Книга - Double Vision

Double Vision
Fiona Brand


Almost two decades ago a car accident thrust Rina Morrell’s life into darkness.Unable to deal with the traumatic loss of her mother, Rina’s young mind built a wall that blocked her vision and her memories of the event. Years later Rina still suffers from psychosomatic blindness – unable to see the danger that lies next to her. Until a series of “accidents” restores her physical sight and a mysterious second vision…When she discovers that her husband is the head of the infamous Chavez family, a drugs cartel with powerful political and terrorist connections, and that he’s responsible for her mother’s death, Rina is terrified. With the help of CIA Agent JT Wyatt she escapes into the Witness Security Programme.But even anonymity can’t protect her from the knowledge locked inside her head…or the fact that her ex-husband, a cold-blooded killer, is still on the loose.







Praise for Body Work

“Body Work is the kind of book that sucks you into the pages and won’t let you go until the end. It’s edgy and different, with a strong hero and heroine who don’t fit the usual mould.” —Bestselling author Linda Howard

“Brand tells a disturbing, engrossing tale of

murder and madness, adding her own unique

touches of eroticism and humour.

An excellent read.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews




DOUBLE VISION


FIONA BRAND




www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


To Robyn and Don, and Keith and Daphne,

who truly gave me my start in writing.

Thank you for all the years of support and

friendship, the teaching and advice, the cups of tea,

the shared meals and those wonderful weekends

at the Kara School of Writing.



Thank you to Jenny Haddon, a former bank

regulator, for her invaluable advice and her

fascinating insight into the world of international

banking, Eileen Wilks for giving me the inside

running on how to get a driver’s licence in Texas,

and Claire Russell of the Kerikeri medical centre

for help with the medical details. Thank you

also to Miranda Stecyk of MIRA Books for her

editorial expertise and direction, and some really

great ideas that helped make this story sing.

You ladies are fabulous!




Contents


Praise (#udf1e0ca3-ba70-5df8-a9d1-be710e444354)Title Page (#uca3148e1-2142-5e95-bde1-80f127998d90)Dedication (#u49803c15-32c9-59e8-a35a-e5a6875492a9)Part 1 (#u663b7b49-8c0b-5899-9905-843f9390e787)Prologue (#u2b55cd58-fddd-5c16-b424-3a2aa8aba744)Chapter One (#u57b2b5a6-f242-5c17-a0cd-ff0c06f657df)Chapter Two (#ua8789eaa-f003-5ee8-a636-379076d0e957)Chapter Three (#u5e1fd890-de28-50e0-8d1d-321dc8fef16b)Chapter Four (#ud7c6a004-ca19-532f-a1e1-c9e2567cf362)Chapter Five (#u31c73957-d05e-570e-9240-a741af2b3d68)Chapter Six (#ud7cdcda6-734f-5e51-b6a9-1794949bbb46)Chapter Seven (#u3c165d68-d55a-5f7f-86d2-3fc50cd03335)Chapter Eight (#u7a172139-7a0a-5bdf-9a80-83761b7922b1)Chapter Nine (#uef7d5260-3a4c-566f-aac5-724256ebed28)Chapter Ten (#u171ec16a-8d67-54e9-8404-7bb8c4ff2b3e)Part 2 (#u698524d5-3f71-5186-b340-beff81dd8b6d)Chapter Eleven (#uf45d0453-2181-55a5-a7f0-a5e1a08798b1)Chapter Twelve (#ue8c62af1-4514-518b-b837-905021df6667)Chapter Thirteen (#ub6b4dcad-b8ad-56ec-8ca3-bb5ecf844a9a)Chapter Fourteen (#ua29146e3-18a5-584c-850d-f773ef930f4e)Chapter Fifteen (#u1ac4dfc7-95c4-5051-96e6-4ac60aa105c0)Chapter Sixteen (#ufbd14cfa-b73b-5b9b-9b24-3d5ea8baaa79)Chapter Seventeen (#u886f2c82-9d4b-5c8e-9c6b-9e89737573dc)Part 3 (#uf2be702d-848a-5e4e-94d2-32fcf117da25)Chapter Eighteen (#ubf2d01fb-a1d1-5a13-b972-550fb9698552)Chapter Nineteen (#ube1fa644-4869-53db-8800-086f1cf5e4cb)Chapter Twenty (#u5927d42b-3564-58d2-b7a1-68a4cf65a7af)Chapter Twenty-One (#u1ad264ab-076e-5f08-ab44-dbef0de658af)Chapter Twenty-Two (#ufe0e8565-8689-5050-83a8-5ddecb075578)Chapter Twenty-Three (#u61089247-b6e3-5228-9598-50ef5e763a07)Chapter Twenty-Four (#ua16e7bb1-9080-5a81-be86-9412340a15c3)Chapter Twenty-Five (#ue0e917e1-a577-5652-bccb-f9d32b3ee9a1)Chapter Twenty-Six (#u801da438-b67a-543c-bc4e-4f585d5e2ad8)Chapter Twenty-Seven (#u040740c7-ba8b-5121-98e5-917a28ac8d0f)Chapter Twenty-Eight (#uda8f67d2-0d89-5625-9e44-78188ae24ba5)Chapter Twenty-Nine (#u9e562da3-0a79-5d55-bb50-279ecd4c8838)Chapter Thirty (#ue1401ee1-b485-5550-973b-fda0015ff90f)Chapter Thirty-One (#u4ebee2a1-824e-5e6a-ade8-1a02d4de9a1e)Chapter Thirty-Two (#u058f1d9f-5a93-5e24-9c68-086bea62699f)Prologue (#u163fb548-8d21-54ea-8549-0e60d89719b6)Copyright (#u575cfc8f-5db2-5a52-b0e2-0f9c3070cc82)


Part 1




Prologue


December 1944, Lubeck, Germany

The steel arm of a crane, pockmarked by rust and salt, swung across the frigid decks of the Nordika. A heavy crate, a swastika and a number stenciled on the side, hung suspended, straining at aging steel hawsers as the freezing northerly gale increased in intensity.

Gaze narrowed against the wind, Erich Reinhardt, captain of the cargo vessel, watched as the delicate process of lowering the crate into the hold commenced. Loading cargo under these conditions was an act of stupidity; putting out to sea was nothing short of madness, but lately, everything about Germany was madness. To the east, Russians were massing along the border. In the west, the British and Americans had launched their offensive. There was no heating, no food; his family was starving and they all lived in fear that British and American bombers would kill them while they slept. For months he had expected to die that way or, failing that, to be torpedoed at sea. Perhaps that was better than a bullet in the brain from a cold-eyed Schutzstaffel.

“How much longer?”

The question from the SS officer who had commandeered his ship was curt, but there was no disguising the accent. Bremen, maybe, Hamburg at a stretch, and straight off the docks. Himmler might be scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one, but Reinhardt still had to be wary. Oberleutnant Dengler might have working-class roots, but he knew ships and had taken control of the Nordika with ease. “Fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour if the conditions become more difficult.”

And Reinhardt expected the weather to deteriorate. A storm front had been pounding the coast all day; a Force ten gale was predicted before dawn. He watched as another crate was lowered into place. Garish spotlights lit up the feverish activity in the hold and on the dock as the final truck was offloaded, a stark contrast to the blackout of the city behind, and all along the coast. Even the navigation lights along the channel were turned off. Loading cargo was dangerous, but attempting to navigate the channel in this weather, with no lights, was tantamount to suicide.

Dengler strode to the railing and roared an order.

The doors of a truck were flung open. Seconds later, people poured out—passengers, Reinhardt realized—and began to embark.

The first was a tall, elegant woman, bent against the wind as she clutched a baby to her chest and held the hand of a toddler. A group of older children followed, hustled on by a straggling group of women and the tall, authoritative figure of yet another SS officer. Counting the two who held his crew at gunpoint in the dining room and the four supervising the loading of the cargo, that brought the total number of SS officers on the Nordika to eight; more than Reinhardt had ever seen in Lubeck at any one time, and seven more than was needed to keep him and his aging crew in check.

A small girl, blond ringlets streaming from the hood of an expensive fur-trimmed coat, stopped when she reached the top of the gangplank and stared up at Reinhardt, her gaze expressionless, before she was hustled below.

The wind picked up, scattering ice. Cold stung Reinhardt’s cheeks and flowed around his neck, finding its way through cracked and thinning oilskin and the threadbare layers of the muffler beneath. The image of the little girl’s face stayed with him as he watched another crate swing in the wind. She had been maybe six or seven, the same age as his granddaughter, Bernadette, but for a fragmented moment he hadn’t been able to see any difference between her and the SS officer who had scooped her up and taken her below.

A gust of wind hit the starboard side of the ship. Saltwater and ice sprayed across the decks. A split second later, the crate slammed into the side of the hold. Wood splintered and Reinhardt held his breath as the damaged crate was buffeted by the wind.

The first mate joined him on the quarterdeck, huddling in the lee of a cable housing, leathery face reddened by wind and ice. His gaze was glued to the frayed hawser. “What have they got in those crates?”

“I don’t want to know.” The less they knew, the more likely they were to get out of this alive.

A second gust sent the crate spinning. Fatigued steel groaned, the hawser snapped and the crate dropped like a stone, the contents exploding across the floor of the hold, scattering the loading crew. Hidden on the quarterdeck, Reinhardt had a moment to feel utter disbelief and fear as he stared at the strewn contents of the crate. Seconds later, the SS officers who were overseeing the placement of the crates stepped out of the gloom and the flat spitting of Schmeisser machine-gun pistols punctuated the pressurized whine of the wind.

An hour later, the hold was secured and the bodies of the loading crew were disposed of over the side. The spotlights washing the decks of the Nordika were extinguished and the small glow of a kerosene lamp on the bridge became the only point of reference in pitch-blackness.

Reinhardt ducked his head as he stepped onto the bridge, a sense of fatalism gripping him as he saw Dengler and another SS officer, this one a full colonel, studying a map of the channel. He had known the three men who had been executed in the hold most of his life. Konig and Holt had both been in their late fifties, with large families to support. Breit had been a gunner in the First World War. “Where is it you want to go?”

In the glare of the lamp, Reinhardt noticed for the first time that Dengler was barely old enough to shave. The Oberst was a different matter. His cheekbones were high, his mouth thin, his gaze coldly amused. It was the colonel who spoke.

“Somewhere warm. How about Colombia?”


One

Forty years later, San Francisco

The sound of the gun was an insignificant pop. The entry wound was even less startling, a hole about the size of a nickel.

FBI agent Lance Williams blinked, but the surprised flicker was a reflex only. The instant the .22 slug ploughed through his temple, slicing at an angle that sectioned both right and left hemispheres of his brain before lodging in his occipital lobe, he was clinically dead.

Agent Edward Dennison watched as Williams crumpled with an angular sideways grace, his shoulder brushing one of the potted palms that was positioned either side of the wide, elegant portico of one of Nob Hill’s most prestigious addresses. Methodically, he wiped the gun and slipped it back in his shoulder holster. The weapon was a Saturday-night special, the most popular handgun in town and the most difficult to trace; every career criminal and junkie—not to mention a lot of ordinary citizens—owned one. He would dump the gun and the body later, somewhere they would both be found after a decent interval had passed, in which time he would be able to voice his concern about his missing partner and maybe even raise the alarm.

He pressed the doorbell for the second time and tensed as the door swung open, startled when Alex Lopez answered the door himself. But then, he was aware that he and Williams had been on camera from the moment they had driven through the electronically controlled entrance gates.

Lopez studied the body, his expression bland, and Dennison felt a chill that was becoming familiar penetrate even his cynical exterior. He’d worked for Lopez on and off for the past eighteen months, but the kid had been busy since the last time they’d met. The baby-faced handsomeness had grown into the trademark cheekbones and heavy jaw that made his father, Marco Chavez, instantly recognizable, but some of the changes weren’t natural. Dennison knew enough about facial reconstruction to recognize that Lopez’s nose had been thinned, his cheekbones shaved, the distinctive hollows beneath filled. Even the slant of his eyes was subtly altered. The jaw hadn’t been touched, yet. He guessed that was a more complex procedure.

Despite the extensive surgery, Lopez was still recognizable as the heir apparent of one of Colombia’s most brutal and successful drug cartels, but the changes were enough to create uncertainty.

Lopez bent and touched Williams’s throat, checking the carotid. As the sleeve of his jacket slid back from his wrist, Dennison noted that the small tattoo on the back of his right hand had been removed. The patch of skin was noticeably lighter and faintly pink, which meant he’d gone for a skin graft instead of laser treatment. Given Lopez’s plans, the removal of the tattoo was expedient.

When Lopez was satisfied Williams was dead, he straightened. Not for the first time, Dennison wondered if Lopez saw anything more than the potential to satisfy his own needs when he looked at another human being. Williams had had a wife and two kids. On the drive up the hill, Dennison had heard it all, chapter and verse. Both of his boys had graduated from college, one was teaching math, the other had gone into the academy, following in his old man’s footsteps. With both his boys working, Williams had been looking to quit the bureau and sink his pension into a small business. Then he’d had the misfortune to stumble across Joe Canelli.

Canelli was a petty criminal and, when money was tight, a hit man. He was also an unfortunate link between the murder of a number of organized crime figures and the sudden boost in the amount of cocaine being trafficked along the West Coast by the new boy on the block, Lopez.

Dennison had dispatched Canelli, neatly tying off that loose end. He hadn’t wanted to kill Williams, but he’d had to be pragmatic. With the capture of Canelli, Williams had been on the verge of implicating Dennison in the series of killings, and that was something he couldn’t allow. After twenty years of climbing the slow, slippery ladder in the bureau, what Dennison needed was simple—money, and lots of it.

Murder didn’t sit easily with him. He had always walked a measured path between what the bureau wanted and his own personal needs, but lately his needs had become paramount. Lopez was dangerous, but the rewards were enough to make his head spin. Whether or not he lived to collect was another question, and that depended directly on his usefulness to Lopez. Dennison intended to be very useful.

Lopez met his gaze, dark eyes subtly amused, as if he knew exactly what had just passed through Dennison’s mind. With a jerk of his head, he indicated Dennison should precede him into the house.

A queer thrill ran up Dennison’s spine. He had passed the test. He was in.

Seconds later, Dennison stepped into a dimly lit reception room, and any thoughts of backing out of the deal he’d just contracted died an instant death as he made eye contact with a four-star general and a key official with the San Francisco Police Department. A wealthy financier and property developer recognizable from the society pages rose to his feet. The fact that Cesar Morell was here surprised Dennison. “Mr. Midas,” as he was known, was money, not power.

The door clicked shut behind him as a fourth figure rose to his feet and Dennison’s stomach contracted.

Becoming Alex Lopez’s mole in the FBI had always been a risk. He had negotiated the money; the initial down payment alone had made him a wealthy man and had relieved the financial pressures that had squeezed him dry. The money had enabled him to make ample provision to get out. He had formulated three separate identities. The passports were secured in a safe-deposit box, and he had deposited large sums of money in offshore accounts. He had done everything possible to ensure his survival and the survival of his wife.

Now the fail-safe escape plan he’d formulated seemed entirely useless.

Lopez had been a step ahead of him all the way. The man who had just risen to his feet knew everything there was to know about Dennison practically from the moment of his birth, including fingerprint records and his blood type. For all he knew he had Dennison’s inside thigh measurement.

And he knew where Anne was.

Dennison could escape. He could alter his identity and leave the country within a matter of hours, but Anne couldn’t. There was no way he could organize a quick flight out and a change of identity for a woman who needed around-the-clock care and a nurse in attendance at all times. There was no way Anne could even be moved without risking her life.

His wife had been a quadriplegic for almost three years. The accident that had caused her disability had been relatively minor, an intersection snarl that hadn’t done much more than shunt her car a few feet, but somehow the jolt had broken her neck. With only partial mobility in one arm, she needed help to feed herself, to wash and dress and go to the bathroom. She needed help to turn over in bed and, periodically, to clear fluid from her lungs. Some days she needed help to breathe, and only twenty-five percent of the costs were covered by insurance.

Lopez made the introductions. The tall, clean-cut man stepped toward him, and Dennison wondered that he’d ever thought of him as a straight-down-the-line career man.

He held out his hand and accepted the handshake. The eye contact was acute and faintly amused, reinforcing the facts. Dennison wasn’t the pinnacle of Lopez’s incursion into the FBI. He was just a subordinate.


Two

The afternoon sun slanted through open French doors, gleaming on cut crystal and silver cutlery as Esther Morell checked the place settings for dinner. Eyeing the lush arrangement of scarlet roses and glossy green leaves in the center of the long table, she paused to straighten a fork. As she continued on through a large, airy sitting room, she glimpsed her ten-year-old daughter, Rina, sitting out on the patio, eyes half-closed and dreamy as she stared at the setting sun, the ever-present easel and paints beside her.

Stepping out onto the patio, Esther paused to ruffle Rina’s dark hair and examine the unfinished watercolor. As always, she got lost in the image. She had an analytical mind, a mind that grabbed numbers and chewed them up. Usually she got caught up in financial reports and stock options, occasionally in the purity of Mozart, but when she looked at Rina’s paintings something else happened. Her mind stopped and her chest went tight. As adept as she was at grasping concepts, she couldn’t understand the ephemeral, ever-changing quality of the way Rina arranged paint on canvas. It simply grabbed her inside.

Somehow, she knew that if she could explain what happened, if she could break down the spectrum of light and turn the transparent drifts of color into an equation, she wouldn’t feel it. And lately, feeling something—anything—had become increasingly precious. “What are you looking at, honey?”

Rina’s finger traced a shape in the air, as if she could see something that Esther, and everyone else, couldn’t. “The light.”

“Why don’t you paint it?”

“Can’t.”

Esther didn’t try to extract a logical explanation. Rina was special, so gifted that sometimes Esther panicked that she wasn’t doing enough, providing enough, to feed and stimulate her talent. Cesar had money and he lavished it on his only child, but expensive day school and tutors aside, for the most part Rina remained oddly separate, her focus inward. When she was a toddler, Esther had taken her to a specialist, worried that she might be autistic, but the specialist had put her fears to rest. Gifted children were often misunderstood, and Rina was gifted on more than one level. She was normal, as far as “normal” went; she just had a different way of viewing the world, and a different agenda to most people. The reason she retreated was the acute sensitivity that made her gifted. Parts of her brain were highly developed. In essence, the incoming data could be overwhelming. She could see more, feel more, than most people. With time and a more adult perspective, she would adjust more fully to the “normal” world, but in the meantime they should hang on to their seats. Esther’s daughter would never be Joe Average.

Rina stretched and straightened, the dreaminess abruptly gone. “You look nice. Red suits you, but you need different earrings. Those long dangly ones with the diamonds.”

Esther lifted a brow at the autocratic assessment. Rina might be gifted and a little introverted, but more and more she was being reminded they had a precocious almost-teenager in the house. “I’ll tell you what. You go and get changed, then we’ll discuss earrings. Don’t forget we’ve got guests.”

Rina’s dark gaze sharpened, reminding Esther of her husband, Cesar: demanding, and with a stubborn, ruthless streak. “I’ll eat in my room, thanks.”

“Not tonight. Your father wants you at the dinner table.”

Which reminded Esther that she needed to check on the kitchen. Carmita was short-staffed tonight and Cesar wanted to make a big impression.

Frowning, she strolled back through the dining room and headed for the kitchen, not for the first time uneasy about the new business partnership Cesar was researching. She’d met Alex Lopez once, very briefly, and she didn’t like him. There was nothing logical about her response to Lopez, like the effect Rina’s paintings had on her, the emotion had simply been evoked.

But there was something more. It had been nagging at the back of her mind for days. She was certain she had seen Lopez before, and she was equally certain Lopez wasn’t his name.

Normally it didn’t take her long to track down the reference and figure out what was wrong. Before she’d married Cesar, she’d worked as a consultant for a Swiss international banking conglomerate that dealt with billions of dollars of offshore funds. Her job had entailed investigating business connections and clients, anything that could threaten the bank’s reputation. Esther’s success at her job came from more than just having a knack with figures. She had a photographic memory. It was a detail that her employers, and Esther, had made sure was kept secret.

It had been more than twelve years since she’d worked in international banking, but she never forgot a number, and she never forgot a face.

The sun had set, but the air was still warm and pleasantly laced with summer scents as their dinner guests filed into the foyer.

Cesar made introductions and Esther moved smoothly into her role as hostess. Lopez was young, definitely Latino, as his name suggested. He was no more than mid-twenties at most, and on the surface he was charming, personable and obviously wealthy. According to Cesar he was also a little on the reclusive side, which Esther had to assume was the reason she hadn’t yet been able to track down any information about him.

Lopez’s fingers closed briefly on hers, and the uneasiness she’d felt the first time she’d met him grew. Charming he might be, but there was a bite behind the charm, despite his youth. And he didn’t like women. The thought dropped into Esther’s mind, irrelevant, maybe, but interesting. Every other man in the room responded to her long red dress, the faint hint of cleavage and the diamonds, and no doubt the stereotypical image the media had always projected of her as the glamorous, pampered wife of “Mr. Midas.” But Alex Lopez hadn’t wanted to touch her. When he’d met her gaze, fleeting as the contact was, his eyes had been flat and opaque.

On the surface he was an all-American male, right down to the Boston accent, handsome except for an overly heavy jaw, but his attitude didn’t fit. Idly, she wondered if he was gay, then dismissed the notion. She had no doubt women had a place in his life, but, like everything else, sex would be coldly controlled and only on his terms.

As she greeted the second man, Dennison, the annoying sense of recognition lingered. She had seen Lopez before. She couldn’t put her finger on where or when, but it would come to her.

The third guest was a different matter. As she extended her hand in greeting, a newspaper article popped into her mind. The photographs had been grainy black and whites, the incident, just over twelve years ago, horrific. The article had been part of her research into a client attempting to move an extraordinarily large sum of money.

Esther’s breath stopped in her throat, every cell in her body on high alert. She couldn’t place Alex Lopez, but she had no problem placing his accountant.

The handclasp was brief, but even so her stomach turned, and for a moment she wondered if she was going to throw up. She remembered the village in Colombia—Los Mendez. Families casually machine-gunned; a baby left crying in the mud.

The accountant might call himself Mike Vitali, but his real name was Miguel Perez, one of a coterie of men surrounding Colombian drug lord and all-round cold-blooded murderer, Marco Chavez. It had been Chavez who had been attempting to move the funds. They had turned him down. An investigation by Interpol wasn’t the best credential in the international banking community.

Cesar threw her an annoyed glance. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Esther forced a smile. Touching Perez had been like dipping her hand into a sewer. She needed to wash, and she needed to get him—all of them—out of her house. But she couldn’t afford the simple luxury of ejecting them; she would have to tread carefully. Perez was a butcher. If he suspected that she knew who he was, she would place them all in jeopardy. “I just felt dizzy for a second.”

She sent Cesar a hard stare, indicating she needed to talk with him now, in private.

His brows shot up as he misinterpreted her expression, and for a moment the distance that had grown between them over the past few months dissolved and she caught a glimpse of the “old” Cesar, the arrogant financial wizard who had swept her off her feet. The only time in her life she had been dizzy had been when she was pregnant, but they were both well aware it couldn’t be that. Lately, they had been either too preoccupied or too busy for even casual conversation, let alone sex.

They had problems. Big problems. Over the past year almost everything they had touched had fallen through. Their net worth had more than halved. In the past two months their position had worsened, unbelievably, to the point that they now faced losing everything. Esther had abandoned her own projects and had been working overtime, researching the labyrinthine twists and turns of the contracts Cesar had signed in an effort to stave off a massive loss on a development that had collapsed when a major investor had withdrawn. Cesar had gambled heavily on the failed Ellis Street project—they both had, throwing all of their resources behind the mall complex in a bid to recoup their losses. He should have succeeded; she had checked the deal herself. Incredibly, he had lost. Now they were facing the imminent failure of a second project. Even liquidating her own considerable assets, they were so close to bankruptcy she could feel the chill at her back.

Drinks were stilted. Cesar was unruffled, always the elegant host. Esther forced a smile and circulated with canapés, trying to isolate Cesar, but he continued to ignore her signals.

Frustrated by Cesar’s stubborn refusal to wangle a few seconds alone with her, Esther deliberately spilled wine on his sleeve. Seconds later, in the privacy of a downstairs powder room, she grabbed a bunch of tissues and sponged the wine. “Do you have any idea who Vitali is?”

“Lopez’s accountant.”

Jaw tight, she filled him in on Vitali’s real name and history. Cesar went pale, but something about his expression was just a little too wooden. “Please don’t tell me you knew that already.”

His gaze flashed. “Of course I didn’t. I didn’t pay him much attention—he’s Lopez’s accountant. I’ve met him briefly, maybe twice.”

She tossed the tissues in the trash can. “After tonight, cut ties. Don’t get involved with any of them, including Lopez.”

Cesar’s expression was evasive. “There’s a problem. Remember the Pembroke Project?”

How could she forget? It was the second of their major property developments that was threatening to pancake. If that went down, they would go with it.

“Lopez wants in on the deal.”

“Does he know about Ellis Street?”

“He knows. Now do you understand my position? I can make Lopez get rid of Perez, but not right now.”

Not if there was a chance of salvaging Pembroke. Unpalatable as it was, Esther had to back down. If either she or Cesar made an issue of Perez now, Lopez might pull out of the project altogether. Esther didn’t like the idea of partnership with Lopez—the man was a snake—but in this instance Cesar was right. They were fighting for survival.

Dinner proceeded at an agonizingly slow pace. Carmita was harried because not one, but two of the kitchen hands she had employed for the night hadn’t turned up. Esther, unable to stomach small talk, helped Carmita serve and clear.

As she moved smoothly from table to kitchen, serving first an appetizer then the soup, she kept a weather eye on Rina, who had taken one look at the three visitors and retreated like a turtle withdrawing into its shell. Her baby might be quiet and a little dreamy, but the girl had instincts.

For the past half hour Rina had eaten what was placed in front of her and answered when spoken to. Other than the usual pleasantries, no one had paid her any attention, for which Esther was relieved. She didn’t like the ability Rina had to shut herself off at will, but at the same time, she didn’t want any of their guests to find anything at all interesting about her child—especially not Perez.

Every time she looked at his dark, narrow face, she thought about the dead children and her stomach turned. Accountant he might be, but he had been in Los Mendez when almost an entire village had been gunned down, allegedly on Chavez’s orders. The only survivors had been villagers who had been able to escape into the jungle. Horror-stricken by the attack, they had provided eyewitness reports, but, despite that testimony, Chavez hadn’t been indicted. Perez and a number of other members of the cartel had disappeared, escaping certain jail terms, but Chavez had remained in Colombia. According to a Reuters report, his influence within the government and more important, the military, had made him untouchable.

After the formality of the dining room, the kitchen was alive with heat and sound. Steam erupted from a pot as a lid was lifted and dishes clattered as bowls of vegetables and salads were loaded onto a serving trolley.

Dumping a tray of dirty dishes onto the kitchen counter, Esther stepped outside, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It wasn’t often that she envied Carmita the hustle and bustle of her job, but tonight she did. From the second she’d laid eyes on Perez she’d been a bundle of nerves. Her stomach felt tight, she had barely been able to eat, even her skin felt tense. She’d taken every excuse to leave the table and distance herself from him, but the few minutes she’d managed weren’t enough.

Stepping farther into the garden, she breathed in the rich scent of gardenias and willed herself to relax, her gaze automatically drawn to the limpid surface of the lit pool.

Lifting her hair off the back of her neck so the air could cool her skin, she strolled closer to the pool, gaze drifting over jardinieres of trailing ivy and the glossy leaves of palms. On impulse, she slipped off her shoes, dragged the clinging silk jersey of her dress around her thighs and lowered herself to the tiled edge of the pool. As her feet slid into the water, a small shudder went through her. The water was tepid, barely cooler than the surface of her skin, but it was enough to provide relief from the heat and give her a few moments to assess exactly what was going on between Cesar and Lopez.

Cesar had said the dinner was simply a social “warm-up” while he and Lopez assessed their compatibility as business partners, but nothing about the evening felt warm. Lopez wasn’t going out of his way to charm anyone, and Cesar wasn’t himself. If she didn’t know better she would think—

A shadow flickered, jerking her head around. Esther frowned, more at her own jumpiness than the fact that some small animal or a bird might have taken up residence in the thick grove of palms. The movement had been at the periphery of her vision. It was possible it had been a shadow generated by someone in the house moving in front of a lamp, but with everyone seated in the dining room, that left the sitting room—the only lighted room that faced the patio—empty. Unpalatable as it was, the movement had more than likely been made by a rat. They loved the thick subtropical undergrowth. Carmita’s husband, Tomas, was forever setting traps.

The clash of a dropped pan and the sharp edge of Carmita’s voice broke the balmy quiet. Shaking off her tension and the growing anger that, desperate or not, Cesar had allowed a man like Perez into their family home, Esther swung her feet out of the water and straightened, her shoes dangling from her fingers.

The branch of a magnolia quivered. She frowned. The quivering branch was some distance from the first disturbance. The obvious answer to the small movement was the breeze. But there was no breeze.

Eyes unblinking, she probed the shadows, but the glow from the pool destroyed her night vision. She couldn’t make out much more than the outlines of shrubs and trees.

A further flickering movement sent her heart slamming hard against the wall of her chest.

The breath drained from her lungs when she realized the movement was a leaf dropping into the pool. For long moments she stared at the leaf where it floated, and the fine shimmer of concentric circles forming around it.

Nothing could have demonstrated more clearly that she was becoming paranoid. The estate was security-fenced and monitored twenty-four hours a day. If any of the alarms had been breached, either Tomas or Jorge, Tomas and Carmita’s son, who lived with his parents in a cottage on the estate, would have rung through to the house.

With disgust she strode back into the kitchen just as the main course trolley was finally wheeled through to the dining room.

Within an hour dessert was cleared and Carmita was circulating with the coffeepot and a dish of her homemade chocolates.

Cesar refused coffee, instead refilling his wineglass. Esther noticed he was drinking heavily and talking too much, which wasn’t usual. Normally he kept a clear head when they entertained because he was well aware that his strength lay in playing stocks and his ability to make a failing business soar, not in dealing with people. That was where Esther’s expertise was invaluable. Cesar weeded out the bad risks; she weeded out the bad people.

Rina, who must have sneaked her Walkman to the table while Esther was out of the room, despite the fact that she was expressly forbidden to do so, abandoned listening to music, attracted by the silver dish of chocolates. Carmita pushed the dish into Rina’s hands and urged her to take them around the table. Normally, Esther would have been more than happy for Rina to lend a hand, but on this occasion she wished Carmita had stuck to etiquette.

As Rina drifted past with the dish, Cesar’s arm curled around her waist, halting her. Rina stiffened, clearly not in the mood for a public display of affection. Cesar, usually more sensitive to his daughter’s moods, refused to take the hint, and for the first time Esther realized what was behind Cesar’s uncharacteristic behavior: he was afraid.

She’d been so preoccupied with her own perceptions, her own knowledge, she hadn’t stopped to think about Cesar’s state of mind. Usually, the bigger the monetary challenge, the more he relished it. He was like a general in battle, every deal a campaign to build his empire ever larger. She had always admired his courage and his audacity. Normally his instincts were good and, more important, he was lucky. Or, he had been.

Cesar’s smile widened, a sharp edge to the grin. “C’mon, honey, show our guests what you can really do.”

Esther’s smile slipped as the focus turned on Rina.

Suppressing the urge to hustle her daughter from the room, she pushed her chair back, rose to her feet and began gathering dishes. “Mr. Lopez and his friends aren’t interested in school tricks.”

Cesar frowned at the clatter of plates. “A photographic memory isn’t a school trick.”

Esther ignored him as she moved around the table, deliberately adding a swing to her hips. The impulse to preserve her child was knee-jerk and primitive. Perez made her skin crawl, Lopez didn’t make her feel much better and Dennison had about as much charm as a piranha. She didn’t want any of these men looking at Rina or focusing on her. She didn’t want any of them remembering one thing about her daughter.

Cesar produced a sheet of paper and a pen and began writing figures in bold print. “Here, honey, you get five seconds to look.”

Rina stiffened. Her gaze automatically connected with Esther’s, the communication clear. She had stopped enjoying performing in public at age five and she was in no mood to start again now.

Grimly, Esther jerked her head in assent, indicating Rina should go along with her father. As much as she wanted to get her daughter out of the room and away from Perez, she would have to wait another few minutes. Things were tense enough. If Rina dug her heels in there would be a scene, and after the reversals of the past few weeks, a dinner table brawl with his daughter was the last thing Cesar needed.

Her expression set, Rina deposited the dish of chocolates on the table and glanced at the sheet her father handed her. Esther’s stomach tightened as she watched her daughter do what had always come naturally to them both. From as early as she could remember, Esther had had a photographic memory. As long as the material was visual the process was simple; she told her mind to remember, then she let it. If she interfered with the process and concentrated on one part of an image or one number, that was all she remembered, but if she distanced herself and let her gaze slide down the page she had total recall. It was a weird process that didn’t make “normal” sense, but it worked.

When Rina was finished, Cesar handed the sheet to Lopez. Something about Alex Lopez made her skin crawl, but he was fascinating in an odd way. All through dinner she’d tried to figure out exactly what it was that was wrong about him. Dennison was dull, more interested in slicing up his food than making conversation. Perez was quick and darting, like a snake. In comparison to everyone else at the table, Lopez was still. He didn’t move or gesture much, and he didn’t bother trying to promote the fiction that he was having a good time.

Rina began repeating the numbers in sequence, her voice flat. When she was finished Lopez placed the sheet of handwritten numbers on the table, his eyes on Rina. “One hundred percent accuracy. An interesting talent.” Lopez’s gaze was still fixed on Rina. “Where does she get that from?”

“Her father.” Esther cut Cesar off with a cold, warning glance. “Cesar’s always been dynamite with figures.”

“That’s not news,” Perez inserted smoothly. “He didn’t get the nickname ‘Mr. Midas’ for nothing. We’re hoping the golden touch will rub off on us.”

Dennison laughed as if Perez had said something hilarious and Lopez’s gaze swiveled. He muttered a sharp comment, cutting off Dennison’s mirth. Esther noticed Lopez’s accent had slipped. Even more interesting. Something had finally gotten under his skin and he’d revealed some emotion and the fact that, surprise, surprise, Boston wasn’t his natural home.

Esther forced another tight smile as she smoothly redirected the conversation back into a general discussion about the economy and away from Rina. Her daughter had fitted the headphones of her Walkman back over her ears and was staring back at Lopez with a fixed, unblinking gaze.

Rina was so mature in her outlook and so exceptional in her talents that sometimes Esther forgot she was still a ten-year-old kid. Cesar hadn’t noticed what she was doing yet, because she was sitting right next to him, but it wouldn’t be long before he realized his daughter had targeted Lopez for eyeball extinction.

As much as Lopez deserved it, someone had to call her off. Smothering a grin, Esther walked around the table and shook Rina’s arm. There was no point trying to catch her eye, because when Rina identified a victim she locked on like a heat-seeking missile. She never voluntarily gave up on a stare until her victim was a quivering jelly. “Bedtime.”

Rina didn’t shift her stare. “Another five minutes would be good.”

Which meant she had already gained the ascendancy, now she wanted the victory lap. “Uh-uh. You’re finished for the night.”

With a shrug, Rina abandoned the stare and gracefully exited her place at the table. “It’s okay.” She sent Esther a sly wink. “My work is done.”

Making her excuses and sending Cesar a hard glance, Esther hustled Rina out of the room and watched with an eagle eye as she got settled for bed, allowing Rina to spin out the process in the hope that Cesar would get the hint and make moves to get rid of their guests. When she returned to the table, the evening was finally winding up. Cesar had had too much to drink and so had Dennison, but she couldn’t help noticing that Lopez and Perez were both stone-cold sober.

Seeing them to the door, she watched as they climbed into a low, sleek Cadillac. A second vehicle, a gleaming black Chevrolet truck with tinted windows, glided behind the Cadillac as it nosed through the security gates, and she tensed. She had been aware they had a driver, because she had suggested he eat in the kitchen if he was hungry, but not that there had been a second vehicle. The only possible reason for a second vehicle was security, which meant Lopez had had additional men loose on the property that she hadn’t known about.

Suddenly the interlude in the garden began to make sense. There had been someone there, maybe more than one. Cesar must have been aware of their presence, because otherwise Jorge and Tomas would never have admitted the second vehicle.

As the gate closed behind the truck, Esther turned on Cesar. She didn’t care if they did go bankrupt. “Finish with them.”

It wasn’t often she demanded, but in this case it was too strong a reaction to deny. She was itching to go to the police, but she was going to have to wait until Cesar got clear. Perez was a wanted man, but as much as she needed to see him behind bars, she wouldn’t allow Cesar to be dragged into the investigation or the media storm that would follow when Perez was picked up.

“I can’t—not yet.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve already made arrangements for Lopez to look at the project. He’s a new player in the market and he’s got cash. We can’t afford to throw away the opportunity.” He indicated for her to precede him into the house, the gesture normal and courteous, but the fact that he was avoiding her gaze made Esther’s stomach plunge.

She stepped into the foyer, her heels rapping on the marble floor. “What have you signed?”

His gaze was rapier sharp, a glimpse of the old, imperious Cesar. “Relax. Like I told you, I’m just researching options. Lopez has got some heavy-duty connections.”

“I don’t like Lopez, and Perez is a wanted criminal.”

He locked the front door and set the alarm. “Ease off, honey. Like I said, Perez can go, just not yet.”

She watched as Cesar crossed the foyer, heading for the stairs, his gait very slightly unsteady. “Promise me you’ll get out of whatever it is you’ve gotten involved with.”

She was like a terrier with a bone, but she couldn’t let it go. It was panic, pure and simple. Her stomach was tight and her eyes were burning. She was on the verge of crying and that was something she hadn’t done in years. Something was happening that she couldn’t control and she needed to find out exactly what had gone wrong.

Business—money—had always been an exciting game, one that she and Cesar were very good at. They took risks and lived like kings. That was part of the excitement and the reward of what they did, but in no way did they break the law. She didn’t tolerate underhanded business ethics, and she wouldn’t tolerate involvement with criminals. With everything they did, there was a moral line between greed and good business practice, and Esther believed in staying on the right side of that line. She’d seen too much ugliness and too much dirty dealing to ever want to join those ranks. Naive or not, she believed that if she behaved with integrity she would always prosper. They would always prosper.

Until tonight, she was certain Cesar had shared that view. With a sudden chill, she wondered if that was what had gone wrong. Cesar had gotten tied up with criminals and their luck had dissolved.

She shook off the thought, which was patently ridiculous. Cesar had said he wasn’t committed. There would be logical answers as to why so many of their ventures had failed, one after the other. Lately, she’d been working overtime to find the key to the failures and a definite pattern was emerging, but she needed more time to find her way through the paper companies and isolate exactly who it was sabotaging the deals.

“Promise me, Cesar. These people are dangerous.” Images from the newspaper article flickered through her mind. “Perez was tied in with Marco Chavez.”

Just speaking the name aloud made her feel sick. For a moment she thought Cesar was on the verge of telling her something, then the soft burr of the phone broke the moment.

Esther watched as he changed direction and strode into the office to take the call. She listened long enough to ascertain that this was “normal” business, not Lopez, before she strolled through the house and back out into the garden.

The kitchen was darkened, and the patio and the pool area were quiet now. Only the hum of the pool filter disturbed the peace. The leaf was still floating near the center of the pool. Directing her gaze upward, she checked the nearest trees, most of which were palms or subtropicals with large, fleshy leaves, nothing like the small, square leaf in the pool.

Strolling around to the far side of the pool, where a small shed was concealed behind a screen of plantings, she located one of the pool scoops. Seconds later, she examined the “leaf,” which wasn’t a leaf at all, but the torn-off cover of a small book of matches emblazoned with the name of a bar on Grant Avenue.

A chill roughened the surface of her skin. She had watched as it had landed in the water. Someone had been there, and they had enjoyed playing a cat-and-mouse game with her.





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