She put a fluttering hand to her chest, surreptitiously tugging the ridiculous peasant top down a bit to accentuate her breasts. Men were stupid to begin with, but breasts seemed to render them witless. “You frightened me,” she said in a breathy voice, her shy smile hiding the instinctive curl of her lip. “I didn’t know anyone was around.”
“I realize that,” he said, and with someone else it might have almost sounded cynical. Not this man, though. “I’m Remy Vartain, at your service. Ryder put me in charge of you once I arrived back. You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?”
“I have no idea, señor,” she said, wondering if she was laying it on a bit too th
ick.
But no, his smile just broadened. “Call me Remy,” he said. “So Ryder’s run away with the lawyer, has he? That’s no surprise.”
“But why would he? They hate each other,” Soledad said, honestly perplexed. Ms. Parker couldn’t mention the man without fuming, and from what little she’d seen the feelings were mutual.
“Sure they do,” Remy drawled. “Just how young are you, sugar?”
“Twenty.”
“That’s what I would have guessed,” he murmured. “Except you have old eyes.”
And Remy Vartain was more observant than she had thought. “That’s because I’ve seen many, many bad things in my life,” she said with great dignity.
“I’m sure you have. In the meantime, why don’t you get your sweet self back to bed before you see anything else that you shouldn’t?”
She arranged her face in worried lines. “There is something here I shouldn’t see?”
“There are always things young girls shouldn’t see. Just go back to bed and I promise I won’t let the bad guys get you.”
He wouldn’t notice the grim edge to her smile. “I find it hard to trust these days.”
“You can trust me. I make it a habit to keep innocent young girls safe from harm.”
She lowered her eyes sweetly. “Thank you, Señor Vartain.”
“Just Remy.”
“Thank you, Remy,” she said. He was a fool to trust anyone he’d just met, a fool to think she’d trust him. She’d cut his throat before she left this place, and she’d make sure he saw her after she did it.
Everyone needed to be taught a lesson on occasion.
Jenny awoke in darkness, sleepy, disoriented, and for a moment she didn’t want to move. The bed was a soft cushion beneath her and she was wrapped in a cocoon of safety. She was someone who liked a rock-hard mattress and the lightest of covers, no matter how high the air-conditioning was set, but right now all she wanted to do was snuggle down closer into the blankets as unwanted memories hit her.
She’d let a criminal escape. Billy had been so remorseful for the hideous trade he’d been involved in, and she’d covered for him, saved him.
But Ryder would have killed him. She had no doubt of that—Billy had had a gun and he’d never been one to back down from a dare. If she hadn’t lied they might all three be dead in a hail of bullets.
Instead they were alive, all three of them, with Matthew Ryder viewing her with the deep distrust she deserved. He was intense and tenacious—sooner or later he was going to find Billy’s connection to that freighter filled with women and children, and then, for all she knew, he might shoot her for lying to him.
If Billy stayed away long enough, stayed out of trouble, then he had a fighting chance. He was only twenty-two, for God’s sake. It had to be the first time he’d gotten involved in something so foul that not even her father would touch it. He must have learned his lesson. Please, God, let him have learned his lesson.
Her only contact with him had been that brief conversation when he’d begged her for his cell phone, and she’d felt like a cranky bitch for refusing him. If worse came to worst, if he slipped and got back into something as heinous as human trafficking, she could always use it as leverage to force him to quit, though whether he’d believe she’d actually turn him in was a moot point.
She hadn’t bothered talking to the rest of her family. Her father wouldn’t want to know what she’d done, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing she’d helped a criminal, albeit an unwitting one, escape. It was none of their business, only hers.
She was paying for her own crimes already. She believed in karma, not in hell, and payback was a bitch. Her house. Gone, everything was gone—the pictures of her mother, her books, the few pieces of jewelry her mother had left her. The Limoges dinner set, the Tiffany pitcher . . .
She had to stop thinking about it, or it would make her crazy. She remembered more—being shaken awake time after time, only to grumble and fall back asleep again. It must have been Doc Gentry. That’s where she was—she remembered now. In Dr. Gentry’s shack by the water, but she had no idea what slow-moving river ran along the side of the place. It was too small for the Mississippi, and a bayou was more stagnant. Ryder must have gone back to the city and left her in Doc’s capable hands.
She snuggled down further. Now that her eyes were accustomed to the darkness, she could make out a faint sliver of light behind the door and the muted sound of music from a computer or a CD player. Hell, in this place it might even be a record player. Dr. Gentry was pretty old school. Jenny recognized the music—it would be no other but the great Satchmo himself. The song was “Basin Street Blues,” but she would know the tone and the sound of his trumpet anywhere. The slow, sad notes drew her, and she climbed out of bed, the old dressing gown rumpled around her, and headed toward the music.
It was coming from the back porch overlooking the river. There was a moon that night, shining down on the river, and she moved toward it without thinking, drawn to the music as it slowly picked up tempo.