by Cindy Dees
“We’re freelancers. We’ll sell whatever we get to the highest bidder.”
“What’s a story on me going for these days?”
She answered shortly, “With candid photos, a hundred thousand U.S.”
His eyebrows shot up. “And why would a simple businessman like me be of such interest to the media?”
“Not to the media. To the public. You’re rich, you’re powerful and everyone knows you’re above the law. The common people want to experience a little piece of your life, even if it’s only through a few pictures.”
“What newspaper wants this story?”
Amanda rattled off the names of several tabloids popular in Mexico and Central America. Maldonado considered her and her cover story for a moment. Finally, he walked right up to her and blew a fetid breath of smoke in her face. She felt Taylor coil beside her and she silently willed him not to do anything suicidal.
The Mexican growled, “Here’s a story for you, you paparazzi bitch. If any of my men ever see you again, let alone anywhere near me, they’re going to kill you and your friend. And then they’re going to kill every last member of both your families and everyone who’s ever known either of you. I will erase you and any memory of you both completely off this earth. Capisce?”
The evil power radiating off the man was palpable. Amanda had no doubt whatsoever that he was fully capable of doing exactly what he’d threatened. Ignoring the weak feeling in her knees and steeling her nerve, she glared back at him and snarled, “I capisce, you arrogant son of a bitch. Now you capisce this. If anything bad happens to me or my partner, the international press will have a bloody field day with the information we’ve already sent them about you. You’ll be lit up so bright you won’t be able to see, let alone carry on with the illegal shit you’re mired in.”
Maldonado yanked the cigar out of his mouth and shoved his face within inches of hers. She all but gagged at the rancid odor of his breath. Spit speckled her cheeks as he snarled, “Don’t fuck with me or my operations. I’ll bury you. You’ll disappear forever. I’ll cause you so much pain you won’t be human anymore. You won’t even know to wish for death I’ll mess you up so bad.”
He pivoted on one Italian-leather-clad heel and stomped away, jerking his head at his goons as he stormed past them. She watched the trio swagger into the night, confident they’d scared her and Taylor completely off. Silence fell in the alley. Amanda released a slow breath.
“I gather he wasn’t inquiring as to the state of our health?” Taylor asked dryly.
“That would be correct,” Amanda replied equally dryly. She felt sick to her stomach. “Not only did he threaten to kill us, but he also threatened every member of our families and all our friends.”
Taylor’s gaze registered shock, and then something else. Slow, simmering fury.
Amanda said, “I don’t have any close, living relatives, or many friends for that matter. But if I were you, I might make a few phone calls and tell your loved ones to be careful for a few months.” The rage in Taylor’s gaze heated up another notch. Crud. She really didn’t need him doing anything stupid just now. She added, “One thing’s for sure. That guy has got to go down.”
“Amanda,” Taylor warned. “You know not to get tangled up in vendettas. Remember? No emotion. Let’s pull back from this guy. There must be another route to find out who Four Eyes is.”
She glared at him. “Aren’t you the guy who believes in always doing the right thing?”
“Yes,” he answered cautiously.
“Emotion or no emotion, my gut’s telling me that Maldonado stinks a whole lot worse than his cigars.”
“So then you’re going ahead with your plan? Calmly and rationally?” he asked.
She answered without hesitation. “Absolutely.”
They shifted to long-range surveillance on Maldonado, strictly high-tech, telescopic work. There was no need to buy trouble with the guy’s goon squad. Their big break came exactly one week later. Amanda had picked the lock on a vacant office in the building next to the Hotel Coronado. Its windows faced the bigger hotel. It took them most of the afternoon to set up the equipment that had arrived by express courier that morning. She shuddered at the cost of it all, but any price tag was worth it to take out the bastard.
Sure enough, at 8:00 p.m. sharp, Maldonado’s entourage pulled up in front of the hotel. Taylor pointed the heat-sensing scope at the man as he stepped out of his limo. Amanda confirmed through binoculars that the image on the TV monitor beside her was their target.
“You’ve got a good lock,” she murmured. “Now, let’s see where he goes.”
Taylor tracked the human-size blob through the lobby of the hotel as his scope looked through the hotel walls like they were cellophane. Maldonado and a group of other blobs got into an elevator. Taylor tracked its rapid, nonstop progress all the way up to the penthouse. All the blobs got out. Several other blobs milled around in the room, but when Maldonado walked in, a half-dozen blobs broke off and seated themselves around a table.
“Can you tell what they’re doing?” Amanda asked.
“Let me tighten down the signal,” Taylor muttered.
She watched on the monitor as the heat seeker zoomed in on the table. The men were doing something with their hands. After a perplexed moment, she laughed. “They’re playing cards!”
“Poker, to be precise,” Taylor added. “Maldonado is seated facing the window.”
Amanda asked, “What are the odds that old Viktor plays poker here every Friday night?”
Taylor grinned. “I’d say pretty good. This is the third week in a row he’s come here at the exact same time on the exact same night.” A thoughtful pause. “Odds are he and his poker buddies sit in the same seats, too. Card players are a superstitious bunch.”
They spent most of the next week hashing out the details of her scheme based on the theory that Maldonado played poker every Friday night, sitting in the same seat. The next Friday found them back in their empty office, waiting for Maldonado again. Sure enough, he arrived at the stroke of 8:00 p.m. and went straight up to his penthouse poker game. Amanda watched with deep satisfaction as he sat down in the same seat he had the week before. “It’s a go,” she exulted.
They left first thing the next Wednesday, paying cash for two bus tickets to Mexico City. The trip back across the country took considerably longer than it had in the sturdy Porsche, and it was late afternoon when they arrived at their destination.
There was a certain risk to returning to the lion’s den, but it was also probably the last place whoever was after them would look right now. They bought a bag of carryout enchiladas and grabbed a room at the nearest cheap motel, registering under two of the IDs Xavier had whipped up for them. Amanda stretched out on the bed beside Taylor and thumbed through a telephone book.
“This one looks good,” she announced.
He leaned down beside her and looked where she pointed.
“It’s an old Catholic hospital. The part of town it’s in was prosperous thirty years ago but is running down fast. I doubt they’ve updated any of their equipment since the place was new.”
“Perfect,” he murmured in her ear. A shiver whisked down her spine. Lord, Taylor had a powerful effect on her. He could convince a girl to walk away from diamonds and criminals and never look back if he put his mind to it.
“What say we turn in and get an early start tomorrow?” he asked.
Abruptly, the idea of crawling into the same bed with him made her jumpy. She hadn’t thought twice about it when he checked in to the single room earlier. It was less conspicuous for a man and woman to travel as a couple. But now…“Uh, sure.”
She lay under the covers in the dark, as tight as a high-tension wire. She lay as far away from him as possible, perching on the very edge of the bed. But still his warmth crept around her, beckoning her to its solace.
“You okay?” he asked out of the dark.
She jumped, startled. “Uh, yeah. Fine. Why?�
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“I can feel your tension all the way over here. Do you need a back rub or something to help you relax?”
Oh, God. The thought of his hands all over her—it made her pulse jump violently. “No!” Blast. She could feel his smile even though it was pitch-black in the room.
“I don’t bite, you know.” Challenge wove subtly through his seemingly innocent comment. He was calling her a coward.
Her eyes narrowed. She flipped over onto her stomach. “Fine,” she huffed. “Give me the damn back rub.”
He chuckled and she felt him sit up. She started when his warm hands touched the bare flesh of her back, sliding under her baggy T-shirt. His touch was as potent as brandy in her blood, sending a rush of heat to her head as his fingers glided upward.
He kneaded the knots at the base of her neck, stripping out the tension and leaving her as soft as pudding. Man, that felt good. His hands eased down her spine, releasing the pressure built up there and all but knocking her out. A delicious languor spread outward from his palms, and she felt as if she might melt right into the mattress.
“Better?” he murmured.
“If I could purr, I would,” she groaned.
A quiet chuckle.
She tensed briefly as his hands slid over her buttocks. But when he began to work his way down her left leg, she sighed in bliss and gave in to his massage. He worked his way back up the other leg, and by the time he slid over her rear end again to finish up with her back once more, she didn’t have the will left to care, let alone react.
Taylor felt when Amanda slipped from a state of total relaxation into sleep. He stretched out beside her and listened to the light, easy sound of her breathing. She’d come a long way since they first met. Whether or not she was ready to take the next step and make love with him was anybody’s guess. He’d just keep going slow and let her take the lead when the time came.
Damn, it was hard to restrain himself. He wanted her so bad he ached sometimes. He felt an urge to toss and turn but forced himself to lie still lest he disturb her. Sometime during the night, he finally fell asleep.
Amanda rented a van and bought worker’s overalls the next morning. The decals declaring them to be a medical-equipment repair company took a little doing, but by midafternoon, their cover was firmly in place. The timing was perfect. The staff at the hospital would be nearing the end of their shift and be tired and inattentive.
A brief flash of ID badges and Amanda and Taylor sailed past the overworked hospital staff. They followed an elderly nun’s directions and headed down a hall toward the X-ray department. An equally brief explanation to the X-ray technician that they were here to do scheduled maintenance, and the two of them were left alone with an X-ray machine.
“How’s it look?” she asked.
Taylor gave the machine a once-over and looked up at her, grinning. “Perfect. It’s about forty years old. Big, old, high-dose unit. I can’t believe anyone still uses these things. One X ray from this equals about thirty X rays from a new machine.”
She shrugged. “You use what you’ve got when you’re poor.” She shuffled through a stack of schematics she’d pulled off the Internet until she found a close match. “Put on one of those,” she directed, nodding at a couple lead-lined aprons hanging on hooks.
Donning one herself, Amanda carefully dismantled the machine, exposing the essential components. The X-ray generator weighed close to a hundred pounds and was big and awkward. But with a lot of sweat and a little swearing, she and Taylor wrestled it free. They laid a lead apron in the large trunk they’d brought with them and lifted the machine inside. Another lead apron on top, and they closed the whole thing up.
Amanda stepped out into the hall to make sure the coast was clear. When she waved Taylor out, he lifted the trunk onto his shoulder. Thank God for him. She’d have given herself a hernia if she tried to lift that thing.
They headed toward the loading dock at the rear of the hospital. She stayed with the trunk while he walked swiftly to the van and pulled it around back. The whole maneuver took less than an hour, and they were on their way back to Cancun.
“Was it just me,” Taylor asked as they hit the highway out of town, “or was that too easy?”
She laughed. “Don’t sneer at good luck. Everybody’s entitled to a little of it now and then.”
They made good time back across the Mexican peninsula, arriving shortly after midnight with their prize. Maldonado’s poker game was the following evening. They didn’t have much time to spare.
Early Friday afternoon, they used the last set of pristine IDs Xavier had worked up for them to check into the Hotel Coronado. Taylor and a bellhop lifted the trunk out of the van and wheeled it across the lobby. To the inquiring look of the manager, Amanda stated, “Scuba gear.”
The guy smiled and nodded, turning back to his work.
As soon as they got to their room, she opened the trunk and checked on the X-ray machine. It seemed to have weathered the trip upstairs well. While Taylor transferred the supply of tools and gear they’d bought that morning from his suitcase to the trunk, Amanda made a reconnoitering sortie to the top floor of the hotel.
The first thing she noticed when she stepped off the elevator and looked down the long hallway was the complete absence of Do Not Disturb signs, room-service trays on floors, or newspapers outside doors. The concierge had been lying. Entire floor sold out, her eye. She’d bet the whole floor was unoccupied. Compliments of Maldonado and his security staff.
Amanda made her way to the far north end of the hallway and paced off sixty feet. She stood in front of room 1814. If her calculations were correct, this room was directly under the part of the penthouse where the poker table stood. She pressed her ear to the door, listening for any sounds from inside. Nothing.
Using a credit-card-shaped, magnetized pass key hooked to a handheld computer, she electronically picked the room’s lock. A green light over the lock flashed, and she clicked the door open. She stepped inside.
The room was devoid of any signs of human habitation. Better yet, there was a thick layer of dust over everything. This room hadn’t been rented out or cleaned in weeks. Probably wouldn’t be until Maldonado left Cancun.
After checking the hallway and finding it deserted, she taped the latch so the door wouldn’t lock behind her when she left the room. She put a dab of metallic gold paint on the tiny green light over the key card slot that indicated the door was unlocked. The enamel blended in with the brass fixture, and at a glance, nobody’d ever know the door was rigged. Time to get back to Taylor and start the next phase of the operation. They had a boatload to do before tonight’s poker game.
She retraced her steps back down to their room. Taylor was ready and waiting for her. Together, they carried the trunk out of their room. Lord, all that lead was heavy. They passed on the first elevator, which had hotel guests in it. The next elevator that arrived was empty and they wrestled the trunk inside. Its doors slid open at the top floor. A quick check. The hallway was still deserted.
They stepped out and made their way to room 1814 as fast as they could. Huffing, Amanda hauled her end of the trunk into the room and set it down gratefully. She pulled the tape off the door latch and let out her breath. So far so good.
“Let’s get hopping,” she told Taylor. “It’s five o’clock already.”
He grinned and handed her a white polyester jumpsuit. “Hop into this,” he retorted. She donned the suit used in clean rooms for the computer-manufacturing industry. She grimaced as she tucked her hair into the matching shower cap. At least Taylor looked nearly as silly in his cap as she must. She pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, snapping them into place while Taylor did the same. Thus fortified against leaving fiber evidence for the police, they got to work.
Amanda unpacked their gear and spread it out on one of the two double beds while Taylor rewrapped the lead aprons around the X-ray machine. She picked up a pair of large handles attached to powerful suction cups and passed them
to Taylor. He pushed back the curtains and attached the handles to the window while she fished out a pair of putty knives. Working together, they peeled away the caulking that held the plate glass in place. A dozen bolts unscrewed, and Taylor was able to lift the sheet of glass out of the window frame. A stiff breeze swirled into the room as he leaned the glass carefully against the wall.
The wind was a harbinger of how tricky the next bit of the operation was going to be. Grimly, she stuffed the curtains behind furniture to keep them from flying in her face. While Taylor tied a long rope around the base of the toilet and looped it around the legs of both bed frames, she strapped into a mountain climber’s harness.
Taylor passed her the end of the safety line and she attached a carabiner to it and knotted the rope around the oval metal clip. Taylor donned a pair of leather gloves, grabbed the safety rope and sat down on the floor just beneath the window. He braced his feet against the wall and nodded up at her.
Amanda threw a coil of rope over her shoulder and stepped up onto the windowsill. The wind tore at her, and she steadied herself against the frame at her back. The ocean pounded far below and she did her best to ignore the spectacular drop.
Gripping the safety rope attached to her waist, she leaned outward against it, craning her neck to look up. A windowsill loomed directly overhead. She prayed it was the correct one as she shook out the rope from her shoulder and gripped the rubber-coated grappling hook attached to its end. She swung the heavy hook in a couple big, slow circles and then tossed it upward. It missed, and clattered down the wall beside her. Crud.
She held her breath and waited for a response from inside the penthouse suite. Nothing. She counted to sixty. Either nobody was inside yet, or nobody’d heard her. She tried again. This time the hook caught on the steel lip of the window ledge. She yanked hard on the line to test it. It felt secure. She hooked herself to the second rope.
“Here I go,” she murmured toward her feet.