Читать книгу Bullseye: Seal - Carol Ericson - Страница 9

Chapter One

Thirteen months later.

RJ raised a chubby hand before spinning around and grabbing his new friend by the arm to drag him to the slide.

Gina sniffed as she waved to her son’s back.

“It’s better than having him cling to your leg, isn’t it?” Denise Reynolds, the owner of Sunny Days Daycare, winked.

Gina rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “Much better, but did he have to get over that stage so quickly?”

“RJ’s an outgoing boy. He makes friends quickly, very adaptable.”

“He’s had to be.” Gina hoisted her purse onto her shoulder and shrugged. “There’s been a lot of upheaval in his young life.”

“I saw from your application that you’re relatively new to Miami.” Denise bit her lip. “And I’m sorry about his father, your husband. That he’s deceased, I mean.”

“Yes, just over a year ago.” Gina sniffed again for good measure. “We’re still...adjusting.”

“Well, I think Sunny Days is just the place for him to adjust. One month and he already has a best friend, who started just a few days after he did.”

“He already talks about Diego nonstop. His mother introduced herself to me right away. The boys already had one playdate and we’ll be arranging another for them in the next few days.” Gina’s cell phone buzzed in her pocket, and her heart skipped a beat.

“Everything okay?” Denise tilted her head to one side, her perky blond ponytail swinging behind her.

“Just a pesky client.” Gina patted the pocket of her light jacket. “Thanks for everything, Denise.”

Gina whipped out her phone as she walked back to her car. She couldn’t go into cardiac arrest every time someone sent her a text. Wedging her hip against the cinder block barrier between the daycare’s parking lot and the walkway to the center, she swiped her fingertip across her phone’s display.

Then her heart skipped two beats as she read the familiar words. Where are the drugs? Where are the weapons, paloma?

The same two questions, along with the endearment, texted to her every day for almost a week now, from the same unknown number. She’d responded to the text in several different ways already.

Wrong number.

Wrong person.

I’m calling the police.

It didn’t seem to matter what she texted back. The same two questions came back at her each day as if on autopilot—with the same endearment. Only Ricky had called her paloma...when things were good, but that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

She could call the police. She snorted and dropped her cell phone in her pocket as she opened her car door. Then she’d have to go through the whole process of explaining who she was and watch the officers’ faces change from expressions of concern to scowls of suspicion. They might even call in her old pals at the Drug Enforcement Administration, and they could start grilling her again.

She’d take a pass. In the meantime, she’d continue to ignore the texts. The person texting her wouldn’t try to make contact...would he? And that person couldn’t be Ricky. Ricky was dead...wasn’t he?

Glancing over her shoulder, she pulled out of the daycare’s parking lot and checked her rearview mirror as she joined the stream of traffic. She had nothing to tell anyone who made contact with her, at least not about any drugs or weapons.

On her way to the realty office, she turned up the music to drown out her own thoughts and the memories of that day at her father’s compound in Colombia. The CIA agents who’d swarmed the place after the carnage had interrogated everyone on the property, including her, for several hours.

They’d tossed the place, looking for money, drugs, arms—and they didn’t find one single thing. As far as she knew, not even her father’s computers had revealed any information about his thriving drug business.

The US and Colombian governments had seized all her father’s assets—but they hadn’t found everything. Then the CIA turned her over to the DEA and the fun started all over again. She had no desire to repeat that experience.

She wheeled into the parking lot of the realty office and dragged her bag from the passenger seat as she exited the car. She’d just passed her licensing exam but didn’t have any listings of her own yet. She had to start from the bottom and work her way up, but she’d never been afraid of hard work.

The real estate business may not be her calling, but she’d had to find some gainful employment after she’d lost her business—the restaurant-bar she’d developed and run with Ricky before...before.

She slammed the car door. She’d tried bartending since that’s what she knew, but that hadn’t been her calling either, not if she couldn’t run the place, and she didn’t like leaving RJ with her mother so many nights of the week.

Gina yanked open the door of the office and waved to Lori, who was on the phone. Lori wiggled her fingers in the air in response.

A stack of binders piled on her desk greeted Gina and she plopped down in front of them with a sigh. Faith, the Realtor she was shadowing, had left a yellow sticky note on the binder at the top of the pile asking her to remove the old listings.

Gina flipped open the binder and perused each page, checking the house against a roster for those listings no longer on the market. For each lucky house that had sold, she slid the flyer from beneath the plastic sheath, making a neat pile on the corner of the desk.

Lori ended her call and slumped in her chair. “Clients from hell right there, but they’re looking high-end, art deco in South Beach, and I’m going to do my best to find the perfect place for them. Can you do me a favor?”

“If it involves white binders, I’ll pass.” Gina heaved the first completed binder off the desk and dropped it to the floor.

“It involves meeting a client at a town house. It’s empty. Owners already moved out, and it’s an easy show. I’ll cut you in on a portion of the commission if this person buys it.”

“Is this buyer one of your clients?”

“No. The sellers are my clients. This person is a walk-in. Just called this morning.” Lori jiggled a set of keys over her desk. “Easy show.”

Gina wrinkled her nose at the rest of the binders. “Sure. Give me the details.”

Fifteen minutes later, Gina was sitting behind the wheel of her car with a file folder on the seat beside her, cruising to South Beach. She enjoyed this aspect of the job more than sitting at a desk reviewing Florida property laws and regulations.

As she flew past the strip malls and heavily residential areas, she could understand why Lori wanted to spend her time selling in South Beach instead of this area, but Gina found the relative serenity of the southern end of Dade County preferable to the hubbub in South Beach where she and RJ had landed with Mom after the debacle in Colombia.

Debacle—was that what you called the deaths of your father and husband at the hands of some unknown snipers?

The Spanish-style building came into view on her right, the beige stucco, arched entrances and red-tiled roof a copy of several other residences on the street. This was a town house, not a condo, so it had a door open to the outside and two palm trees graced either side of the entrance.

Her heels clicked on the tiled walkway to the front door, and a palm frond tickled her cheek as she inserted the key into the lockbox. Pushing the door open, she left it wide, surveying the small foyer before taking a small step down to the living room.

She glanced at the flyers in her hand and left a stack on the kitchen counter. She should probably familiarize herself with the place before the potential buyer showed up, starting with the kitchen.

All the appliances cooperated as she flipped switches and turned handles. The kitchen didn’t boast the most high-tech gadgetry she’d ever seen, but everything worked and had a neat functionality. She could get used to a place like this.

She had to get out of Mom’s condo—and all it represented.

She poked her head into the laundry room off the kitchen, noting the side door to a small patio, and then backtracked to the living room. The gas fireplace checked out, as did the blinds shuttering the arched front window. The sun filtered into the room, as she pulled them back. A set of sliding glass doors to the right led to a small patio, a stucco wall enclosing it.

Finishing up with the half bathroom, she headed up the staircase to investigate the two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The master had a nice walk-in closet, and she mentally filled the racks with her shoes and layered the baskets with her sweaters.

She closed the closet door behind her with a firm click. She was here for the buyer, not herself, even if that buyer was late.

She glided into the second room, trying not to imagine RJ’s toys stacked in colorful bins against the wall.

A sound from downstairs had her pausing at the window that looked out onto a small patio in the back. She cocked her head, and then heard the shuffling noise again.

She walked to the bedroom door and called out, “Hello? I’m upstairs. I’ll be right down. Take a flyer.”

Facing herself in the mirrored closet door, she straightened her jacket and smoothed her hands over her dark pencil skirt. For good measure, she rolled open the closet door and peered at the empty rods and shelves. The place looked mint.

As she slid the door back into place, a bang had her jerking and literally clutching the pearls at her neck. What was the buyer doing down there?

She raised her eyes to her reflection and swallowed as the hair on the back of her neck quivered. Why hadn’t the client answered her?

She’d taken a safety class as part of getting her Realtor’s license and knew the dangers of women flying solo while showing open houses. But this was no open house. Lori had made an appointment with this person, had gotten identifying information from him over the phone.

Sweeping her tongue across her lips, she backed away from the mirror. She strode to the bedroom door, calling out, “Hello? Are you still here?”

She jogged down the stairs, her muscles tense, her senses on high alert. When she reached the bottom step, she tripped to a stop.

The blinds across the window that she’d just opened now shuttered out the sunlight. Her gaze darted to the front door, now closed.

A clicking noise from the laundry room acted like a cattle prod and she lunged for the purse she’d foolishly left on the kitchen counter. Strapping the purse across her body, she ripped open the side pocket and grabbed her .22, the cool metal of the gun in her hand giving her courage.

She flicked off the safety and rounded the corner of the counter into the kitchen, holding her weapon in front of her. Not a great start to her career as a Realtor, but she’d do what had to be done to protect herself. That much she’d learned from Hector De Santos.

The door from the laundry room to the back of the building stood ajar and Gina crept toward it, locked and loaded.

Her heart pounded as the laundry room door suddenly swung open and a large man filled the frame of the doorway.

She raised her gun and took aim at his head. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”