Navy SEAL Seduction (11 page)

She grabbed Jarrett’s beer and took a swig. “Don’t let me stop you,” she said with a sweet smile. “You were talking about suffering from the world’s worst hangover at twenty thousand feet. I’m sure that earned you a double face palm from your CO. And all the guys you spewed upon on the way down. Boys will be boys.”

Jarrett grinned as Gene looked flustered. Oh yeah, Lace had nailed him to the wall. She knew what it was like, being an ex-military wife.

He liked this kind of familiarity, Lace sitting next to him, her warm thigh pressed against his, her taking his beer as if they were still married. Old habits.

He fetched another beer for Lacey and went to take his. Their fingers brushed and their eyes met. Desire glimmered in hers and his body tightened.

Lacey looked at Sam and Gene. “Where are you staying?”

When Sam told her, she looked horrified. “Isn’t my father paying you enough? That place is a dump.”

Gene gave a lopsided smile. “He is, but the accommodations in town are, ah, limited.”

Her gaze flicked to Jarrett. “I have a guesthouse. Five bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen and dining area. You can stay there, no charge. It’s no luxury hotel, but it’s much more comfortable than that flea trap.”

Sam glanced at Gene. They nodded. “Thank you,” Gene told her. “We’ll check out tomorrow and move in, if that’s okay with you.”

They began a discussion of the various rum drinks on the island, and then Lacey started talking about the best rum she’d ever tasted at a little seaside bar “where the rum erased the taste of the fried conch that had the consistency of a rubber tire.”

And then Lacey put a hand on his bare arm. It was casual, like a friend would when telling a story, but it ratcheted up his internal engine all over again.

He leaned forward to ask a question when a scream sounded. High-pitched and filled with terror, it made the hair on his nape salute the air.

Jarrett sprang to his feet, knocking over his beer. “Sam, stay here with Fleur and Lacey,” he ordered. “Gene, come with me.”

Jarrett raced upstairs and retrieved his sidearm. After flipping on the exterior lights, he went outside, his weapon in hand, Gene following him, his sidearm drawn, as well.

The humid night air wrapped around him like a blanket. The sounds of cicadas in the trees interspersed with a woman’s sobs and the excited chatter of several people.

Rose stood outside, wringing her hands. “Oh, sweet Jesus, the poor lady,” she cried.

Jarrett took her aside. “What is it?”

But the woman would not say, only continued to sob. Men from the compound and security guards Lacey had hired to patrol the compound stood around talking in high voices.

“Jarrett, the tree.” Gene pointed and Jarrett’s stomach roiled as he stared.

Suspended from the thick branch of a mango tree by a rope around her feet, the woman hung upside down near the western wall of the compound.

Yellow shirt with lace edging the collar, though now it was stained crimson. Black linen trousers. Her toenails were painted neon green. One white satin ribbon tied around her hair waved gently in the breeze.

Her eyes stared open in frozen shock and horror.

The description fit Caroline Beaufort. Dead, with a large hole in her pretty yellow shirt.

Her heart had been ripped out of her chest.

On the wall near her body were words painted in red, crude letters.

American lady go home or you will end up like this.

CHAPTER 10

C
old sweat broke out on Lacey’s skin as she stared at her former employee hanging from the tree. She’d left Sam watching over Fleur as she’d raced outside to see what caused the hysterical screams.

And now, seeing for herself, hearing Rose’s anguished sobs, the excited, stunned chatter of the men, she felt all the blood drain from her. Lacey’s breath hitched as Jarrett came over to her.

“Oh God, oh God!” Lacey felt the dizziness push at the edges of her vision. The poor girl...

“Breathe.” Jarrett holstered his sidearm and gently pushed her head down, increasing the blood flow to her brain. “Your pulse is too rapid and you could be headed into shock. Stay like that a minute, Lace. I’ve got you.”

“I have to call the police,” she said, closing her eyes and bracing her hands on her knees as Jarrett held her shoulders. “But not yet.”

Get a grip, get a grip, you can be strong. Oh God, the poor girl!

“Fleur,” she managed to say, standing straight, willing herself to gather her lost composure. “I can’t let her see this. I have to get her out of here before we call the cops, Jarrett. She’s terrified of the police. They took her away when her mother was killed and put her in an orphanage and she didn’t speak for two months. But I don’t know where to send her!”

She couldn’t think, much less focus.

“What about her friend Sally’s house? She can have a sleepover.”

Fleur had never spent a night away from her since she came to live with Lacey, but it sounded like the only solution. “I can’t go with her. The police will want to question me.”

“Send Gene. He’s her bodyguard now. And he’ll make sure she’s taken care of, sweetheart. He won’t let anything happen to her.”

As Sam joined them, Lacey fished out her cell phone, her hands shaking badly. Jarrett took the phone from her, scrolled through her contacts.

“I met Sally’s mom this afternoon. Let me make the arrangements. You go sit down for a minute. Sam, get Lace a cold cola. She’s in shock and needs the sugar.”

Jarrett, quiet, in control and capable.

Fifteen minutes later, Fleur’s overnight bag packed, Lacey held her daughter, shielding her face from the terrible sight on the compound wall. She kissed her cheek as she bundled her into Gene’s SUV. Gene put her overnight case into the back and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Lacey buckled her daughter’s seat belt with a steadier hand. Fleur stared at her with big, solemn eyes and then at Jarrett, who stood next to her.

“Why am I spending the night at Sally’s house, Mommy?” Fleur’s mouth trembled. “Are you sending me away?”

Lacey’s stomach tightened. “Never, sweetie. I promise. You’re my little girl now. But Mr. Gene is going to take you to Sally’s because there’s some grown-up things going on that I have to handle here.”

“I can hear the people talking. They’re saying a lady got hurt real bad. She’s dead.”

Lacey closed her eyes a minute, wishing she had a wand to wave away all the bad things that her child had to witness. “Yes, sweetie. And I’m going to be dealing with the local police. The police will want to find who did this terrible thing. I want you to go to Sally’s and not think about any of this. Gene will keep you safe. And if you need anything or get worried, call me on the cell phone.”

Fleur looked past her at Jarrett. “Will you take care of my mommy, Jarrett? She needs someone to take care of her. The police can be scary. They might take her away like they took me away when my first mommy died.”

Jarrett kissed her daughter’s cheek. “I will, kiddo. Your mom is staying here with me and she isn’t going anywhere. She’ll be right here, waiting for you, when you return. You go with Gene, enjoy your time with Sally. Her mom is making hot chocolate for you both, and Sally has her LEGOs all set up for you to make a house.”

Fleur nodded. “I love you, Mommy.”

Lacey hugged her tight. “I love you, too, sweetie.”

Then she stepped back, shut the door and watched as Gene drove her daughter out of the compound. The tightness in her chest became a stretched rubber band, until she wanted to scream.

“Make the call,” she said dully. “Tell them what Rose found. And tell them to notify the coroner.”

* * *

Four hours later the police arrested Jean, the man she’d hired to work on the compound.

She had led the police to the gardening shed and they found the buckets of red paint and two wet brushes. Circumstantial evidence, except for one small fact. The shed’s walls were bone dry and the brushes wet, along with smears of red paint on his clothing. They found him drinking a bottle of rum in the room she’d kicked him out of earlier that day. He was drunk, but still coherent.

And then he broke down and confessed. Not to the police, but when Jarrett looked him in the eye, rage simmering in his expression as he flexed his powerful fists, Jean caved in.

He admitted to painting the threats. But he swore he did not know who killed poor Caroline. And he went into hysterics, claiming he’d painted the wall before the body hung there.

Jean told the police he’d owed money to a creditor, who told him how to erase the debt. A harmless prank to scare the rich American lady living in the complex. No one would be hurt. He had practiced painting the writing and then painted the threats. He admitted to painting the gate, as well, and hanging the dead chicken. Harmless pranks, he called them.

But he claimed he did not kill Caroline Beaufort. Jean kept crying and protesting he would never hurt anyone.

Innocent pranks. And now a woman was dead.

They took him into custody. And as they led him in handcuffs to the police car, Jean looked straight at Lacey and screamed he was innocent.

She didn’t care anymore. All the fight had drained out of her.

Soon as the police left, Lacey collapsed onto the sofa. The cops had questioned everyone on the compound and took photographs. The coroner had discreetly carried away Caroline’s dead body in the hearse. A woman had died, perhaps not in her compound, but now her charity would have the pall of the murder hovering over it. A young woman, killed in the prime of her life. And for what?

The police promised to investigate, but she knew how the system worked in this tiny island nation. And other than Jean as a suspect, they had nothing much to go on but rumors. The mysterious Mr. Big Shot, whom locals claimed had charmed Caroline, was a phantom. No one knew where he lived or what he did; indeed, no one even knew if the man existed, for he’d never shown his face in town.

He could have been a myth and Caroline could have been killed by someone else, for cutting out hearts to use in black magic hoodoo rituals was a practice started by a former president of the island, one cop had informed Lacey. President Gerard “Petit Homme” Fournier was a cruel dictator who made his enemies disappear and cut out their hearts, using them for black magic ceremonies to weave terror through the populace and those who opposed his regime. Fortunately, Petit Homme had been overthrown more than three decades ago, but the practice still lingered in the country.

She wondered if she should have moved to the city. It seemed safer there, even with the protests and burning tires and random gunfire.

She had worked hard to provide a good living for those under her care, and now her compound had become a crime scene. The man she’d hired because he needed a job had betrayed her. All for money.

What if Fleur had seen the body? Would she regress back into the same fugue state she’d been in when Lacey rescued her from the orphanage? Lacey wrapped her arms around herself.

The front door opened and closed. Jarrett came into the living room, his hair tousled, his expression grim. He sat beside her. Saying nothing, he pulled her into his arms.

It felt so good to have him hold her, push back the darkness surrounding her thoughts. He was steady as a rock, an anchor in a turbulent sea. Fisting her hands in his shirt, she buried her face against his rock-hard shoulder.

“The women in the compound are locking their doors for the first time since they moved into their new homes,” she mumbled against him. “They’re terrified and I don’t blame them. Everything I’ve worked for is crumbling to pieces, Jarrett. But that doesn’t matter as much as one thing...that poor girl’s death.”

Sitting up, she took a deep breath and looked into his solemn face. “When I think about Fleur seeing what happened, and what it could have done to her...and how she could have regressed back to being a terrified little girl sitting next to her mother’s body...I think about packing everything and giving up. Turn my back on everything and let the grass take over this damn compound. Turn it back into the abandoned farm it once was. Let them win, whoever is doing this.”

He pushed a lock of hair gently from her face. “You’re a fighter and you can’t quit now.”

Lacey sat up straighter, stunned. “You’re the one who wanted me to leave.”

“I still do. I want you the hell out of here, and Fleur, for your own safety. Find someone else to take charge and run operations. But I don’t want you to shut this place down. I saw the faces of those women you’re helping. You have done so much already to help them find their own place in the world. They need this NGO. They need what you have accomplished here.”

His grip around her tightened. “And I’ll be damned if I let them win. We’ll find out who is trying to drive you away.”

“How? The police think Jean did it.”

“Do you?”

Jean couldn’t have done that. She’d seen the fear in his eyes when he looked at the dead girl. And though he did have a problem with gambling, and was desperate, she instinctively knew the man wasn’t capable of that kind of evil.

“No. The real killer is connected to whoever wants me gone. This is bigger than locals resenting me because I’m a wealthy American who is empowering women. There’s some other reason they want me out of here. But I don’t know who or why.”

She had never felt this sense of helpless anger and hopelessness. Not after she’d lost the baby and their marriage broke up, not even when she’d spent days trying to track down Fleur, going from orphanage to orphanage after the police had removed her from the crime scene. Somehow she’d always managed to pick up the pieces, forge ahead and keep a determined sense of purpose.

Not now. Her purpose had been sabotaged.

Jarrett glanced at the china clock on the living room table. “It’s barely past 2300. Why don’t you call Helen and see how Fleur is doing? It will make you feel better.”

Lacey removed her cell phone from her jeans pocket. She started to dial then stopped. “This afternoon, after you’d told me about Jean, I spent a little time in the gardening shed. I wanted to check out the red paint and see if it was the paint someone had donated.”

She flipped through the photos on her phone and showed him the labels on the paint buckets. “And it wasn’t. The donated paint was from an overseas company. This paint had labels from a local store. Damn it! I wanted to tell the police and forgot.”

Jarrett went still. “Where did it come from?”

“Either Jean bought it or someone smuggled it into the shed. I want to check out the store tomorrow. Maybe the clerk will remember who bought it or have a record. I’m glad I have these photos because the cops took the paint as evidence.”

“Good. We’ll go first thing in the morning.”

“We?”

“You’re not going alone,” he said quietly.

His determination came as a relief. “All right.”

Lacey went outside and called Helen, who told her Fleur was in bed, sleeping in Sally’s room. The girls had played a game of LEGOs with Gene, who slept in the guest bedroom near theirs. He wasn’t leaving Fleur’s side.

When she hung up, she felt grateful for friends like Gene. Her father might be paying him for this assignment, but the man had gone above and beyond duty.

When she returned to the living room, Jarrett was cleaning a weapon. Her heart thudded against her chest.

“That’s a machine gun,” she said, sitting next to him.

“Submachine gun. Ace brought it over earlier.” He set the gun down on the cocktail table. It lay there like a gleaming, lethal black snake, waiting to strike. “I needed reinforcements other than my service pistol. Don’t worry. I won’t let this baby anywhere near Fleur and I keep my weapons bag locked. But I’ll be damned if anyone tries to hurt anyone in this household.”

She tried to smile but failed. “I wish you had been around when Caroline was here. Maybe you could have convinced her to work harder so I didn’t have to fire her. And then she...”

Words failed her. Lacey wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to erase the terrible image of the dead woman.

“Hey,” he said gently. Jarrett pulled her against his chest and began stroking her hair. “It’s going to be okay, Lace. You did your best for her. You couldn’t force her to stay here. It was her choice.”

It felt so good to be held, to know he was there. She’d remained strong for a long time, but seeing Caroline’s body had unglued her. For once she wished she didn’t have so many people relying upon her and could run away.

Jarrett pulled away and studied her. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get some shut-eye? I’ll be there shortly.”

Lacey trudged up the stairs and into her bedroom. She couldn’t sleep. Maybe a shower would help. But the warm water failed to erase the image of Caroline. Lacey dried off and pulled on a soft cotton sleep shirt and curled into her bed. A tide of cool air drifted through the open windows, along with a chorus of cicadas in the nearby trees.

Heavy footsteps alerted her to Jarrett’s presence. She sat up in bed, hugging her knees as the silhouette of his big body filled the frame of her doorway.

“You okay, Lace?” His voice was deep and concerned.

“No.” She swallowed hard, knowing the consequences of her next words. “I don’t want to be alone. Stay with me.”

Maybe this was a bad idea because she didn’t want to reunite with Jarrett. He’d broken her heart once before. But he had never mistreated her, and his strong protective streak proved a balm to her weary spirit right now. Jarrett was one of the good guys—honorable and noble, who would never beat a woman or kill her, listening to her screams of pain and fear...