Risky Business (7 page)

“Now and again. Last year Faith and I took the
Expatriate
over and spent a couple of days seeing the ruins. We have some shrines here. They're not well restored, but you shouldn't miss them. Still, I wanted her to see the pyramids and walled cities around Cancun.”

“I don't know much about archaeology.”

“You don't have to. All you need's an imagination.”

She tooted the horn. Jonas saw an old, bent man straighten from the door of a shop and wave. “Señor Pessado,” she said. “He gives Faith candy they both think I don't know about.”

Jonas started to ask her about her daughter, then decided to wait for a better time. As long as she was being expansive, it was best to keep things less personal. “Do you know a lot of people on the island?”

“It's like a small town, I suppose. You don't necessarily have to know someone to recognize their face. I don't know a lot of people in San Miguel or on the east coast. I know a few people from the interior because we worked at the hotel.”

“I didn't realize your shop was affiliated with the hotel.”

“It's not.” She paused at a stop sign. “I used to work in the hotel. As a maid.” Liz gunned the engine and zipped across the intersection.

He looked at her hands, lean and delicate on the handlebars. He studied her slender shoulders, thought of the slight hips he was even now holding. It was difficult to imagine her lugging buckets and pails. “I'd have thought you more suited to the front desk or the concierge.”

“I was lucky to find work at all, especially during the off season.” She slowed the bike a bit as she started down the long drive to El Presidente. She'd indulge herself for a moment by enjoying the tall elegant palms that lined the road and the smell of blooming flowers. She was taking one of the dive boats out today, with five beginners who'd need instruction and constant supervision, but she wondered about the people inside the hotel who came to such a place to relax and to play.

“Is it still gorgeous inside?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Jonas glanced ahead to the large stately building. “Lots of glass,” he told her. “Marble. The balcony of my room looks out over the water.” She steered the bike to the curb. “Why don't you come in? See for yourself.”

She was tempted. Liz had an affection for pretty things, elegant things. It was a weakness she couldn't allow herself. “I have to get to work.”

Jonas stepped onto the curb, but put his hand over hers before she could drive away. “I'll meet you at the house. We'll go into town together.”

She only nodded before turning the bike back toward the road. Jonas watched her until the sound of the motor died away. Just who was Elizabeth Palmer? he wondered. And why was it becoming more and more important that he find out?

 

By evening she was tired. Liz was used to working long hours, lugging equipment, diving, surfacing. But after a fairly
easy day, she was tired. It should have made her feel secure to have had the young policeman identify himself to her and join her customers on the dive boat. It should have eased her mind that Captain Moralas was keeping his word about protection. It made her feel caged.

All during the drive home, she'd been aware of the police cruiser keeping a discreet distance. She'd wanted to run into her house, lock the door and fall into a dreamless, private sleep. But Jonas was waiting. She found him on the phone in her living room, a legal pad on his lap and a scowl on his face. Obviously a complication at his office had put him in a nasty mood. Ignoring him, Liz went to shower and change.

Because her wardrobe ran for the most part to beachwear, she didn't waste time studying her closet. Without enthusiasm, she pulled out a full cotton skirt in peacock blue and matched it with an oversized red shirt. More to prolong her time alone than for any other reason, she fiddled with her little cache of makeup. She was stalling, brushing out her braided hair, when Jonas knocked on her door. He didn't give her time to answer before he pushed it open.

“Did you get the list?”

Liz picked up a piece of notepaper. She could, of course, snap at him for coming in, but the end result wouldn't change. “I told you I would.”

He took the paper from her to study it. He'd shaved, she noticed, and wore a casually chic jacket over bone-colored slacks. But the smoothness and gloss didn't mesh with the toughness around his mouth and in his eyes. “Do you know these places?”

“I've been to a couple of them. I don't really have a lot of time for bar-or club-hopping.”

He glanced up and his curt answer slipped away. The shades
behind her were up as she preferred them, but the light coming through the windows was pink with early evening. Though she'd buttoned the shirt high over her throat, her hair was brushed back, away from her face. She'd dawdled over the makeup, but her hand was always conservative. Her lashes were darkened, the lids lightly touched with shadow. She'd brushed some color over her cheeks but not her lips.

“You should be careful what you do to your eyes,” Jonas murmured, absently running his thumb along the top curve of her cheek. “They're a problem.”

She felt the quick, involuntary tug but stood still. “A problem?”

“My problem.” Uneasy, he tucked the paper in his pocket and glanced around the room. “Are you ready?”

“I need my shoes.”

He didn't leave her as she'd expected, instead wandering around her room. It was, as was the rest of the house, furnished simply but with jarring color. The spicy scent he'd noticed before came from a wide green bowl filled with potpourri. On the wall were two colored sketches, one of a sunset very much like the quietly brilliant one outside the window, and another of a storm-tossed beach. One was all serenity, the other all violence. He wondered how much of each were inside Elizabeth Palmer. Prominent next to the bed was a framed photograph of a young girl.

She was all smiles in a flowered blouse tucked at the shoulders. Her hair came to a curve at her jawline, black and shiny. A tooth was missing, adding charm to an oval, tanned face. If it hadn't been for the eyes, Jonas would never have connected the child with Liz. They were richly, deeply brown, slightly tilted. Still, they laughed out of the photo, open and trusting, holding none of the secrets of her mother's.

“This is your daughter.”

“Yes.” Liz slipped on the second shoe before taking the photo out of Jonas's hand and setting it down again.

“How old is she?”

“Ten. Can we get started? I don't want to be out late.”

“Ten?” A bit stunned, Jonas stopped her with a look. He'd assumed Faith was half that age, a product of a relationship Liz had fallen into while on the island. “You can't have a ten-year-old child.”

Liz glanced down at the picture of her daughter. “I do have a ten-year-old child.”

“You'd have been a child yourself.”

“No. No, I wasn't.” She started to leave again, and again he stopped her.

“Was she born before you came here?”

Liz gave him a long, neutral look. “She was born six months after I moved to Cozumel. If you want my help, Jonas, we go now. Answering questions about Faith isn't part of our arrangement.”

But he didn't let go of her hand. As it could become so unexpectedly, his voice was gentle. “He was a bastard, wasn't he?”

She met his eyes without wavering. Her lips curved, but not with humor. “Yes. Oh yes, he was.”

Without knowing why he was compelled to, Jonas bent and just brushed her lips with his. “Your daughter's lovely, Elizabeth. She has your eyes.”

She felt herself softening again, too much, too quickly. There was understanding in his voice without pity. Nothing could weaken her more. In defense she took a step back. “Thank you. Now we have to go. I have to be up early tomorrow.”

 

The first club they hit was noisy and crowded with a high percentage of American clientele. In a corner booth, a man in a tight white T-shirt spun records on a turntable and announced
each selection with a display of colored lights. They ordered a quick meal in addition to drinks while Jonas hoped someone would have a reaction to his face.

“Luis said they came in here a lot because Jerry liked hearing American music.” Liz nibbled on hot nachos as she looked around. It wasn't the sort of place she normally chose to spend an evening. Tables were elbow to elbow, and the music was pitched to a scream. Still, the crowd seemed good-natured enough, shouting along with the music or just shouting to each other. At the table beside them a group of people experimented with a bottle of tequila and a bowl of lemon wedges. Since they were a group of young gringos, she assumed they'd be very sick in the morning.

It was definitely Jerry's milieu, Jonas decided. Loud, just this side of wild and crammed to the breaking point. “Did Luis say if he spoke with anyone in particular?”

“Women.” Liz smiled a bit as she sampled a tortilla. “Luis was very impressed with Jerry's ability to…interest the ladies.”

“Any particular lady?”

“Luis said there was one, but Jerry just called her baby.”

“An old trick,” Jonas said absently.

“Trick?”

“If you call them all baby, you don't mix up names and complicate the situation.”

“I see.” She sipped her wine and found it had a delicate taste.

“Could Luis describe her?”

“Only that she was a knockout—a Mexican knockout, if that helps. She had lots of hair and lots of hip. Luis's words,” Liz added when Jonas gave her a mild look. “He also said there were a couple of men Jerry talked to a few times, but he always went over to them, so Luis didn't know what they spoke about. One was American, one was Mexican. Since Luis was more
interested in the ladies, he didn't pay any attention. But he did say Jerry would cruise the bars until he met up with them, then he'd usually call it a night.”

“Did he meet them here?”

“Luis said it never seemed to be in the same place twice.”

“Okay, finish up. We'll cruise around ourselves.”

By the fourth stop, Liz was fed up. She noticed that Jonas no more than toyed with a drink at each bar, but she was tired of the smell of liquor. Some places were quiet, and on the edge of seamy. Others were raucous and lit with flashing lights. Faces began to blur together. There were young people, not so young people. There were Americans out for exotic nightlife, natives celebrating a night on the town. Some courted on dance floors or over tabletops. She saw those who seemed to have nothing but time and money, and others who sat alone nursing a bottle and a black mood.

“This is the last one,” Liz told him as Jonas found a table at a club with a crowded dance floor and recorded music.

Jonas glanced at his watch. It was barely eleven. Action rarely heated up before midnight. “All right,” he said easily, and decided to distract her. “Let's dance.”

Before she could refuse, he was pulling her into the crowd. “There's no room,” she began, but his arms came around her.

“We'll make some.” He had her close, his hand trailing up her back. “See?”

“I haven't danced in years,” she muttered, and he laughed.

“There's no room anyway.” Locked together, jostled by the crowd, they did no more than sway.

“What's the purpose in all this?” she demanded.

“I don't know until I find it. Meantime, don't you ever relax?” He rubbed his palm up her back again, finding the muscles taut.

“No.”

“Let's try it this way.” His gaze skimmed the crowd as he spoke. “What do you do when you're not working?”

“I think about working.”

“Liz.”

“All right, I read—books on marine life mostly.”

“Busman's holiday?”

“It's what interests me.”

Her body shifted intimately against his. Jonas forgot to keep his attention on the crowd and looked down at her. “
All
that interests you?”

He was too close. Liz tried to ease away and found his arms very solid. In spite of her determination to remain unmoved, her heart began to thud lightly in her head. “I don't have time for anything else.”

She wore no perfume, he noted, but carried the scent of powder and spice. He wondered if her body would look as delicate as it felt against his. “It sounds as though you limit yourself.”

“I have a business to run,” she murmured. Would it be the same if he kissed her again? Sweet, overpowering. His lips were so close to hers, closer still when he ran his hand through her hair and drew her head back. She could almost taste him.

“Is making money so important?”

“It has to be,” she managed, but could barely remember why. “I need to buy some aqua bikes.”

Her eyes were soft, drowsy. They made him feel invulnerable. “Aqua bikes?”

“If I don't keep up with the competition…” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“The competition?” he prompted.

“I…the customers will go someplace else. So I…” The kiss teased the other corner.

“So?”

“I have to buy the bikes before the summer season.”

“Of course. But that's weeks away. I could make love with you dozens of times before then. Dozens,” he repeated as she stared at him. Then he closed his mouth over hers.

He felt her jolt—surprise, resistance, passion—he couldn't be sure. He only knew that holding her had led to wanting her and wanting to needing. By nature, he was a man who preferred his passion in private, quiet spots of his own choosing. Now he forgot the crowded club, loud music and flashing lights. They no longer swayed, but were hemmed into a corner of the dance floor, surrounded, pressed close. Oblivious.

She felt her head go light, heard the music fade. The heat from his body seeped into hers and flavored the kiss. Hot, molten, searing. Though they stood perfectly still, Liz had visions of racing. The breath backed up in her lungs until she released it with a shuddering sigh. Her body, coiled like a spring, went lax on a wave of confused pleasure. She strained closer, reaching up to touch his face. Abruptly the music changed from moody to rowdy. Jonas shifted her away from flailing arms.