Risky Business Read online

  “Luis?” She came down the short flight of stairs to join him. “What—”

  Then she saw Jonas, a straw hat covering his head, sunglasses shading his eyes. He hadn’t bothered to shave, so that the light growth of beard gave him a lazy, vagrant look accented by a faded T-shirt and brief black trunks. He didn’t, she realized, look like a man who’d play bridge. Knowing what was going through Luis’s mind, Liz shook his arm and spoke quickly.

  “It’s his brother, Luis. I told you they were twins.”

  “Back from the dead,” Luis whispered.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She shook off the shudder his words brought her. “His name is Jonas and he’s nothing like Jerry at all, really. You’ll see when you talk to him. You’re prompt, Mr. Sharpe,” she called out, hoping to jolt Luis out of his shock. “Need help coming aboard?”

  “I can manage.” Hefting a small cooler, Jonas stepped lightly on deck. “The Expatriate.” He referred to the careful lettering on the side of the boat. “Is that what you are?”

  “Apparently.” It was something she was neither proud nor ashamed of. “This is Luis—he works for me. You gave him a jolt just now.”

  “Sorry.” Jonas glanced at the slim man hovering by Liz’s side. There was sweat beading on his lip. “You knew my brother?”

  “We worked together,” Luis answered in his slow, precise English. “With the divers. Jerry, he liked best to take out the dive boat. I’ll cast off.” Giving Jonas a wide berth, Luis jumped onto the dock.

  “I seem to affect everyone the same way,” Jonas observed. “How about you?” He turned dark, direct eyes to her. Though he no longer made her think of Jerry, he unnerved her just the same. “Still want to keep me at arm’s length?”

  “We pride ourselves in being friendly to all our clients. You’ve hired the Expatriate for the day, Mr. Sharpe. Make yourself comfortable.” She gestured toward a deck chair before climbing the steps to the bridge and calling out to Luis. “Tell Miguel he gets paid only if he finishes out the day.” With a final wave to Luis, she started the engine, then cruised sedately toward the open sea.

  The wind was calm, barely stirring the water. Liz could see the dark patches that meant reefs and kept the speed easy. Once they were in deeper water, she’d open it up a bit. By midday the sun would be stunningly hot. She wanted Jonas strapped in his chair and fighting two hundred pounds of fish by then.

  “You handle a wheel as smoothly as you do a customer.”

  A shadow of annoyance moved in her eyes, but she kept them straight ahead. “It’s my business. You’d be more comfortable on the deck in a chair, Mr. Sharpe.”

  “Jonas. And I’m perfectly comfortable here.” He gave her a casual study as he stood beside her. She wore a fielder’s cap over her hair with white lettering promoting her shop. On her T-shirt, the same lettering was faded from the sun and frequent washings. He wondered, idly, what she wore under it. “How long have you had this boat?”

  “Almost eight years. She’s sound.” Liz pushed the throttle forward. “The waters are warm, so you’ll find tuna, marlin, swordfish. Once we’re out you can start chumming.”

  “Chumming?”

  She sent him a quick look. So she’d been right—he didn’t know a line from a pole. “Bait the water,” she began. “I’ll keep the speed slow and you bait the water, attract the fish.”

  “Seems like taking unfair advantage. Isn’t fishing supposed to be luck and skill?”

  “For some people it’s a matter of whether they’ll eat or not.” She turned the wheel a fraction, scanning the water for unwary snorkelers. “For others, it’s a matter of another trophy for the wall.”

  “I’m not interested in trophies.”

  She shifted to face him. No, he wouldn’t be, she decided, not in trophies or in anything else without a purpose. “What are you interested in?”

  “At the moment, you.” He put his hand over hers and let off the throttle. “I’m in no hurry.”

  “You paid to fish.” She flexed her hand under his.

  “I paid for your time,” he corrected.

  He was close enough that she could see his eyes beyond the tinted lenses. They were steady, always steady, as if he knew he could afford to wait. The hand still over hers wasn’t smooth as she’d expected, but hard and worked. No, he wouldn’t play bridge, she thought again. Tennis, perhaps, or hand ball, or something else that took sweat and effort. For the first time in years she felt a quick thrill race through her—a thrill she’d been certain she was immune to. The wind tossed the hair back from her face as she studied him.

  “Then you wasted your money.”

  Her hand moved under his again. Strong, he thought, though her looks were fragile. Stubborn. He could judge that by the way the slightly pointed chin stayed up. But there was a look in her eyes that said I’ve been hurt, I won’t be hurt again. That alone was intriguing, but added to it was a quietly simmering sexuality that left him wondering how it was his brother hadn’t been her lover. Not, Jonas was sure, for lack of trying.

  “If I’ve wasted my money, it won’t be the first time. But somehow I don’t think I have.”

  “There’s nothing I can tell you.” Her hand jerked and pushed the throttle up again.

  “Maybe not. Or maybe there’s something you know without realizing it. I’ve dealt in criminal law for over ten years. You’d be surprised how important small bits of information can be. Talk to me.” His hand tightened briefly on hers. “Please.”

  She thought she’d hardened her heart, but she could feel herself weakening. Why was it she could haggle for hours over the price of scuba gear and could never refuse a softly spoken request? He was going to cause her nothing but trouble. Because she already knew it, she sighed.

  “We’ll talk.” She cut the throttle so the boat would drift. “While you fish.” She managed to smile a bit as she stepped away. “No chum.”

  With easy efficiency, Liz secured the butt of a rod into the socket attached to a chair. “For now, you sit and relax,” she told him. “Sometimes a fish is hot enough to take the hook without bait. If you get one, you strap yourself in and work.”

  Jonas settled himself in the chair and tipped back his hat. “And you?”

  “I go back to the wheel and keep the speed steady so we tire him out without losing him.” She gathered her hair in one hand and tossed it back. “There’re better spots than this, but I’m not wasting my gas when you don’t care whether you catch a fish or not.”

  His lips twitched as he leaned back in the chair. “Sensible. I thought you would be.”

  “Have to be.”

  “Why did you come to Cozumel?” Jonas ignored the rod in front of him and took out a cigarette.

  “You’ve been here for a few days,” she countered. “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

  “Parts of your own country are beautiful. If you’ve been here ten years, you’d have been a child when you left the States.”

  “No, I wasn’t a child.” Something in the way she said it had him watching her again, looking for the secret she held just beyond her eyes. “I came because it seemed like the right thing to do. It was the right thing. When I was a girl, my parents would come here almost every year. They love to dive.”

  “You moved here with your parents?”

  “No, I came alone.” This time her voice was flat. “You didn’t pay two hundred dollars to talk about me, Mr. Sharpe.”

  “It helps to have some background. You said you had a daughter. Where is she?”

  “She goes to school in Houston—that’s where my parents live.”

  Toss a child, and the responsibility, onto grandparents and live on a tropical island. It might leave a bad taste in his mouth, but it wasn’t something that would surprise him. Jonas took a deep drag as he studied Liz’s profile. It just didn’t fit. “You miss her.”

  “Horribly,” Liz murmured. “She’ll be home in a few weeks, and we’ll spend the summer together. September always comes
too soon.” Her gaze drifted off as she spoke, almost to herself. “It’s for the best. My parents take wonderful care of her and she’s getting an excellent education—taking piano lessons and ballet. They sent me pictures from a recital, and…” Her eyes filled with tears so quickly that she hadn’t any warning. She shifted into the wind and fought them back, but he’d seen them. He sat smoking silently to give her time to recover.

  “Ever get back to the States?”

  “No.” Liz swallowed and called herself a fool. It had been the pictures, she told herself, the pictures that had come in yesterday’s mail of her little girl wearing a pink dress.

  “Hiding from something?”

  She whirled back, tears replaced with fury. Her body was arched like a bow ready to launch. Jonas held up a hand.

  “Sorry. I have a habit of poking into secrets.”

  She forced herself to relax, to strap back passion as she’d taught herself so long ago. “It’s a good way to lose your fingers, Mr. Sharpe.”

  He chuckled. “That’s a possibility. I’ve always considered it worth the risk. They call you Liz, don’t they?”

  Her brow lifted under the fringe that blew around her brow. “My friends do.”

  “It suits you, except when you try to be aloof. Then it should be Elizabeth.”

  She sent him a smoldering look, certain he was trying to annoy her. “No one calls me Elizabeth.”

  He merely grinned at her. “Why weren’t you sleeping with Jerry?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Yes, definitely Elizabeth. You’re a beautiful woman in an odd sort of way.” He tossed out the compliment as casually as he tossed the cigarette into the water. “Jerry had a…fondness for beautiful women. I can’t figure out why you weren’t lovers.”

  For a moment, only a moment, it occurred to her that no one had called her beautiful in a very long time. She’d needed words like that once. Then she leaned back on the rail, planted her hands and aimed a killing look. She didn’t need them now.

  “I didn’t choose to sleep with him. It might be difficult for you to accept, as you share the same face, but I didn’t find Jerry irresistible.”

  “No?” As relaxed as she was tensed, Jonas reached into the cooler, offering her a beer. When she shook her head, he popped the top on one for himself. “What did you find him?”

  “He was a drifter, and he happened to drift into my life. I gave him a job because he had a quick mind and a strong back. The truth was, I never expected him to last over a month. Men like him don’t.”

  Though he hadn’t moved a muscle, Jonas had come to attention. “Men like him?”

  “Men who look for the quickest way to easy street. He worked because he liked to eat, but he was always looking for the big strike—one he wouldn’t have to sweat for.”

  “So you did know him,” Jonas murmured. “What was he looking for here?”

  “I tell you I don’t know! For all I know he was looking for a good time and a little sun.” Frustration poured out of her as she tossed a hand in the air. “I let him have a room because he seemed harmless and I could use the money. I wasn’t intimate with him on any level. The closest he came to talking about what he was up to was bragging about diving for big bucks.”

  “Diving? Where?”

  Fighting for control, she dragged a hand through her hair. “I wish you’d leave me alone.”

  “You’re a realistic woman, aren’t you, Elizabeth?”

  Her chin was set when she looked back at him. “Yes.”

  “Then you know I won’t. Where was he going to dive?”

  “I don’t know. I barely listened to him when he got started on how rich he was going to be.”

  “What did he say?” This time Jonas’s voice was quiet, persuading. “Just try to think back and remember what he told you.”

  “He said something about making a fortune diving, and I joked about sunken treasure. And he said…” She strained to remember the conversation. It had been late in the evening, and she’d been busy, preoccupied. “I was working at home,” Liz remembered. “I always seem to handle the books better at night. He’d been out, partying I thought, because he was a little unsteady when he came in. He pulled me out of the chair. I remember I started to swear at him but he looked so damn happy, I let it go. Really, I hardly listened because I was picking up all the papers he’d scattered, but he was saying something about the big time and buying champagne to celebrate. I told him he’d better stick to beer on his salary. That’s when he talked about deals coming through and diving for big bucks. Then I made some comment about sunken treasure….”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Sometimes you make more putting stuff in than taking it out.” With a line between her brows, she remembered how he’d laughed when she’d told him to go sleep it off. “He made a pass neither one of us took seriously, and then…I think he made a phone call. I went back to work.”

  “When was this?”

  “A week, maybe one week after I took him on.”

  “That must have been when he called me.” Jonas looked out to sea. And he hadn’t paid much attention, either, he reminded himself. Jerry had talked about coming home in style. But then he had always been talking about coming home in style. And the call, as usual, had been collect.

  “Did you ever see him with anyone? Talking, arguing?”

  “I never saw him argue with anyone. He flirted with the women on the beach, made small talk with the clients and got along just fine with everyone he worked with. I assumed he spent most of his free time in San Miguel. I think he cruised a few bars with Luis and some of the others.”

  “What bars?”

  “You’ll have to ask them, though I’m sure the police already have.” She took a deep breath. It was bringing it all back again, too close. “Mr. Sharpe, why don’t you let the police handle this? You’re running after shadows.”

  “He was my brother.” And more, what he couldn’t explain, his twin. Part of himself had been murdered. If he were ever to feel whole again, he had to know why. “Haven’t you wondered why Jerry was murdered?”

  “Of course.” She looked down at her hands. They were empty and she felt helpless. “I thought he must’ve gotten into a fight, or maybe he bragged to the wrong person. He had a bad habit of tossing what money he had around.”

  “It wasn’t robbery or a mugging, Elizabeth. It was professional. It was business.”

  Her heart began a slow, painful thud. “I don’t understand.”

  “Jerry was murdered by a pro, and I’m going to find out why.”

  Because her throat was suddenly dry, she swallowed. “If you’re right, then that’s all the more reason to leave it to the police.”

  He drew out his cigarettes again, but stared ahead to where the sky met the water. “Police don’t want revenge. I do.” In his voice, she heard the calm patience and felt a shiver.

  Staring, she shook her head. “Even if you found the person who did it, what could you do?”

  He took a long pull from his beer. “As a lawyer, I suppose I’d be obliged to see they had their day in court. As a brother…” He trailed off and drank again. “We’ll have to see.”

  “I don’t think you’re a very nice man, Mr. Sharpe.”

  “I’m not.” He turned his head until his eyes locked on hers. “And I’m not harmless. Remember, if I make a pass, we’ll both take it seriously.”

  She started to speak, then saw his line go taut. “You’ve got a fish, Mr. Sharpe,” she said dryly. “You’d better strap in or he’ll pull you overboard.”

  Turning on her heel, she went back to the bridge, leaving Jonas to fend for himself.

  3

  It was sundown when Liz parked her bike under the lean-to beside her house. She was still laughing. However much trouble Jonas had caused her, however much he had annoyed her in three brief meetings, she had his two hundred dollars. And he had a thirty-pound marlin—whether he wanted it or not. We deliver,
she thought as she jingled her keys.

  Oh, it had been worth it, just to see his face when he’d found himself on the other end of the wire from a big, bad-tempered fish. Liz believed he’d have let it go if she hadn’t taken the time for one last smirk. Stubborn, she thought again. Yes, any other time she’d have admired it, and him.

  Though she’d been wrong about his not being able to handle a rod, he’d looked so utterly perplexed with the fish lying at his feet on the deck that she’d nearly felt sorry for him. But his luck, or the lack of it, had helped her make an easy exit once they’d docked. With all the people crowding around to get a look at his catch and congratulate him, Jonas hadn’t been able to detain her.

  Now she was ready for an early evening, she thought. And a rainy one if the clouds moving in from the east delivered. Liz let herself into the house, propping the door open to bring in the breeze that already tasted of rain. After the fans were whirling, she turned on the radio automatically. Hurricane season might be a few months off, but the quick tropical storms were unpredictable. She’d been through enough of them not to take them lightly.

  In the bedroom she prepared to strip for the shower that would wash the day’s sweat and salt from her skin. Because it was twilight, she was already reaching for the light switch when a stray thought stopped her. Hadn’t she left the blinds up that morning? Liz stared at them, tugged snugly over the window-sill. Odd, she was sure she’d left them up, and why wasn’t the cord wrapped around its little hook? She was fanatical about that kind of detail, she supposed because ropes on a boat were always secured.

  She hesitated, even after light spilled into the room. Then she shrugged. She must have been more distracted that morning than she’d realized. Jonas Sharpe, she decided, was taking up too much of her time, and too many of her thoughts. A man like him was bound to do so, even under different circumstances. But she’d long since passed the point in her life where a man could dominate it. He only worried her because he was interfering in her time, and her time was a precious commodity. Now that he’d had his way, and his talk, there should be no more visits. She remembered, uncomfortably, the way he’d smiled at her. It would be best, she decided, if he went back to where he’d come from and she got on with her own routine.