Читать книгу Lethal Affair - Jean Pichon Thomas - Страница 12

Chapter 2

The first thing Brenna did when she emerged from the guesthouse the next morning, besides noting that it was going to be another clear, beautiful day, was to deliberately seek out Julio. Providing, that is, he wasn’t asleep in his bed after patrolling her quarters all night.

She found him near the garage, where he was washing the Jaguar in the driveway. He looked much too alert to have spent the entire night without sleep. She decided he’d either deserted his post at some point or been replaced by another member of the staff at the villa. For all she knew, Marcus had a whole army of them working in shifts to guard her around the clock.

Or maybe, thanks to Casey’s paranoia on the subject of Marcus, she was simply letting her imagination run wild.

As it must have last night, she thought, when she had sworn the expression on Julio’s face was a grim, sinister one. His was nothing remotely like that this morning. He was all harmless smiles, greeting her with a cheerful, “Good morning, miss. I will have the car ready for you after breakfast.”

She returned the greeting, adding a careless “Thank you, Julio, but I won’t need you to drive me anywhere.”

“You are not doing the painting today?”

“Not today, no. I’m planning on walking down to town, where I’ll probably spend most of the day scouting subjects for possible paintings at some other time. There are a lot of interesting colonial buildings in the city, as well as some fascinating stuff along the harbor, don’t you think?”

He looked alarmed at her intention. “There are certain quarters in Georgetown that are not safe, miss.”

“Well, I won’t be going anywhere near those.”

“But you will let me go with you.”

And have her feel all day like she was a prisoner, like she did last night? Not a chance.

“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ll be fine on my own,” she insisted. “It isn’t far to town, and with its being downhill all the way, it should be a pleasant stroll.”

“But if you should be tired when you are ready to come back...”

“Then I’ll just grab a taxi,” she assured him brightly, hoping he understood that, behind the brightness, was a stubborn determination that would permit no further opposition.

Brenna could feel him gazing after her unhappily when she left him and headed toward the villa.

Too bad. Because, like it or not, my friend, I mean to be free of you, at least for today and maybe all the other days I’m here on the island. And you can just report that to your employer and see where it gets you.

Breakfast was waiting for her on the terrace. Marcus was not.

Brenna must have looked puzzled by his absence, because the round-faced, plump housekeeper who was clearing his place at the table informed her, “If you are looking for Mr. Bradley, miss, I am sorry to tell you he has already gone to the place of the building of the resort. He is to meet the architect there at an early hour, you understand.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, Gilda. I didn’t need to see him for anything.”

Actually, Brenna was relieved that Marcus wasn’t here. He would have wanted to know what her plans were for the day, and she didn’t want to have to lie to him again. He would learn eventually, anyway, from Julio that she’d insisted on going off on her own.

Well, what of it? She was not going to have any of them trying to control her, and that included Casey.

“What can I get you for the breakfast, miss?”

“I’ll just have coffee and one of the muffins from the basket there. They look delicious, Gilda. And maybe a glass of juice, too. Whatever you have.”

The housekeeper brought her a small pitcher of fresh papaya juice and while Brenna drank it and ate her muffin she consulted the guidebook for St. Sebastian she’d bought for herself the morning of her arrival on the island.

What she ought to be doing today, Brenna thought with a guilty sigh, was going back to the beach to finish yesterday’s work. But that would have meant Julio transporting both her and all her gear, as well as the possibility of running into Casey again.

And what she wanted, and meant to have, were several hours to herself. Not that she was going to ignore her obligation to Marcus. Which was why, when she set off on foot for Georgetown below, she went equipped with a tote bag containing her camera, sketchbook and the guidebook.

Brenna hadn’t lied to Julio when she’d told him she meant to scout out subjects for future paintings. What she’d omitted, however, was her plan to save those interesting colonial buildings for another occasion. This time the camera and the sketchbook were going to record another destination.

There was no shortage of taxis in the busy streets of the city, most of them used American cars that had seen better days. But any one of them was sufficient for her purpose. She had no trouble hailing a cab.

“The airport, please,” she directed the local driver, who flashed her an enormous grin with teeth so white they were blinding. His speed at the wheel was less pleasing, making her immensely grateful the airport was only a few miles from town.

Brenna was vastly relieved when he managed to drop her safely at the front of the terminal before racing off again to find a new fare. Entering the building, she made her way to the desk of St. Sebastian’s only car rental agency.

The young woman behind the counter greeted her with a wide smile and a kindly “Help you, miss?”

“Yes, please. I’d like to rent a car. Whatever you have that would be easy for me to manage.”

The cheerful smile of the attendant vanished, replaced by a regretful shake of her head. “I am much sorry, miss, but there is no car for me to check out, only ones for me to check in. Which,” she added, “is not yet happening this morning.”

“Are you telling me there’s nothing at all available? Not even for the day?”

“Sadly, our fleet of rentals is not a large one, and the last of them was claimed an hour or so ago. But, miss, if you would like to leave me your name and a phone number...”

Brenna decided against that measure. It could mean waiting for who knew how long, wasting her time hoping for a rental car to be returned.

Cabs were plentiful at the airport. It looked like her only disappointing choice was to hail one of them to take her back into town. She’d spend the day doing what she’d told Julio she would do, actually scouting painting subjects in the city. That would teach her to be deceptive.

The sunlight when she exited the terminal had her squinting against its intensity. Juggling her purse and tote with her head lowered, she searched for her sunglasses, found them and slid them into place.

The first sight that met her gaze when she looked up was Casey McBride. He leaned against the side of a silver Toyota, muscular arms locked across his chest and wearing a sly smile that said he was pleased with himself.

“All right, how did you find me this time?”

“Nothing complicated. Just cruising around Georgetown, you know, seeing the sights, when I spotted you grabbing the cab.”

“Another lucky coincidence, huh?”

“Looks like it.”

“I’d say it was more like you were waiting for me to turn up, probably watching the villa until I did.”

“Me? Never. How are things at the villa, anyway?”

“Fine.”

She had no intention of mentioning last night and Julio. If Casey got one whiff of that, he would be on her to move out of the guesthouse and relocate elsewhere. No way was she going to jeopardize her career by alienating Marcus with an action like that.

“So, you weren’t playing secret agent, hmm? You just went and tailed my cab in that silver chariot there for—what? The fun of it? Where’d you get it, anyway? Oh, no,” she said, “it was you, wasn’t it, who got the last rental car?”

“Don’t tell me I went and snatched it out from under you? Sorry, but I need transportation.”

“So do I.”

“I thought that was being provided for you. So where is your shadow today?” Casey looked around, as if he expected Julio to be lurking nearby.

“I suppose you could say I gave him the slip. A lot of good it did me, because now it looks like I went and traded one shadow for another one.”

“Yeah, but I’m a much friendlier one.”

He removed his sunglasses, as if to convince her with a full view of his face how harmless he was. It didn’t work. “I’m not so sure of that.”

“Well, let’s say a social one anyway. Didn’t look to me like the driver Bradley assigned you qualified for that.”

“That’s the point. I didn’t want friendly, social or any other kind of accompaniment. This was to be a solitary outing.”

“Feeling crowded, are we? Like maybe too many people sticking too close?”

“I just felt like being on my own today.”

“You could get that by going back to town.”

She hesitated too long. That perceptive mind of his, so valued by the FBI, guessed she was hiding something. “Or could it be that you have some other particular destination in mind?”

Her silence confirmed it for him.

“Tell you what,” he drawled in his faint Kentucky accent, “I’ve got the car and the time. So why don’t you let me drive you there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No?” He lifted those broad shoulders of his in a little shrug. “Of course, there is an alternative. You could always hire a taxi for the day. A cab driver should be impersonal enough for you. Providing, that is, you don’t mind the expense or the reckless speed these guys down here travel on questionable roads.”

“I’ve experienced enough of that already, thank you.”

“There you go then. You either abandon your intention or choose me, a safe driver.”

“You’ve covered it all, haven’t you?”

“Come on, Brenna. What’s holding you back? I promise to behave myself.”

“I seem to remember some occasions when you didn’t.”

“But not today. Guaranteed.” He opened the passenger door of the Toyota, holding it for her temptingly. Here she was about to make a mistake with a stubborn, take-charge agent determined to safeguard her.

Oh, hell, she thought, harmless or not, either way she wasn’t going to be able to lose him.

“You win.”

Settling herself into the passenger seat, she placed her tote and purse on the floor at her feet. Casey was about to close the door after her when he realized something.

“No painting gear?”

“Not this time.”

“Why is that?”

She launched into a brief art lesson. “Painting on location is great. It can lend a kind of immediacy to a canvas you don’t get in a studio. It can also be a nuisance having to transport all your materials to the site, or ending up with the kind of weather that decides to shift its mood.”

“Does that mean you’re playing truant today, Rembrandt?”

“Not really.” She reached a hand down to pat the side of her tote. “I’ve got my camera and sketchbook to record the subject I’m considering for another painting. What I capture might be enough to justify a studio picture. Your eyes are beginning to glaze over. You’re excused from class.”

Laughing, he slammed the door, rounded the car and climbed in behind the wheel. After buckling his belt and putting his sunglasses back on, he turned to her. “Okay, what is this mysterious destination we’re headed for?”

“A place called Braided Falls up in the highlands. It’s supposed to be spectacular. That’s what the guidebook says, anyway. Hey, what are we waiting for?”

* * *

She could be damned exasperating, Casey thought as he swung the Toyota around and headed them back toward Georgetown, which she’d indicated was the route they needed to go.

On the other hand, she could also be bewitching with that flaming copper hair, amber-colored eyes known to spark with anger when she was provoked to it and a lush, seductive mouth. Not to mention those long, elegant legs, which were on full view in a pair of pale green shorts paired with a matching green-and-white-striped tee.

There was something else he could tell with his sneaky, sidelong glance. With the free spirit of a true artist, she wasn’t wearing a bra under the tee. Damn, how was he supposed to deal with that and not lose control of the wheel?

He’d promised Brenna to behave himself, but with her assets so close like this in the confinement of the car, Casey wasn’t so sure now he could restrain himself.

Try, he ordered himself.

They were approaching the city when, to his relief, he was distracted by a glimpse of her guidebook open on her lap.

“What are you doing?”

“Unfolding the map provided inside.”

“What for?”

“We’ll need it to get to the falls.”

“Uh, both the car and our phones are equipped with GPS.”

“Not reliable functions here on St. Sebastian, says the guide,” she informed him. “A paper map is a safer bet. You’ll have to go straight through Georgetown to reach the shore road on the other side. That’ll take us to the highlands road.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Casey concentrated on weaving through the dense traffic of the city. After passing a cricket field, which Brenna reported was the favorite sport here on the island—another gem from the guidebook, Casey assumed—they found themselves on the open shore highway with the broad, blue Caribbean on their right and on their left an unbroken expanse of vegetation.

“What are you doing?” he challenged Brenna when he glanced over and saw her lowering the passenger window. “We’ve got air-conditioning operating in here.”

“I know, but I’d rather breathe the warm, outside air.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she explained, her head practically hanging out the window, “it carries such wonderful scents. Can you smell them? The cinnamon, the nutmeg and that sweet fragrance...that’s frangipani. I saw it growing at the villa. They’re enough to make you drunk on them.”

“If you say so,” Casey said. Personally, he’d much rather be inhaling Brenna’s own faint, flowery scent, which he’d been enjoying with a sensual freedom before she’d opened the window.

Maybe she was drunk. That might explain why, after traveling another mile down the road, she cried out, “Pull over!”

God Almighty, was he about to hit a goat? The nuisances seemed to be wandering everywhere on the island, often in the road. Casey dutifully parked at the side of the highway, where he was reminded that scents weren’t enough for Brenna.

“What now?”

“The flamboyant tree over there! Isn’t it magnificent?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. The tree was in full bloom, like a crimson torch. Why hadn’t he remembered that scents alone wouldn’t satisfy her? Brenna lived for color. It was a heady wine for her.

Casey recalled how she never wore drab colors if she could help it. And even on those rare, formal occasions, like her gallery showings, when she wore a form-fitting black dress that emphasized her hips and breasts, she’d always managed to accent it with a bright neck scarf or a carefully selected piece of jewelry.

You remember too much about her, McBride. Not healthy. Not when you’re no longer a couple.

He needed to stop being aware of her beside him. Needed to stop thinking about her and Bradley. He had no right to any jealousy. Concern, yes. Because, like her brother, he didn’t trust Marcus Bradley and Brenna’s living arrangement with him. Just that. Nothing else, he ordered himself.

They moved on up the highway, Brenna switching from flowers to birds. Scarlet ibises, a blue tanager, jeweled hummingbirds. They were as plentiful as the flowers.

Or they were until she instructed him to leave the highway for the road that would take them up into the highlands.

“Where are they?” she wondered. “All the flowers and birds?”

She was right. There was suddenly none of them in evidence. The contrast between the shore highway behind them and the road here was startling, with its dark, shadowed green growth close on either side of them. Like an impenetrable jungle, Casey thought.

Brenna was silent now as they traveled along the gloomy tunnel. Even the engine seemed quieter to him.

“It’s...weird, isn’t it?” she finally remarked. “Not the same St. Sebastian at all.”

“Another one, anyhow. Ah, here we go. Sunshine up ahead again.”

The Toyota emerged from the dim passage that was the road into the open. The change should have been encouraging, cheerful even. Somehow, it wasn’t.

The thick forest was still off to their left, but on the right the land had been cleared away to accommodate expansive fields. They must have once grown crops, but now they were nothing but weeds.

“What’s left of an old sugar plantation, I bet,” Brenna said. “I read in the guidebook that in the slave days the island once exported a lot of sugar.”

Casey had slowed the car to a crawl. “Understandable,” he responded. “But with the land no longer cultivated, what’s with the fence?”

It was not an old fence. It was a modern, high cyclone fence that seemed to enclose the entire property. He stopped the Toyota in front of a pair of padlocked gates.

Behind them, in the distance up a narrow driveway, was a galleried mansion from another century. Shuttered, it looked abandoned and decaying.

“They called a place like that the great house in the plantation days,” she said.

“Yeah, but why would the security of a fence and locked gates be necessary now? It’s odd.”

“It’s eerie, is what it is. Come on, Casey,” she urged with a shudder, “let’s go on.”

He didn’t argue with her. He sent the silver chariot, as she’d referred to it back at the airport, along the road again.

The route began to climb, winding into the first of the highlands. The vegetation thinned again here.

Rounding a bend, Casey sighted what seemed to be a small, dilapidated general store at the side of the road. He pulled into the gravel parking lot in front of it.

“Why are we stopping here?” Brenna wanted to know.

“I’m thirsty. Let’s see if we can get a couple of bottles of water. And while we’re at it, maybe some answers.”