o’clock. Groaning, she turned off the alarm before its shrill could join the commotion from upstairs and buried her face in a pillow. She indulged in a moment’s regret that it had been the clock, not the phone she had removed from his room. She felt dull and headachy, not rested at all. Michael, on the other hand, seemed to have found the energy to yell. His voice carried through the townhouse.
“What the hell do you mean, they’re calling off the search? My uncle could be dying out there.”
There was a brief lull, then, “Thunder storms? Who gives a shit? I don’t care if a goddamned hurricane is brewing, I want those planes to cover every square inch of water in the straits.”
Molly dragged herself off the sofa. Obviously she needed to get upstairs and explain the concept of winning friends and influencing people to Michael before he alienated the only people actually searching for his uncle.
She found him sitting on the side of his bed, clothed only in those brightly patterned boxer shorts, lines of exhaust
ion still etched on his face. He barely even glanced at her as she sat down next to him.
Acting instinctively, she put her hand on his bare shoulder in a gesture meant to soothe. It might not have soothed, but it definitely got his attention. Obviously, a woman’s hand on his naked flesh was to Michael what a red cape was to a bull—the start of something. Heat flared in his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, I understand,” he muttered distractedly.
His gaze locked with Molly’s. She burned under the intensity of his scrutiny. She decided that just maybe he’d gotten the wrong idea.
Or the right idea at the wrong time, to be perfectly honest about it.
He hung up, his gaze still so hot it could melt icier resolve than Molly’s.
“What brings you upstairs, amiga?”
“The call of the wild,” she replied.
He looked absolutely fascinated. A spark of purely provocative devilment lit his eyes. “Oh, really?”
“You were shouting insults at the top of your lungs. I decided drastic measures were called for to mellow you out.”
“How drastic?”
She stood up and backed away from temptation. “Well, much as I’d like to stay and demonstrate, isn’t it time we got back to our investigation?”
“Our investigation?”
Heady from earlier successful negotiations with the likes of Vince Gates and Hal DeWitt, she decided to test Michael’s limits. “Right. We’re a team. Partners. Remember?”
His gaze slid over her. “That’s not what I remember. What I remember was inviting you to share my bed.”
Hot Schemes Page 6