Flawless Danger (The Spencer & Sione #1) (39 page)

“That doesn’t make sense,” Sione said, more to himself than to Moana. “Richard doesn’t know Spencer.”

Shrugging, Moana said, “You know your father doesn’t like to be questioned. Don’t ask, because he’s not going to tell.”

“Stay away from Spencer.”

“You don’t seem to understand how it works.” Moana said. “The deal was, if Richard got me out of jail, I would tie up his loose ends. He’s held up his end of the bargain. I have to hold up my end. If I don’t, you know what your father will do to me. They won’t even find my body.”

“You need to be more worried about what I’m going to do to you.”

“What you’re going to do to me?” Moana asked, and there was confusion in the laugh that followed. “Oh, now you want to be a chip off the old Glock? You don’t have the guts to kill me. You never did and you never will.”
 

She glared at him, hate in her dark gaze. Her body trembled, an almost imperceptible tremor, as though rage churning deep within her was radiating out to her extremities.

Looking at her, Sione remembered the day he’d caught her with Ben. He had wanted to kill Moana, but he hadn’t. His uncle’s influence had been strong then, and he couldn’t convince himself to put his hands around her throat and snap her neck. Big mistake.

He should have killed her when he had the chance. If he had, three women would still be alive today. Their blood was on his hands. But, he would rectify that mistake.

Moana must have seen his intentions or discerned something in his gaze. She took a step backward, and then another, and then she turned and ran.

Anticipating her actions, Sione took off after her. Out of the bedroom. Down the hall. Around the corner. Into the living room. Moana sprinted toward the door and got there quicker than he’d thought she would.

Determined not to let the bitch get away, Sione lunged and was right upon her as she clutched the knob. Before she could open the door, he grabbed her by the back of her neck and yanked her away from the door. Howling in anger, she tried to wrestle away, kicking and writhing and whirling like some Tasmanian devil.

Sione threw her into the wall. Slamming against the sheet rock, Moana gasped and then dropped to the floor. Sione went to her and dropped to his knees in front of her. Grabbing her around the throat, he yanked her to her knees. Gasping and gurgling, Moana tried to pry his hand from her throat. Nails dug into his wrist. Ignoring the pain, he tightened his hold. She slapped and punched his face, her eyes growing wider, in shock and terror, and he imagined she realized what he was planning for her and knew he would not stop until his plan succeeded.

Moana knew she was about to die. And Sione knew he was going to kill her. Not because he wanted to …
 

He had to kill her.

Spencer Edwards is a loose end

But that wasn’t true. Spencer was becoming everything to him, and so much more. Everything he’d hoped and prayed and wished for. She was his chance at happiness. A chance he’d never thought he would have again. And he would be damned if he let Moana steal that chance from him a second time.

As Moana raked her nails against his arm, leaving behind thin, bloody welts, Sione tightened his grip, remembering the lessons Richard had given him, crushing the trachea, cutting off the flow of oxygen.

Rising to his feet, he pulled Moana up with him. Her heels and feet slapped the tile floor until he lifted her higher, eye level with him. With no solid ground beneath her, she pumped and bicycled her legs in the air, staring at him with a dark, soulless gaze.

Seconds later, her eyelids flickered, and then her pupils rolled back. Her mouth went slack and her body went limp. Panting, scarcely able to catch his own breath, Sione yanked his hand from her neck.

Moana’s body fell, crashing to the tile in a sprawling heap.

San Ignacio, Belize

Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita

Sione walked into his casita and closed the door behind him. A wall sconce in the foyer gave off dim light, just enough so he wouldn’t stumble into anything. All he wanted to do was crawl into bed and pull Spencer into his arms. He was wary of closing his eyes and letting sleep claim him—wary of the nightmares he was sure he’d have to contend with, the dreams about Moana.

He was still reeling from the shock of what he’d done. Had he really killed his ex-fiancée? Was Moana really dead? Because of him? Because he had put his hands around her neck and squeezed until she stopped breathing?

Continuing down the hall to the master bedroom, his worry grew, turning to panic. He had vowed to never live the life Richard had planned for him; he wasn’t going to be the person his father wanted him to be, a man devoted to menace and mayhem for profit. He had promised himself he would never become that man. Sione had denounced that life, and yet tonight, he’d embraced it.

Opening the double doors, Sione was drawn toward a glow of light, a lamp on the night table. Shaky and disoriented, he walked into the bedroom and headed to the light, staring toward the bed. Spencer was sprawled across the bed on her back, wearing a skimpy pair of purple lace panties and some kind of matching see-through camisole, giving him a nice view. He gazed at her breasts, enticed by her nipples straining against the sheer fabric, thinking strange thoughts, indulging in ideas which made no sense, like coming home to Spencer every night because they were together, because they had fallen in love.

Sione shook his head, trying to forget the crazy ideas playing with his imagination. Spencer wouldn’t want to be with a cold-blooded murderer.

And that’s what he was.

Turning from Spencer, he staggered toward a chair in the corner of the room and dropped down into it, leaning back, extending his legs out across the hardwood floor as Moana’s lifeless body flashed in his mind. He had stared at the body for a long time, trying to control the kaleidoscope of thoughts and feelings swirling within him, but they shifted and changed too quickly. Finally, he’d left the rental house.

Outside, night had taken over. Weak light from a sconce on the porch near the front door provided scant illumination as he made his way to the Mercedes. Forcing one foot in front of the other was an effort, and he felt like he was pushing through a dark, hot blanket.

Driving back to the resort, he was jittery one moment and calm the next. It was hard to figure out what he really felt about what he’d done. As soon as he thought he knew, his emotions would shift and become vague and elusive. It was surreal. For a moment, Sione wondered if he was dreaming.

And then he thought that maybe the whole incident had been a wild figment of his imagination. Maybe he’d made it all up. Maybe it was some strange psychological response to the death of Karen Nelson, which didn’t really make sense because he’d seen dead bodies before. Richard had exposed him to that particular horror, and Sione hadn’t been overly traumatized.

The first time had been when he was fourteen. The body was lying on the ground. The guy looked like he was just knocked out, and if not for the bullet wound in the back of his head, and the blood congealing in the dirt, he might have been mistaken for a drunk, unconscious and sleeping off a hangover.

Sione stared at the ceiling.

He liked the idea of finding Karen’s dead body on the bed and killing Moana as something that was all in his mind. As he closed his eyes, he allowed himself to think he had suffered some kind of temporary break with reality.

San Ignacio, Belize

Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita

“Your
mother hates me,” Spencer announced as she walked into the kitchen.

John stood behind the center island, staring at a small plastic basket filled with green coconuts, a small machete, and an oversized mixing bowl. “No, she doesn’t,” John disputed, picking up a coconut and holding it in the palm of his hand.

Doubtful, Spencer stared at him. “Yes, she does.”

John picked up the machete.

“Maggie, Keisha, and India told me she hates me,” Spencer said. “They said she thinks I’m the wrong woman for you. She told your Aunt Perla that she doesn’t understand why you can’t meet a nice girl at church.”

“Come on, they’re little girls,” he said, holding the coconut over the mixing bowl, staring at it, as though for wisdom or knowledge. “They don’t understand half the stuff they overhear my mom and Aunt Perla gossiping about.”

“Your mother thinks I’m not good enough for you,” she said. “And she’s probably right.”

“Don’t say you’re not good enough for me, okay,” he warned. Using the blunt edge of the knife, he tapped against the coconut, rotating it in his hand.

“Just face it, John, your mother hates me,” Spencer said, watching him tap and rotate, tap and rotate, until the coconut split in half. “Your whole family hates me.”

“That is not true.”

“Okay, maybe not your whole family,” Spencer amended, shrugging. “Just your mom. And your cousin David.”

“D.J. doesn’t hate you,” John said, holding the coconut over the bowl, draining the juice, and then placing the halves on the counter. “He’s suspicious of you.”

“Suspicious is an understatement,” Spencer said. “David thinks I’m a criminal. And it’s kind of your fault he feels that way about me.”

“My fault?” John stared at her.

Realizing she’d have to be delicate so she didn’t offend him, she said, “You told David to follow me around. You told him to investigate me. He wouldn’t be suspicious of me if you hadn’t put those suspicions in his head.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have been suspicious of you if you hadn’t received that banker’s box with fake passports and money hidden in Xanax boxes,” he said. “Which you lied about.”

Folding her arms, Spencer said, “I wouldn’t have lied about the contents of that banker’s box if I hadn’t suspected that you had opened it, which you shouldn’t have done.”

John glared at her, and Spencer knew she’d crossed the line. But the arguments about John’s initial suspicions of her seemed to always come up, and there was no need pretending it wasn’t going to be an issue.

They would always have to contend with David’s investigation of her. David’s surveillance had yielded damning evidence against her—the delivery of passports and money to Carla Garcia, Karen Nelson, and Maxine Porter.

Further investigations into the three women had revealed their connections to Ben Chang, which, of course, had convinced David of Spencer’s connection to Ben Chang. Naturally, John had confronted her about it, and to save her relationship with John, Spencer had been forced to lie about that connection. Although, the irony was, now she wasn’t even sure if she still had a connection to Ben.

A few days had passed since she’d found the envelope.

Spencer had called and texted Ben that very day, but he hadn’t responded to her. Ben had yet to respond to her, though she called and texted him every day with the same message.

I found it. Contact me.

Spencer didn’t know why the hell he hadn’t responded, and she didn’t know where the hell he could be. She worried what would happen when Ben finally returned one of her messages, because she knew one day he would, when she least suspected it. Out of the blue, Ben would be back in her life. And then what?

After she gave him the envelope, what would she do? It was a question Rae and Shady posed to her each time she called them. Was she going back to Texas or staying in Belize with John? Spencer still didn’t know.

“You just have to give D.J. some time,” John said. “It’s hard for him to trust you because of your connection to Ben Chang.”

“But I don’t really have a connection to Ben Chang,” Spencer lied, desperate to keep up her ruse. “I told you, I don’t even really know him. I made those deliveries because I was scared and I didn’t want any problems.”

“I know that, but …”

“But what?” Spencer asked. “You think it’s more than that? You think there’s something I’m not telling you?”

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“What would I not be telling you?”

Shaking his head, John said, “Nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

Spencer wasn’t so sure it didn’t matter.

She always worried if maybe John hadn’t believed the lies she’d been forced to tell him. She’d claimed she had never met Ben Chang and the orders he’d given her had come through some “loan manager”.

“Tell me,” Spencer said. “What were you going to—”

A sharp, staccato knock on the French doors that opened to the back terrace made Spencer jump.
 

“It’s Jared,” John said, looking past her.

Thankful for the interruption, Spencer hurried to the door and let the detective inside. Jared greeted her, his smile polite if not friendly, but she hadn’t expected a warm welcome and she never would.
 

“Hey, Sione,” Jared called out, walking past Spencer and into the kitchen.

Closing the door, she turned and witnessed the greeting between John and Jared. At first, there was a warm, easy familial bond, but seconds later, Jared’s mood became grim.

“Wish I had better news, cousin,” Jared said.

“What’s going on?” John asked.

Spencer’s pulse jumped, as irrational fears grabbed her. Undefined terror overshadowed her, and at once, a scripture her grandmother used to say came to mind—the guilty flee when no man pursue.

“When it rains it pours,” Jared said, his tone weary.

Giving his cousin a curious glance, John asked, “What do you mean?”

“Did you two hear about the dead woman those tourists found on Ambergris Caye?” Jared asked.

Too terrified to speak, Spencer managed to nod as John said, “Yeah, I think so. What about her?”

“The woman found on Ambergris Caye had been shot between the eyes and had her right hand cut off,” Jared said and continued on, “Then, a week ago, some ex-pats were cave tubing and came across a dead body. She’d been executed too, shot between the eyes with her right hand cut off. Hispanic woman we identified as Carla Garcia.”

An involuntary shiver passed through Spencer as the shock of Jared’s words almost made her knees buckle.