Miranda Vaughn Mystery 01.00 - Chasing the Dollar (16 page)

Turning another corner, I found myself on the edge of an open-air market. Crowds filled the spaces between the tables and tents. It would be a great place to blend in, but I was the only blonde, and I stood out like a beacon. I looked down at my
Where's Waldo
shirt and cursed under my breath. Once again, I was dressed like a damn target.

I took a couple deep breaths and tried to calm myself.
Think, Miranda. What would Jake Barnes do?

I reached for my purse, strapped across my body, and pulled out my wallet. I had a few American coins, some
pataca
from Macau, but no Belizean dollars. There were various cosmetics, pens, and a small perfume sample that I had swiped from my room at the Mandarin Hotel.

Looking around the tables and booths, my gaze fell on a young woman selling hats and scarves and I made my way toward her. The table in front of the woman, who was probably still more of a girl, held an assortment of multicolored clothing, too. I picked up several items, searching for something that would fit my needs.

"
Hola
," the girl said with a shy smile.

"
Hola
," I replied, nearly exhausting my Spanish-language skills.

I lifted a straw hat and a linen tunic.

"Uh,
que
, uh, no.
Cuando?
No, that's not right," I stammered, trying to dredge up something from high school Spanish class.

"
Twenty dollars," she said in heavily accented English.

"
Oh, thank you," I said, my breath rushing out in relief. "Uh, I don't know if I have that."

"
Fifteen dollars."

Opening my purse, I dumped the contents on the table between us. There wasn
't much there and I sorted the items I couldn't lose—my passport, the flash drive, my favorite lipstick—and tucked them back in my purse.

"
I don't have any cash," I said quietly and watched her face.

She raised an eyebrow and looked at the items remaining on the table.

"
Es perfume
?" she asked, pointing at the small glass bottle of perfume from the Mandarin Hotel. It was a promotional item, but a high-end one—a tiny replica of the real designer perfume bottle.

I nodded and she picked it up and sniffed it. After a quick glance around, she slipped the bottle into her pocket. She gave me a smile and a quick nod and I scooped the rest of the debris into my purse.

Then I looked around. "Is there a place I can change?"

She gave me a smile and a shrug, and I tugged the dark blue linen blouse over my striped shirt, hoping it gave me enough cover for now. With the hat also in place, I started to walk away, then returned and fumbled in my purse again. I found a piece of paper and pen and wrote the name of my hotel on it.

"Directions?"

She glanced at the paper and then scanned the crowd and waved to someone. A young man walked up with a smile, and she handed the paper to him and said something in rapid-fire Spanish.

He nodded and began speaking, also in Spanish. The girl giggled.

"
No, en Ingles
."

The handsome young man grinned, his eyes sparkled, and I patted myself on the back for finding a teenager in love when the only currency I had was a quarter-ounce of cologne.

The young man took my pen and paper and drew a map. He pointed to the other end of the market and then tapped the map. I nodded, following his motions and thanked him, gave the girl a wink, and left the two lovebirds alone at the booth.

Looking back, I scanned the crowd and saw Dylan, just entering the market, his hand raised to shade his eyes, searching the crowd.

Damn it, I couldn't keep running from him. He'd just follow me back to the hotel.

Keeping my head down, I backtracked to the same booth where the teens were still exchanging flirty glances and giggles.

"
Ayudame
."

It was the one word that
Señorita
Perlmann had insisted we learn on day one—
help me
. "It might get you out of a jam one day," she had said. I silently sent her my gratitude as the girl's face turned serious, and she nodded. I hunched over, trying to be invisible to Dylan.

"
El Americano
over there—
"
I nodded toward the tall fair-haired man slowly proceeding through the crowd. "
Es muy
—"

I had to really dig for the word.
"
Peligroso
."

The word was on every warning sign at every beach in
Southern California, so I hoped it meant "dangerous" and not "high tide."

The girl grabbed my arm, yanked me around the display of hats and shawls, and forced me to the ground. I rolled under the folding table and curled up, as the light around me dimmed. My new friend had unfurled a wide length of fabric and was draping it around the edge like a tablecloth.

From my hiding spot, all I could see now was the young man's worn leather boots near the front of the table, his stance solid and protective. He'd be no match against Dylan and his gun, though. All I could hear was my heart pounding, louder than the sounds of the market.

"
Hola.
"

The sound of Dylan
's voice chilled me, and I became hyper aware of the thin piece of fluttering fabric that separated us.

"
Busco a una mujer rubia."

"
No, lo siento."

The sound of Dylan
's footsteps faded, and I waited for a cue from my guardian angels. After what felt like a long time, the young woman lifted the fabric and helped me out. She pointed to the entrance of the market where I had entered and from where Dylan had come, too. She mimed walking with her fingers, and I got the point—Dylan had gone back in that direction.

I thanked her, tucked my hair up under the hat again
, and headed in the opposite direction, following the rudimentary map that might get me back to my hotel.

And with some luck, to Jake Barnes.

As I walked, I tried to formulate a plan. Option one—go straight to the airport, buy a ticket to California and forget this horrible misadventure ever happened. I'd be several thousand dollars deeper in debt, with nothing to show for my trouble, no way to get a job, and with a reputation in tatters. And I'd be facing a lawsuit from the Sahara Fund investors, which if they won, would mean that Aunt Marie and I could be homeless, as well.

For all its downsides, that plan did have a low probability that I would end up shot dead by Dylan, Bill, Katrina, or some angry Russian arms trafficker looking for someone to blame when he learned Patterson had lost his money. But running home now wouldn
't guarantee my safety. I knew too much now, and that was a threat to Dylan and to whomever he was working with and for.

That meant I needed to see this through. The key to that was in my purse, rattling around with the lipstick and hotel pens. I could go back to the bank, transfer the money myself and then turn the flash drive over to Jake or some other American official. But that option pretty much drew a target on my back. Somehow I doubted a drug cartel was going to write off the loss of millions of dollars, even if it was used to reimburse some American retirees who got fleeced.

The smell of roasting peppers wafted out of a door open to the street, and I peeked in to see a small diner, empty except for the man behind the counter and someone working in the back. My mouth watered, and I realized that I was starving and thirsty. I'd been walking for about forty-five minutes in the growing heat. Young Romeo's directions seemed to be pretty good, but they weren't to scale. I wasn't sure how much longer it would be until I got to the hotel. And once there, I had no idea whether Jake would be waiting for me.

The man waved me in, but I shook my head and raised a hand.
"
No dinero
."

He smiled and tapped a faded logo taped to the counter.
"Visa."

Bless you
. I was at the counter in a fraction of a second, ordering a plate of tacos and the largest bottle of water in the restaurant. As the man ran my credit card, it occurred to me that it might be risky to keep using my own credit here. Could Dylan or someone else use that to track me?

A steaming plate of food distracted me from that thought, and I took my meal to a table with a view of the street through the dusty window. I dug into the tacos and kept an eye on the passersby, watching for Dylan. The cold water and spicy food refreshed me, and I headed back onto the street with a renewed optimism.

I was going to do the right thing and end this scheme. Maybe I could negotiate some sort of protection from the government for my cooperation. My mind, and hormones, went immediately to the thought of Jake Barnes providing that protection, and I had to shake my head to clear that image. He might not even be looking for me right now.

No, that was wrong. He was a good guy, a professional white-hat wearing, Dudley Do-Right type. He
'd just seen me taken at gunpoint by an unstable criminal—he was probably looking for me. Unless he went to the embassy to get assistance. In which case, he wouldn't be looking for me. Maybe I was more trouble than I was worth, and he decided to put my fate in his colleagues' hands. Given what I'd put him through in the past three days, I wouldn't blame him for that.

The street I was on was starting to look familiar, and I consulted my map. Unfortunately, my map was focused on the main streets, which were all wide boulevards with lots of traffic. This made me nervous, so I tried to stay close to that route, but on smaller side streets. Glancing around a corner, I saw the wide sweeping driveway of my hotel and exhaled in relief. I waited and watched the street and the people going in and out of the hotel.

I didn't see Jake, but I also didn't see Dylan. I'd been walking long enough that I wondered if Dylan gave up and resorted to a new plan himself. I waited for several minutes, and decided it was as safe as it was going to get. Keeping my head down, I scurried up the drive, staying close to a curving hedge.

I kept my hat on and the brim low as I entered the lobby and peered around the room but didn
't see any familiar faces—either friend or foe. The hall outside my room was empty, and I let myself in and shut the door behind me quickly.

"
Jake?" I called out quietly, but the room was silent in response.

I cracked the adjoining door to his room and peered in. It was empty and it looked like he hadn
't been back since we left this morning. Exhaling in frustration, I turned away and slumped on the edge of the bed.

Unsure what to do while I waited for Jake to return, I went through my luggage—that is, my purse and my messenger bag—and pared down my belongings, figuring that we
'd be running again soon. And I hoped that wouldn't be literally running because my legs and feet were killing me. I picked up the flash drive and looked at it. A couple inches of plastic that could destroy so many people. Instead of putting it back in the purse, I slipped it into my pants pocket—wanting to keep it as close as possible to me. If I lost this, I'd lose everything.

I went to the bathroom and washed my face, trying to compose myself. I
'd only been back in the room for about twenty minutes, but the silence and the absence of Jake was making me twitchy. Where was he?

As I dried my face with the hand towel, I heard something outside the door and sighed in relief.

Finally
. I put the damp towel on the counter and was turning to leave the bathroom when the front door exploded into the room.

"
Fuck!" I dove to the floor and slid to the wall, trying to reach the bathroom door to close it. A second shot hit the door, and I saw more wooden shards fly past the opening.

It was too late to try and hide in the bathroom. Dylan stood in the doorway, gun in hand.

"Get up," he said.

My ears were ringing from the gunshots, but I could hear the cold hatred in his voice just fine. When I didn
't move, he grabbed my arm in a vise-like grip and hauled me to my feet. He yanked me into the room and pushed me toward the bed.

"
Get your passport."

Shaking, I picked up my purse and slipped the strap over my head and across my body. Dylan looked around nervously, and his gaze settled on the messenger bag.

"What's in there?"

Without waiting for my answer, he opened the flap and shook out my computer and the two hard drives.

"I knew it. That coward didn't destroy the laptop," he said with a tight smile. He put the drives back in the bag with the computer and carried it to the door, keeping the gun trained on me. "Let's go."

"
Where?"

My voice sounded like it was in a tunnel, and my heart was racing from the adrenaline.

"You're going to go transfer some money," he said. "Then we're going to go for a boat ride."

"
I'm not doing anything for you," I said. "Let Katrina do it."

"
Katrina's dead."

He said it without any trace of emotion. My mouth went dry at his casual announcement.
"Oh my God," I whispered.

I didn
't like her, not a bit. But she certainly didn't deserve to die in that grimy alley. For the first time, I noticed the blood on his shirt cuffs.

"
What about Bill?" I managed to croak as my throat tightened.

"
Let's just say he won't be bothering you any longer."

I closed my eyes and gulped down air, trying to stay calm. In the distance, a siren grew louder. Dylan looped the strap for the messenger bag over his shoulder and grabbed me by the arm. He pushed me toward the open door, the frame jagged from his bullets. He pulled me toward the end of the hallway and then down the stairs. He kept a tight grip on my arm and my skin crawled at the contact with him. My mind scrambled to come up with a way out of this mess.

Outside, he hurried me toward a car parked at the corner. He tucked the gun into his waistband and then unlocked the door. He forced me into the car, withdrew the gun and rested it under my jaw as I leaned back in the seat, trying to get away. The barrel sank into the soft flesh under my chin, and he chuckled.

"
If you behave yourself, you just might get out of this alive. If you don't, I'll shoot you. And then I'll make sure your darling Aunt Marie suffers, too." He pressed the gun harder. "Understand?"

I tried to nod.

"Is that a yes?"

"
Yes," I whispered.

He pulled the gun away, slammed the passenger side door and walked around to the driver
's seat. He tossed my messenger bag into my lap and got into the car.

"
Keep that safe for me, babe. I'm going to need it later," he said.

He was awfully jovial for someone who just lost his fiancée in a gun battle. How would the sociopath react when he realized that this wasn
't Bill's computer? On one hand, I didn't want to be around to see his rage when that happened. On the other hand, if he thought he had all the account information, he no longer needed me.

We drove through downtown
Belize City, passing a police car speeding in the direction of the hotel we had just left. Instead of heading toward the downtown district where Bill had taken me. Dylan turned north, and we traveled along the waterfront. Just out of town, he turned right into a marina, and my heart dropped. Dylan's words came back to me.

You
're going to transfer some money. Then we're going to go for a boat ride.

He thought he didn
't need me to transfer the money now so he was skipping that part and going directly to the end—the part where he shoots me and dumps my body in the ocean, I guessed.

"
It's not Bill's computer. It's mine."

Dylan slammed on the brakes, the car skidding to a stop on the gravel road.

"What?"

The fury in his voice would probably haunt me for years. I swallowed and gripped the messenger bag tight, my fingers finding the edges of the laptop under the canvas.

"I said it's my computer. Not Bill's."

He hit me so quickly I didn
't have time to duck, my head jerking to the left and smacking the headrest of my seat. Pain radiated from my jaw to my temple, and I could taste blood from my lip.

"
You're lying."

I opened my mouth to make sure my jaw wasn
't broken. "It's mine."

He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared straight ahead, and I saw an opening. I shoved the messenger bag at Dylan
's head as hard as I could. I heard a satisfying thunk as the computer hit him in the face. Then I opened the car door and ran.