Dani was dead and he’d had a hand in the killing. There was no other way. He knew that, but still she was gone. He felt like the light had gone out of the world.
Chapter Twenty
“ Hey, how’s it going?” Broxton said. “I called your room. When you didn’t answer I thought I’d come out here and check.” Maria was finishing dinner at a table by the pool. Two of the other three chairs were full of shopping bags and there were more under the table. He pulled out the empty chair and sat down.
“ I’m getting by. I got on with Iberia. I start in a week.” Her smile was genuine. She looked happy. “How’s the protection business?”
“ Finished,” he said. “They got the bad guys, so they no longer need my services.”
“ Where does that leave you?”
“ They’ve offered me a field assignment. Here. I’ll be working out of the embassy for a year. Then I suppose they’ll rotate me.”
“ So you’re a field agent now?”
“ Looks like it.”
“ How do you feel about that?”
“ It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“ Then I’m glad for you.”
“ Enough about me. What did you do, buy out the city?”
“ No, it’s all fabric. I’m a seamstress in my spare time. I make quilts.”
“ So much,” he said, looking at the bags.
“ Port of Spain must be the fabric capitol of the world. I’ve never seen so many fabric shops. I couldn’t help myself. Give a girl a credit card and you know what happens.”
He laughed as he subconsciously took the ring out of his pocket and started playing with it.
“ There’s that ring again,” she said.
“ I guess I’ve given up on her,” he said.
“ Really?”
“ Yeah,” he said. Dani was dead, but there was no way he could tell her that. He turned toward the pool.
“ You’re not?” she said.
“ I am,” he said, and with a flick of the wrist he sent the engagement ring spiraling and sparkling toward the deep end of the pool.
“ That was very foolish,” she said.
“ Better to have loved and lost.”
“ But you haven’t lost yet,” she said.
“ Ramsingh has a mantra he repeats to himself when the going gets tough. ‘Never give up. Never quit,’ but the battle has to be winnable.”
“ What do you mean?”
“ Dani and I were best friends growing up. She was one of the guys. She was the one I could tell everything to, but I think that’s all we were ever meant to be, best friends. Even that’s over now.”
“ Never lovers?” Maria said.
“ We never were,” Broxton said.
“ Really? I thought-”
“ Can you think of a better way to ruin a perfectly good friendship?”
“ I think maybe it can make a friendship even stronger. Something that can last forever. What could be better than your lover being your best friend? I think that would be very nice.”
“ I suppose, if you found the right woman. Dani obviously wasn’t the right one for me.”
“ Can you help me carry these up to my room?” she asked.
“ Sure,” he said.
“ Then let’s go,” she said, pushing herself from the table. She stood, brushed her hair back with her fingers, then picked up several of the bags. He picked up the rest and followed her toward the lobby and the elevators.
At her room she slipped the plastic card key into the door. She reached out to open it when the green light on the lock told them it was okay to enter, but the door jerked open before her hand touched the knob.
“ Bring the bags inside and set them down, then walk to the bed and put your ass on the mattress, Mr. Broxton. You too, Maria.” The voice commanded obedience, and the gun in his right hand backed it up.
“ You?” Broxton said.
“ Me,” Earl said. “Surprised?”
“ Very,” Broxton said.
“ You know each other?” Maria said.
“ He’s the man that tried to kill Prime Minister Ramsingh in Venezuela,” Broxton said.
“ He’s also my husband,” Maria said.
“ Curious,” Broxton said.
“ And that’s the way you’re going to stay,” Earl said. Broxton tensed his legs and gauged the distance between them, two quick steps, but Earl seemed to be daring him to try it and Broxton knew he’d be dead before he closed half the gap.
“ Sit,” Earl said. “Only you, Broxton. Maria, get a glass of water out of the bathroom.”
“ Get it yourself.”
“ Come on, baby, we both know I can be difficult if I get upset, so don’t get me angry and make me do something I’ll be sorry for.” He was talking softly, but he was a man on the edge and any second he was going over.
“ Do as he says, Maria,” Broxton said, sitting.
“ You don’t scare me anymore, Earl.”
“ Baby, if you don’t hustle your buns into that bathroom, I’m going to put a bullet into lover boy’s stomach, then we’ll see how much I can scare you.”
She went into the bathroom and got the water. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“ Put your ass next to his,” he said, as he fished a bottle of pills out of his shirt pocket. “These won’t kill you, but they’ll put you right out.” He tossed the bottle toward them and Broxton snatched it out of the air with a quick left handed catch. “Four for you, Mr. Broxton. Two for my wife.”
“ How do we know they’re not poison?” Maria said.
“ You don’t, baby, but it’s the pills or a bullet.”
“ What are they?” Broxton asked.
“ How should I know? She gave ’em to me and told me if you got in the way to drug you up till it was over. She wants you alive, remember?”
“ She tried to sink us,” Broxton said.
“ That was then, this is now.”
“ How’d you get away?”
“ You were so busy turning tail and leaving us to die that you didn’t notice when she lowered the dinghy into the water. We grabbed her get-away-bag and sailed into this nice little bay. Three hours later we were on a plane for Port of Spain. We probably beat you back.”
“ She’s well known in Trinidad, by now Ramsingh knows she’s back. He’s probably got every cop in the country looking for her.”
“ Think again, you’d never believe the shit she had in that bag. She’s a master of disguises, you’re old girlfriend. I thought I was flying back to Trinidad with my mother. She sailed through customs, a little old lady from Boston, coming down to Trinidad to visit her son who works for one of the oil companies. She even had the accent down.”
“ I don’t believe it.”
