Dateline: Kydd and Rios (2 page)

Now she wondered anew about the person who had cut him, and she wondered what it would be like to touch that thin white line with her fingertip, to caress his face and take the old hurt away. The heat in her body slowly rose to her face, and she knew she’d looked too long.

“Right. I could use a shower, too,” she said quickly. But deep down inside she doubted if the Casa del Flores had enough cold water to cool her down.

* * *

True to the hotel’s name, spidery boughs of bougainvillea interspersed with cascades of clematis swept around three sides of the Casa del Flores’s courtyard. Graceful palm trees swayed and dipped in the evening breeze, the rustling of their fronds lost in the sounds of the dining area. Tomorrow the whole place might go up in flames, but tonight the Casa del Flores was a haven of peace.

Nikki sat hunched over her table, jotting notes by candlelight. Three empty beer bottles flanked a plate of half-eaten beans, rice, and tortillas. She’d picked all the chicken out. If Josh didn’t sell a story pretty soon, there wouldn’t be any chicken next time. She really had to get on him about it. The figures she quickly added up proved her point. They were running on empty.

Boom or bust, she thought with a disgruntled sigh. Even looking at her notebook, she didn’t know where all their money went. There were too many miscellaneous entries—all of them in Josh’s handwriting. “Misc.” seemed to be his only expenditure.

She flipped to the back pages where they kept their private accounts. Typically, Josh’s debits were all labeled “Misc.,” the last one nearly three hundred dollars. What in the miscellaneous hell had he done with three hundred dollars? she wondered, wrinkling her brow. 

She had very few debits on her private page, just a sure and growing line of credits tucked away in a Boulder, Colorado, bank. But there weren’t enough of them. She needed more money, lots more money. A year of risking her tail in the hottest spots in Latin America hadn’t given her the price of one person’s freedom.

Unwanted, that knowledge forced its way to the front of her mind, constricting her heart with sadness. Her mouth softened in pain, and suddenly she wished Josh would hurry up and come down to dinner. She didn’t like to be left alone with her thoughts, not when they turned to her mother.

A story, Nikki, she told herself. Think of a story, a blockbusting, fortune-making story. They needed a story like the one they’d broken the day she’d gone looking for protection. The day she’d found Joshua Rios. . .

“General Travinas, the former secretary of defense, and his armed forces stormed the Palacio de Simeon this morning at dawn, taking control of the government. All of the remaining cabinet members—Mendez, Cavazos, and Estrada—were taken hostage. President Aragon is believed to have left the country.”

As the radio signal buzzed and cracked its message of anarchy, Nikki shoved a pair of pants, a shirt, a comb, and her toothbrush into a ragged satchel. She’d waited too long. She’d trusted all the wrong people. Her heart beat fast beneath the dirty blouse she’d thrown on. She had to move quickly and find help for herself. It was too late to help her mother now. Until the fires of revolt burned themselves out, no one would risk releasing any political prisoners, and certainly not Helen Kydd Cavazos.

She needed to find an American, and every American left in San Simeon would be on the steps of the palacio, trying to get a story for a newspaper, magazine, or television station. Only the reporters remained in the small country racked by rebellion. Everyone with any sense had left weeks ago, except Nikki.

Looking around the shabby one-room apartment, she now realized her mistake. Aragon had set them all up, all of his loyal followers, especially Victor Cavazos. He’d sold them down the river. Nikki knew the how, the when, and the why, but she was the only one outside of a prison who did. Aragon had underestimated her if he thought she wouldn’t use her knowledge. Or maybe he had dismissed her as a flighty teenager, the mere daughter of the woman he’d never trusted, the wife of his minister of economic development. Or maybe he thought she didn’t know the language and politics of his country well enough to understand what she’d seen and heard during palace functions. He was wrong on all counts.

Nikki had liked Victor, her mother’s new husband, but the dashing, debonair Latin had proved to be incredibly ineffective in dealing with Aragon. Helen had been under house arrest for a week before the president had thrown her in prison. Victor should have whisked her out of the country long before then.

“Damn Victor,” Nikki said under her breath. “Damn his cowardly hide.” Now it was up to her to get her mother out of prison, a tricky business, and all she had to exchange for protection was information. Most of the war correspondents she’d met would sell their own grandmothers for a story. She needed somebody more idealistic than that. She needed someone who
looked
as if he knew what he was doing, without knowing exactly what he was doing. Someone who knew exactly what he was doing wouldn’t need her for long. He’d take her information and run, either leaving her behind or trying to ship her back home.

And she wasn’t leaving without her mother.

Nikki slipped the satchel strap over her shoulder and tried not to think about how dirty she felt. When the chaos had started, the waterworks had been the first casualty. Travinas and Aragon were probably bathing in champagne in the palace, she thought, laughing at the great joke of a coup d’état they’d pulled off. She’d see how hard they laughed when she exposed their corrupt deal to the world. Aragon would be branded for the traitor he was and—she hoped and prayed—the world would demand the release of the woman he’d unjustly imprisoned.

Without bothering to close the door behind her, Nikki walked out of the room and down the steps to the street. Fifteen minutes of hard walking brought her to the Palacio de Simeon. As she’d expected, the place was swarming with media people. They filled the street leading up to the palace entrance, and spilled into the mob of San Simeonites crowding the parkway. The best of them were jostling for position on the broad granite steps of the connecting government building.

Light from the dying sun gilded the avenue of palms and turned the marble columns fronting the palace into shafts of mauve and pink. The roof of every car was filled to capacity with men and boys whose families and livelihood now depended upon the whims of General Travinas.

Nikki’s gaze skipped over the native countrymen, and went directly to the men on the steps. From personal experience she eliminated more than half of the reporters, doubting the depth of their gratitude for the story she could give them. A few of the men looked too green, too lost in the commotion. Others looked too drugged and boozed out. The longer she looked, the more unsure she became. Maybe she hadn’t thought this thing through well enough. Maybe she should opt for a ticket out of the country and try to garner support from the safety of the United States. Maybe she should . . .
maybe
. . .
maybe
. . .

The sudden doubts sent a slowly curling wave of nausea down to her empty stomach. She gritted her teeth and tightened her hand around the satchel strap, her knuckles white with strain. A tickling stream of sweat rolled down her face. Another matted her lashes, and she wiped at it with the back of her dirty hand. She couldn’t leave, would never, ever leave, she silently vowed, reaching deep inside herself for the courage she needed. What chance would her mother have if she abandoned her? For all of her doubts, the answer came quick and sure—none. Then she saw him.

Coal black hair gave him a Latino look, but his clothes had “Made in the U.S.A.” stamped all over them. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and his eyes were light. He was too young to be burned out, and the way he was fighting his way to the front of the crowd told her plenty about his drive. He was perfect—or rather, as good as she was going to get.

With a barrage of Spanish insults and a few well-placed elbow jabs, she made her own way up the government building steps to his side.

“Hey,
señor
.
Habla español
?”

“No, I—” Josh stopped short, his jaw slackening in disbelief as he stared down at the girl tugging on his sleeve. Dressed in rags, she was dirty, and absolutely beautiful. A short crop of white blond hair, barely a shade darker than her pale skin, surrounded a face of purely feminine delicacy. Sea green eyes framed by golden lashes stared back at him, narrowed to an unsettling degree of scrutiny and flashing with impatience. “No, I don’t,” he finished in confusion.

Perfect. Nikki thought with an inward sigh of relief. “Then you need me. It just so happens I’m available right now—Hey, watch it, gringo!” she snapped at a reporter trying to shove his way past her. When the man didn’t retreat, she elbowed him in the side and leveled him with a stream of cussing that left no doubt in Josh’s mind about her command of the Spanish language. “A hundred dollars a day”—she looked back up at him—“but I’m negotiable.”

“I don’t have a hundred dollars a day.” Her outlandish request brought a grin to his face.

Had Nikki been of a mind, his smile might have struck a responsive chord somewhere in her emotions. He’d certainly graduated from the tall, dark, and handsome school of good looks. But she had serious business to conduct.

“Don’t worry. Like I said, I’m negotiable. We can work something out later. Right this minute, there’s a story happening, but you’re in the wrong place for it.”

Josh glanced around him at the crush of reporters and photographers, each and every one of them waiting for a statement from the new president. “All of these guys can’t be wrong,” he said with another grin.

Her eyes held his for a piercing second. “All of these
guys
,” she said coolly, “are going to get half a story, the one the government dishes out like pabulum. If you don’t have the guts to find out the other half, then I’m talking to the wrong man.”

Her words challenged him on every level: his intelligence, his credibility, his ambition, and his manhood. Coming from a slip of a girl, they angered him. Backed up by those implacable green eyes, they dared him. She was serious, damn serious, and despite her non-native looks, he found himself believing in her.

“Where?” he asked, praying his instincts were right. He’d spent his last dime getting south to the action, and if he wanted to eat for the next week, he had to make the trip pay off quick. For a free-lancer, that meant coming up with something the other guys didn’t get. For a skilled photographer who was still a novice reporter, that meant finding someone who could help him. This girl might be the someone.

“Follow me,” she said, already moving away from him.

Josh hesitated for a second, but only a second. Whatever was going to go down, it was going to do so pretty damn quick. This was not the time for indecision.

Fighting his way out of the crowd, he kept his eyes trained on her hair, the brightest spot of life in the pushing and shoving mass of humanity. She seemed to have an inborn skill for finding every opening, and only his longer stride enabled him to catch her at the bottom of the steps.

“Where are we going?” he asked, running to keep up with her.

“Around back.”

“Why?” While they jogged along, he checked both of his cameras for readiness.

“Travinas will enter through that door.” She gestured at a small portico on the side of the palace and kept running.

“So why don’t we stop?”

“Because while he’s going in, I think some other people are going to be coming out the back. And that’s the story we want.”

“You think?” Josh grabbed her arm and jerked her to a stop.

“Yes!” She shook herself free and glared at him. “I think! Which is something you better start doing!”

Dammit, he thought, feeling like a fool. He’d given up a hard-won spot on the stairs and followed some green-eyed witch to the deserted back of the building where she
thought
there might be a story. Muttering in disgust, he turned toward the front entrance.

“Look, mister.” The edge in her voice cut right through him and stopped him in his tracks. “I’m giving you the chance of a lifetime. Take it, and you can have your name on the front page of the
New York Times
. Walk away, and you’ll be peddling your stuff to the smallest rag in the States.”

Josh sighed and let his chin fall to his chest. He wanted to be the best. When people talked about photojournalists, he wanted his name on their lips. He was young, adventurous, and dedicated to the truth of the camera—and he’d jumped in over his head by traveling so far from home. It was easy enough to follow the crowd, but he wanted to be a leader.

Without turning around, he asked, “Who do you think is coming out the back door?”

“Enrico Aragon de Manuel.”

“The deposed president?” he asked incredulously, glancing over his shoulder.

“Yes.”

Josh shook his head in disgust. She’d taken him for a ride. He didn’t have the faintest idea why, but she had. “Everybody knows he left the country yesterday.”

“Everybody knows nothing,” she insisted. “My sources say he’s been holed up in his bedroom and Travinas knows it.”

 “His bedroom?” At this, Josh turned around, letting all his disbelief show on his face. “Are you crazy?”

“Crazy like Aragon. He cut a deal with Travinas. He gave them his cabinet members in return for safe passage and a hacienda in Rio de Janeiro. While Mendez, Cavazos, and Estrada go to prison, he’s going to the lap of luxury.”