Fontanas Trouble (9 page)

He hugged her against his side.
“I played college roller-ball and am on the engineers’ triathlon team. Keeps me
in shape.”

She couldn’t believe it. The man
was genuinely enjoying himself. She’d wanted rough play. So did Brent.

Their attacker moaned. Fontana
dropped to her knees beside him. She racked her brain for anything that would
get Brent out of the room, but nothing reasonable rushed forward. Yeah, she was
going to have to let the guy get away. But how to accomplish that when Brent
was determined to save Sagitariun from falling into the sun—and save her from
herself in the process?

Chapter Eleven

The man’s eyes opened, and
Fontana seized his lapel and yanked him to a sitting position. “You go back and
tell the Bull we don’t like being fucked with.”

Would Brent buy that a 1920s mob
boss had sent a guy to get them with a modern weapon? For all she knew, it
could be true. She hoped it was true.

Fontana stood, pulling the man to
his feet, then shoved him into Brent’s arms. “Should we give him the same
treatment Jimmy’s boys gave us?”

Brent grinned. “Got any rope?”

“Strip him.”

Brent’s grin widened. “Perfect.”

“I’ll get a towel. We’ll tear
some strips, then tie his hands behind his back and toss him into the hallway.”

“You’re out of your minds,” the
guy said.

“Probably,” Fontana said, and
breathed a little easier. He hadn’t threatened to have the cartel come after
her if she didn’t release him, which was exactly the threat a cartel member
would make.

She took the weapon from Brent,
and he began to wrestle the man’s coat off. She stuffed the weapon into her
waistband and hurried to the bathroom. A muttered “Oof” and an
indistinguishable curse followed her. Fontana returned to see that Brent had
the guy on the floor, belly first, with his knee in his back. The man’s shirt
lay on the floor.

“Not bad.” She laughed.

Fontana crossed to the dresser
and pulled out the medical tape. Brent held him down while she wrapped his
hands behind his back. When they had his pants and underwear off, Brent pulled
him up. Fontana tracked her gaze down his body. He didn’t have Brent’s
physique, but he was nicely built, and his package showed promise—though, at
the moment, fear had the better of him, and he was about as
uninspired
as a man could get.

“I wonder what they’ll think when
their boy comes home to roost as naked as the day he was born,” she said.

“You can’t do this,” the man
said.

“I think the Bull’s words were
I
will
.” Fontana gave him a broad smile.

“Who’s the Bull—” the man began,
but Brent pushed him toward the front door. The man dug his heels in, but Brent
outweighed him by twenty kilos. Brent forced the man over the threshold.

He whirled. “This wasn’t part of
the deal.”

Brent laughed. “Tell the Bull
that.”

He tried to push back into the
room. Fontana whipped the weapon from her waistband and fired a shot at his
feet.

He jumped back, eyes wide. “That
thing is real.”

“You didn’t mind that when you
were using it on us,” she said.

“I wasn’t—”

She fired again, missing his left
foot by half a centimeter. He leaped back.

“You’d better get running.” She
fired again. He jumped back another step. “If I take off a toe,” she said, “I
can claim you shot yourself in the foot.” She fired again.

He whirled and raced down the
hallway.

Fontana watched until he
disappeared around the bend in the hallway, then turned. She looked from the
open doorway to Brent. “He broke my door.”

* * * *

Morning sunlight bounced off the
Arc de Triomphe in the distance as Fontana drank mimosas with Brent in a French
Quarter café. Despite the fact the arch was a hologram, the replicated
twenty-second-century Paris Boulevard was spectacular. Clunky robot waiters
whirred between the tables, electric hover-cars shuttled along the street, and
the tables had voice-activated menus.

This morning appeared to be a
normal day, but Fontana had decided that being part of a Sagitariun fantasy
package was akin to being committed to a psychiatric ward. Separating truth
from fiction was impossible. Until she’d met Brent, she would have bet a year’s
pay that doors wouldn’t be blown out as part of a fantasy package and lasers
wouldn’t take bites out of hotel walls.

She set her champagne flute on
the table and picked up a croissant from the plate sitting between them. “Were
your previous fantasies as aggressive as this one?”

He shook his head. “No. I decided
I wanted a little more action, so I updated my profile in hopes of increasing
the challenge.”

Fontana paused in spreading
chocolate across her croissant and lifted a brow. “By updated your profile, you
mean lied.”

He shrugged. “I can’t be the
first guest to do that.”

No, he couldn’t, and Sagitariun
must know that. They couldn’t be naive enough to give such an aggressive
fantasy to every guest who claimed to have such a hardcore background. They
would have done due diligence with a thorough background investigation to make
sure the vacationer could handle such rough sport.

Given the fact that her work
background was highly classified, her public information contained only mundane
information: born on Freedom IV, educated at Princeton on Earth, degrees in
economics and political science, worked as a courier, and was currently a
colonial consultant. But her training, undercover assignments, true employer,
commendations, rank, and achievements remained off public record.

Yet the unexpected violence of
the last two encounters would fit her real-life profile, which seemed to
indicate that the resort knew she was helping Brent, had investigated her, and
had discovered the truth. Given their neutral politico-economic status,
Sagitariun Resorts, LLC was a powerful entity in this quadrant of the galaxy.
Powerful enough to gain access to secrets? Was she stretching the facts to
match the conclusion she wanted, or was the reason simpler: the cartel had
found her?

“No word from Jimmy on the return
of his boy?” she asked.

Brent took a deep draft of his
mimosa. “I think we scared him off.”

Fontana bit into her croissant
and closed her eyes as the dark chocolate slid across her tongue. She hadn’t
had real chocolate in a decade. She released a contented sigh and opened her
eyes. “You’ve got two more days on your vacation. Wait and see how much they
increase your challenge before thinking we’ve got anyone scared.”

“Maybe three days,” he said. “I
should hear from my agent this morning as to whether or not they’re going to
add the extra day.”

An extra day with him would give
her less time to think about what it was going to be like when he was gone.
“How are your bruises?” she asked.

“A little tender, but the
bionanobots did a great job.”

“It didn’t seem to bother you
last night.” Butterflies flitted inside her stomach at the memory of their
quick shower while they’d waited for a new pair of trousers to be sent up.
Brent knew how to get wet…how to get her wet.

“Neither did your wrist.” He
winked.

She raised her champagne glass.
“You’re good medicine.”

He did the same. “As you are.”

They clinked glasses, and Fontana
lifted the glass to her lips. She slowed in washing down the chocolate and
croissant, startled by the contented warmth that rippled through her. The
uncertainty of whether or not the cartel had found her and the unknown identity
of their attacker had her worried. But she couldn’t deny that Brent made her
happy. How much fallout would there be when they parted company? Did they have
to part company?

Guilt surfaced. Could she so
easily forget Jenny? No. She would stop the Track Cartel from intercepting
Jenny’s remains before she reached Earth—which meant her time here on
Sagitariun with Brent would be all they had.

“Maybe we should make the first
move.” Brent’s voice broke into her thoughts.

Fontana nodded and took another
bite of her chocolate croissant. “What do you mean?”

“Why not pay the Bull another
visit?”

“The code probably isn’t there
anymore.”

A waiter-bot trundled up to the
table. “A message arrived for you, sir.”

“I’ll view it here,” Brent said.
The table surface glowed under his plate. He slid the plate aside and read.
“It’s from my agent.” His eyes moved across the screen another moment; then he
looked up. “She wants to see me. That’s never happened before. Do you think
they’ll cancel my contract because we’re working together?”

“If she does, we can lie around
in bed for the rest of your vacation.” She could use the memories to warm her
on her next assignment.

His eyes darkened. “True. Then
start all over again when we get back home.”

When we got back home?

Fontana reached for her glass,
then cursed the tremble in her hand. She willed her fingers into submission and
lifted the glass to her mouth. “Where’s home?”

“New Mexico, Santa Fe, when I’m
on Earth. I just finished a contract on a Coalition outpost out in the Minor
Magellanic Cloud, so I don’t know where I’ll be next. How about you?”

Her heart squeezed. Wherever they
sent her, she would be far from New Mexico. Fontana set the glass back on the
table. “I’m between jobs too.” Technically, not a lie. She wouldn’t know where
she was going to live when she got her next assignment.

“You can spend some time at my
place until one of us has to take off.” He stuffed the last of his croissant
into his mouth and finished off his mimosa. “I better go. You want to share a
cab?” He waggled his brows.

Fontana laughed. “At the rate
we’re going, we’ll have tourists watching for our every cab ride.” She waved
him off. “You go. I’m going to finish these croissants. Beep me at my room.”

“Sure thing.” He dropped a kiss
on her forehead, then headed for the street.

Fontana watched as he hailed a
cab, then poured himself into the backseat. He grinned at her and then was
gone. Just like he would be in three days.

Chapter Twelve

In her hotel room, Fontana stared
at the screen of her videophone. An hour ago, she’d been sitting with Brent in
the French Quarter contemplating home. Five minutes ago, she’d been giddy with
anticipation after receiving his message that he was sending a special outfit
for tonight. But she’d just learned that pirates were operating in Epsilon
Sector-Three, a rogue black hole near the Danert Colony where the Gold
Corporation was about to collapse.

Fontana reread the coded message
sent by Stephaney. Instead of information concerning the coded message she’d
sent about the freighter and her conclusions that the cartel had smuggled
Poincaré crystals off Rigil IV in Jenny’s coffin, Stephaney simply stated that
they would discuss her
private investigation
when she returned to duty.
For now, Fontana was booked on a transport scheduled to leave in three days at
2100 hours. So much for Santa Fe with Brent.

Jenny’s body wouldn’t arrive on
Earth for another seven days. Was the Corps going to stop the cartel from
intercepting the S-warp drone? Stephaney’s attitude was too reminiscent of the
Coalition’s withdrawal from Rigil IV—a withdrawal that screamed
we have no
intention of dealing with our fuckup.
Anger tightened her stomach. Dammit,
would the Coalition do the right thing this time and stop the cartel from
intercepting Jenny’s body?

In order to be there when the
S-warp drone entered Earth’s system, Fontana would have to leave in two days.
Stephaney would know within the hour if Fontana left the space station…if she
left on a public transport.

If she stayed on Sagitariun two
more days, that would make the Corps think she was following orders –- and give
her more time with Brent. Forget his mission. She would seduce him into
spending the next two days in her bed. The juncture between her legs clenched
with the thought of all the possibilities of the erotic ways she would use him.

The mental picture of his mouth
clamped to her pussy evaporated. Stephaney’s message said that the situation in
Epsilon Sector-Three was a code eight. That was serious enough to cut Fontana’s
vacation short. Yet Stephaney hadn’t ordered her to Epsilon Sector-Three
immediately. Why?

Brent’s fantasy would surely be
extended to three days, the same amount of time remaining before Fontana left
for her new assignment. Fontana recalled how the altercation with the Bull had
seemed like a situation tailored more to someone of her expertise, and her mind
came to a screeching halt. Had Brent’s fantasy been amped up because he’d lied
on his application, or was this her fantasy package? Complete with a fine male
ass and erection-on-demand.

“Find a man,”
Stephaney
had said
, “and reaffirm life. Let him fuck your brains out.”

A tremor rippled through Fontana,
and the truth hit home with a clarity that took her breath. The colonel hadn’t
taken any chances that Fontana wouldn’t retreat to Sagitariun and remain quiet
like a good Corps soldier. She had ordered a fantasy package sure to keep
Fontana occupied, and his name was Brent Yari.

She waited for her heart to
scream
the last three days weren’t a lie like your time on Rigil IV was
.
But a fantasy vacation for her explained why everything that had happened had
been silly, stupid, and serious all at the same time—Brent being one of the
serious elements.

Unexpected tears rushed to the
surface. She swiped at her cheeks. What was wrong with her? So he had been
nothing more than a good time. So why did she feel as if her insides had been
sliced open? Because she was a fool.

Fontana rose, then paused. The
sooner she left Sagitariun, the sooner Stephaney would realize she intended to
be there when Jenny’s remains arrived at Earth. She should stay, give Stephaney
less time to anticipate her moves. But she wasn’t Brent. She couldn’t pretend
she didn’t care. She’d been right. No engineer who tuned warp drives all day
had buns of steel.

Her preoccupation and upset about
what had happened to Jenny had affected her judgment to the point that she
hadn’t recognized the setup. This was the second mistake she’d made in a month.
This time, however, she could correct her mistake.

Fontana pulled her travel case
from the closet and began choosing the clothes she wanted to keep. The rest
would go into the recycler. She grabbed the Ingrid Bergman hat she’d worn to
Rick’s and paused. Wisdom said she should toss it into the recycler, yet she
found her fingers tightening around the brim. She and Brent had spent only a
few minutes at Rick’s, but the memory was as sharp as if it were only an hour
ago—the feel of his large hands skimming across her ankle as he examined it,
his moist mouth on hers…his cock, large, hard, and insistent, invading her. She
had even switched bodies with him. That had been a thrill almost too good to
believe.

The chime of her hotel door
jerked her back to the present. Her heart pounding like a robot miner, she
commanded, “Show visitors.”

The door cleared so she could
view. A man stood outside, a brown package in hand. Fontana tossed the hat on
the bed and crossed to the entrance. “Open door,” she commanded. The door
opened. “Can I help you?”

“Delivery for Fontana from Brent
Yari.” The man held up the package.

Fontana stilled. She’d forgotten
about the outfit he was sending over. She considered refusing the package, then
realized she had to act like she was still playing along.

“I’ll take it.”

The man gave her the package and
pulled a small tablet from his pocket. He tapped the screen, then extended it
toward her. “Please press your thumb here.” He pointed to the lower right-hand
corner of the screen.

Fontana pressed her thumb against
the screen. He thanked her and left. She closed the door and tossed the package
on the bed alongside the hat. She wasn’t going to torture herself by opening
it. She stared at it.

Or was she?

* * * *

Dammit, Fontana had known getting
out of Sagitariun wouldn’t be easy. The spaceport was in sight, and the Lauren
Bacall look-alike was back. How had the woman managed to follow her? Fontana
had exited the cab ten blocks back and was winding her way through a maze of
twists and turns that would have confused the Empire’s best navigator.

She pushed through the door on
her left and stepped to the side so that she was out of view of the storefront
window. She did a double take upon seeing the caged animals that filled what
she realized had to be a pet store. A Manuvian Dactyl squawked in a tall,
oblong cage against the wall to her right. Fontana cast the reptilian bird a
glance, then carefully peeked through the glass door.

Across the street, the Bacall
woman walked past at a brisk pace. She didn’t slow, didn’t act as if she’d lost
Fontana. In fact, she didn’t appear to be looking for anyone. Her gaze remained
straight ahead, and she continued down the walkway with a purpose that said she
had a destination in mind…just as she had when Fontana had seen her outside the
Roman baths.

Fontana watched until the woman
was out of sight, then leaned back against the wall. Was the Bacall character
part of the fantasy, the cartel, or was Fontana simply going insane? The Dactyl
squawked again. She looked at the creature. Crystal-blue eyes stared as if to
answer,
Yes, any way you look at it, you’re going insane.

Fontana swung her duffel over her
shoulder and pushed off the wall, turned toward the door, then paused. The
Lauren Bacall was gone, but what if she’d ducked into a shop in hopes of
catching Fontana after she reentered the street?

Fontana looked down the aisle. No
one was in sight. Could she get lucky enough to be able to slip out the back
door unnoticed? She could use a little good luck about now.

Fontana took a step forward.
“Hello.”

No reply.

She started down the aisle.
“Anybody home?”

Still no answer. She paused in
front of a glass cage with a Fralnan python. The snakelike creature was curled
up in a corner, its head resting on its body as if asleep, but she knew better.
Fontana grimaced. She’d never understood the attraction to the slithering
creatures. Who wanted a pet that had an appetite for human flesh? And what
tourist would buy a pet while on vacation on the fantasy resort?

She continued through the store.
Maybe she could slip out the back door and lose the Bacall woman once and for
all. Fontana reached the end of the aisle and spotted an open door behind a
small counter in the left-hand corner of the shop. She’d nearly reached the
door when a man appeared in the doorway. Fontana stopped. He was dressed in a
narrow waistcoat over a roomy body suit. She squinted. He looked more like a
member of the Track Cartel than a pet-store owner.

“I didn’t see anyone up front,”
she said as if she was a customer.

His gaze raked down her body with
a male appreciation she was sure would chase away any female customers. This
man was no pet store owner.

“I didn’t realize you were
closed,” she tried in a new effort to make him think she didn’t understand
something was wrong. “I can come back later.” Fontana started to turn.

“Don’t try it,” he said.

She froze.

“Hey, Pete, look what we got.”

Fontana tightened her grip on the
duffel.

Another man appeared in the
doorway behind the man. Fontana forced back a grimace. The man stood two and a
half meters tall and was one hundred and fifty kilos of pure muscle. He stepped
forward, and his friend moved aside. She’d wanted to get off Sagitariun without
getting noticed, but these two were going to force her to get messy.

“I don’t want any trouble,” she
said.

The smaller man laughed. “Hear
that, Pete? She doesn’t want any trouble.”

“What’s in the duffel?” the big
man asked as if making casual conversation.

“Clothes,” she said.

“Clothes?” Pete said. “What kind
of clothes?”

Fontana blinked. The two men were
clearly criminals of some sort, yet this guy was asking what kind of clothes
she had in the duffel?

“You want it?” she asked.

He nodded, and she surprised
herself by hesitating. The hat she’d worn to Rick’s and the package Brent had
sent were inside. She didn’t want to lose either of them, but damn, it also
didn’t make any sense fighting over mementos that would only bring her pain.
She also wasn’t going to screw up making sure Jenny got home, but it angered
her that she had to give up the few things that reminded her of Brent.

She tossed the duffel on the
counter in front of them. “It’s all yours.”

“The clothes you’re wearing,”
Pete said.

“What?”

“Those are nice clothes.”

Fontana glanced down at the vest,
crew neck, and slacks she was wearing, then looked back at him. “Yeah, they’re
all right.”

He pulled the bag toward him, and
Fontana started to turn.

“Not so fast,” the first man
said. “Pete likes your clothes.”

She grunted a strangled laugh.
“So do I.”

Pete had the duffel open and had
pulled out a shirt from inside.

“I’m letting Pete have everything
in the duffel. I get to keep what I’m wearing,” Fontana said.

“Not if Pete wants it,” the man
said.

“The two of you put together
can’t take them off me,” she replied in as mild a voice as the one he’d been
using.

He shrugged, and Fontana tensed
when he reached around his waist.

He pulled out a palm-sized, T-7
nerve disruptor and pointed it at her. “How about the three of us?”

She had been shot with one of
those a few years ago. If real, the weapon would paralyze her for an hour or
more, and she’d have a hell of a headache and uncontrollable tremors for a
week. She shifted her gaze to his face. “There’s not a weapon to be had on this
space station.”

“Spoken like a woman who tried
and failed to get a weapon on this space station.”

Fontana remembered the
twentieth-century pistol Jimmy the Bull had used and the laser weapon that had
damaged her hotel room door. Real weapons were obviously more prevalent on the
fantasy resort than she’d first realized. Or did she simply have the misfortune
to run into the only three criminals who had them?

“Why would I need a weapon?” she
asked.

He shrugged. “Any woman who
thinks she can stop Pete and me from doing anything we want to her is a woman
who might have reason to need a weapon.”

Leave it to her to find a
criminal who could reason that out. Pete pulled out the tube that held the hat
from inside the duffel. Fontana had rolled it, then neatly stuffed it inside so
that it wouldn’t get misshapen in the bag. He opened the tube, and the hat
unrolled to full-size. Pete’s eyes widened, and he gave a quiet “Ohh,” like a
boy who’d gotten his first remote-control spaceship.

He looked at Fontana. “I like
this.”

“Okay, big boy,” she said. “It’s
all yours.”

“I like your vest too.”

“Take it off,” the other man
ordered.

Pete pulled out the package Brent
had sent her and turned it in his large hands. He looked at her. “You can wear
this.”

“You don’t even know what’s in
it.”

He set it on the counter as if he
didn’t hear her and went back to examining the hat.

The other man picked up the
package. “Take off your clothes and put this on.” He tossed the package, and
she caught it.

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head.

“You’re going to take my clothes,
then let me go.”

He looked offended. “We’re not
murderers.”

“Of course not,” Fontana
murmured. “Just thieves.” She’d rather not take off her clothes. “You want to
turn around?”

“You might try to run.”