Risky Business (10 page)

“Law doesn't always equal justice. I'm going to find out what happened to my brother and why.” He skimmed his hand over her face and tangled his fingers in her hair. He didn't find silk and satin, but a woman of strength. “But there's more now. I look at you and I want you.” He reached out, taking her face in his hand so that she had no choice but to look directly at him. “I hold you and I forget what I have to do. Damn it, you're in my way.”

At the end of the words, his mouth was crushed hard on hers. He hadn't meant to. He hadn't had a choice. Before he'd been gentle with her because the look in her eyes requested it. Now he was rough, desperate, because the power of his own needs demanded it.

He frightened her. She'd never known fear could be a source of exhilaration. As her heart pounded in her throat, she let him pull her closer, still closer to the edge. He dared her to jump off, to let herself tumble down into the unknown. To risk.

His mouth drew desperately from hers, seeking passion, seeking submission, seeking strength. He wanted it all. He wanted it mindlessly from her. His hands were reaching for her as if they'd always done so. When he found her, she stiffened, resisted, then melted so quickly that it was nearly impossible to tell one mood from the next. She smelled of the sea and tasted of innocence, a combination of mystery and sweetness that drove him mad.

Forgetting everything but her, he drew her toward the bed and fulfillment.

“No.” Liz pushed against him, fighting to bring herself back. They were in her daughter's room. “Jonas, this is wrong.”

He took her by the shoulders. “Damn it, it may be the only thing that's right.”

She shook her head, and though unsteady, backed away. His eyes weren't cold now. A woman might dream of having a man look at her with such fire and need. A woman might toss all caution aside if only to have a man want her with such turbulent desire. She couldn't.

“Not for me. I don't want this, Jonas.” She reached up to push back her hair. “I don't want to feel like this.”

He took her hand before she could back away. His head was swimming. There had been no other time, no other place, no other woman that had come together to make him ache. “Why?”

“I don't make the same mistake twice.”

“This is now, Liz.”

“And it's my life.” She took a long, cleansing breath and found she could face him squarely. “I'll go with you to
Acapulco because the sooner you have what you want, the sooner you'll go.” She gripped her hands together tightly, the only outward sign that she was fighting herself. “You know Moralas will have us followed.”

He had his own battles to fight. “I'll deal with that.”

Liz nodded because she was sure he would. “Do what you have to do. I'll make arrangements for Luis to take over the shop for a day or two.”

When she left him alone, Jonas closed his hands over the key again. It would open a lock, he thought. But there was another lock that mystified and frustrated him. Idly, he picked up the bear Liz had left on the bed. He looked from it to the key in his hand. Somehow he'd have to find a way to bring them together.

A
capulco wasn't the Mexico Liz understood and loved. It wasn't the Mexico she'd fled to a decade before, nor where she'd made her home. It was sophisticated and ultra modern with spiraling high-rise hotels crowded together and gleaming in tropical sunlight. It was swimming pools and trendy shops. Perhaps it was the oldest resort in Mexico, and boasted countless restaurants and nightclubs, but Liz preferred the quietly rural atmosphere of her own island.

Still she had to admit there was something awesome about the city, cupped in the mountains and kissed by a magnificent bay. She'd lived all her life in flat land, from Houston to Cozumel. The mountains made everything else seem smaller, and somehow protected. Over the water, colorful parachutes floated, allowing the adventurous a bird's-eye view and a stunning ride. She wondered fleetingly if skimming through the sky would be as liberating as skimming through the water.

The streets were crowded and noisy, exciting in their own way. It occurred to her that she'd seen more people in the hour since they'd landed at the airport than she might in a week on
Cozumel. Liz stepped out of the cab and wondered if she'd have time to check out any of the dive shops.

Jonas had chosen the hotel methodically. It was luxuriously expensive—just Jerry's style. The villas overlooked the Pacific and were built directly into the mountainside. Jonas took a suite, pocketed the key and left the luggage to the bellman.

“We'll go to the bank now.” It had taken him two days to match the key with a name. He wasn't going to waste any more time.

Liz followed him out onto the street. True, she hadn't come to enjoy herself, but a look at their rooms and a bite of lunch didn't seem so much to ask. Jonas was already climbing into a cab. “I don't suppose you'd considered making that a request.”

He gave her a brief look as she slammed the cab door. “No.” After giving the driver their direction, Jonas settled back. He could understand Jerry drifting to Acapulco, with its jet-set flavor, frantic nightlife and touches of luxury. When Jerry landed in a place for more than a day, it was a city that had the atmosphere of New York, London, Chicago. Jerry had never been interested in the rustic, serene atmosphere of a spot like Cozumel. So since he'd gone there, stayed there, he'd had a purpose. In Acapulco, Jonas would find out what it was.

As to the woman beside him, he didn't have a clue. Was she caught up in the circumstances formed before they'd ever met, or was he dragging her in deeper than he had a right to? She sat beside him, silent and a little sulky. Probably thinking about her shop, Jonas decided, and wished he could send her safely back to it. He wished he could turn around, go back to the villa and make love with her until they were both sated.

She shouldn't have appealed to him at all. She wasn't witty, flawlessly polished or classically beautiful. But she did appeal to him, so much so that he was spending his nights awake and restless, and his days on the edge of frustration. He wanted her,
wanted to fully explore the tastes of passion she'd given him. He wanted to arouse her until she couldn't think of accounts or customers or schedules. Perhaps it was a matter of wielding power—he could no longer be sure. But mostly, inexplicably, he wanted to erase the memory of how she'd looked when he'd walked into her daughter's room and found her clutching a stuffed bear.

When the cab rolled up in front of the bank, Liz stepped out on the curb without a word. There were shops across the streets, boutiques where she could see bright, wonderful dresses on cleverly posed mannequins. Even with the distance, she caught the gleam and glimmer of jewelry. A limousine rolled by, with smoked glass windows and quiet engine. Liz looked beyond the tall, glossy buildings to the mountains, and space.

“I suppose this is the sort of place that appeals to you.”

He'd watched her survey. She didn't have to speak for him to understand that she'd compared Acapulco with her corner of Mexico and found Acapulco lacking. “Under certain circumstances.” Taking her arm, Jonas led her inside.

The bank was, as banks should be, quiet and sedate. Clerks wore neat suits and polite smiles. What conversation there was, was carried on in murmurs. Jerry, he thought, had always preferred the ultraconservative in storing his money, just as he'd preferred the wild in spending it. Without hesitation, Jonas strolled over to the most attractive teller. “Good afternoon.”

She glanced up. It only took a second for her polite smile to brighten. “Mr. Sharpe,
Buenos días.
It's nice to see you again.”

Beside him, Liz stiffened. He's been here before, she thought. Why hadn't he told her? She sent a long, probing look his way. Just what game was he playing?

“It's nice to see you.” He leaned against the counter, urbane
and, she noted, flirtatious. The little tug of jealousy was as unexpected as it was unwanted. “I wondered if you'd remember me.”

The teller blushed before she glanced cautiously toward her supervisor. “Of course. How can I help you today?”

Jonas took the key out of his pocket. “I'd like to get into my box.” He simply turned and stopped Liz with a look when she started to speak.

“I'll arrange that for you right away.” The teller took a form, dated it and passed it to Jonas. “If you'll just sign here.”

Jonas took her pen and casually dashed off a signature. Liz read:
Jeremiah C. Sharpe.
Though she looked up quickly, Jonas was smiling at the teller. Because her supervisor was hovering nearby, the teller stuck to procedure and checked the signature against the card in the files. They matched perfectly.

“This way, Mr. Sharpe.”

“Isn't that illegal?” Liz murmured as the teller led them from the main lobby.

“Yes.” Jonas gestured for her to precede him through the doorway.

“And does it make me an accessory?”

He smiled at her, waiting while the teller drew the long metal box from its slot. “Yes. If there's any trouble, I'll recommend a good lawyer.”

“Great. All I need's another lawyer.”

“You can use this booth, Mr. Sharpe. Just ring when you're finished.”

“Thanks.” Jonas nudged Liz inside, shut, then locked, the door.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?” Jonas set the box on a table.

“To go to that clerk? When she first spoke to you, I thought you'd been here before.”

“There were three men and two women. The other woman
was into her fifties. As far as Jerry would've been concerned, there would have been only one clerk there.”

That line of thinking was clear enough, but his actions weren't. “You signed his name perfectly.”

Key in hand, Jonas looked at her. “He was part of me. If we were in the same room, I could have told you what he was thinking. Writing his name is as easy as writing my own.”

“And was it the same for him?”

It could still hurt, quickly and unexpectedly. “Yes, it was the same for him.”

But Liz remembered Jerry's good-natured description of his brother as a stuffed shirt. The man Liz was beginning to know didn't fit. “I wonder if you understood each other as well as both of you thought.” She looked down at the box again. None of her business, she thought, and wished it were as true as she'd once believed. “I guess you'd better open it.”

He slipped the key into the lock, then turned it soundlessly. When he drew back the lid, Liz could only stare. She'd never seen so much money in her life. It sat in neat stacks, tidily banded, crisply American. Unable to resist, Liz reached out to touch.

“God, it looks like thousands.” She swallowed. “Hundreds of thousands.”

His face expressionless, Jonas flipped through the stacks. The booth became as quiet as a tomb. “Roughly three hundred thousand, in twenties and fifties.”

“Do you think he stole it?” she murmured, too overwhelmed to notice Jonas's hands tighten on the money. “This must be the money the man who broke into my house wanted.”

“I'm sure it is.” Jonas set down a stack of bills and picked up a small bag. “But he didn't steal it.” He forced his emotions to freeze. “I'm afraid he earned it.”

“How?” she demanded. “No one earns this kind of money
in a matter of days, and I'd swear Jerry was nearly broke when I hired him. I know Luis lent him ten thousand pesos before his first paycheck.”

“I'm sure he was.” He didn't bother to add that he'd wired his brother two hundred before Jerry had left New Orleans. Carefully, Jonas reached under the stack of money and pulled out a small plastic bag, dipped in a finger and tasted. But he'd already known.

“What is that?”

His face expressionless, Jonas sealed the bag. He couldn't allow himself any more grief. “Cocaine.”

Horrified, Liz stared at the bag. “I don't understand. He lived in my house. I'd have known if he were using drugs.”

Jonas wondered if she realized just how innocent she was of the darker side of humanity. Until that moment, he hadn't fully realized just how intimate he was with it. “Maybe, maybe not. In any case, Jerry wasn't into this sort of thing. At least not for himself.”

Liz sat down slowly. “You mean he sold it?”

“Dealt drugs?” Jonas nearly smiled. “No, that wouldn't have been exciting enough.” In the corner of the box was a small black address book. Jonas took it out to leaf through it. “But smuggling,” he murmured. “Jerry could have justified smuggling. Action, intrigue and fast money.”

Her mind was whirling as she tried to focus back on the man she'd known so briefly. Liz had thought she'd understood him, categorized him, but he was more of a stranger now than when he'd been alive. It didn't seem to matter anymore who or what Jerry Sharpe had been. But the man in front of her mattered. “And you?” she asked. “Can you justify it?”

He glanced down at her, over the book in his hands. His eyes
were cold, so cold that she could read nothing in them at all. Without answering, Jonas went back to the book.

“He'd listed initials, dates, times and some numbers. It looks as though he made five thousand a drop. Ten drops.”

Liz glanced over at the money again. It no longer seemed crisp and neat but ugly and ill used. “That only makes fifty thousand. You said there was three hundred.”

“That's right.” Plus a bag of uncut cocaine with a hefty street value. Jonas took out his own book and copied down the pages from his brother's.

“What are we going to do with this?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Liz rose again, certain she'd stepped into a dream. “Do you mean just leave it here? Just leave it here in this box and walk away?”

With the last of the numbers copied, Jonas replaced his brother's book. “Exactly.”

“Why did we come if we're not going to do anything with it?”

He slipped his own book into his jacket. “To find it.”

“Jonas.” Before he could close the lid she had her hand on his wrist. “You have to take it to the police. To Captain Moralas.”

In a deliberate gesture, he removed her hand, then picked up the bag of coke. She understood rejection and braced herself against it. But it wasn't rejection she saw in his face; it was fury. “You want to take this on the plane, Liz? Any idea on what the penalty is in Mexico for carrying controlled substances?”

“No.”

“And you don't want to.” He closed the lid, locked it. “For now, just forget you saw anything. I'll handle this in my own way.”

“No.”

His emotions were raw and tangled, his patience thin. “Don't push me, Liz.”

“Push you?” Infuriated, she grabbed his shirtfront and planted her feet. “You've pushed me for days. Pushed me right into the middle of something that's so opposed to the way I've lived I can't even take it all in. Now that I'm over my head in drug smuggling and something like a quarter of a million dollars, you tell me to forget it. What do you expect me to do, go quietly back and rent tanks? Maybe you've finished using me now, Jonas, but I'm not ready to be brushed aside. There's a murderer out there who thinks I know where the money is.” She stopped as her skin iced over. “And now I do.”

“That's just it,” Jonas said quietly. For the second time, he removed her hands, but this time he held on to her wrists. Frightened, he thought. He was sure her pulse beat with fear as well as anger. “Now you do. The best thing for you to do now is stay out of it, let them focus on me.”

“Just how am I supposed to do that?”

The anger was bubbling closer, the anger he'd wanted to lock in the box with what had caused it. “Go to Houston, visit your daughter.”

“How can I?” she demanded in a whisper that vibrated in the little room. “They might follow me.” She looked down at the long, shiny box. “They would follow me. I won't risk my daughter's safety.”

She was right, and because he knew it, Jonas wanted to rage. He was boxed in, trapped between love and loyalty and right and wrong. Justice and the law. “We'll talk to Moralas when we get back.” He picked up the box again, hating it.

“Where are we going now?”

Jonas unlocked the door. “To get a drink.”

 

Rather than going with Jonas to the lounge, Liz took some time for herself. Because she felt he owed her, she went into the hotel's boutique, found a simple one-piece bathing suit and charged it to the room. She hadn't packed anything but a change of clothes and toiletries. If she was stuck in Acapulco for the rest of the evening, she was going to enjoy the private pool each villa boasted.

The first time she walked into the suite, she was dumb-founded. Her parents had been reasonably successful, and she'd been raised in a quietly middle-class atmosphere. Nothing had prepared her for the sumptuousness of the two-bedroom suite overlooking the Pacific. Her feet sank cozily into the carpet. Softly colored paintings were spaced along ivory-papered walls. The sofa, done in grays and greens and blues, was big enough for two to sprawl on for a lazy afternoon nap.