the bed.
He moved more quickly. The next room was occupied, as well, but it seemed that whoever was staying there was keeping the space impersonal.
As he glanced around, though, he saw movement. The sheer drapes over the doors that led out to the balcony were shifting. He hurried over and discovered a sturdy wooden trellis that could easily be reached by climbing over the balustrade.
And someone—a woman—was running across the side lawn, on the other side of the trees that lined the pool. She was headed toward the back of the property. Luke had studied the plans and knew the wall went all the way around, unbroken except for a second gate that could be opened for easy beach access.
The gate shouldn’t be open tonight, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t open it. And he didn’t see any guards there.
He was certain now that the racing figure was Rene Gonzalez, alerted by the fact that her thick dark hair trailed behind her in the wind as she ran.
Would she make it to the beach? Or would she find herself trapped? And was she running from him? Had she heard he was looking for her, or was she fleeing whoever had engineered the disappearance of Colleen Rod ri guez?
He quickly crawled over the railing and started down the trellis.
Then he heard someone clear their throat and looked up.
Chloe Marin was standing at the railing, staring at him with sharp suspicion.
“I’d heard you were looking for the bathroom, Mr. Smith. You really don’t have to climb down from the balcony and make use of the beach as a ‘loo,’ as you call it—I’m assuming that’s the story you’re going to give me?” she asked sweetly.
Rene Gonzalez was slipping away.
“Nothing like the great outdoors,” he said, then swiftly climbed down a few feet, praying the trellis would hold, jumped to the ground and took off in pursuit of Rene Gonzalez.
TWO
Damn the man.
She wasn’t dressed to go swinging from balconies and leaping to the ground.
But the man who called himself Jack Smith had been beyond suspicious even before he’d climbed down from the balcony and followed Rene toward the beach—a feat that put her in a position where she longed to call in the police. But at the moment, what would be the point? He had an invitation to be here, though he’d certainly been a rude guest, looking into bedrooms, not to mention leaping off a balcony. Still, Victoria had told her that two years ago Bjorn Bradikoff, famed for his jeweled sandals, had streaked down the beach in nothing but a pair of his trademark sandals, proving their elegance, whether matched with cocktail finery, casual attire or nothing at all.
Compared to that, exiting via balcony wouldn’t even begin to get a man arrested.
Swearing, she tossed off her borrowed designer heels and swung a leg over the balcony railing, carefully maneuvering herself to the trellis. She crawled down the latticework, amazed that none of the slender slats had broken. Just as she thanked her lucky stars, she grasped at a piece of wood that split in her hands, and tumbled down the last six feet, landing hard in a patch of mixed dirt and sand, but avoiding the sharp-toothed needles of the bougainvillea that grew in a riot of color around the house.
Swearing more vociferously, she got to her feet, dusted herself off and followed in the direction the other two had taken.
As she tore around the trees, she felt a twinge of guilt; her uncle would be furious with her for going in unprepared pursuit of a man who might be dangerous, might even be armed.
But she didn’t think so. At least, she was pretty sure he wasn’t armed, though he might well be dangerous. Certainly in her observations of the agency, he was the first truly suspicious character she had seen. Then again, it could be hard to tell sometimes. Eccentricities could hide all kinds of stains on the human soul, and it was often difficult to tell the truth from illusion.
The man had an educated, British accent. Or was it feigned? Probably not. It was slight, as if he’d been away from his homeland for many years.
The back gates were open. There was one guard on duty, but he was flirting with someone Chloe didn’t know, a slim young woman with long blazing red hair. She was wearing a strapless tube gown and doing it very well. If Chloe was right in her assumption that the other woman wasn’t on the guest list, then apparently the guard wasn’t above allowing uninvited guests into the party, at least if they met his own personal requirements.
She herself was now covered in dirt, sand and bits of bracken, and her hair was undoubtedly in a wild tangle. She should ask the guard if he’d seen anyone exit, but she doubted he had seen anyone but the flirty redhead.
She tore out to the beach. Neither the guard nor the redhead spared her a glance. So much for security.
She ran south down the beach, following a trail of footsteps in the sand that led from the mansion. She wasn’t afraid; she could see late-night wanderers as she ran. Remodeled deco hotels, which had once been cheap housing for down-on-their-luck locals, now gleamed proudly in the night, lit in bright colors that drew the eye. The gentle sound of the surf made a pleasant background, and the breeze was almost dainty, carrying in a cooling note from the water.
How far could they have made it so quickly?
Chloe stopped running. They could have gone anywhere. Their footprints had gotten mingled with all those left over from the day.
She caught her breath as she looked around. They could have gone in a half-dozen different directions. Not only were their footprints impossible to distinguish anymore, she had passed at least five hotels, restaurants and clubs as she ran, and the pair could have ducked into any one of them. Not to mention that a block ahead, the hotels and restaurants shifted, and were all on the other side of the street, providing another range of possible hiding places.
What if this man had something to do with Colleen Rodriguez’s disappearance? Was Rene in danger now, too?
She closed her eyes, fighting a wave of panic.
Every once in a while, hitting so briefly that no one else even noticed, it came. That sensation of absolute terror. A memory of the colors of death that had bathed the world in red and black that night ten years ago.
This had nothing to do with the past, she told herself. Nothing at all.
She fought the panic, and as quickly as it had come, it was gone. Fighting back had become her way of coping on a day-to-day basis with what had happened a decade before. Her uncle had told her that she could curl up and hide for the rest of her life, or she could learn to live again.
She had chosen to live. And she had taken classes in every form of defensive—and even offensive—fighting that she could. She had also become a crack shot.
She could even string a crossbow.
But all the training in the world couldn’t help if you couldn’t find the person you were trying to protect.
It was time to go back. To admit defeat. To live to fight another day.
Except that this was what she was fighting for. To discover the truth about
