No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (29 page)

The train whistle blew its
warning just before the engine fired up and we began to move. The
last seat remained unfilled, and I started to feel nervous. What if
something had happened to Axel? Who would look out for
me?

“Excuse me. Pardon me,” said
a gruff voice. A man in a seersucker shirt and chino pants,
carrying his overnighter, reached above me. As I stole a quick
glance, the moustached passenger with brown eyes gave me a wink.
Taken aback by his boldness, I recoiled slightly, until I felt a
size nine loafer kick my sandal. A shiver of delight passed through
me like a ghost and I realized how relieved I was to see Axel. He
settled himself in the seat next to me, arms and legs sprawling
into the aisle.

A woman about my age,
sitting across from me in a low-cut tank top and capri pants, was
eying Axel like he was a chocolate eclair. For a moment, I almost
thought I saw her lick her lips in anticipation of taking a bite.
Don’t ask me why, but I found her behavior more than a little
annoying. After all, Axel was supposed to be interested in me. The
last thing I needed was competition, especially if we were to fool
the drug traffickers. Next to her was the man in the white tank
top, tattoos and all. He was practically salivating as he watched
her bend over, cleavage exposed, as she dug around in her big tote
bag. She finally pulled out a paperback romance and settled back to
read, her fingers twirling a lock of her golden brown
hair.

“Do you mind?” Axel poked me
with his elbow.

“What?” I looked up at him,
still disconcerted by his brown contact lenses.

“The newspaper. I’d like to
read it.” I followed his gaze to the copy of the Orlando Sentinel
that was tucked into the narrow space between my seat and the wall.
“Sometime today would be nice.”

“Excuse me?” I
frowned.

“I’m just saying that it
isn’t brain surgery. Surely you have the capacity to hand me the
newspaper. Just because you’re blonde, that’s no excuse for being
numb.”

“Take the damn newspaper!” I
hissed. “Are you sure you’ll be able to read it all by
yourself?”

“Why? Are you offering to
read to me? Because I have to tell you I’m surprised. I didn’t
think you capable of reading anything more than your
horoscope.”

“Actually, I was going to
explain the comics to you, because I was afraid you wouldn’t be
able to follow the pictures.”

“Wow, you’re so funny,” Axel
announced in an overly loud voice. “I’ll bet you’re the kind of
girl who never put out on the first date. I’m right, aren’t
I?”

“What?”

“You’re the kind of girl who
wears a tube top and then gets mad when a guy wants a peek.” He
shot me a lascivious look.

“How dare you!”

“How dare I? How dare you!”
He gave me a look of pure disdain. “Out to torment the
boys.”

“What?” By now, I was
getting just as loud, and even as head began to turn in our
direction, I couldn’t stop myself. “Just who the hell do you think
you are, talking to me that way?”

“Oh, little Miss Icicle
doesn’t remember me. How convenient!”

“Remember you? I’m supposed
to remember you?”

“Orlando Hilton. You were in
the room next to me. You didn’t object to having my hands all over
you at the pool when I did your back.”

“My back?” I was horrified
by the direction of the conversation. Axel really was good at
attracting the wrong kind of attention.

“Sunscreen. You didn’t mind
me touching you at the pool when you needed a little SPF 45, but
you blew me off in the bar.”

I stopped myself and took a
deep breath. That’s when it dawned on me that he wanted the other
passengers to know that we had an established
connection.

“I didn’t blow you off,” I
shot back. “You didn’t show up! I was there! I waited for you in
the foyer!”

“The foyer? Why would you
wait for a man in the foyer? The plan was to meet in the bar for
drinks! This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re a complete
prude! You can’t even go into a bar by yourself!” He looked at the
tattooed man in the white tank top. “You get what I’m talking
about, right? A man likes a woman who has a little self-confidence,
a little spunk.”

“I’ll have you know,” I
retorted, “that I’ve been in plenty of bars with plenty of guys,
buster.”

“Right, you’re a real woman
of the world.” He smirked, catching the eye of the femme fatale and
giving her a wink. “You’ve got the notches on your bed to prove
it.”

I saw the look that passed
between them and I saw red. I didn’t need some two-bit, sashaying
vampire lady smirking at me, any more than I needed that tattooed
thug giving me the once-over. But most of all, I didn’t need Axel
Jacobsen making me feel like the least attractive woman on the
planet.

“And you’ve got one hell of
a nerve to talk to me that way!” I stood up suddenly and stumbled
over the three pairs of legs in the aisle on my way out. I didn’t
really care where I was going, as long as it was far away from
Axel. Even though I knew we were playing our roles, his words still
stung. I had the urge to bring him up short, to wound him as he
wounded me. Maybe his words were a little too close to the truth.
Maybe I wasn’t a woman of the world, bed-hopping through life. I
was no Mandy. That didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of being
sexy.

Furious, I stomped off to
the restroom, fully intending to take a deep breath and settle
myself down. As I reached for the handle, I felt a hand close on
mine. The next thing I knew, I was being pushed into the narrow
confines of the tiny space, and all I could feel was the muscular
form of the man behind me.

Chapter Six --

“Get your damn hands off
me!” I snarled.

“Kelsey, it’s me,” Axel said
confidently. “Relax.”

“Relax? You want me to
relax? You rude bastard!” I wanted to pummel him, but there was no
room to turn around.

“Hey! I’m doing my job! I’m
building your character, so they think you’re a babe in the woods!”
By now, he had his arms around my waist and he was talking softly
in my ear. “I want them to leave you alone.”

I stopped struggling.
Somewhere inside my brain, his words began to make sense. He
loosened his grip on me.

“I’ll leave first. You count
to sixty before you come out. Okay?” He leaned in, his mouth close
to my ear. “You smell good, by the way.”

Before I could respond, he
was out the door. I heard him talking to someone in the corridor,
so I leaned closer to the door to hear the conversation.

“Trust me. I had the burrito
last night. You do not want to go in there,” Axel insisted. There
was a muffled response and three short taps on the door. I began
counting.

Was Axel telling me the
truth? Was he only saying those things to convince the bad guys I
was just a normal citizen? Or was he enjoying my humiliation at his
hands? I thought about what Agent Devry said. Axel’s wife had been
fooling around with a neighbor. Maybe he was trying to punish all
women for the sins of his wife. After all, that must have been a
big blow to his manhood.

I could relate to that, I
decided, remembering how I felt when I discovered that Tark and
Mandy were having an affair. It cut like a knife to know they had
been making love in the bed I bought for our house. I was the one
who shopped for all the furniture, the food. I was the one who made
the nest. Tark was the one who feathered it with his
assistant.

“Sixty,” I softly said. I
turned the handle and stepped out into the corridor, straight into
the unyielding barrel chest of the man in the white tank
top.

“I don’t care what that guy
says, chica.” He gave me a toothy shark-like smile. “You’re a
fine-looking lady. I’ll bet you’re muy fantástico in
bed.”

“Oh, shut up, creep!” Before
the words were out of my mouth, powerful hands grabbed me roughly
and slammed me against the wall. I felt his forearm against my
throat, cutting off my air supply. The beefy arms were hairy and
determined.

“You do not talk to Hector
Fernandez that way! Comprende?” he growled at me. I stared up into
those dangerous eyes and realized I had provoked a predator. I had
no doubt this was a man who would punish me for insulting his
manhood. This was a man who meant business. This was a
killer.

“What’s going on here?” One
of the men from the Homeland Security team appeared in the
corridor. I could see him standing right behind Hector as he pinned
me against the wall. As the law man insisted on an explanation, a
veil came down upon my tormentor’s face. Gone was the menacing fury
of a man bent on vengeance. It disappeared behind the charming
smile Hector turned on as he slowly, carefully let go of
me.

“The lady was feeling
faint,” he explained. “I was merely helping her to recover
herself.”

“Is that right?” a strong,
no-nonsense voice demanded. “Is that what happened?”

I looked at the man from
Homeland Security. I looked at Hector. On the one hand, I could
tell the truth and Hector could be carted off for bothering me,
which would no doubt incite his rage further, or I could brush it
all off as a misunderstanding and let Axel know as soon as I safely
could.

“It was nothing,” I
responded demurely. “Can I go back to my seat now?”

Experienced law enforcement
eyes studied me briefly. I could see he didn’t believe me, but he
shrugged and stepped aside. Hector’s breath was hot upon my face as
he continued to stand there, smelling slightly of mingled sweat,
onions and garlic. He may have removed his hands from my neck, but
the bulk of his body still threatened me.

“We will finish our
conversation later, chica.” As soon as those words were out of his
mouth, I knew it wasn’t over.

“No, we won’t,” I said
definitively. “We will not have a conversation. We have no reason
to have a conversation. You will leave me alone.”

With that, I maneuvered
around Hector’s meaty body and headed back to my seat. Axel looked
up at me when I threw myself down. I could feel his eyes on me. A
moment later, Hector returned to his seat. I could see his feet
cross the floor, but I didn’t look up. I didn’t want him to see the
fear in my eyes.

“So,” the femme fatale
opposite me sighed, “you grew up in Duluth, Roger?”

“That’s right, Lacy,” Axel
confirmed. “Born and raised in the great state of
Minnesota.”

I listened to the two of
them conversing as I reclined in my coach seat, feigning sleep. She
kept trying to convince him that she was a real catch, telling him
that she was a personal trainer at a Washington, DC gym, who worked
with members of Congress, movers and shakers in the federal
government, and even some foreign diplomats.

“Wow,” he gushed. “That’s
fascinating. Your job sounds very interesting. And I’ll bet it’s
rewarding, too!”

It was all I could do to
bite my tongue and not blurt out the most obvious perks of her job.
Clearly this was a woman who was used to sleeping her way through
the federal register. Suddenly, the unfairness of it all struck me.
Here was a woman who clearly enjoyed a romp in the sack and didn’t
seem all that fussy about who shared her adventure. Why wasn’t
Hector pursuing her? The two of them could go at it like rabbits,
for all I cared, and yet I was the one Hector was threatening. I
was the one who rejected that sneering shark and now he was bent on
making me pay for the perceived insult to his manhood. What had
happened to my life?

The pity party I was holding
took a turn for the worse. I began to think about how all this
started because Warren insisted I come back and straighten out his
gallery opening. What if I had caught a plane? None of this would
be happening. And then I thought about Uncle Jack’s friend. If only
Mr. Wilfred hadn’t suggested I take the auto train, I would be safe
now. But even as I thought that, I knew it wasn’t true. My life
changed the moment I walked into that art gallery. If only I hadn’t
thought that gecko would be a nice touch at Warren’s opening. That
was really the only reason this catastrophe had unfolded -- that
and the young, inexperienced DEA agent who picked me to use as a
foil. Big, fat tears formed inside my eyelids and before I could
stop them, they escaped down my cheeks. I quickly brushed them
away, not even daring to open my eyes. I didn’t want to see the
look on the queen of the exercise circuit’s face as she pitied me.
I certainly didn’t want to lock eyes with Hector, the natural-born
killer. And most of all, I didn’t want Axel to see how deep the
hurt went inside me, all the way to my heart. I was a good girl. I
played by the rules. I tried to be nice. I worked hard. What did I
get for my effort? Nothing but a big, fat kick in the teeth. Life
wasn’t fair. My rumination was interrupted by a crackle of the PA
system.

“Lorton!”

A shiver of relief filled me
as I got myself busy digging through my purse for the paperwork I
had on Uncle Jack’s car. Soon, all of this would be behind me, just
a horrible memory.

“You should look me up at
the gym,” said Lacy. “Maybe we could work out together, or maybe
catch a ballgame sometime.”