Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes) (13 page)

Or was he just pulling my chain? Bored, and enjoying the fun of rattling me, just for the sport of it?

I swear I couldn’t tell, but my blood pressure threatened to explode my head. I stumbled to my feet, my system quivering like I’d been hit by a taser.
Darcy. Lovers’ cottage
. Was he making a date, or seeing if he could spook the American with the frou-frou job? No matter, I had no choice about what happened next. Our present security was ephemeral at best. Cuzco and Lima were faint lights at the end of a long black tunnel. I had a job to finish that had nothing to do with playing games with an amnesiac—and possibly dirty, rotten, lying—Brit.

I checked my .22, checked my knife. Made sure the windows were locked, the door bolted. I retired to the bathroom and put on my ugly sweat-suit trail jammies and climbed into bed.

Darcy didn’t bother to go into the bathroom to strip. Didn’t bother to turn out the light. Ostentatiously, I turned my back . . . but just before he climbed into bed, I peeked. He was down to his well-filled very-tighty whities. I gulped and ducked, pulling the covers over my head.

A chuckle. The light went out.

If we died before morning, we’d never know . . .

“
Bon soir, chère amie
,” came drifting across the all-too short space between our beds.

The literal translation—“Goodnight, dear friend”—was acceptable. The problem was, I knew
chère amie
was the euphemism British gentlemen used for their mistresses in the bad old days of the nineteenth century. And I was pretty damn sure Darcy knew it too.

I wasn’t going to sleep a wink. Which, again, was probably just as well. Maybe that’s why Darcy did it. Just to make sure I stayed awake, keeping watch.

Not really. The man was a tease. In that subtle Brit humor sort of way. If I lost him . . . let assassins take him out, I wasn’t sure I would ever recover. And it wasn’t just the inexplicable attraction that zinged and zapped between me and the beat-up Brit like a swarm of lightning bugs in perpetual motion. It was the Protect and Serve gene that governed my father and brothers. And surfaced with a vengeance in me as I’d held Darcy’s bleeding head in my lap on that hillside at Phuyupatamarca. During the past year or so I’d begun to suspect there was something more out there, waiting for me. Beckoning. Now that I was in it up to my neck, I was more excited than frightened. I welcomed the challenge. I was ready.

Oh, really? Maybe I was suffering a delayed reaction from the
coca
tea Puma served with breakfast each morning on the trail? Megalomania worthy of a self-delusioned dictator? Let’s face it, I was a wedding and tour fixer from Golden Beach, Florida, not some Jane Bond wannabe.

A snore.

Darcy was asleep, and here I was with my puny .22, my teeny weeny knife, and wavering delusions of grandeur.

It was going to be a long night.

He opened his eyes to foggy mountain daylight pushing around the edges of the window draperies . . . and the world rushed back. He squeezed his eyes shut while it rolled over him, swamped his brain, thundered through every aching muscle, sent lightning shooting out the gash in his head.
Bloody hell!
He gritted his teeth and hung on while his stomach roiled and guilt swallowed him up. He was up to his neck in effing shit, and he’d involved a civilian—a
civilian
—who hadn’t a clue.

Correction. The jumble in his brain was beginning to settle . . . show signs of clarity. By some incredible coincidence, he’d fallen on his feet. Right where he wanted to be. With a much tighter “in” with his mark than all their planning had promised.

Someone was trying to kill him. Nothing new about that, though he hadn’t expected it here, so far out of his territory. Awkward, but at the moment it seemed to be working in his favor. The trouble was . . .

His mind was clearing fast, snapping back to its customary cynical mode. Laine Halliday was nobody’s dummy. She was never going to believe his story.

If their positions were reversed, he wouldn’t believe his story either.

“
Up, sleepyhead! I can tell you’re awake. Breakfast will be arriving any moment now.”

“
Go away.” Darcy kept an arm over his eyes, as if blocking out the sunlight. Or maybe reality.

“
Come on, Darcy. I ordered for eight-thirty. It’s one minute ’til.”

Without so much as a glance in my direction, he threw off the covers and headed for the john. Odd. The Darcy I’d known for all of thirty hours would have looked at me, maybe managed a lopsided grin. At the least, a friendly grunt. But what did I know about his early morning habits? Yesterday, he’d waked just in time to crawl to Urqu’s unconscious body, grab his machete, and scare off an assassin. How could I possibly know how Darcy customarily began his day? After all, it wasn’t as if I were the bounce-out-of-bed, Miss-Merry-Sunshine type myself.

Conversation over breakfast was nil. I tried, but the man who’d looked me over the day before with frank appreciation, sparked by flashes of humor, was gone. I told him I had reserved tickets on the VistaDome. He nodded and poured himself more coffee.

Last night I’d flirted with a vision of a night at the Monasterio, a stolen night before we had to go back to the reality of the coastal plain and end our strange idyll on the steps of the British Embassy. This morning, I knew it was never going to happen.

The bitter ache in my gut was really, really stupid, because I didn’t do one-night stands. Particularly not with men with no name . . .

Oh, shit!
“You’ve remembered, haven’t you?” I hissed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He looked up, the steel gray eyes so cool and remote I wanted to throw something at him. “I believe the proper expression is that I need to get my head together. I fear it’s rather a mess.”

“
And . . .?”

“
And you see before you a carefully laid plan that was shot to hell somewhere up on that blasted mountain. And, no, I don’t remember all the details. I do remember taking the train, the VistaDome, to Machu Picchu. I remember climbing up to the trail, with all the hikers giving me the eye because I was heading in the opposite direction than the customary traffic. I remember by-passing the hostel, just as we did yesterday, and climbing toward Phuyu-whatever-the-hell-the-name-is. And after that, nothing but a blank until I was lying, face down, in grass behind a stone wall that might have been Roman and wondering who I was, where I was, and how I’d got there.”

Carefully laid plan?
No way was he going to throw that over my head without a challenge.

Darcy scooped up the last of his bacon and eggs and sat there, chewing and studying his plate as if he hoped seconds would miraculously appear.

“
Darcy—whoever you are—you know damn well there’s more.”

“
Right.” He set his fork onto his plate with his left hand in proper European mode. “That’s need-to-know, Laine, and—”

“
And I don’t need to know. Which is bull, because whatever’s going on, I’m in it as deep as you are!”

Darcy sighed and knuckled his lower lip, his cool professionalism marred by what I suspected was guilt. “Look, Laine, this trip was supposed to be the next best thing to a vacation. Nothing violent was supposed to happen. Yes, I’m in a business where I tend to stir things up from time to time, but not like this. This is madness, and it was never supposed to touch you.”

“
You say that like . . . like you knew I’d be here.”

Darcy groaned, threw his napkin on the table, and stood up, stalking over to look out at the meticulous landscaping outside. “Laine, I promise I’ll explain, but now just doesn’t feel like the right time—

“
Get down!” he snapped, flattening himself against the wall. I hit the floor. “Two men,” Darcy added in a whisper. “Police or bad guys, can’t tell which.”

In spite of the tension of the moment, it was comforting to know that Darcy considered police and bad guys as opposite extremes. My hand was already in my pants’ pocket, gripping the solidity of the .22.

That knock, the firm echoing one that doesn’t sound at all like Housekeeping, reverberated from the door.

Chapter Eight

It had to be the police. After the privacy pleas I’d made to the desk clerk when we checked in, only the police would have been given our cottage number.

I hoped.

The door thundered again. Summoning the serene expression I turned on clients in moments when Fantascapes’ well-laid plans were going to hell in a handbasket, I opened the door. The shorter of the two men, wearing a military-style khaki uniform, was poised for another try at the door. Even under his bronze Quechua skin, I could see his flush as I turned an inquiring gaze on his upraised fist.

The older, taller man beside him, wearing a well-cut suit, held up a badge. “Lieutenant Manko,” he said in English. “And Sergeant Sayani. May we come in?”

I waved them to the room’s only chairs at the small dining table, then seated myself on the end of one of the beds. Darcy took the other rumpled bed. I like to think of myself as a sophisticated modern woman, but at that moment I was infinitely grateful it was obvious both beds had been used last night, not just one. I mean, how would you feel if you’d spent the night with a strange man and the police invaded your hotel room at nine-thirty a.m.?

“
You were in an accident yesterday, I believe,” the lieutenant said, his mild but perceptive gaze encompassing us both. “The driver is most upset. We pride ourselves on keeping our visitors safe.”

Banal words, but I sensed Lieutenant Manko was no hick cop. He was, after all, the law in an area catering to wave after wave of international travelers from backpackers to corporate execs. Magnets for thieves and fraud and goodness-knows-what.

The fortyish lieutenant was a nice mix of ancestry, with a narrow Spanish face punctuated by black Quechua eyes. He had the broad Andean chest, yet the sharp sculptured cheekbones of a Spanish grandee. And, I was very much afraid, the best of the brains of both.

“
Perhaps you should see a doctor?” he suggested.

I managed a rueful smile. “Admittedly, we’re not at our best, Lieutenant, but we’re well enough to return to Cuzco on today’s VistaDome, then go on to Lima tomorrow. For me, this was a working holiday, and I need to return to the States.”

“
And you, señor?” Lt. Manko said, turning to Darcy. “I understand you have no papers.”

Darcy touched a hand to the bump on his head. “A problem on the trail, Lieutenant. A thief. I woke up without a single
sol
or scrap of identification—”

“
And you did not report this?”

“
We apologize, Lieutenant,” I interjected hastily. “I guess we both just wanted to get back to Lima as fast as possible. The thief was long gone, with little likelihood of catching—”

“
I would have preferred to be the judge of that.”

“
Uh–yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“
May I see your hands, Mr. Renshaw?”

Darcy thrust out his hands. I held my breath while he displayed both sides of the skinned and battered hands of a man who’s been in a brawl. Lieutenant Manko nodded. “It would appear you gave as good as you got.”

Was this where I should mention that Darcy’s attacker came back? Or should I let it ride? Perhaps the less said the better.

“
Your plans, Mr. Renshaw?”

Sergeant Sayani, I noted, was listening with the intense concentration of someone whose English was far from fluent.

“
Miss Halliday has kindly offered to support my journey to the British Embassy in Lima,” Darcy replied easily, “where I presume I will be able to replace my passport and re-organize my finances.”

“
So you are a British citizen, Mr. Renshaw?”

Darcy flashed the smile, the charming one I hadn’t seen since last night. “Yes, Lieutenant, I am.” It had the ring of truth. I presumed that was among the things Darcy had remembered.

“
You encountered this thief at Phuyupatamarca, I believe?”

I hadn’t mentioned the location to the desk clerk. An icy wind seemed to whip through the room, chilling my spine.

“
I have no idea,” Darcy said, looking perfectly bland. “I’m afraid I’m shockingly inept with the local names.”

“
We found him unconscious there,” I said, “but how did you know? Did Puma Khuyana report it?”

Lieutenant Manko’s dark eyes were even more inscrutable than Darcy’s. “No, Miss Halliday, but we were informed Mr. Renshaw was injured
before
the taxi accident, and this morning, when we learned of a dead body below the ruins at Phuyupatamarca, it seemed appropriate I should speak with you both.”

Oh, shit!

Darcy leaned forward—intent, focused, the interrogator now, not the victim. “The man on the mountain—how did he die?”

“
His neck was broken. Possibly from a fall . . . possibly not.” Lt. Manko never took his eyes off Darcy’s face.

“
And you think I killed him.”