Volcano (10 page)

Charlie caught her hand and pressed it to the table as she started to rise.

“No. Listen. There's a body in the boat we brought in last night.”

Oh, God, this couldn't be happening. Penelope sank back into her seat and stared at him, willing herself not to believe.

Tension tightened the muscles of his unshaven jaw. The blue of his eyes had frosted into ice. He exuded fury. Not fear. Fury. He held her pinned with his glare.

“An old man, a harmless one. He played in the streets for coins. But Michel knew everyone, heard everything. He helped me out more than once when I was a kid. Jacques looked out for him when he could. Now Jacques has disappeared and Michel is dead. I've got to find Raul and get out of here before something else happens.”

Penelope wanted to ask him who Raul was but she had a sneaking suspicion it was the man whose life was purportedly in danger, the one she didn't want to hear about. The rest of Charlie's words alarmed her enough: an old man who had helped him out. Penelope let the words wash over her, tried not to let them sink in. But instinct, intuition, some sixth sense she hadn't known she possessed screamed warnings. “An old man?” she questioned. “Tall, skinny? Carved bowls?”

Charlie's eyes narrowed. “You saw him? When?”

“He warned me about the muggers last night. He led me to you. Do you think...?”

“Hell, yes.” Looking suddenly pale beneath his tan, Charlie gulped the rest of his coffee, and glanced down at the beach where the police had laid the body on the sand. “Grab the bread. We're getting out of here.” He shoved several rolls into a napkin and stood up.

“What do you mean,
we
?” She wasn't certain whether to be scared or furious. That gentle old man hadn't deserved to die. He'd done nothing. How had he gotten into the fishing boat?

Charlie caught her arm, dragged her to her feet, and handed her the remaining baguette from the basket. “I told Henwood last night I had only a few days on the island, and offered to pay your expenses. I told you they're a romantic lot here. He waived the fee and offered you the day off, especially after I gave him some information about a couple of new engineers who could help him with the perennial wastewater problem.”

He tugged her through the rapidly filling restaurant. Embarrassed by the scene he was creating, Penelope hurried to keep up with him.

“What do you need me for?” she hissed as they reached the path outside.

“Protective coloration. A white man driving alone out here is automatically suspicious. One wearing a baseball hat and squiring a female is a tourist. It would help if I was sunburned, but otherwise, I can play lost tourist real well.”

“I can't!” she protested as she ran to keep up with him. She'd thought herself in good shape, but she was already panting in the uphill race. Maybe it was the altitude. “I have a job and a family to get back to.”

He swiveled and glared back at her. “You're married?”

“No!” She should have said yes. Damn, that was stupid. But he unnerved her so thoroughly, she couldn't think. “My sister is blind. She can get around pretty well, but she's not used to being left alone for long.”

He returned to his race up the hillside. “This should only take a day or so. One of my employees is missing and I have to find him before whoever murdered Michel does. The island is only nineteen miles across. There are only so many places he can hide.”

Remembering the mountainous trip here, Penelope wondered if that was nineteen miles up and down or as the crow flies. She suspected she didn't want to know.

“Look, I don't see any reason why I should accompany you. You'll travel faster without me. Just go your own way, and I won't tell anyone about you.” She swore as her heeled sandals caught on a rock and twisted. They were almost at the cottage, thank heavens. She could scarcely catch her breath.

Charlie snorted. “The dust wouldn't have settled behind me before you'd be telling the cops how I blackmailed and kidnapped you. They'd have search parties after me all over the damned island. Forget it. We're going together.” He caught her hand as she halted, pulling her up the porch stairs. “Pack an overnight bag. Include insect spray and soap. And for Pete's sake, change into jeans and tennis shoes. This isn't a cruise ship.”

Penelope stared at him in horror as he threw her suitcase on the bed and began heaving clothing and toiletries into his backpack.

When she didn't move, Charlie propped his wide hands on his hips and stepped in front of her. Her breath shortened even more at his imposing proximity.

“They
murdered
Michel,” he reminded her. When she still didn't respond, his mouth tightened in impatience. “They saw us together. They dumped Michel in that boat, on that beach, for a reason. They're telling us they know where we're staying, and warning us to back off.” He glared at her blank look of incomprehension. “They're not just after me now. They're after both of us.”

Penelope's knees nearly crumpled. “They're after
me
? What have I done?”

“Kept me from getting killed.” Abruptly, he swung around and returned to packing.

This couldn't be happening. In blind terror, Penelope stumbled to the closet and reached for her khakis. She didn't own jeans.

She would lose her job. Beth wouldn't have her operation.

She could be killed out there.

***

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” Penelope muttered as the pink jeep with its candy-striped awning bumped down a dirt road that looked as if it might fall off the side of the mountain at any given moment. The view was phenomenal, if she didn't think about falling into it. The lush fronds of banana trees vied with the frothy foam of fern trees and the brilliant scarlet of poinciana to pave a path of greenery straight down to the vivid blue of the sea below. If she had been watching it on TV, she would have been overwhelmed by the beauty. Instead, she clung to the seat and prayed.

She'd stripped off the loose linen shirt she'd worn to protect her skin from the blazing sun. The jungle provided shade and enough humidity that even her square-necked T-shirt clung to her back. If the maniac in the driver's seat would only stop to allow a quick dip in a mountain stream or just a moment of peace where she could enjoy a breeze, she might relax. As it was, her perspiration was as much from fear as from heat.

Maybe she should tell him she was the world's biggest coward, that she was more hindrance than help, that he should just put her on a plane back to civilization.

He wouldn't listen.

The jeep finally rumbled to a halt in front of a crude cabin propped on stilts. Had it not been surrounded by towering cocoa trees and the thick leaves of a local vegetable vine, the cabin would have resembled some of the worst housing in Miami's slums. But amid the luxurious vegetation, it merely appeared quaint.

“We're blamed lucky nobody out here carries shotguns,” Charlie muttered as he unfolded his big frame from the small seat and stepped out. “I'd shoot anything looking like this if I were them.”

Since he'd been complaining about the pink jeep since they'd climbed into it, Penelope didn't question his grumbling. Charlie Smith made a surly companion when his mind was focused on something. She'd given up asking him anything after the first few minutes in his company.

A goat ambled from beneath the house but no other sign of life appeared. She would have liked to ask if Charlie was lost and looking for directions or if this had been their destination all along, but she merely stayed seated and enjoyed the respite from their breakneck pace. Her companion looked slightly miffed that she didn't respond, but he shrugged his massive shoulders and sauntered toward the cottage. Maybe if she gave him the silent treatment long enough, he'd put her out at the airport.

As he approached the cottage, a large mocha-colored woman filled the doorway, her flowered cotton dress swirling around her legs, barely missing a rooster that darted from behind her. “Charlie?” she called, in a voice entirely too high for a woman her size. “Charlie!” she squealed as her visitor ran up the path.

“Monica! You haven't changed a bit.”

Penelope watched in mild astonishment as her football player of a companion nearly disappeared into the woman's embrace. They hugged and pounded on each other as if long-lost pals. A whispered inquiry apparently reminded Charlie that he wasn't alone, and he briefly gestured in the jeep's direction. Penelope couldn't hear his explanation, but the woman grinned broadly and waved. Politely, she waved back, but she didn't budge from the jeep. She wasn't moving until she reached the airport. She'd given up on the idea of Anse Chastenet. Maybe her employers would understand if she told them of the murder.

Maybe not. Oh, well. She still wasn't getting out.

She sat stonily with arms crossed as Charlie and Monica held a hurried discussion in patois. The woman looked angry and frightened as Charlie talked. Anger apparently won out. She gesticulated and replied furiously, scaring the goat into the jungle and the rooster into hiding under the porch. More than once she pointed up the mountain, until Penelope feared she was telling Charlie they had to travel even farther up the treacherous road. She would climb out and hike back to civilization, if that was the case.

Finally, after another round of hugs, Charlie waved farewell and loped back toward the jeep. Penelope didn't want anything to do with the deceitful bastard, but she couldn't help noticing the worried frown between his thick eyebrows. If she were the imaginative type, she'd think she read real anxiety in the tightening of his unshaven jaw as he started the jeep again. But she wasn't imaginative. She wasn't even curious. She would simply sit here until he put her out.

He threw her a quick look as he shifted the jeep into reverse and swung it around to head back down the mountain.

“I always thought women talked too much. Can I count on the silent treatment lasting much longer?”

She hadn't thought he'd even noticed. “Far be it from me to intrude upon your weighty conversation with yourself. Just consider me part of the hardware.”

He snorted and turned his attention back to the road. “The hardware I know about has a useful function. Other than looking good, what's yours?”

He couldn't have found a better means of slapping her. All her life she'd worked toward being something more functional than a pretty face on a magazine cover. She scorned men who wanted to use her as a trophy piece on their arms. She shoved her brains and knowledge into every conceivable corner of her life until people expected her to have all the answers. And now this muscle-bound punk was comparing her to a hood ornament.

“I don't pack picnic lunches and flirt with the natives, if that's your meaning,” she replied stiffly.

“All right, you don't cook and you don't sew. So what else can you do? You can talk, can't you? Or must we discuss the theory of relativity before you unbend?”

Penelope cast him a curious glance but she couldn't tell anything from his square jaw. “You
want
me to ask questions?” she asked incredulously.

“Yeah. I'm used to women chattering. Makes me nervous when they shut up.”

“It makes you nervous when they shut up,” she repeated flatly. “We're running from a murderer, driving like maniacs on roads that could collapse if a bird lands on them, and my silence makes you nervous. Forgive me if I don't laugh.”

“Look, I didn't mean to drag you into this, all right? I thought I'd just get in and out with nobody the wiser. I haven't been back here in ten years. Nobody should have recognized me. There's something going on here that I can't explain. But I have to find Raul. You wouldn't leave your sister if she were in trouble, would you?”

“I
have
left my sister and she's in trouble,” Penelope asserted. “That's why I have to get back as soon as possible. That's why this job is so blamed important to me. And you've gone and ruined everything. What makes your plans more important than mine?” Because she couldn't hold out any longer, she added, “And who the devil is Raul?”

He shoved his hand through windblown hair and gave her a suspicious look. Apparently losing some internal argument, he explained. “I own a construction business and Raul's my foreman. He's disappeared with the project funds. Maybe he just got drunk and wandered off, but I have to
know
.”

He didn't explain further but threw her an anxious glance. “I'll do what I can to make it up to you once I find Raul. But if either of us gets killed, we can't help anybody. So let's just do what we can to keep each other alive until we get back to civilization. Why does your sister need an operation?”

“She was in a car accident that caused nerve damage in her face. She's developing painful blood clots and her vision is deteriorating. She needs an experimental operation her insurance won't pay for. Our parents went through a messy divorce and what assets they have left are tied up. So it's up to me to come up with the money.”

She didn't know why she'd rattled on like that. If she had some odd notion that he would take pity on her and let her go home, she was out of luck. The information about his foreman explained more than she wanted to know about his desperation, and she sensed he hadn't told her the half of it.