“No, It’s–”
“Then later.”
Ann blinked at his shoulder as they moved to the door. He had closed off again. Of course. Because what else can you do after you super kiss someone but shoving her as emotionally far away as possible? Her lips tightened. “I say we talk now.”
“And I say, if it’s not about Mary, it’s not a priority.”
“Why are you the one who decides about priorities?”
“Because I’m the one who has to leave before five.” From the door, his eyes burned with a dangerous flame. “Let’s go.”
She stood her ground. “Where do you have to go?”
“See someone.”
“Is it for Mary?”
He nodded.
“I want–”
“No.”
“But–”
“Out.”
She stomped into the corridor. No use talking to him when he was in that frame of mind, having a conversation with the wallpaper would have been more useful.
She would bide her time, catch him in his reasonable self and explain to him her point in a very non-aggressive, but firm, way.
Dumb moron.
* * * * *
The computer room was empty.
Bright light pierced through the small windows on top of one wall, the low humming of the AC promised dry coolness.
They sat in front of the furthest machine, side by side. Mark plugged in the hard disk, punched in some key and they waited.
A folder popped up. When he opened it, a long list of .AVI files appeared like jewels in a chest, each listed with numbers and dates.
“You don’t need to see this,” Mark said with a flat, unemotional voice.
“We don’t know what’s on them. If it gets too… personal, I’ll leave. Open the file, Mark,” she pressed at his hesitation.
“Security tapes,” he said, relief clearer than the sun.
The eye of the security camera lay on the hallway, from its start all the way to Mary’s office. Images of people clumped in a charged little crowd filled the screen–old men with beautiful women, some their wives, some not. Young men, so delicate they resembled cherubs, with over masculine ones. Mary walking up and down the alley, busy.
This was my sister at work, Ann thought, the distant echo of anger a simple disruption. She knew the deal, looking at it didn’t make any real difference. It was just strange, and hard to put all together. For the first time since the new info on Mary’s job, Ann looked at her. Sometime later, Mary would be no more. And she still loved her, so much.
She jumped when Mark’s hand rested calmly on her knee and squeezed. He didn’t turn to look at her, didn’t utter any word. His dark eyes still on the screen, his jaw was still the familiar hard line. But like the first time he’d done it, the first night they met, that little gesture made the difference between feeling alone and supported.
“Open the last one,” she proposed. “Chances are, whatever happened was not long ago. We can watch the tapes backward.”
He nodded, clicked on the last file.
The first image showed Mary going into her office. Many girls entered in one room, a parade of what Ann thought summed up a man’s every possible fantasy. She counted an odalisque, a cowgirl, a woman in an elegant man suit, a cheerleader and, of course, a nurse.
“Snow,” she breathed as she saw Mary’s ebony friend with the other girls. She wore a white bikini over white leather wedged boot high up to her knees, and a leather Greek fisherman cap. She was chatting with the cowgirl, and their faces showed the same bored endurance Ann had seen on people going to the office in the morning. Were they talking about hitting the beach the day after? Or about where to buy that lip gloss that looked gorgeous? Normal girl-talk before another mundane night at work.
Then the door shut, and nothing happened for a good hour, when a pack of men gathered into the hall.
“Something’s different,” Mark said. “They’re alone, no women. When I was there, people were kind of sorted into different groups, but it happened in the waiting room.”
Mary came out from her office, greeted the men with old fashioned class. A brief and smiling exchange between her and a young, dark haired man, some flirting, from the way Mary leaned at his side, whispered in his ear.
He was young, early twenties, and took the slapping and the handshaking with the shy pride of a boy winning a school match. “Do you think he’s important?” Ann asked.
“Looks like it.”
Mark stopped the video, enlarged the man’s face and printed a copy.
Another man arrived. He was tall, wore a black suit that didn’t hide his athletic body, blond hair tied up in a ponytail. Ann didn’t realize her fingers dug into Mark’s arm until his hand covered hers. “I know,” he said, hard.
“She didn’t like him,” Ann said when Mary spared him a cold, businesslike hug. “Her smile’s wrong.”
He and Mary talked for few seconds, then he nodded. The whole group disappeared beyond the door and Mary went back to her office.
“He knew my sister,” Ann accused. “He knew her, probably he even slept with her, and the night after he killed her.”
Another hour went by. Then someone opened the door – a blade at first, widening slowly.
Ann leaned closer to the screen as Snow peeked out, then stepped in the hall. The cap was gone, a reddish stain of wine insulted the pure-white of her bikini. She closed the door behind her and rested against it with her eyes closed.
“She’s scared,” Ann said.
Snow ran both hands through her ebony hair, then jogged to Mary’s office. She didn’t knock, simply pushed the door. She stayed with Mary for exactly twelve minutes. When she came out, her smeared makeup dripped in black tears along her face. She cleaned it away with unsure hands and walked away.
Mary followed Snow’s steps after few minutes. She looked calm, but when she turned to lock the door of her office, her hand shook. The grip on her cell phone was tight, too tight.
“The tape says two-ten a.m.,” Mark said. “When Mouse talked to me, he said Mary called in the middle of the night.” He pointed a finger to the screen. “She’s about to call Mouse.”
“Snow told her something that scared them both, and it happened inside the room. Snow saw something she wasn’t supposed to?”
Mark’s lips twitched. “What about all the other girls? If Snow saw, so did everyone else. She and Mary are the only two people harmed.”
“Maybe it’s not what she saw, but what she heard.”
“More likely.”
Mary reappeared; the key slid into the lock of her office, but she hesitated. Someone must have been in the hallway, because she mumbled few words and went back into her office.
Few minutes later, the video turned black.
“She closed the camera. We’re done here.” Mark closed the file, started to erase their presence from the computer.
“What next?”
“I’ll show the picture to John, see if he knows him.” Mark eyed his watch. “I have to go. He waits for me at six. Pack while I’m away, we’re checking out. We’re getting closer, and we’ve been here too long already.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Well, yeah, it’s not like we’re staying in two different hotels.”
“No, I mean now, to this guy.”
His face shut off. “Too dangerous.”
Ann wasn’t going to let this one pass. She grabbed his arm, forced him to look into her eyes. “I’m sick of waiting, Mark. Please.”
Mark knew it was ridiculous even thinking about it: open place, full of people, no cover.
But her eyes were so sad, so angry. He couldn't find the will to tell her no.
He nodded, regretting his decision the moment he took it. “Let’s go pack,” he growled.
Chapter 17
Okay, Mark had a point, Ann conceded.
It was night and in the safety of a building when they went to Mary’s Club, less
wide, less open to bad chances.
Now, the rounded space in Bayfront Park was a huge concrete opening carved into grass, skyscrapers and ocean, the sun shining high. People walked, jogged, mused in front of the Atlantic from wooden benches under rustling palms. They all looked dangerous, vicious. Why were those two men staring at them like that? And that woman had been standing at the dry fountain for the past ten minutes. Anyone could take out a gun and end her trouble in a heartbeat.
At her side, Mark’s unrelenting scrutiny of the surrounding made her muscles tense, ready to run.
And the heat. Dear Lord, the heat. The air was thick with it, drenched. Whiffs of warm wind didn’t ease the broiling.
She was oh, so gross. Her elbows were sweating, a rivulet of perspiration ran from the back of her knees down her calves. She was covered with a thin layer of her own sticky moisture mixed with the ocean's salty breath.
In all that, Mark was there with only the slightest hint of the humid heat on his forehead. Seriously, how on earth did he do that?
“John’s here,” he said under his breath.
Ann could hardly put together the man plodding to them with suffering steps with a CIA agent, but sure she sympathized with his misery.
Streams of sweat ran along his full moon face as if he had a soaked sponge hidden under his white Panama. He wiped his forehead and eyes with a white bandanna big enough to be a tablecloth, humid enough to make Ann twinge.
“You want be a little more specific next time,” John complained with strangled words, panting and chugging as he sat close to Mark. “I had to walk around the whole damn place before I spotted you. Who’s the girl?” he asked, his tone sullied by mistrust.
“She’s with me,” Mark said.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t need to know.”
“I didn’t agree to–”
Mark didn’t move, nor did his face change, but his voice reminded Ann of the first warning rumble of a bad storm. “Heat’s not the only dangerous thing ‘round here. Talk, and make it quick.”
“I need a drink, I’m dehydrated.”
“Losing my patience here, Johnny,” Mark sing-songed.
John puffed out a breath, wiping off more sweat. “You’ve always been a testy son of–”
“Watch your mouth in front of the lady.”
“All right, all right.” He panted, took one long breath. “Tessa Benson, a shipping magnate. Her company makes cruise boats. We’re talking big bucks and a bad chick. She married Ted Benson some five years ago. He conveniently died three months after the wedding, a couple of days after changing his will. Ted left everything to his wife.”
“Why do I care about her?” Mark asked, frowning.
“Car tag you gave me? Her employee.”
Ann wiped a running bead of sweat from her neck. What did a boat owner had to do with Mary?
Mark didn’t seem as confused as she was, and kept questioning John. “You have a name for him?”
“Gage Noxell. Ex Army, DD.”
Mark’s jaw twitched. “What for?”
“Bar brawl, he smashed a fellow private’s face over a broken bottle. Guy lost few teeth and an eye. Noxell did time and got lost until Benson made him her bodyguard. Probably more than that.”
“Where do I find him?”
“He never leaves Benson’s side. Your best shot is Benson’s place, up in Bal Harbour.”
Mark unfolded the picture of the young man at the Club, handed it over to John. “Him?”
John shook his head. “Never saw him.”
“Something else?”
“Wait before you sneak into Benson’s.” John hauled himself to his feet, pushing on the bench to aid his standing, and pulled his pants sideways under his big belly. “It’s awfully quiet out there. A cargo of some new shit’s about to arrive, it’s Benson’s. The underworld wants to be as far away from it as possible.”
“Drugs?”
“Don’t know, but whatever Benson’s waiting in that cargo, is dangerous enough to scare every badass in this city, which means s big, big shit.”
John trudged away, leaving only more questions in Ann’s mind.
Mark didn’t utter a word as they checked into another hotel, at the other side of the city. The new room was smaller, darker, just as her mind.
“Benson’s home’s not far from Mary’s,” Ann said as she put her few clothes into the drawer.
He didn’t slow the control over the windows and the door. “Yeah, but the Club’s the only thing that puts Mary, Snow and Noxell in the same pan.”
Satisfied with his check, he sat on the bed. “Mary is killed close to the arrival of a cargo bad enough to scare the hell out of Miami gangs; she’s killed by an ex-Army who works for a woman who makes boats, the same man who was with Snow.”
“It does flow. We can assume Snow heard something about the cargo, she told Mary, who told Mouse.”
“Noxell was with Snow the night she disappeared. We can do more than assume.”
Ann’s face lit up. “Maybe that’s what they want, the tape linking Mary and Snow with Noxell.”
“It’s thin. Even if the police found those tapes, the worst of it would be on Mary and her cover. Nobody cares about the clients, not enough to kill three people, anyway.”
“True. There’s something we’re still missing.” She sat at his side on the bed. “John said Noxell was DD: what’s that? I hate it when people talk in acronyms,” she muttered. “I never get it.”
Mark glanced at her, then away. When the air thickened, he left the bed for a safer chair. “Dishonorably discharged.”
“I’m not surprised. We knew he was a bad one already.”
He rested his elbows on his knees, played with the hard palms of his hands. “He was Army, Ann.”
“So?”
“I was a Marine, so was the Boss. Snake and Falcon were Army. The only civilian was Mouse, who’s dead. The Team is military.”
“So you think there is a connection, after all.”
Shame made it difficult even looking at her. He didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to fear it.
“But why?” she asked.
Mark stood, checked the window again. “We have to get Noxell, he has the answers. Tomorrow I’ll spend some time at Benson’s.”
“What time do we leave?”
“We don’t do anything. I will follow him a while, for start.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Are we back to that? Come on, it’s getting old and we agreed I would help.”
He spelled each word carefully. “You help me by staying here, where I don’t have to keep an eye on you. Today was enough.”
“I was scared, too, but I can’t hide again.” She walked in front of him. “I won’t hide again. Plus, you taught me how to defend myself.”
“I did, didn’t I?” he scorned. “Too bad Noxell had been trained to kill people under the worst possible circumstances.”
“I understand, but I can take care of myself.”
Fast as a bear hunting for salmons, he shackled her wrists with one hand, pulling her arms above her head. With his free hand he grabbed her belt and lifted her up, pushing her against the wall. His body was a pressing rock of angry muscles, his whisper a wire of hot steel on her neck. “Do you think you can stop someone like me from doing whatever I want?”
She wriggled, trying to set free from his iron grip but he only tightened his hold.
Mark knew he was probably hurting her, but she needed to see. He’d taught her how to fight so she would feel safer, she would release some of her anger. And sure it would work, if a thug on the street bothered her. Against 190 pounds of military trained muscles? She was as good as dead.
“We’re getting close,” he said pressing harder, whispering lower. “The closer, the more dangerous.”
Her struggling quieted as silence boomed around them.
“I can’t let someth
ing happen to you. You understand that?”
When he let her go, her dainty wrists were red. She rubbed them, but her eyes stayed on him. “What do you want, Mark?”
“I want to know you’re breathing.”
“This is not just honor, is it?” she asked slowly. “Keep your word with a dead friend, protect a defenseless woman.”
When she took a step forward, he took one back. She looked like an angel, a bad angel with glittering blue eyes and a halo of blond hair falling over her shoulders, branding a sword that could kill his core made of control, focus and reality.
“Tell me what you feel,” she asked.
He had to go away, now, before it was too late, before she sneaked into his mind and unplugged his power, all his brakes. If he had ever needed to run for his life, it was that moment.
He answered with the truth. “Fear.”
Merciless, she kept on asking. “Why?”
“Because I want you.”
Please, go away, he pleaded as his chains got thinner, weaker.
“That’s stupid.”
“You distract me, you make me needy, weak. In my world, it’s a death sentence.”
She pondered his words, shrugged. “Still stupid.”
Frustration made him chuckle.
“Love doesn’t make you weak, it makes you stronger. It gives you hope and balance, happiness.”
“I was doing just fine until you came along.”
“Were you? You told me you’re tired. You have ghosts that keep you awake. Is that doing fine?”
“It is, for a Marine.”
“You’re a man, first. Then a Marine.”
“It doesn’t work that way with us.”
“If you let yourself love, it’s not going to change who you are. This morning at the pool you were so fast nobody could have harmed me. You can protect people, me, and love.”
Panic was real, trickling down his spine, scratching his thoughts. “Love has nothing to do with what’s going on.”
There was such compassion in her eyes, such deep understanding of his shock and alarm she could have been the embodiment of what his soul craved.
“I lived my life by the principles of balance, respect and peace, and all of a sudden, I want to kill a man,” she said, closing the distance. “I want to kill him. I’m not saying I would do it, but it doesn’t change what I want.”
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