Extreme Bachelor (35 page)

“Of course I understand,” he said, seeming a
little affronted that she thought he wouldn’t. “It is clear to me.
It is the bastard, no?”

“No!”

“No?”

“Well . . . all right, maybe a little,” she
admitted, and picked up the orange juice and took a sip. It tasted
funny, like processed orange juice.

“Si
,
si
I know
this for a very long time,” Adolfo said matter-of-factly. “He has
hurt your tender heart, yet you cannot get him out of
it.”

“Something like that,” she admitted, and
took another big sip of orange juice.

“I see this very often,”
he said, nodding sagely. He leaned up against the Formica
countertop and pointed an apple slice at her. “My advice to
you,
mi amor
, is
that you get him out. He is like . . .” He tapped his chest.
“Poison in there.”

“You really think so?” she asked weakly.

“Yes,” he said emphatically. “It is
obvious.”

It was obvious, and would be to her, too, if
she would just think clearly about it. Leah sighed, drank more OJ,
and pushed it away, had the thought that it was a little absurd to
be having this conversation with a man she had almost slept with
last night.

“Well,” she said glumly, “be that as it may,
I guess there is nothing left for us to say. I’m sorry if I gave
you the wrong impression.”

“De
nada
,” he said, flicking his
wrist.

Why did he keep smiling like that? He was
acting like he did this sort of thing all the time. Her head was
beginning to ache again, and she put her knuckles to her temple and
began to rub. “Will you at least tell me what happened to my
dress?”

“The zipper, it was very stubborn,” he said
cheerfully.

“Did we . . . you know . . . do
anything?”

He laughed at that. “You have a grand
imagination.”

Not really. “Can I borrow the shirt?” she
begged. “I’ll return it to you in Bellingham.”

He nodded politely. Leah
stood, and
whoa
.
. . her knees were wobbly again. She laughed a little
self-consciously. “I guess I really tied one on last night,
huh?”

Adolfo smiled.

“So . . . you’re going to give me a ride,
right?”

“No, no,” he said shaking his head.

Man, she felt bad. She put her hand on the
table to steady herself. “Come on, Adolfo. I don’t feel well, and I
can’t really walk through town dressed like this.”

“No, that would not be good,” he agreed.

Well all right then . . . why didn’t he
move? “I don’t think you understand. I need a ride.”

“No,” he said, smiling brightly.

“Jesus, Adolfo, what is with you?” she cried
with exasperation, the force of it making her feel extremely woozy.
“What is your problem? I need to go, and I need you to take
me.”

For some reason, Adolfo’s smile faded. “But
I cannot do that, Leah,” he said, his pleasant voice belying the
suddenly hard and very cold look in his eye. “I need you here.”

Leah gasped. “What do you mean? Like a sex
slave?” she almost whispered.

He chuckled at that, reached out and traced
a line across her jaw. “That is an appealing offer, but put your
mind at ease—I do not need you for that . . . not at this time,” he
added, his gaze flicking the length of her.

“I don’t understand,” she said, and had a
very thick feeling that her brain couldn’t absorb anything at the
moment. “Look, I don’t know what your deal is, but I am out of
here,” she said, and moved awkwardly for the door.

Adolfo caught her hand and turned her
around, and Leah had to grab his wrist to keep from slipping to the
floor, she was suddenly feeling so bad. “Leave me alone,” she said
sharply.

“But I cannot,” he said, and reached behind
his back, into the waist of his pants, and when he brought his hand
around again, he was holding a black gun. A big, ugly black gun
that he held away from him, almost as if he was afraid to touch
it.

Leah shrieked and swayed backward, colliding
with the table and sending orange juice flying across the ugly
linoleum floor. “What are you doing?” she cried.

“I need you here,
mi amor.
I need you so
that the bastard will come for you, and then I may kill
him.”

“What?” she shrieked.
“
Kill
him?
Kill
Michael
?
Why?” she exclaimed, and in her fogged mind, she meant to tell him
that he had no reason to kill Michael, that he was a bastard, okay,
but he didn’t deserve to die for it. Yet all her words were
garbled, and the walls started to melt behind Adolfo’s smiling face
as the floor rose up to meet her.

MICHAEL was able to get cell phone reception
halfway to Bellingham, and phoned Rex. “Well,” Rex said after
Michael told him what had happened. “I think you’ve got your boy.
I’m on my way.”

“I’m not waiting for you,” Michael warned
him. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip him in two.”

“Don’t go off and leave me nothing. I want a
piece of him, too,” Rex said. “Why don’t you leave all the killing
to me this time—I’ve got permission to do it and you don’t. I’ll
try and get a couple of guys out of Seattle to lend you a hand.
Just sit tight until they get there, okay?”

Michael couldn’t promise that. He just told
Rex to get out there as soon as possible. And then he turned the
Jeep around and headed back for the little town and the Italian
restaurant where Leah had been seen last, and thought back to the
last time he’d seen Juan Carlo.

It had been a few years ago, at a party Juan
Carlo had thrown for his sister at his Costa del Sol mansion. Juan
Carlo loved a good party and that night had been amazing—the pool
had been filled with floating candles. Girls in skimpy bathing
suits, high on coke, had walked around sharing liquor and cocaine
with all the male guests.

Juan Carlo had been in
fine form that night, dancing with his wife, Maribel (who
complained to Michael in private that she couldn’t bear his touch),
flirting with all the girls, and clapping all the men on the back,
sharing a joke, a cigar, or a drink. He’d told Michael that night
that they were
compadres
, the closest of friends.
“One day,” he had said in English, “you will work with me. I will
make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

At the time, Michael had thought that was
slightly amusing, because he knew the Spanish authorities would be
paying an early morning call to Juan Carlo and that he likely would
never see his mansion in Costa del Sol again. Juan Carlo—jovial,
fun-loving, generous Juan Carlo—had made his millions from trading
arms to terrorists who intended to use those arms against the
United States. He was a ruthless arms supplier, crooked as the day
was long . . . but he was nonetheless an affable, likable guy, and
in a weird way, it had pained Michael a little to put him away for
the rest of his life.

“You know how it is out there,” Rex had
waxed philosophically when he had told Michael that Juan Carlo was,
surprisingly, out of prison and had been to see Maribel, roughing
her up badly enough to put her in the hospital. “Money is a
powerful corrupter.”

Michael supposed so, and while he could have
guessed Juan Carlo had wanted to kill him from the moment the
federal agents had shown up and taken him down—there was no
question in Michael’s mind that Juan Carlo hadn’t known immediately
who set him up—he never would have guessed he would come to the
United States to do it.

Frankly, he was a little blown away by
it.

But the man had made a grave error when he’d
touched Leah. Michael felt a fury boiling in his veins like he’d
never felt in his life, a palpable energy coursing through him and
dredging up every single drop of testosterone in his body.

He was seeing red, all right. And lucky him,
he’d get to kill Juan Carlo with his bare hands, because he didn’t
have a gun on him, and Michael was honestly looking forward to
breaking Juan Carlo’s fucking neck.

LEAH woke up once again, her head pounding
and her mouth dry, lying on her stomach across the bed. She was
still wearing the ruined dress, but Adolfo had taken his shirt
back, the bastard.

With a groan, she pushed herself up and
looked around through a curtain of hair. Adolfo was lounging in the
old chair, the gun on his lap as he watched a small black-and-white
TV. An old sitcom from the sound of it.

“You’re an asshole, Adolfo,” she said
hoarsely.

He lazily turned his head toward her and
smiled. “I have been called far worse.”

She pushed her hair over her shoulder,
rolled onto her back, and stared up at the ceiling, trying to
focus. “It’s the orange juice, isn’t it? There was something in the
orange juice.”

“Si
,” he answered readily, as if she was asking the ingredient
in his special brownie recipe. “The same as was in the
wine.”

“What was it?” she asked in a near whimper.
“Is it poison? Am I going to die?”

Adolfo clucked his tongue. “Not from poison.
I do not want to kill you, Leah, I merely want to . . . how do I
say it . . . make you not move.”

“Incapacitate me,” she said.

“Si
,
si
!” he
sang out, pleased that she knew the word.

“But why?” she cried. “Why are you doing
this to me?”

“What are these tears?” he scoffed. “I have
explained why, no? I need you so that the bastard will come to
me.”

Man, she had the distinct memory of having
witnessed this very scene in a soap opera she’d watched between
jobs once. A woman inexplicably captured and held in a remote
mountain cabin—only it had gone on for months, and the woman had
fallen in love with her captor. That was definitely not going to
happen here, although Leah might fall in love with the men in white
coats who came to get Adolfo.

“The bastard is not going to come,” Leah
said, swiping at a single tear from beneath her eye. “He’s never
going to find you here, and even if he does, he is so much smarter
than you are. He won’t walk into a stupid trap.”

Adolfo chuckled. “First
you despise him. Then you defend him. Which do you want,
mi amor
? To love him or
to hate him?”

“Oh . . . just shut up,” she said
irritably.

“He will come. I left many
clues, so even a man as
estúpido
as he will find us. And because I have you, he
will arrive very soon, for he will be very afraid.”

Leah sat up and glared at Adolfo. “You know,
I used to think you were a nice guy.”

He laughed again, inclined his head in
acknowledgment. “It is a sad thing that you will know me only under
these circumstances. I am very charming—many women have said so. In
Spain, you would have adored me very much.”

“Oh, right, you’re a regular prince,” Leah
snapped. “So do I at least get to know why you want to kill
him?”

He shrugged. “He is a
liar. And he made love to my wife.” Adolfo smiled coldly.
“
Many
times.”

Leah’s heart sank a little—apparently, the
Extreme Bachelor had gone international. She got off the bed,
pausing only a moment until her head cleared a little.

When it did, she saw that Adolfo had sat up,
had his hand on his gun. “What are you doing?” he asked, eyeing her
suspiciously.

“The bathroom,” Leah said, and ignoring him,
she stumbled into the pit of a bathroom.

When she had availed herself of the
facilities, such as they were, she emerged again, hands on hips,
and glared once more at Adolfo, who was now on his feet, holding
the gun with the ease of a man who had apparently done so many
times before. He reminded her of one of the villains in a bad TV
movie, holding it so carelessly.

“Can’t you point that thing in another
direction?”

He looked down at it and seemed surprised.
He quickly pointed it toward the ceiling.

“What is the matter with you?” she
demanded.

“Ach
,” he said, flicking his wrist at her. “I do not care for
guns. I have others use them on my behalf.”

Leah’s jaw dropped open. “You don’t know how
to use the gun you are holding?”

Adolfo shrugged.

Leah shook her head. “You ought to be
ashamed of yourself.”

He laughed, looked down at the gun he was
holding. “You should mind your tongue when a man is holding you at
gunpoint,” he said, “especially when he does not know how to use it
properly.”

Excellent advice, but Leah smirked at him
nonetheless. “Is there anything to eat or drink besides poisoned
orange juice?” she asked, and walked past him, into the kitchen.
Adolfo did not try and stop her, but followed her in, as if he,
too, was interested.

“You will find small biscuits and canned
foods,” he said, watching curiously as Leah opened a cabinet
door.

“Wait a minute,” she said, pausing to look
at him over her shoulder. “Do you mean you planned to hold me
captive without food?”

Adolfo laughed and took a can of tuna out of
the dank cabinet. “I did not see the point of wasting good food on
a woman who will soon be dead.”

Leah gasped. His glittering brown eyes were
hard as rocks, and she felt the pit of her stomach slide, woozy and
sick, to her toes.

He was serious. Dead serious.

JUAN Carlo might as well have strewn his
path with bread crumbs and cookies, or better yet, paint a big red
arrow pointing up the mountain, he was so damn obvious about it.
Michael started with the bartender, whom he had to rouse out of bed
after coaxing his name from a waitress. The man wasn’t very happy
about it until Michael tossed a couple of twenties at him—then he
remembered Juan Carlo very well. Juan Carlo had taken the time to
have a long and memorable conversation with the man about cabins,
and one in particular up the old Sunlight Canyon Road.