Flawless Danger (The Spencer & Sione Series Book 1) Page 13

  “Kwik Kash is just a front for the laundry Ben and Richard run together,” Maxine said. “It’s like their family business.”

  “Ben and Richard are related?”

  “Not by blood. But Ben is like a son to Richard. And Richard is the father Ben never had. Anyway, during the investigation, some special agents approached Olivia,” Maxine said. “And she agreed to testify against Richard and Ben. She didn’t want to rat, but the Feds really didn’t give her a choice. Anyway, Richard found out about the deal Olivia made with the cops and he killed her. Then he set the Kwik Kash on fire—with Olivia’s dead body inside.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “The Feds found out what happened to Olivia,” Maxine said. “So then they approached me, Karen, and Carla because we know all the dirty little secrets about Kwik Kash. They offered us a deal. Immunity in exchange for our testimony against Ben and Richard.”

  “But, y’all didn’t take the deal,” Spencer guessed.

  “After the Feds came to us,” Maxine said. “Richard had a talk with us. And he told us, point blank, you rat, you die. So, me, Karen, and Carla assured Richard that we were not about to snitch on him. Well, a few days later, we have a talk with Ben, and he tells us that Richard doesn’t trust us. Ben says Richard wants us dead because Richard thinks the Feds will force us to testify like they forced Olivia. Then Ben tells us he’s going to make sure Richard doesn’t kill us.”

  “And you believed him?” Spencer asked.

  “The thing was, Ben was beyond pissed at Richard for killing Olivia,” Maxine said. “Ben and Olivia had kind of a thing. They were on-again, off-again. Ben and Richard had a bad argument about Olivia, and they kind of fell out about it. Richard is all about loyalty and obedience. He expected Ben to go along with the decision to kill Olivia because the way Richard saw it, he was doing what was best for Ben. Richard saw killing Olivia as making sure that Ben stayed out of jail. So when Ben got pissed about Olivia’s death, Richard wasn’t just mad, he was hurt and disappointed.”

  “So you believe Ben will help you because he’s mad about what Richard did to Olivia?”

  “Ben is being defiant by helping us,” Maxine said. “He’s trying to let Richard know that he won’t be controlled or ordered around. It’s father and son bullshit. But Ben’s act of disobedience is going to keep us alive. The money and the new passports will help us get away from Richard. Help us start a new life.”

  Moments later, after Maxine left the dressing room, Spencer sank down on the bench, disquieted and a bit terrified. She didn’t know what to think. Maxine’s story was a crazy, twisted tale of death and defiance.

  Her own crazy, twisted experiences with Ben had convinced her not to trust him. Maxine was a fool for thinking the passport and the money wouldn’t come with strings attached. But to hear Karen and Maxine tell it, Richard was worse than Ben. Both Maxine and Karen had referred to him as a devil. Still, Spencer couldn’t help but thinking the women had been forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.

  But who was really the lesser evil? Ben? Or Richard?

  chapter 31

  San Pedro, Belize

  Butterfly Boutique

  After fifteen minutes, Spencer was fighting frustration. Still confused and disturbed by what Maxine had told her, and needing a distraction, she’d decided to try on the sarong she brought into the dressing room. With the story of betrayal, revenge, and death consuming her thoughts, she couldn’t concentrate.

  The last side venture was done, and Spencer should have been able to relax, but she felt increasingly angry and afraid that Ben had gotten her involved in the middle of his beef with a guy that both the blonde tomboy and Maxine had called a devil.

  Pissed, Spencer yanked the swath of cotton-candy-colored fabric over her head, tossed it on the floor, and plopped down on the cushioned seat across from the full-length mirror in the dressing room.

  “Hello,” Spencer called out, massaging the spot between her eyes. “Hello. Is there anyone who can help me?”

  The privacy curtain was drawn back.

  “I’m having a little trouble.” Spencer bent over to grab the sarong from the cool, hardwood floor. “I can’t—”

  “Ms. Edwards.”

  Spencer froze, still bent at the waist, staring at the floor, trying to ignore the prickly heat rising up her neck and the sound of Sione’s voice, which gave her a warm shiver.

  “You need help with something?”

  “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  Standing, struggling to cover herself with the sarong, Spencer took a step back as Sione walked into the dressing room, filling it with his size and strength, crowding her, and a sudden attack of claustrophobia battled with a warm sensation starting deep below her navel and snaking southward toward the center of her thighs.

  “Where is the sales lady?”

  “I think she’s helping another customer,” he said.

  “Another customer,” Spencer mumbled, still trying to cover herself with the swatch of pink fabric. “That figures.”

  “You need a different size or something?”

  “I don’t know how to tie this thing.” Spencer shook her head. “I’ve tried and tried.”

  “Let me help you,” Sione said.

  “No, no,” She said, confused, her mind churning, wondering if she should scream or maybe just let him help her with the sarong. “You don’t have to do that, just … I think you should leave.”

  Smiling, Sione grabbed the sarong from her.

  A strange sound erupted from her, something between a squeal and a shriek, as she stood there in her lace bra and matching panties.

  “It’s actually very easy.” He moved behind her.

  Spencer’s heart thundered. “What are you—”

  “Hold up your arms,” he instructed, the low timbre of his voice reverberating along the surface of her skin, making her flesh tingle.

  Flabbergasted by his blatant audacity, she shook her head. “What?! No, I am not—”

  Sione maneuvered Spencer’s arms and then wrapped the sarong around her. Shell-shocked, she stood stiff as a board as he worked with the sarong, twisting the ends, bringing them up and behind her neck, and tying them together.

  “Okay, there you go.” He turned her toward the mirror.

  “Hmm,” Spencer mumbled, turning to the side, admiring his handiwork, vaguely wondering how he did it and how he knew how to do it.

  “You really know how to put one of these things on.”

  “I know how to take one off, too.” He looked at her through the mirror, his gaze dropping to her breasts.

  Clearing her throat, Spencer turned from the mirror. “I just don’t know about this color. The pale pink might not work.”

  “Any color will look good on you,” Sione said, his eyes dropping lower. “You have beautiful skin.”

  Deciding to ignore his compliment, Spencer crossed her arms. “You can leave now.”

  “You need help taking that off?” he asked, slyness in his seemingly concerned tone.

  She took a step back, looking up at him. “I’m perfectly capable of taking it off by myself, thank you.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Spencer caught him looking at her, holding her with that hypnotic, hazel stare, and immediately, her body betrayed her. His gaze was irrevocably salacious, as if he wanted to rip the sarong off her and screw her against the wall. Or maybe that was what she was thinking. Nevertheless, it wasn’t going to happen. And, anyway, sex while “dating” was against protocol.

  “We’re thieves,” Rae had once told her. “Not whores.”

  The rule was, when “dating,” there could never be any real intimacy, only the suggestive illusion of it.

  But she wasn’t going to “date” the resort owner, she reminded herself. There would be no GHB or theft of property to be subsequently fenced. Ben had promised she wouldn’t have to break any laws.

  “Well, I do mind,” she said, disappointed by t
he direction her thoughts. “So, can you please get the hell out of here?”

  After another cryptic smile, Sione said, “Actually, I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  He stepped back a bit, looking down at her. “There’s a woman who just came into the store, and I don’t want to see her. Well, I really don’t want her to see me, either.”

  “A woman you don’t want to see just came into the store?” She frowned. “What are you talking about? Why don’t you want to see her? Who is she?”

  He sighed again and seemed embarrassed. “She’s a woman I went out with last month, and it didn’t work out, and I’m not in the mood for an awkward encounter, and she’s a little high-strung.”

  “Oh, now I get it.” Spencer smiled at him, feeling sassy and mischievous. “You had sex with this woman, and then you slipped away before the sun came up, and you never called her again, and you’re afraid she’s gonna go psycho bitch if she sees you.”

  “Not exactly.” He frowned. “I didn’t slip away before the sun came up, but I did tell her I would call her, and I didn’t.”

  “You really think she’s gonna pull a fatal attraction because you didn’t call her?” Spencer rolled her eyes. “Mr. Tuiali’i, believe it or not, but girls are used to boys not calling when they lie and say they’re gonna call.”

  “I didn’t mean to lie to her,” he insisted. “I meant to tell her I didn’t think it would work out between us.”

  “But you didn’t have the balls to be honest with her,” Spencer said, enjoying the look on his handsome face, a combination of shock and indignation. “And since you’re still afraid to face her, that tells me you have yet to grow a pair.”

  He scowled at her. “You’re not helping.”

  “Was I supposed to be?”

  “Look, I’ll tell you what she looks like and what she’s wearing,” he said. “You can go out there, and tell me if she’s gone. If she’s not, then let me know when she leaves the store.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’d have to trust that I was telling the truth if I told you the woman was gone, and who knows if you can trust me?” She gave him another smile. “What if I tricked you? What if I told you the woman was gone, when she really wasn’t?”

  “You would do that?”

  “Who knows?” She shrugged. “Which is why you can’t take a chance on me.”

  He stepped closer to her again, smiling a little. “You don’t think I should take a chance on you?”

  His gaze wasn’t as salacious as it had been moments ago, but it was still suggestive enough to disorient her, make her feel off-kilter, as though the control she’d thought she had was slipping away.

  Clearing her throat, she said, “Just tell the girl she must have you mistaken for someone else.”

  “What?”

  “I think you should go back out there,” Spencer said. “And if she comes up to you, talking about how you didn’t call her, just say, ‘I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else.’”

  “That’s not gonna work,” he told her. “She’s not going to confuse me with someone else.”

  “I’m telling you what to do,” Spencer said. “You say, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but, my name is Freddy.’”

  He frowned. “Freddy?”

  “Isn’t that your Belize name or something?” She tried to remember. “You told me that Sione means something in another language.”

  “I told you that Sione means ‘John’ in Tongan.”

  “John.” She nodded. “That’s right, you did say that. Okay, then say, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but my name is John.’”

  “I don’t want to lie.”

  “She would rather you lie to her than tell the truth,” Spencer said. “You think she really wants to hear that you didn’t call her back because you thought she was fugly and you couldn’t see yourself screwing her again, by any stretch of anybody’s imagination, under any circumstance, even to re-populate the earth following some nuclear catastrophe that only the two of you survived?”

  “What the hell?” He shook his head. “That’s not what I thought.”

  “The point is, people don’t really want the truth,” she said. “They can’t handle it.”

  “That might be true,” he conceded. “But I still don’t want to lie.”

  “Then I’ll lie for you, John.”

  “What?”

  “Let me get dressed, and we’ll go out to the sales floor,” Spencer said. “I’ll make a point to call you John, very emphatically, within earshot of this woman. Hopefully, she’ll think you’re not the guy she thought. But if she does approach you, then I’ll tell her your name is John, okay?”

  Staring down at her, Sione seemed unconvinced of her plan, and as she looked up into his hazel eyes, she wondered if he thought she was a treacherous bitch who used lies to solve her problems.

  “Well?” she prompted, trying to forget the disturbing thoughts.

  Finally, he nodded. “Okay, fine.”

  “Okay,” Spencer said. “John.”

  Minutes later, Spencer and Sione stood in the middle of the store, which was completely empty, except for two sales associates.

  Spencer glanced around the store at the lack of customers milling about the sales racks. “Where is the woman you didn’t want to see, John?”

  Sione cleared his throat, and it seemed he was trying to pretend he wasn’t embarrassed. “I guess she must have left.”

  “You know what, John,” Spencer said. “I don’t think she was ever in the store.”

  “You think I made that story up?”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “Maybe you did, John.”

  Smiling back, he asked, “And why would I have done that?”

  Spencer didn’t say anything, just gave him a sly smile. But she thought he was definitely interested, and now there was no more uncertainty, she was no longer unsure. She would be able to get close to him. But not too close, of course. Although, she didn’t think she would mind getting a little too close to him.

  chapter 32

  San Ignacio, Belize

  Belizean Banyan Resort - Honeymoon Casita

  Ms. Edwards kicked her shoes off and plopped down on the couch, staring up at him. “Your uncle left you his entire fortune?”

  Sione poured another splash of Blue Label into a shot glass and handed it to her.

  After their trip to Ambergris Caye, they’d returned to the resort, and he’d walked Ms. Edwards to her casita. Even after spending most of the day with her—when he should have been working—he didn’t want to go back to the lonely owner’s casita, where he’d have a myriad of reports waiting to keep him company. He hadn’t been ready for his time with her to end, and when she suggested he come in, he didn’t hesitate to follow her inside.

  “What is this anyway?” She accepted the shot glass. “Did I already ask?”

  “Blue Label.”

  “Nice.” She nodded, taking a sniff of the aged malt scotch. “Where’d you get it?”

  “We keep it stocked in the bar for our newly married couples.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Anyway, my uncle didn’t leave me everything,” he said. “Just this property.”

  “Lucky you.” She gazed at him with narrowed eyes, holding her empty shot glass toward him, and as he gave her a refill, he frowned a bit.

  Was there a hint of larceny in her sultry stare? Or was it lust? Or, maybe the Blue Label?

  Lucky you.

  Sione wasn’t sure if he was bothered by her comment, wasn’t sure if he should read anything into it. He didn’t want to think Ms. Edwards was giving him subtle provocative poses and smoldering glances because she was interested in the real estate he’d inherited from his uncle.

  If she was drunk, then he wanted her to be intoxicated by the aged scotch, not the idea of scamming landholdings from him. Not that he believed she wanted to steal his property
. According to his cousin, Ms. Edwards was most likely involved in white-collar shenanigans.

  “Nice that your uncle cared so much about you,” she said and then tossed back the scotch.

  Sione wondered about her tone. He didn’t think it was jealousy, more like a wishful longing. Maybe she didn’t have anyone who cared about her? He didn’t know and didn’t think he could conclude anything. He didn’t know enough about her situation, and he was probably half-drunk himself.

  “It’s just difficult.” He put the Blue Label on the coffee table and then sat on the couch next to her, not too close but not too far away.

  She looked at him, turning her body at an angle toward him, distracting him a little.

  “You’re thankful.” He went on, staring at the empty shot glass. “But I have all the property I have because he’s gone, and I appreciate it, I know it’s a blessing, but ...”

  “You would rather have your uncle,” she said. “I know what you mean.”

  He glanced at her and saw the lost, forlorn look in her brown eyes. “You lost someone close to you?”

  Nodding, Ms. Edwards said, “My mother.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I was seven.” She put the shot glass on the coffee table and then leaned back against the couch cushions.

  “That must have been tough.”

  “Brutal.” She sighed. “You know, when you’re young, you don’t understand why bad things happen. Part of me blamed her and even hated her for leaving me.”

  “Death is hard when you’re a kid.”

  Ms. Edwards turned her head toward him, a strange look on her face, her mouth parted slightly, like maybe she wanted to say something, but didn’t know how. Nodding, she looked away.

  “So, you were raised by your dad?” Sione asked.

  “No, thank goodness,” she said, shaking her head. “My dad can barely take care of himself. I would have ended up in foster care if my father had tried to raise me.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said.

  “So, I’m guessing your dad isn’t in the running for Father of the Year, either?”