Flawless Danger (The Spencer & Sione #1) (40 page)

Carla Garcia was dead. She’d been killed the same way Maxine Porter had, shot between the eyes before her hand had been cut off. Most likely, the same person who’d murdered Maxine had killed Carla. But who was the killer? Had Ben killed Maxine Porter and Carla Garcia? But why would he have passports and money delivered to the women if he was planning to execute them?

“Then yesterday, we got a double murder in Bullet Tree.”

“Did you say Bullet Tree?” John asked, a slight tension in his tone that Spencer found odd.

Jared nodded. “Backpackers discovered the bodies yesterday. Heinous shit. Two women. One of them had been shot between the eyes and had her right hand cut off.”
 

Her heart slamming, Spencer took a deep breath and tried not to jump to conclusions, but she couldn’t help but think about Karen Nelson. She couldn’t help but wonder if the blonde tomboy was the woman who’d been executed in Bullet Tree.

“The other victim was damn near mutilated.”

“Mutilated?” John asked.

Jared nodded and said, “Multiple gunshot wounds to the face. Throat slit. Stabbed several times in the chest. Overkill, that’s what it’s called.”

“Oh my God,” Spencer whispered, horrified by the grisly details.

“One of the murders was impersonal, execution-style,” Jared went on. “But whoever killed the other woman must have hated her and maybe wanted to punish her.”

“Have you identified her?” John asked.

“Still working on it.” Jared walked to the table and stood behind the empty chair directly across from Spencer. “The other victim was Karen Nelson.”

Karen Nelson, Spencer thought, troubled that her speculations about the blonde tomboy’s fate had been right.
 

“So, we have three women who were all shot once between the eyes and then had their right hands dismembered,” Jared said. “And now I have to wonder if there’s some crazy, ritualistic serial killer on the loose in Belize.”

“Hopefully not,” John said, sounding a bit distracted. “Murder in paradise is bad for business.”

“Tell me about it,” Jared said. “The Tourism Minister already contacted the mayor who contacted my superiors. They want these cases wrapped up as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

“You have any leads?” John asked.

“Actually, that’s why I’m here. I need to ask you something, Ms. Edwards,” Jared said, giving her the same look the cops in Dallas had given her when she’d been interrogated after Rae had been arrested for murder. The concerned suspicion, Shady called it. A strange brew of doubt and kindness, designed to trick you into ratting yourself out.

Her heart slamming, Spencer looked at John, who seemed just as curious and worried by Jared’s request as she was, and her heart slammed harder, but she managed to say, “Okay, what is it?”

“Obviously, the investigation is just starting, but I’m trying to retrace Karen Nelson’s steps,” Jared said and then took a seat at the table. “I want to find out everything she did from the day she arrived in Belize to the day she was killed. I’m trying to find people she might have come in contact with. We discovered she took one of those cave exploration tours—”

“Jared, most people who come to Belize visit the caves,” John said. “What does that have to do with what you need to ask Spencer?”

“We asked the tour company for a list of all the people who’d been on the same tour with Karen Nelson,” Jared explained, pulling a notebook from his lightweight sports jacket. “Ms. Edwards was on that list.”

Spencer felt her heart plummet as she struggled to breathe, trying not to assume that Jared had come to trap her in a lie so he could arrest her for a murder she hadn’t committed.

“So what?” John asked.

“So, Ms. Edwards,” Jared flipped a few pages of his notebook and pulled out a piece of paper the size of an index card. “I was wondering if you might remember seeing Karen Nelson? Since the two of you were on the same cave tour. I have a photo of her.”

Placing the index card on the table, Jared flipped it over, as though it were the flop in a game of Texas No-Limit, and pushed it across the smooth surface toward her.

What Spencer had thought was an index card was actually a photo of the freckle-faced blonde who’d held a gun in her face and didn’t like the name on the fake passport. Her heart thudded as she stared at the photo, remembering the girl’s yellow nail polish and the cheap little butterfly ring on her finger.

“You remember seeing her?” Jared asked.

Spencer glanced at John, noting the wariness in his eyes, and then at the detective.

“No,” Spencer said, meeting Jared’s shrewd gaze. “I don’t remember seeing her.”

“Are you sure?” Jared asked.

“She said she doesn’t recognize the woman,” John said. “And even if she did, so what?”

“If you did recognize Karen Nelson,” Jared said, focusing on her. “Then I would want to know if you had spoken to her. Or if you had seen anyone else talking to her. I’d want to know if you noticed anything strange or out of the ordinary about her.”

Shaking her head, Spencer glanced at John.

“I don’t remember her,” Spencer said. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.” Jared put the photo of Karen Nelson back in his notebook and then stood. “Thanks, anyway. I appreciate your cooperation.” Jared gave her a skeptical smile and then looked over at John. “Sione, walk me out.”

San Ignacio, Belize

Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita

Outside on the terrace, Jared turned to Sione. “You think Ms. Edwards is telling me the truth?”

“Why wouldn’t she tell you the truth?” Sione asked, taking a few steps away from his cousin, toward the wall of hibiscus trees. “What would she have to hide?”

“Plenty,” Jared said. “According to D.J.”

“What the hell did D.J. tell you?”

“Just that he was worried about you getting mixed up with a woman he didn’t think you should trust.”

“Did he tell you why he thinks I shouldn’t trust Spencer?”

“He didn’t get into all that.”

“You can’t listen to D.J.,” Sione said, relieved that D.J. had kept his mouth shut about Spencer’s Xanax deliveries. “He doesn’t like her.”

“I hope she’s telling the truth, for your sake.”

“For my sake?”

“You don’t need to be involved with another lying bitch like—”

“Let’s not talk about
her
, okay, please,” Sione said, trying to ignore any thoughts of how he’d wrapped his hands around Moana’s neck, trying to forget that he’d killed her.

Even though he wasn’t sure he had …

Sione had thought Moana was dead when she’d slumped to the floor, limp and unmoving. But he hadn’t made sure. He’d only assumed. And for his assumption, he’d gone through hell, reliving the moment over and over, torn between anguish and apathy, and self-condemnation and self-justification. All the mental turmoil might have been for nothing.

Double murder … one of them shot between the eyes … the other one damn near mutilated

The other one.

Sione knew it was Moana. What he didn’t know was how she’d died. And who had killed her? Maybe it wasn’t him. He’d choked her, but maybe not to death. What he’d assumed was her lifeless body might have been her unconscious form. After Sione had left, someone had shot Moana and stabbed her, mutilating her in the process of taking her life.

Who the hell had done that?

Whoever killed the other woman must have hated her.

Sione couldn’t pretend he didn’t hate Moana. But he hadn’t shot her, stabbed her, and slit her throat. It was possible that he hadn’t killed her. He didn’t know if he should feel relieved because it meant he wasn’t like his father or if he should feel inadequate because it meant Moana was right about him.
You don’t have the guts to kill me.

“I need to tell you something about Moana,” Jared said reluctantly.

“I’m sure it’s not something I’m interested in hearing.”

“You need to hear it,” Jared said, his gaze sober, almost apologetic. “Even though I’m not really sure how to say it.”

“Jared, I don’t—”

“Moana is dead.”

“I know.” Sione stared at him.

“You know?” Jared echoed, shock registering on his face.

“Her lawyer called me shortly after it happened,” Sione said. “He told me she was killed in a prison fight.”

Sione took a breath, wanting to blurt out the truth. Moana didn’t die in some prison fight. He knew that for a fact. Three days ago, he’d seen her. She had stood in front of him, giving him that haughty stare with those indigo eyes, telling him some crazy story about faking her death.

Richard’s idea, she claimed, but Sione wasn’t sure if his father had orchestrated the gruesome events.

Ask you father.

But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He didn’t want to know.

Jared said, “I’m sorry.”

Sione stared at his cousin. “Why the hell are you sorry?”

“Well … ” Jared paused for a moment and then said, “You were once in love with Moana and you were going to marry her and—”

“My relationship with her was so damn long ago, I hardly remember—”

“It was two years ago,” Jared reminded him. “Not that long. And despite what happened between you two, and how things ended, I know the last thing you wanted was for her to end up dead.”

Sione didn’t say anything. How could he respond when he felt like he’d just been kicked in the balls. But he had to say something because Jared’s sympathetic gaze was starting to look more like confusion, and soon the confusion would turn to suspicion.

“No, you’re right.” Sione forced the words from his mouth. “That’s the last thing I ever wanted.”

San Ignacio, Belize

Belizean Banyan Resort - Owner’s Casita

As soon as John walked back into the kitchen, Spencer said, “Your cousin thinks I’m lying, doesn’t he?”

“Lying about what?”

“About knowing Karen Nelson.”

“He asked me if you were telling the truth.”

“And what did you say?”

“What do you think I said?”

“John, please—”

“Don’t you trust me by now? Don’t you know I’m on your side?” he asked. “Why do you think I would I ever rat you out? I’m not going to get you in trouble and have you arrested and taken from me. I told you, I’m going to protect you.”

“I do trust you, John,” she said. “I don’t mean to make you think that I doubt you, I just … I wish you didn’t have to keep all my secrets.”

“I can deal with the secrets and the lies,” he said. “Because if not for the secrets and lies, I guess you wouldn’t be here. As hard and dangerous as this situation with the favor has been for you, I have to be grateful, because if you had been able to pay back that loan, then you wouldn’t have been sent to Belize to make those deliveries and I wouldn’t have met you.”

“You don’t have to say that, John.”

“Yeah, I do.” John walked to the table, took her hand, and pulled her up. “Because it’s the truth, and I want you to know how I feel about you.”

The way he looked at her was a bit different as he put his arms around her, pulling her closer to him. Looking up at him, Spencer wondered if John loved her. The thought was dizzying, leaving her both ecstatic and terrified. Her heart pounded and she felt a fluttering panic in her chest. What would she do if John told her that he loved her? Would she tell him that she loved him, too? But was that true? Did she love John?

Seconds later, he kissed her, a long, slow kiss that she never wanted to end. He hadn’t told her he was in love with her, and she was a bit disappointed, but a larger part of her was relieved. She didn’t think either of them was ready for the L-word. Because once it was said, it would be out there between them. They wouldn’t be able to take it back if one of them changed their minds.

“Anyway,” he said, pulling away gradually. “You don’t know anything about Karen Nelson. You were told to deliver a box of Xanax to her—”

“Which had a fake passport and money in it.”

“You weren’t told anything about the contents,” John reminded her. “You were just told to deliver them.”

“I know,” Spencer said. “But I made those deliveries to Karen Nelson, Carla Garcia, and Maxine Porter, and now they’re all dead. And I just feel like …”

“Like what?”

“Like I should tell the police that they got money and fake passports from that guy Ben Chang.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” John said. “First of all, you don’t have any proof. You never met Ben Chang. He didn’t tell you himself to make those deliveries.”

Her heart lurched, and Spencer looked down, afraid John would see her deception reflected in her eyes.

“And even if he had,” John went on. “He would just deny it. Probably say he doesn’t know you or what you’re talking about.”

“I know, but,” Spencer sighed and ventured to look at him again. “Three women are dead because—”

“I know you’re upset about what happened to those women,” John said. “But I know it wasn’t your fault, and I don’t think you could have prevented it. And I don’t think you can help the cops with this investigation. Those women were involved with dangerous people, and they were living dangerous lives, and that’s why they were killed.”

Too distraught to speak, Spencer stepped closer to John as he embraced her.

“We already decided that we’re going to put all that business with you making those deliveries behind us, remember?” he said. “You were forced to do it, you did it, and it’s over. So, now let’s concentrate on me and you, okay?”

Spencer nodded her agreement as she closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest, knowing that her business with Ben Chang was far from over. It wouldn’t be completely finished until Ben had the envelope and she had the video he’d used to blackmail her.

San Ignacio, Belize

Shawville Subdivision

Taking deep, measured breaths, Spencer tried to relax as the shuttle sped away from the resort. As she glanced over her shoulder out the back window, the resort seemed a lifetime away as the shuttle took her toward the center of town.

Like Lot’s wife, looking back at the life she yearned for, Spencer felt if she stared too long she would turn into a pillar of salt, destroyed by some desire for a chance she didn’t deserve with a man she had a feeling she would never be good enough for.