Paradise Burning (2 page)

“
Nothing’s going to bring Kira
back!”

Eleanor sighed. “No, it won’t, but you’ll be
helping fight the scourge that killed her.”

“
Nothing’s going to do that either,”
Mandy shot back, her temper building. “It’s a lost
cause!”

Eleanor bowed her head, seemingly intent on
the nail polish that matched her lipstick. “I have to admit that
the dribs and drabs we’ve been able to accomplish haven’t made much
of a dent. I hoped getting the list of routes . . . no matter, I
agree with Jeff it’s time to take another tack.” Eleanor paused. If
Mandy hadn’t known it was impossible, she’d almost think her mother
looked uneasy in her well-upholstered executive chair.

“
There’s an author in Florida writing a
book on trafficking,” Eleanor continued. “He’s done some remarkable
research on his own, but feels he’s reached the point where he
needs a research assistant.” Mandy’s mother took a deep breath,
plunged on, blatantly pseudo-bright. “A two- or three-month job.
Just think, Mandy, a season in paradise. People pay thousands of
dollars a month to be in Florida in the winter. You’ll actually get
paid to be there.”

Florida
. When
Mandy was nine, she’d begged to go to Disneyworld. Eleanor had
looked at her as if she’d asked to go to a monster truck
rally.

Mandy had never been to Florida.

“
He put in a request about five weeks
ago,” Eleanor was saying. “I didn’t mention it because we were
planning Kira’s mission and I knew you’d never leave her on her
own. Also . . . well, there were complications.” Mandy’s mother
trailed to halt, as if her prompter had suddenly gone
blank.

What on earth did some author in Florida want
with Amanda Armitage? In the land of sunshine, sand, beach, boats,
golf, and senior citizens, an analytical specialist—let’s face it,
a computer nerd—would be as out of place as an evening gown at a
backyard barbecue. Maybe Pensacola? MacDill? Some DEA facility
farther south? Stubbornly, Mandy kept her mouth shut. And
waited.

“
He’s a New York Times best-selling
author, and he’s just built a new house along some jungle river not
far from the Gulf Coast. But this is his first try at non-fiction,
and he wants to get it right. And, of course, the subject matter is
close to our hearts—”

Best-selling author. New
house. Trafficking. Research assistant requested from
AKA
.

Mandy leaned back in her chair, staring at
her mother through eyes that had turned to laser beams. “You didn’t
. . . you couldn’t . . . What did you tell him?” she demanded, her
voice rising from a whisper to an outraged bark.

“
Mandy, we realize this is not
something we can order you to do, but Jeff and I, we think it’s for
the best. That it’s worth a try.”

Hoo-rah
. Seeing
Eleanor squirm was almost worth the shock.

“
So you and Dad are just going to
re-arrange my life. Planning on changing the corporate name, are
you? Matchmakers, Inc., perhaps?”

“
There’s no need for sarcasm, Amanda.
We’re merely trying to do what’s right. If you weren’t considering
the possibility, you’d already be slamming the door in my
face.”

Damn! And wasn’t that the truth?

“
He asked for you,” Eleanor said, more
gently. “Not just any of our researchers, only you. I delayed, told
him we were in the midst of a project. Yesterday I called to see if
the offer was still on the table. It is. More than that—he was
eager.” Eleanor’s voice softened to something almost resembling
mother mode. “Is it so awful, Mandy, the idea of working for Peter,
seeing if there’s still something there?”

Mandy glared. “I’m an only child and you want
grandchildren.”

“
We want you to be happy.” The sight of
Eleanor gritting her teeth to hang on to her customary cool was an
added bonus. Almost enough to compensate for Mandy’s
horror.

“
Sure.” Mandy flung her hand into the
air like a magician showing off his latest illusion. “Go to
Florida, Mandy. Research for Peter. What’s a five-year separation?
A mere bagatelle. Go on. Run, run, run. The great Peter Pennington
snaps his fingers and there goes Mandy, panting,
groveling
at the great man’s
feet.”

“
Amanda!”

“
Is there any other interpretation?”
Mandy demanded. “Well, is there?”

The silence sizzled with animosity, pain.
Unspoken thoughts. “I beg your pardon,” Eleanor murmured. “I’d
hoped . . . we’d hoped . . . Peter hoped . . . It seemed like a
good idea. Obviously, we were wrong.”

A new house. Along a jungle river. Sun . . .
warmth. A long, long way from February in Massachusetts. A long,
long way from AKA and the often grim duties that went with it.

After putting on her most long-suffering
look, Mandy muttered, “I’ll give it a try.”

He was a damn fool, Peter Pennington growled
to himself. Just the thought of Mandy’s arrival scared the hell out
of him. Yet, figuratively speaking, he’d gotten down on his knees
and begged. To Eleanor, the icicle, who might have had a maternal
impulse somewhere back in the Stone Age, but he doubted it.

He’d wanted to go direct to Jeff, man to man,
but Mandy was the heart and soul of Jeff’s operations. It was
Mandy’s loyalty to her father and his far-flung band of agents that
had split them up. So Peter had devised a plan, a thinly disguised
maneuver to get Mandy to Florida.

And hit a wall as strong as the ribbons
of stone framing New England’s fields. Until now. Until Eleanor had
actually called
him
.

Jesus
. Mandy
was on her way, smack in the midst of the seasonal southbound crush
on I-95. Not to worry, of course. Anybody who could drive in Boston
could handle traffic anywhere.

But he did worry. His sheltered Mandy Mouse
might as well be a cloistered nun. Hell, he used to wonder if they
let her up from her keyboard long enough to pee. And he doubted
things had changed. Eleanor agonized over slave labor, yet just
what the hell did she think she and Jeff were doing to Mandy? Just
because they paid her well and surrounded her with luxury didn’t
mean Mandy wasn’t a captive.

Loyalty
. That
was the trap. As far as he was concerned, five years ago loyalty
became a dirty word.

So what had changed? What had broken the
barrier and let his Mandy Mouse out of her gilded cage?

Did it matter? Mandy was on her way. To
the house he’d built in an aerie of live oaks, pines, and palms,
with a dock along a river right out of
Apocalypse Now
. A house where wild creatures ran
across his roof at night.

Peter had longed for the solitude of his
private bit of Florida, perfect for a writer, but he’d never
planned to live alone in this vast expanse of space with nothing
but Florida critters to keep him company. Every time he looked at
the jungle river from the third floor cupola he used as a studio,
every time he looked a twittering bird in the eye, every time he
cooked a solitary meal in his shining white kitchen, he thought of
Mandy.

He had the perfect house in the perfect
setting—the culmination of writing efforts that had begun while he
was still working for AKA. And now he needed a mate to share it.
For some ridiculous reason—a tendency toward masochism?—only Mandy
Mouse would do.

Not that he hadn’t tried alternatives—five
years is a damn long time—but for some mysterious reason Mandy
Armitage was the only woman he could see in his elaborate tree
house set in a primeval Florida few tourists ever got to see.

Mandy. In his house. Where she belonged. If
she thought she was ever going back . . .

Well, too damn bad.

Better see if his cleaning service could give
him a few extra hours.

Hands on hips, Mandy stood in the
doorway and scowled at the luxurious suite she’d been forced to
accept just south of Brunswick, Georgia.
Shit!
Not that she was a cheapskate, but a
hundred and forty dollars for eight-hours sleep was
ridiculous.

If she got out more often . . . Mandy
supposed Eleanor was right. She should have known she couldn’t just
pop off I-95 at the height of the winter season and expect to find
a room.

What an innocent she was. On a few
occasions—for very special clients with unlimited assets—AKA let
her out of her cage. Amanda Armitage, Systems Consultant.
Airplanes, helicopters, limos, armed escorts—all ready and waiting
to ease her way. All arranged by AKA.

Vacationing by herself on Cape Cod or
in the mountains of New Hampshire, despite the boredom, had some
exhilarating moments of freedom. But once again, AKA made all the
arrangements. Driving to Florida, however, was a lesson in
humility.
Surprise!
The world
of AKA did not come to an end because Mandy wasn’t at her keyboard.
The traffic on I-95 didn’t give a damn who she was. She was lucky
to get a bed, even at one-forty a pop.

She was no longer the linchpin of AKA. She
was Peter Pennington’s Mandy Mouse. The wimp who sat at a computer
while others took the risks. The foolish girl who had dug in her
heels and clung to AKA as if it were the only safe place on earth .
. .

Mandy stalked into the suite’s bedroom, slung
her overnight bag onto one of the two queensize beds, and turned to
find herself reflected in a bank of mirrors filling the wall above
an oversize dresser. Face crumpling, she sat abruptly on the end of
the bed.

Double shit
.
Could she look any worse? Lank brown hair scraped into a pony tail
that probably hadn’t looked neat since five minutes after she
popped on the scrunchie this morning somewhere in Virginia. Not a
drop of make-up. Like there was some rule that female computer
nerds didn’t even own lipstick. Nose too small, mouth too big.
Cheekbones . . . not bad. Eyes . . . gold-flecked green that would
look a hell of lot better enhanced by eye shadow and mascara.
Figure? Tallish, slim, with boobs that had never blossomed no
matter how many hot tears she’d shed in teenage agony.

And then there were the frayed jeans
and ancient KISS T-shirt from Goodwill. The leather jacket,
however—Mandy stroked its soft black sheen—now
that
came from Neiman-Marcus, one of few
fashionable items in her current wardrobe.

But even back in the days when she’d made an
effort, she hadn’t exactly been a fashion plate. No wonder Peter
had called her Mandy Mouse.

How much of her clothing choice was flat-out
rebellion? she wondered. How much simply giving up? After all, what
did it matter?—her computer didn’t care what she wore. And her
colleagues most definitely didn’t want a mini-Eleanor in their
midst. So she’d fitted herself to AKA’s control room, by personal
choice and by calculated design.

But now . . .

Now she was going to be working
for—working
with
—Peter. No way
was she going to show up looking as jarringly out of place as she
did in this elegant suite of rooms designed for the ease and
comfort of successful business types. It wasn’t as if she didn’t
know about make-up. She’d sneaked in beauty makeovers at Saks
nearly every time she made it into Boston. Amazing what those
cosmetic specialists could do. And she got a kick out of their
crows of triumph when they’d worked their magic and transformed
such unpromising material into something surprisingly close to a
runway model.

Oh, yeah. Mandy knew her makeup. And as for
clothes . . . She reached for her overnight bag, drew out the two
catalogs she had brought from home. Last night, at her motel in
Virginia, she’d studied the pages, carefully marking numbers on the
front covers. Tonight . . . tonight she’d winnow her list and take
the plunge. Money was not a problem. Eleanor and Jeff believed in
paying their employees commensurate with their skill, and Mandy was
very skilled indeed.

She’d have supper, then come back to her room
and let the fun begin. The cream of the catalog fashion world was
about to descend on General Delivery, Golden Beach, Florida.

Or . . . or was that too obvious?

Pride was a hell of a motivator—she couldn’t
let Peter see how she’d gone to seed. Yet to Peter . . . all those
fine new clothes might look like she was trying too hard. Chasing
him.

But he didn’t know she’d gone completely
scruffy. He expected her to look at least half-civilized. And with
dewy youth no longer on her side, she needed costly props to
bolster her still-shaken ego.

Peter should never have left her.

Half-truths, deliberate self-delusion, could
be so comforting.

Speaking of self-delusion . . . Mandy raised
her head, once again staring at the disheveled washout in the
mirror. Just where was she expected to live while she worked for
Peter? Everything was arranged, Eleanor had assured her. But
there’d been a strange gleam in her usually cool gray eyes. And the
only instructions Mandy had were directions to Peter’s new
house.

Grandchildren. That could have accounted for
Eleanor’s look.

Mandy groaned, plunged her head into her
hands. If they—Eleanor, Jeff, and/or Peter—actually thought she was
going to move into Peter’s house . . .

Okay. So right after her visit to a beauty
salon, she was looking for a rental agency.

Golden Beach, here I come.