Barefoot With a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover Book 2) (21 page)

He marched back down the tiny hallway, up the stairs to the bathroom he’d just left—still empty—and past two other rooms to the front entrance. No one was at the desk where they’d found the owner.

He stepped through the doorway onto a planked walkway under a wooden awning supported by rotted, peeling posts. This part of town was little more than a street of wooden structures, most painted in the same hue of blue or yellow, if they were painted at all.

A few locals peppered the area, but where the hell was she?

Looking up and down the street, a low-grade anger and worry bubbled in his chest, making him fight the urge to call out her name. Where would she—

A trill of laughter and the squeal of a delighted child pulled his attention to a run-down grassy area next to the hostel. Instantly, he saw Chessie standing in the midst of about ten children who circled her like they were dancing around the maypole.

She held her hand high in the air, laughing with them, and then turning to see Mal. “I stepped outside with my satellite phone, and they all appeared like magic.”

Relief punched, surprisingly intense. She certainly hadn’t gone far, she wasn’t lost, and she was only trying to get better reception on the sat phone like Gabe had instructed. So why had her momentary disappearance bothered him so much?

He didn’t know, but he strode across the planked walkway, irritated and annoyed that he’d lost her for even one second.

But Chessie beamed at him, apparently proud of her Pied Piper skills, then did a quick once-over of his bare chest.

“You forgot to tell me you were leaving,” he said, purposely letting her know he was angry.

“You were in the shower, Mal, and I couldn’t get a signal in—”

“
Señora! Teléfono! Señora
!” one of the kids yelled, jumping up high enough to touch the phone.

She reacted instantly, whirring out of reach and tossing the device to Mal, who snatched it in midair. The kids cheered and clapped like they were watching a sport.

Chessie beamed. “Some of them speak English,” she told him.

“I do!” one of the taller boys, likely nearing his teens, said.

“Me do, too!” a girl added, then put her finger to her mouth. “
Pero
…no tell.”

They weren’t supposed to brag about it, Mal surmised. A few of them came to him, still anxious to see the phone. “
Estados Unidos
?” one asked. “
Abuelo
!
Abuelo
!”

He wanted to call his grandfather in the US. Mal sighed and shook his head, looking at Chessie.

“No, darling, sorry,” she said, coming to Mal’s aid and his side, putting a hand on the young boy’s head. “But if you help us, maybe we can help you?”

He looked confused and glanced to Mal for an explanation, who turned to Chessie to see where she was going with this.

“If they help us find the family we’re looking for,” she said, “maybe we can let them make one call. It’s like a gift, like the other stuff we brought to give to kids.”

Candy and books, not time on a satellite phone. But it made sense because that phone call might be the one thing they wanted the most.

“Tell them what we’re doing,” she urged. “About the TV show, just to get them talking.”

He gathered them around him in his best Spanish, taking out his phone to show they had two and getting a huge cheer for that. Chessie observed and moved from kid to kid, a casual touch on the shoulder, a genuine smile. She was as comfortable around them as if they were her own family. Yet another thing that was attractive to him, a man who automatically put a wall between himself and strangers.

Trying to follow her lead—how was that for a role switch?—he explained that they were here to talk to children and families about how things might change in their world.

That got a lot of blank stares for this killer documentary idea
. Thanks, Gabe.

Chessie stepped in for an assist, crouching down to get eye level with the two kids who spoke passable English. “We have to talk to families, too. Like the Ramos family. Do you know them?”

His eyes widened, and he stared right at Chessie. “No.”

It didn’t take training in intelligence gathering to know that the little potential informant was lying.

“Are you sure?” Chessie prodded. “This is a small town, and we would like to go to their house.”

“It’s a farm,” the girl said.

“Caralita.” The boy took a step back, reaching for his sister’s hand to pull her away. “
Vamonos
.”

Mal and Chessie shared a silent glance, a lot of questions and observations zinging between them with the ease of two agents who’d worked a long time together. With the tiniest nod, she managed to tell him she’d handle the English-speakers, and he should be with the others.

He didn’t argue, letting her take a few steps with the two kids, engaging them with questions and chances to look at the phone.

He kept talking to the ones around him, finally relenting and letting them play with the phone, while he kept one eye on Chessie. After a minute the kids stopped walking away and talked to her. The little girl more than the boy, Mal noticed. Chessie listened, got down on the ground, and started digging things out of her purse.

Gum. Candy. A toy. All the while, they talked. Mal mentioned the Ramos family to his group, but had no reaction whatsoever, just kid-lust for the phone. So he finally let one attempt a call, but it didn’t go through.

He lost a few fans then, but Chessie stood and gave hugs to both her kids. And waved the others over, passing out candy to all of them while Mal just watched and, damn it,
admired
her some more.

That was unexpected.

The kids scurried off, dancing, laughing, chomping on colorful candy like they’d been given the keys to the kingdom. Chessie came closer to Mal and placed one hand flat on his chest.

“All this gorgeous male pulchritude on display, and I got what we needed with a few bags of Skittles.” She grinned up at him. “The Ramos farm is a few miles east of here. On a dirt road past a big orange tree.”

“That’s…good. But not too specific.”

“Put a shirt on, big guy. We can find it.” She started walking ahead of him, back to the hotel, but he grabbed her arm and stopped her, spinning her around.

“Are you mad I left?” she asked. “Because I only stepped onto the street and… What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.” Without thinking too much about it, he leaned into her mouth and kissed. Not long, not hot, not wet and sexy, but a good kiss nonetheless.

When he backed away, she lowered her glasses to get a better look. “Was that a reward for my top-notch field skills?”

“It was just a kiss ’cause I wanted one.”

“Oh.” She bit her lower lip. “Well. That’s…interesting. But here’s the deal. As much as I want to go back in there and, you know, get hopeless, I need to tell you something.”

He frowned, waiting, catching the serious tone.

“There’s something strange about the Ramos farm. They didn’t want to tell me, but I got the feeling it’s not a normal farm. The little girl, Caralita? She whispered a word in my ear, and I think it might be a password.”

“A password?” Now she was going overboard. “What did she say?”

“
Maestra
. Like ‘maestro’ with an a.”

“Teacher,” he translated. “Maybe not a password, but a clue.”

“A clue?”

“About where we’re going.” Taking her hand, he guided her back to the hotel. “Gabe made a good choice for this team.”

She gave his hand a squeeze, and he knew the feeling was mutual. Hopeless, he reminded himself, but mutual.

* * *

“Tell me more about what they said about this farm,” Mal said as he drove them through the roughest roads they’d come across yet.

“It was what they didn’t say,” Chessie recalled. “They were evasive, especially the older one. I thought maybe they figured we were with the government.”

“They’re taught from a young age to be extremely careful who they talk to, but generally that means men in uniform,” Mal said. “Tourists and visitors, especially in these parts, are so rare that they are more likely to open up.”

“These two had been to the farm,” she said. “The little girl was pretty specific about the orange tree. Like a giant orange umbrella, she told me. Turn right on the road just after it.”

“A royal Poinciana,” Mal said. “They’re all over Cuba. They call them flame trees.”

“Hopefully, we don’t take a wrong tree turn.”

He threw her a smile, certainly not the first since they’d arrived in this town. His obvious approval of her field skills? Or…his obvious approval of her. It wasn’t smart that she wanted both, but she did.
Remember, Chess…forty-two addresses in thirty-eight years. One a prison.

“I think it could be a culture school,” he mused, pulling her back to the mission at hand.

“What is that?”

“Other than illegal? All over Cuba, in private homes and in rural areas, the people try to teach their children the ways of the country before Castro, so customs, culture, and truth don’t die with each generation. If they get caught running something like that, the adults on the property would go to prison for life. The children?” He gave a deep, long sigh as the car rumbled down the road.

That wasn’t a sigh of exhaustion, Chessie mused. It was a sigh of pain. “What happens to the children?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

She inched closer. “I do.”

“They get overlooked, ignored, wasted, lost, and, ultimately, indoctrinated into a system that shows no mercy and gives no hope.” He threw her a look. “Take it from me, that’s no way to live.”

His voice was low and dark and honest. “And you know that because of those forty-two addresses in thirty-eight years?”

“What happened to me was different, but yeah,” he said. “These kids who have a whole political system to fight.”

“But the result is the same, a life of constant upheaval and uncertainty.”

He nodded. “Makes for a good spy.”

“But you’re not a spy anymore.”

He tossed her a quick look, a warning in his dark eyes. “Don’t we have a rule against intimate revelations about our past?”

She sighed. “I can’t help wanting to know about you,” she admitted. “I mean, that’s how people get to be good partners in the field, right?” And in life, she added silently.

“You’re good,” he said. “Very good.” The compliment warmed her, but then he nodded and pointed ahead. “There’s a huge Poinciana and a dirt road. I think we’ve found the farm.”

The tree, true to its nickname, flamed bright orange with blooms twenty feet in the air.

“Wow, that’s a pretty tree. Like a great big explosion of hope.” She put her hand on her chest, feeling it. “And I hope my nephew is at the end of this road.”

“Yeah,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he turned onto the road. “But let’s lose the documentary cover on this call.”

“What?” She whipped around to face him. “How can we do that? We don’t have another cover. Who do we say we are or why we’re here?”

He put a hand on her arm. “Contingency, Francesca. They’ll never let us bring cameras in here if this place is what I think it is. We’re…teachers. Just like the little girl said. American teachers doing research or looking for a chance to help them. They should respond to that. We’ll offer cash. And gifts. And…”

“Hope,” she supplied.

“That’s your department.”

The Prefect sputtered over the rocky path—there was no way it could be technically called a road—taking them through more lush foliage. Luscious, sweet scents of pineapple and mango floated through the open window, hanging on still, tropical air.

They followed the dirt road until it turned and ended at a cluster of four or five structures, a mix of wood and stucco, surrounded by a few goats, at least ten chickens, and one mangy-looking dog.

As Mal drove closer to the buildings, Chessie checked her bag again. She’d brought money, of course, and candy. Some children’s books in Spanish, pens and pencils, a few bars of soap and shampoo, and hair brushes. All gifts that she hoped would gain her access and the trust of the whole Ramos family.

“Whoa.”

Chessie looked up at the note in Mal’s voice, following his gaze to see four men—well, three teenagers and a grown man—emerge from what looked like a barn, standing side by side like a human wall. The man held a rifle pointed directly at the car.

“Whoa is right,” Chessie murmured, shifting in her seat. “Quite the welcoming committee.”

The older man made no effort to lower his rifle when Mal brought the car to a stop about forty feet away. “Stay here until I call to you,” he said, opening the door. “Keys are in the ignition if you have to take off.”

If she had to take off? She felt her eyes pop, but he reached over and touched her cheek in a lightning-flash move of reassurance. “If I point my finger straight in the air, that’s your signal. Don’t question it, just leave.”

“O-okay.” Although, deep inside, she doubted she’d have the nerve to just leave him here. So she watched him get out of the car and prayed she wouldn’t have to make that choice.