day trip down to the Bahamas or something.” She paused, missing her son more than she would have thought possible after only a few hours apart. “Let me talk to him one more time. I want to say good night.”
“Just a minute. I’ll get him.”
“Thanks. And, Mom?”
“Yes?”
Nikki swallowed against emotions that threatened to clog her throat. “I really appreciate you keeping him while I’m gone. Thank you.”
The voice on the phone softened. “It’s my pleasure to watch my grandson.” A low chuckle. “Of course, I’m going to be worn out by the time you get back. It’s been a long time since I’ve had charge of a two-year-old for a whole week.”
A clatter sounded as her mother set the phone down. Nikki heard the music of Joshua’s favorite DVD through the receiver, a cartoon about a race car. She didn’t allow him to watch it before bedtime because it got him too worked up, but apparently the rules at Grandma’s house were lax. Nikki closed her eyes, picturing him in his pj’s, hair still damp from his bath, sprawled on the floor, his brown eyes fixed on the television set.
A soft sound interrupted her thoughts. An oddly familiar sound, but out of place. She jerked her eyes open. Her gaze zeroed in on a thick bush with lush, tropical blooms that bordered the private area surrounding her patio. Its branches rustled, though not even the hint of a breeze stirred the leaves on the orange tree in front of it. The hair along her arms prickled. Was someone there?
Nikki leaped out of the chair. Muscles tense, she strained to see beyond the patio light, into the shadowy darkness. Everything was still. With an effort, she forced herself to relax. She was imagining things. Or maybe it was a cat. There were plenty of those around. No need to be alarmed.
Still, she kept her eyes fixed on the bush as she stepped inside the condo and closed the glass door.
A beloved voice piped in her ear. “Mama, Speed Racer go vvvrrrroooooommmmm!”
The strange movement forgotten, a swell of love brought a smile to her face. “He did? Tell me about it.”
She settled herself on a plush couch cushion and focused on her son’s enthusiastic retelling of the story they’d watched together a gazillion times.
But her gaze strayed repeatedly to the patio and the deep shadows beyond the orange tree.
Ben steered his bicycle through the front entrance of the Pelican Resort. He’d passed this place lots of times in the five months since he moved to Key West, but he’d never been inside. Lush foliage lined a narrow footpath beneath tall palms and mature trees with Spanish moss dripping from every branch. A half dozen two-story buildings lay scattered around the property in no discernable pattern. The randomness gave the place a casual, relaxed feel, perfect for island vacationers.
Ben hopped off the bike and walked it along the path, squinting in the dim light of decorative lanterns to read the letters mounted on the front of each building. According to the records at the dive shop, the gift certificate had been delivered to unit C-1. After a moment’s search, he found building C tucked into a quiet corner at the back of the property. Eight condos in each building, four upstairs and four down. Number one would probably be on the ground floor. A light shone in the window of a corner unit and another in one of the units upstairs.
He left the bicycle on the pavement and stepped off the path beneath the thick, low-hanging branches of a tree. Long strands of lacy moss deepened his cover. He leaned against the trunk where he had a good vantage point of the corner of the building and the illuminated downstairs window.
With hands that trembled, he pulled the note out of his pocket and clutched it with a fist. Just the feel of the paper sent shivers sliding up his spine. It had been shoved under his apartment door for him to find when he got home from work. The words were proof that his first thoughts this afternoon had been right. Nikki showing up at the pier today had not been a coincidence.
Seeing her had given him the shock of his life. It was too much to believe that a woman from his past—his Mexican past—chose Key West for a vacation, and then within hours of arriving, just happened to show up at the shop where he worked. There were a dozen dive shops on the island. Why pick his? Nikki had seemed as surprised to see him as he was to see her. And she hadn’t looked all that pleased, either. Was she in league with the Reynosa cartel? He would never believe that. Was she an unwitting pawn, then? The unsettling questions had plagued him all evening.
And then he found the note.
He raked a hand through his hair, the uncomfortable lump in the pit of his stomach becoming heavier by the minute. This was the most alarming in a recent series of disturbing incidents. A couple of months ago, he came home to find his apartment had been gone through. Nothing stolen, and nothing obviously out of place, so he’d had no reason to contact the police. But the moment he walked through the door, he’d spied evidence that someone had been there. A kitchen chair slightly skewed. The mattress on his bed almost imperceptibly cockeyed on the frame. The aspirin bottle on a different shelf of the medicine chest.
Then a week later, his car was broken into. He almost never drove the thing—nobody on the island did—so he didn’t even realize it until one of his neighbors pointed out the busted window. That time he did call the cops, because he needed the police report for the insurance company. Nothing had come of it, though. Nothing had been taken from inside the car. The investigating officer told him it was probably teenagers, drunk or high and looking for something to hock.
After Cozumel, Ben wasn’t so sure.
Now he had proof that his paranoia was founded on fact.
He snatched a handful of Spanish moss and crushed it with his fist. But what could he do about it? He didn’t like living with this jumpy, paranoid feeling, searching every stranger’s face, wondering if they were on Reynosa’s payroll, but he couldn’t risk going to the police. He’d end up as gator bait, face down in a swamp somewhere. No, it was better to mind his own business until they figured out he was no threat and left him alone.
He slid the folded paper between his fingers. That had been the plan for the past few months, anyway. The note changed everything. Upped the ante to a price he couldn’t afford to pay.
A movement caught his eye, a dark place in the shadows at the side of Building C. He stiffened, his attention pricked to high alert. Was that shadowy form a person? He stared at the spot, straining his eyes to differentiate between shades of black and blacker in the foliage. Nothing moved.
His tense muscles started to relax, but in the next instant, he jerked upright. The bushes rustled, and this time he glimpsed the figure of a man. Just for a second, and then the person was gone, moving quickly away from Building C. He looked as though he’d just come from around the back of that first condo, the one with the light in the window. Thoughts whirled in Ben’s brain. Why would someone sneak through the bushes instead of walking out in the open? Kids on vacation, maybe, playing hide-and-seek? No, the figure had been too tall to be a child. A maintenance man, maybe?
At nine o’clock at night? No way.
Ben’s mouth went dry. Nikki was in that building, probably in that very condo on the end. Ben couldn’t believe her presence in Key West was a coincidence any more than he believed the man slinking away from her building was just taking a nighttime stroll through the bushes. So either the man had been visiting Nikki openly, or he’d been there for a more sinister reason.
His
