Getting Lucky (23 page)

The air was soft when she stepped outside and, had she not been wearing shoes so impractical as to make the notion laughable, she might have been tempted simply to start walking back to the Beaumonts’. Alternately, she wished for a moment, as she stared out over the parking lot, that her skills ran to hot-wiring cars. It would serve Zach right if she took the Jeep and left him high and dry.

But, no. Vindictiveness was all very warming to contemplate, but more often than not it only ended up biting the butt of the person who harbored it. Besides, running away was immature and ultimately wouldn’t solve a darn thing. So she’d take a loop or two around the hotel to get her emotions in check. Then she might as well resign herself to heading back inside to face Zach like an adult.

Sometimes, though, being a grown-up bit.

She picked her way down the steps and once on the walkway, headed for the point side of the venerable old resort grounds. Tears kept rising to blur her vision, and between those, her skyscraper heels, and the occasional
pine cone out to trip her, she had to be extra vigilant about where she placed her feet. The sun had gone below the trees, and as she rounded a curve, the twilit path became a stretch of deep shadow. She paused for a second to let her eyes adjust.

When she heard footsteps behind her, her first thought was that it must be Zach. Before she could decide whether she hoped for or feared the possibility, however, someone grabbed her by the arm, and she didn’t need to see the person’s face to know it wasn’t him. Instinctively, she tried to pull away, but she stilled when something hard was jammed into the small of her back.

“I have a gun,” a masculine voice said in her ear. “Make one peep, and I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

Well, that went just fucking swell
. Zach sat rigidly upright in his chair, draining his beer, then reached for his coffee and knocked that back too while he waited for Lily to return.
Hard to believe you’re actually supposed to be pretty good at negotiating your way out of tough situations.
The dinner he’d just consumed sat like gravel in his stomach.

His only excuse was that Lily had caught him off guard. But who the hell could have predicted she’d fancy herself in love with him? Or that she’d look so betrayed when he’d insisted she wasn’t?

Who could have predicted that hearing him say they were friends would make her look as if she were about to throw up? Jesus. He found himself feeling pretty hollow-stomached himself.

His back grew even stiffer. Dammit, he would not feel guilty. He could have handled the situation much
better, plainly, but he’d rectify the damage as soon as she came back. He’d make it clear it wasn’t her—that he was the one destined to fail at the relationship game. No matter whose fault it was, though, the fact remained that ultimately it would never work, and it was better to clear up these misunderstandings from the start. It might not make either of them happy, but it sure as hell beat the complete mess matters would be in if he allowed them—
her
—to get in too deep.

What the Sam Hill was taking her so long, anyway? He wanted to go get her so he could begin making her understand it wasn’t really love she was feeling. But he remained obstinately in his chair, refusing to chase after her. He’d done that already—damned if he planned to do so again.

When she still hadn’t returned fifteen minutes later, however, he conceded that her stubbornness far outshone his own tonight. He paid the bill and went in search of her.

It took another fifteen minutes to figure out she’d left. He sent a waitress into the ladies’ room and searched the resort’s public rooms himself. The bell captain remembered seeing Lily go outside, and Zach went over the grounds with methodical precision. Finally, furious, he headed for his Jeep. Clearly she had called Jessica to come pick her up. Of all the childish, vindictive,
bitchy
little stunts…

The first person he saw when he slammed through the front door of the Beaumont mansion a short while later was Jessica, who was descending the staircase.

“Well, hey there,” she said with a smile. “How was din—”

“Where the hell is she?”

“Where is who?” Jessica’s befuddlement was obvious, but even as it registered, Zach watched it segue into irritation. She loped down the last steps and strode straight up to him. Hands on her hips, she drew herself to her loftiest posture and thrust her narrow nose up at him. “What do you mean, where is she?” she demanded. “She was supposed to be with you.”

“She was, but we had a…disagreement…and she took off. I figured she called you to come pick her up.”

She stepped back. “Well, you figured wrong. And how dare you wreck her big night out, anyhow?”

A guilty sense of having done exactly that made him testy. “What the hell makes you assume it was something
I
did? Maybe she wrecked
my
big night out.”

She just looked at him, and he rolled his shoulders uneasily. “Okay, I didn’t handle something she told me very well.” Then he snapped erect. “But that’s no excuse to run away like some irresponsible little teenybopper, and if you didn’t pick her up, then someone else must have. I want to talk to everyone.”

Jessica shrugged. “Knock yourself out.” She started to turn away, but then hesitated, a vestige of unease coloring her expression when she turned back to him. “Lily isn’t exactly the irresponsible type.”

“I know. But she was pretty upset.” He heard Jessica mutter something beneath her breath, but since he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know what it was, he ignored it and headed for the house phone in the parlor.

When he hung up several minutes later, he, too, was beginning to feel uneasy. Everyone was accounted for and no one would even admit to having spoken to Lily,
let alone to having collected her from the resort. Jessica had followed him into the parlor, and he vaguely registered the weight of her stare as he pulled out a telephone book and flipped through its pages. Finding the number he sought, he punched it out on the telephone keypad. A moment later he was connected to Rosario’s bell captain.

“My name is Zachariah Taylor,” he said crisply as soon as the other man identified himself. “I talked to you earlier about—”

“The pretty blonde,” the bell captain said. “I remember.”

“Yeah, well, the pretty blonde didn’t come home with me. I thought at the time she must have called someone else for a ride, but nobody here has heard from her, either. You told me you saw her go outside. Did she by any chance ask you to call a cab for her first?”

“No, sir. She came out of the ladies’ room and went straight outside. It’s possible she called one herself from a cell phone, though. We got busy about then, so I couldn’t say whether or not a taxi actually arrived during that time.”

Zach thanked him for his cooperation and slowly replaced the receiver. He looked at Jessica. “I don’t like this,” he admitted. “The resort didn’t call her a cab and it’s not like she could have called one for herself, since she doesn’t have a cell phone.”

Jessica made a skeptical sound. “
Everyone
has a cell phone.”

“Except Lily and me, apparently. It’s one of the things we talked about at dinner—how we seem to be the last two techno-dinosaurs on earth.” Then out of the
blue, he got a flash of the call he’d been in the midst of making to Camp Pendleton regarding a certain South American when his sister and David had shown up. Swearing, he took off for the stairs at a dead run.

“What?” Jessica was right behind him. “What have you thought of?”

He didn’t slow down as his longer stride outstripped hers, but he said over his shoulder, “Call the cab company, Jess, just to be sure. I’ll be back in a minute to explain.” Meanwhile, he’d hope to hell he was wrong and this had nothing to do with Miguel Escavez.

He checked Lily’s room quickly, just in case she’d somehow slipped into the house without being seen. But nothing had been disturbed and she’d clearly not been back. He went next door, grabbed his address book, and headed back downstairs.

Glynnie, David, and Christopher were in the parlor with Jessica when he walked in, and they all turned worried eyes his way. “Jessica says Lily’s missing?” his sister asked.

Shrugging aside her question with a dismissive wave of his hand, he snatched up the phone and punched in the number from his book. But as the phone rang and rang, he realized it was long past office hours. He disconnected and dialed information for Jake Magnusson’s number. As the man in charge of the Colombians’ training, he’d be the fastest source of information.

Jake’s home phone also rang several times, and Zach, on the verge of disconnecting, was trying to think who to contact next when the phone at the other end of the line was abruptly picked up. A deep voice growled, “What?”

“Maggie? It’s Zach. Look, I’m sorry to bother you at home, but—”

“Where the hell have you been, Midnight? You picked one helluva time to go on leave—I’ve been trying to get hold of you practically since you left. We’ve got a problem with one of the nationals you brought back with you from Colombia.”

Ice crawled through Zach’s gut. “Shit. Miguel Escavez?”

“That’s the one, all right. The boy’s gone AWOL on us.”

M
IGUEL SHOT HIS CURVACEOUS PRISONER A
triumphant glance as he drove slowly up Rosario Road toward the main highway. The sight of her bound wrists and the gratifying cautiousness with which she regarded him filled him with powerful satisfaction. He felt like dancing and singing, and it was all he could do to remain still in his seat.

“This is the third time I’ve seen you,” she said when he glanced her way again and their gazes met. “Who are you, anyway?”

Intimidation was a potent weapon—the master sergeant had taught him that—and Miguel bestowed his iciest glare upon his enemy’s woman and growled, “Your worst nightmare.” Ha! He’d wanted to use that line ever since he’d heard it said on the television the night he’d played cards with the GIs.

Such a menacing statement deserved a respectful reaction—or at the very least something more deferential than the abrupt crack of bitter laughter that escaped his captive.

“Not tonight you aren’t, pal,” she said. “Ordinarily, maybe, since it’s not every day I get abducted at gunpoint. But it’s been a really lousy evening.”

His wonderful threat was meant to instill terror, not disrespect. But not even the
puta’s
refusal to give him his due could wreck his mood—he simply felt too good, was infused with too much power. He, Miguel Hector Javier Escavez, had accomplished his goal. And to think he’d almost given up!

He could only blame the low morale from which he’d suffered this afternoon on the sheer boredom of sitting around day after day after
day
, waiting for events that never happened. But that was of no consequence now. It had ceased to be important the minute the master sergeant and his woman had suddenly materialized, motoring out of the mansion driveway in the commander’s black Jeep like a sign from
Dios
Himself.

Or not long after that, anyway. He had to admit that even then he had doubted the Divine One’s intentions. But who could blame him? He’d found himself sorely disappointed on more than one occasion just when he’d thought his objective was in sight.

But he would never question his Savior again, for although he’d been afraid to depend on much in the way of results this time either, in the end his patience had been rewarded beyond his wildest expectations. He’d sat in his car and he’d paced the grounds, keeping an eye on Taylor’s Jeep and the main door of the resort. But finally, just when he’d been sure his limbo would never end, who should exit the fancy white hotel all by herself but the master sergeant’s woman?

A sign indeed. He hummed a snatch of a song that was popular back home.

His ebullient mood faltered, however, when he reached Horseshoe Highway and had to decide which way to turn. That’s when it occurred to him that he didn’t actually know what to do with the woman now that he had her. With an uneasy pang, he realized he’d never planned beyond the part where he took her away from the oh-so-high-and-mighty marine.

He turned on his left blinker, deciding to head straight for the ferry dock to catch the first boat off this island. Since the woman most likely hadn’t even been missed yet, that would be the smart thing to do. But remembering how long the wait had been on the mainland dock the day they’d caught the ferry coming to the island, he hesitated. It would be the smart thing only if he could drive right on a boat and sail away from here. If he got hemmed in on a crowded dock, that would not be so smart, for the ferry terminal was the first place Taylor was likely to check.

He turned right toward Moran State Park instead. He needed to get off the main road and find a quiet place where he could think.

Lily couldn’t repress the shudder that raised goosebumps all over her body when her abductor pulled the car into a secluded campsite several minutes later. But her reaction had more to do with the memory of her last time in this park than the fear of the man who held her captive. Swiveling to face him, she wondered why she wasn’t more frightened. To be calm seemed just plain foolish, for here she was, back in the middle of
these darn woods, with the last of the light fading fast, in the power of a young man inclined to do only God knew what.

Yet for some odd reason, although she was certainly apprehensive, she wasn’t terrified. Maybe because her captor struck her as little more than a boy, and she didn’t get the impression he was bent on murder or rape. Or maybe it had to do with the nagging feeling she’d been snookered. Believing his claim that he had a gun, she’d let herself be bundled into this messy car with its backseat full of empty food wrappers and beverage containers, and its smell of sweaty young man. To compound her error, she’d allowed him to bind her wrists with a grubby length of cord. And all without ever having seen so much as a glimpse of an actual weapon.

His apparent lack of a gun could only be considered a good thing. So why did it feel perilously close to the last straw instead?

Well, gee,
she thought with simmering resentment,
you think it might have something to do with the fact you’ve had it up to your back teeth with being deceived by lying men?

“I hate this place,” she muttered aloud.

“What you like,” he informed her, “matters not.”

Her temper spiked right up to the red zone, and taking a deep breath, she concentrated on regaining control. This was no time to let her emotions get the better of her, but honest to God, it took every iota of willpower at her disposal to keep from venting her spleen. Between Zachariah and this arrogant young man, she was beginning to feel seriously abused and misused.

She quietly exhaled, however, and flexed her fingers.
Then, forcing a pleasant expression, she said in the most appeasing tone she could muster, “Please. Won’t you tell me who you are?”

His chest swelled up. “My name is Miguel Hector Javier Escavez.”

“That’s a lovely name.”

“
Sí
. I am—”

“My name is Lily Morrisette.”

He stared at her as if uncertain what to do with the information, but she merely met his confusion with a gentle smile. She remembered reading somewhere that the more real a victim became in a criminal’s eyes, the more difficult it became for him to harm that person. She was all for that. “Where are you from, Mr. Escavez?”

“Bisinlejo.” His chest puffed up another notch. “Where my father is major.”

Ah.
It explained a lot. The good-looking son of a powerful man—the sense of entitlement was the same the world over, evidently. Keeping her thoughts to herself, she strove to project an air of fragile helplessness by giving him a vacuous smile and a slight flutter of her lashes. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it.”

He shrugged. “I would not h’expect you to. Americans’ geography skills are very poor, and my village in Colombia is but a small dot on the map.” Then he shook his head impatiently. “But that is—how you say—neither there nor here. Master Sergeant Taylor cost me my
prometida
—”

“
Promet
—?” Lily’s high school Spanish was all but a distant memory. Then it clicked. “As in promised? You’re talking about your fiancée?”

“
Sí
.”

She frowned. She’d pretty much worked out for herself that this was Zachariah’s South American. Funny, though, that Zach had never mentioned anything about a woman when he’d told her that—how had he put it?—he’d had a problem with one of the nationals he’d brought back, but that he thought they’d put it behind them? Then impatient with her internal questions, she shook her head. No sense getting ahead of herself before she had all the facts. “Cost you in what way?”

“He is responsible for the stolen virtue of my Emilita.”

Shock feathered icy fingers down her spine. “You’re saying Zach had
sex
with your girlfriend?”
No.
The denial was pure knee-jerk instinct, but she didn’t care. That couldn’t be right. Any fiancée of this youth would have to be pretty darn young, and she simply could not see Zach messing with any woman younger than his own sister.

“The master sergeant didn’t, no. But he was in charge, and he did
nothing
to punish the one who did.” He spat out the window, then turned back to glare at her. “Instead, he stood in front of the entire village and told me she
welcomed
his soldier’s filthy attentions.”

And there was the rub, Lily guessed. Thanks to good old Tactful Taylor, Miguel had lost face.
God deliver me from young men’s egos.
“So you have a beef with Zach. What does it have to do with me?”

“He is responsible for the loss of my woman. I am taking his from him in return.”

What was she, a bone for a couple of scruffy mongrels to snap and snarl over? She felt the anger she’d banked flare back to life. But she managed to meet his
gaze with reasonable calm. “I hate to burst your bubble, Miguel, but having me in your possession is unlikely to gain you what you want. Zach and I broke up tonight.”

Outrage flared in his eyes. “I do not believe you!”

She shrugged. “Can’t say as I blame you, since I can barely believe it myself. Yet, sadly, it’s true. Why do you think I was outside without him?”

He sat and scowled at her for a moment. Suddenly, his gaze dropped to track over her figure, and she could practically see the lightbulb flash on over his head. “Then I will defile you.”

“Ex
cuse
me?”

“Perhaps you are no longer his woman. But he would dislike it, I think, if another man were to make you his.”

“Not half as much as I would, pal.” A quick glance at his lap reassured her that the idea didn’t have him all whipped into a lather either. But he was just arrogant enough to decide that since he’d decreed it so, the plan had merit, and darned if she intended to wait around for him to talk himself into the mood. Casually, she bent down and began fumbling with the ankle strap of her high heel.

He leaned over as well, peering down suspiciously as she clumsily unfastened the tiny buckle. “What do you think you are doing?”

She kept her head down to prevent him from seeing the rage she feared was much too close to the surface to disguise. “Taking my shoes off. My feet are killing me.” The buckle came free, and she slid her right pump from her foot.

“That’s because they are
estúpido
. No self-
respecting Colombian girl would wear chews so dangerous and ugly.”

“Excuse me?” She slowly straightened, turning the shoe between her bound hands as she sat back up. “Did you say
ugly
?”

“
Sí
.” His lip curled up in a sneer. “
Muy
ugly.”

“You know,” she said sweetly, “this has been a really crappy night. I put up with being dumped by my boyfriend, and I’ve been quite the sport, if I do say so myself, about being trussed like a turkey and thrown into this pigsty of a car by a self-important little chauvinist barely old enough to shave.”

He blinked, clearly confused by the disparity between her words and the tone in which she spoke them.

“You think these shoes are dangerous?” she asked softly, favoring him with a great big friendly smile. “Let me show you just how dangerous they can be.” And gripping the shoe between her hands like a high-fashion sap, she swung it with all her might at the young man’s head.

He threw an arm up, blocking a fraction of the impact. She figured that was probably a good thing—otherwise she might have driven the spiked heel clear through his temple, and that was simply too gross to contemplate. As it was, it still connected with considerable impact, making a nasty, meaty sound that made her stomach roil, and she watched him collapse like a sack of wet cement over the steering wheel. Dropping the shoe into her lap, she grabbed a fistful of his hair and hauled his head back, gratified to see he was out cold but still breathing. She let his head drop, and reached to pull the keys out of the ignition. Then she bent at the
waist to work the shoe back onto her foot, but didn’t take the time to try to fasten it. Straightening, she twisted to reach for the door handle.

“Ugly, my Aunt Petunia,” she snapped at his unconscious form. “I might’ve had to take all the other crap you idiots dumped on me tonight. But nobody, but
no-
body, junior, mocks my shoes and gets away with it.”

Zach checked the magazine in his pistol as he headed along the second floor hallway. Seeing the group in the foyer as he started down the stairs, he shoved in the clip, slid the safety on, and tucked the nine millimeter into his waistband at the small of his back. His departure from the parlor in the wake of his conversation with Magnusson had been more than abrupt, and he halted at the bottom of the stairs in front of his sister.

“Okay, here’s the deal. I have good reason to believe a South American with a grudge followed me up here and has abducted Lily. I want you to call the sheriff for me. Tell him the man’s name is Miguel Escavez, and he’s already approached Lily twice. Inform him he’s probably driving a dark blue ’83 Ford LTD with California plates.” He recited the number.

Glynnis looked sick. “Oh, God, Zach. Will he hurt her?”

“I honestly don’t think he will, Glynnie. But I’m operating under the assumption that he’s dangerous all the same, and I promise you, I won’t rest until we have her back.”

“I know you won’t.” She squared her shoulders. “How did your friend manage to find out what kind of car he’s driving?”

“Maggie said as soon as the word went around Pendleton that Escavez had skipped, a private came forward to volunteer that Miguel had won his car from him in a poker game.”

“Okay, let me make sure I’ve got this straight.” She repeated the information back to him, including the license-plate number, with no-fuss efficiency.

“Excellent.” Hauling her into his arms, Zach gave her a brief hug, then held her at arm’s length to look down at her. “The first time I met Lily, she told me you were a lot more grown up than I gave you credit for—and I can see that she was right. I’m real sorry I didn’t do better by you, Glynnie.”

“What are you talking about? You can be a giant pain in the butt sometimes, but you have
never
let me down.” Grasping his arms, she gave him a shake. “Now,” she said briskly, “where will you look first?”