No Escape (12 page)

Part of that was blunted by the angry set to his mouth and jaw. His sunglasses hid his eyes. When he spoke, his voice came out as a half growl.

“What do you think you were doing in there?”

“I was trying to prove you wrong about Gibson. I thought if I talked to him, maybe I could find out something that you and the local police haven’t been able to discover about Megan’s death.” Anger poured out of Lauren and she directed it at Heath. “You were so sure of yourself that I thought you were too locked in to know what you were doing.”

“He’s the guy who killed your sister.”

Lauren took a breath. “I know.”

Heath had started to say something. Now he paused, thought for a moment, and closed his mouth. The blank lenses over his eyes hid any clue as to what he was thinking. “You know he’s the guy? Did he say something to you?”

“Like, ‘I did it? I killed your sister, and I killed all those other women’?” Lauren shook her head and crossed her arms. She was on the verge of tears, and she didn’t like that. Crying was a weakness. It didn’t solve any problems, and often it only made them worse. If she could have gotten in her car and driven away, she would have been all right. Heath Sawyer had just caught her at the wrong time. “No, he didn’t say anything like that.”

“Then what did he say?”

“He gave me this.” Lauren handed over the coin she’d gotten from Gibson. It was a two-headed disc that featured Gibson on stage on one side and an empty stage on the other.

Heath took the coin and looked at it. “What’s this?”

“One of Gibson’s tokens. He uses them in his magic act in front of audiences. Hands them out so people can flash them around, tell everybody they’ve seen the amazing Gibson.” Lauren heard the vitriol in her words and was surprised. Only a short time ago she’d been a Gibson fan intending to prove the magician’s innocence.

“He gave this to you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a jerk. Because he thought I was his Number One Fan and this was consolation prize because I didn’t get to talk with him more.” With deceptive ease, Lauren plucked the coin from Heath’s fingers, then rolled it across her knuckles, exposing the sides in rapid syncopation. “See how Gibson seems to appear and disappear? It’s an optical illusion if you learn how to roll the coin right.”

She popped the coin into the air so that it spun and caught the bright sunlight. Then she caught it in her palm, closed her hand and turned it over, palmed it smoothly with her other hand while she acted like she was pointing to her hand with her forefinger. When she opened her hand, the coin was gone.

Stone-faced, Heath looked at her. She was suddenly aware of how close they were, and it was almost like he was giving off enough gravity to pull her into his orbit. For a moment, she wanted to just lean in and give herself over to him, let him put his arms around her and tell her everything was going to be all right. She wanted comfort from him like she hadn’t wanted anything in a long time.

Instead, Heath remained those few inches away. “You need to stay out of this. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know how much danger you’re exposing yourself to.”

That rekindled the anger inside Lauren, and she gave herself over to it. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“Believe me, it’s not a privilege. You’re interfering with police business.”

“What police business?” Her voice came out louder than she’d expected and drew the attention of a small group of passersby. “This isn’t your turf, Detective Sawyer. You don’t have any more right here than I do, and you definitely don’t have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“Somebody needs to. You’re out of control.”

“Out of control?” Lauren clamped her jaw on a torrent of swear words only because some of the people walking past had small children in their care. She lowered her voice with effort. “I’m not out of control.”

“Yeah, you are.” Heath cocked his head to one side. “You should be home, not here.”

“What would I do there?”

“Grieve. Go back to work. Take care of your mother. From what I saw at the funeral, she needs someone there with her right now.”

The sudden guilt felt like salt rubbed into a wound. “Leave my mother out of this.”

His face softened a little and his voice gentled. “You can do more good there than you can here.”

Lauren knew the argument was a good one, and that it was probably true, but she also knew she couldn’t walk away from the investigation into Gibson. Maybe Megan would have gone with the magician anyway that night, because he was a good-looking man, but she’d been made more vulnerable by Lauren’s interest in him. She couldn’t leave while Gibson was loose. She didn’t like feeling helpless, and she didn’t appreciate Heath pointing that out. “Like you’re doing so much good here. Why don’t you go home and grieve over your partner? Maybe that’s what you should be doing.”

Too late, Lauren knew that what she’d said was too much. It was more than she’d intended, just spewed out of painful vindictiveness. Despite the sunglasses, the hurt showed on Heath’s face. She wanted to apologize, but she didn’t know how to start and was convinced that, at the moment at least, any apology would do no good.

His voice turned cold and hard. “If you keep interfering with Gibson, you’re going to get yourself hurt.”

Lauren couldn’t back off. She wasn’t going to be cowed or sent to her room like that little girl she’d been. She’d come a long way since those days. “Maybe if I do, you’ll catch him this time.”

Heath snarled inarticulately and turned away from her. He never looked back as he crossed the street to another parking lot.

Lauren got into the hot car, turned the engine on and set the air-conditioner on high.
Great trick there, Lauren. Alienate the only guy who might be able to help you.
She leaned her head on the steering wheel for a moment, then she centered herself, put the car in gear and headed back to her hotel. She didn’t know where else to go at the moment.

Chapter 9

T
he next two days passed like vague memories of the first. Lauren set up on the beach with a view of Gibson’s villa and kept watch. The magician stayed put. A few of his men went into the city, always in pairs. On the second day, Lauren followed them and discovered they were evidently taking downtime away from the villa, visiting restaurants and strip clubs. The Palais Royale Night Club seemed to be the favorite.

During that excursion, Lauren noted that Heath had evidently had the same idea or had followed her. He always positioned himself where he could watch over her and the villa, and that irritated her because it meant he didn’t trust her to keep herself safe.

When the two bodyguards went into a club called the Bronze Parrot, Heath followed. The reggae beat swirled out over the street as hucksters in front of the bar shouted out to passing pedestrian traffic and cars.

The thought of Heath watching dancers gyrate inside the club bothered Lauren more than she wanted it to. He was just there observing the two bodyguards. She knew that, but the idea of him inside the club chafed her.

She briefly considered following him into the club, then put it out of her mind. Her beachwear wasn’t appropriate attire for the place, and she had nothing suitable to wear into the club in the back of the car. In fact, she hoped she had nothing suitable to wear there at all.

She turned the car around and retreated to the villa, telling herself that she was going to catch Gibson leaving, and Heath would miss out.

That didn’t happen. She spent the day watching the villa, and nothing stirred. Hours later, Heath followed the bodyguards back and resumed his observation post.

As she sat in the chaise and listened to the sound of the gentle waves lapping at the coastline and the laughing voices of the volleyball players, Lauren used her iPhone to access Twitter. She’d keyed in Gibson’s name as a trending topic. Unfortunately, since
Gibson
was the only name she was able to enter and
Gibson Magician
didn’t pull up Tweets any better, she had to sort through a lot of entries.

Shortly before sundown, she received an email from Morganstern.

Lauren,

I’ve just heard from Sinclair that Gibson will be at a nightclub called the Bright Blue Calypso tonight. Sinclair’s cousin is a travel agent who handles reservations for Gibson’s agent, Devon Walters. The information should be good.

I hope that you are well. We are doing fine here, and I must say that being back in the store is exciting. I’ve seen a couple of illusions that I think are going to astonish audiences when they’re revealed. I can’t wait to show them to you on your return. And I must say that you should come home soon. Viv and I worry about you.

Your mother is fine. I’ve been to check on her myself. She is concerned about you down there, but I’m sure you’ve already heard from her regarding that.

Be safe and come home soon.

The Amazing Morganstern
J

Lauren smiled at the email and quickly dashed off a reply, thanking him for the information and reassuring him that she was quite all right, just still not ready to come home.

As she was finishing that off, an email from her mother arrived. The email was short and to the point, talking briefly about her recent visit to the doctor and how everything still looked hopeful, and that she missed her and wished she would come back home, though she understood the need to do something.

If I weren’t laid up with chemo, I would be there with you. I think I’ve read far more detective novels than you have. LOL

The attempt at humor brought a tear to Lauren’s eye. She wiped it away as the cool, salt breeze ran across her and made her realize how late it was getting. She emailed her mom to let her know she was fine, then closed down the email app on her phone and glanced back at the villa. Lights glowed in some of the windows.

The problem was getting to Gibson. The bodyguards kept the man too closely supervised. They were like stage assistants, visible and invisible as needed, but the focus remained on Gibson.

Realizing that gave Lauren another idea. Maybe she couldn’t separate Gibson from his bodyguards, but she might be able to separate one of the bodyguards from their employer. And she thought she knew how to do it.

She was going to need help, though.

Getting to her feet, she folded the chaise and carried it and her water bottle to her rental, stashing everything in the trunk. Then she walked back toward Heath Sawyer’s car.

* * *

Heath noted Lauren’s approach at once and appreciated the smooth roll of toned flesh as she made her way to him. His heart felt firmly lodged in the back of his throat as he noted the swell of her breasts and the cleavage captured by the yellow-and-orange swirled string bikini she wore today.

He’d watched her earlier, and he’d ended up paying far too much attention to her. That was part of the reason he’d decided to tail Gibson’s bodyguards into Kingston earlier that day. The other part was because he knew she would watch Gibson. Eventually whatever she learned, he would know. Whether they liked it or not, they were working together.

She wore her dark hair swept in an updo that left her neck long and beautiful...and too vulnerable. Heath couldn’t get the memory of the bruises around her sister’s neck from his mind. She’d pushed her yellow sunglasses up into her hair, and the look totally worked for her, even though he was certain she hadn’t consciously chosen to make a look. She only wore mascara and eyeliner. Her skin glowed from being in the sun all day.

He didn’t let his guard down, though.

She came to a stop a yard away and crossed her arms. “Gibson’s supposed to go out tonight.”

That irritated Heath. She wasn’t supposed to be better informed than he was. “You’re sure?”

“Yes. He has a reservation at Bright Blue Calypso tonight.”

“What’s that?”

“A nightclub.” She gave him the address as he reached for a pad lying in the passenger seat next to the binocs.

He finished writing the address and looked up at her. “Why are you telling me?”

“I thought maybe we could work together.”

Heath was shaking his head before she finished. “No. Not a chance. There is no
we.
”

She shrugged. “All right.” She turned around and walked away.

“You need to stay away from there.”

Lauren tossed him a wave over her shoulder but never missed a step.

He watched her go, mesmerized by the way her hips twitched, thinking that he wished that she wasn’t so hardheaded.

* * *

The Bright Blue Calypso Club featured soul-driven calypso music, which was no shock, but the elegance of the club surprised Lauren. It was located on the bottom floor of one of the downtown office buildings and existed within its own bubble.

The crowd was wild and fun, and the dance floor stayed packed. Bright blue lasers shifted and danced through the darkness filling the upper reaches of the high ceiling. The sound system rocked the house and the music was live from a colorfully dressed band on a well-lit stage.

Sitting at a small table against one wall in the club, Lauren sipped her beer and watched the front door. It was 8:17, probably still early for Gibson. The table that had been reserved for him still sat empty in front of the band.

Lauren didn’t think Gibson would be there just for the music, so she puzzled over what would bring him to the club. She wore a strappy mini black cocktail dress that hit her at midthigh and black heels, and wore black bangles on her right wrist. The bangles looked like polished ebony and caught the light when she moved. They were a distraction she planned to use. She kept her hair moussed back. thinking that she looked a lot different than she had when she’d confronted Gibson in the restaurant.

Her stomach fluttered nervously as she considered what she was about to do. She’d never done anything like this, and what she was prepared to do could easily land her in jail.