High-Stakes Affair (8 page)

Dangerous thoughts. Thoughts she definitely didn’t need right now. They’d snuck out of the city, barely managing to elude the guards, then crossed into the separatist region of Reino Antiguo on their way to interview Jaime Trevino’s family about his death. She had to focus on discovering what killed him—not fantasize about the virile thief who’d kissed her, no matter how intoxicating he was.

Dante banked the bike into a curve. She gazed at the steep forested slopes of the mountains, the verdant valley stretching below them, the ancient low fences dividing the green fields. At least she didn’t have to worry about the royal guards catching them here. They stayed clear of the separatist region unless ordered in to repress unrest.

Suddenly feeling uneasy, she glanced at the slate-gray sky. A bone-crushing vulture—Reino Antiguo’s ancient symbol—soared beneath the storm clouds, bringing a sudden chill to her heart. She was now in Dante’s homeland, enemy territory for her.

It hadn’t always been that way. Until the seventeenth century, Reino Antiguo had been an independent kingdom bordering País Vell. But then a dispute over an earlier treaty turned into war. País Vell prevailed, conquering its smaller neighbor, demolishing Reino Antiguo’s monarchy and giving rise to the fierce resentment that had lasted through modern times. Not only did the separatists refuse to recognize her family’s legitimacy, but they’d formed the outlawed terrorist group La Brigada, a group dedicated to using violence to win their cause. Reino Antiguo’s ancient motto,
Morior invictus—
Death Before Defeat—was their battle cry.

The road bottomed out, and they zipped along the valley, passing a flock of sheep, a line of cows lumbering toward a barn, a woman rushing to gather her laundry before the ash-colored clouds dumped their rain. The woman stopped and stared as they rode by, her hostile expression reminding Paloma that strangers weren’t welcome here.

Even worse, she was a royal, these people’s enemy. Someone the La Brigada terrorists were trying to kill. She just prayed they wouldn’t recognize her.

But whether they liked her or not, they were still her people. Reino Antiguo had belonged to País Vell for hundreds of years. And she had a duty to protect them, no matter what they thought of her.

The village came into view, and Dante dropped down another gear. Paloma turned her attention to the trash-littered streets, the crumbling stone buildings with sagging roofs. They puttered past a bar bearing antigovernment slogans and an outlawed Reino Antiguo flag. Two old men wearing traditional black berets sat on a bench outside, suspicion clear in their eyes.

A dozen houses later, Dante brought the bike to a stop. Paloma dismounted and removed her helmet, hoping they could cut this visit short. Even with Dante’s protection, she could feel danger pulsing around her, giving her the strongest urge to leave.

Dante tugged off his helmet, and his gaze collided with hers. Heat ghosted through his eyes, sending another zap of awareness skittering through her veins. Her cheeks warming, she looked away.

Definitely the wrong time,
she reminded herself firmly. They had more important things on their minds.

He cleared his throat. “You’d better let me talk. They’ll respond to me better.”

“You think they’ll recognize me?” She couldn’t keep the anxiety from her voice.

“Yeah. Your face is pretty famous. But this shouldn’t take long. Hopefully we can leave before anyone finds out we’re here.”

Tension thrumming inside her, she accompanied him down the street. A small dog yapped in a narrow alley. A dirty plastic cup tumbled past, then snagged on a patch of weeds. Paloma caught a glimpse of a young boy staring sullenly from a window, and her heart rolled in sympathy. Had Dante once looked like that?

“Here it is,” he said, stopping before an apartment building with graffiti spray painted on the door. According to his records, Jaime Trevino had lived on the bottom floor. Dante rang the bell.

“I’m coming,” a woman called in the local dialect, and Paloma held her breath, praying her presence wouldn’t scare the woman off.

The woman cracked open the door and peered out. Paloma couldn’t begin to guess her age. Forty? Sixty? Her dull eyes, weathered face and scraggly gray hair aged her beyond her years. She wore a shapeless flowered housedress, thick woolen stockings and flat country espadrilles on her wide feet. A toddler wearing a stained T-shirt and a diaper clung to her swollen legs.

“Señora Trevino? I’m Dante Quevedo. I’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind.”

Her gaze darted to Paloma, and she froze. “What about?”

“Your husband’s death.”

Sudden fear flashed in her sunken eyes.

“It’ll only take a minute,” Dante said quickly. “We just need some information.”

The woman shook her head and stepped back. “No. I’m sorry. Go away.” The child beside her began to cry.

“Please,” Paloma said as the widow started to close the door. “We need your help.” They had to find out how her husband had contracted that disease.

She’d already done everything else she could. She’d contacted Dr. Sanz at the hospital. She’d faxed him Lucía’s report. And she’d convinced him to examine the coroner’s body, send samples to a lab in Hamburg and alert the World Health Organization, in case this was worse than they thought. He would also pressure her father to step up distribution of the annual flu vaccine, on the off chance that it might help.

Now she just had to convince this widow to talk.

“I promise nothing bad will happen,” Dante said. “We only need to ask a few questions, and then we’ll leave.”

The woman hesitated. She studied Dante for a moment, then gave him a nod.
“Entren.”
Picking up her daughter, she let them in.

Relieved, Paloma followed her into a small front parlor furnished with a threadbare couch and armchair, a decades-old television set and dozens of religious figurines. But despite the shabbiness of the apartment the worn wooden floor had been polished until it gleamed.

Paloma took a seat next to Dante on the sagging sofa. Jaime Trevino’s widow sat across from them in the armchair, her mouth set in a rigid line. The toddler crawled up and hid her face in her mother’s lap. An uneasy silence filled the room.

“Thank you, señora,” Dante said, still using the separatist’s dialect. “We’d like to know what happened to your husband and how he died. He was sick, right?”

She managed a grudging nod.

“What kind of symptoms did he have?” Dante asked.

“He had a headache and fever. He ached all over, especially his back. Then he started vomiting.”

Paloma leaned forward. “Did he go to the doctor?”

The woman shrank back, and Dante shot Paloma a warning glance. She had to let him handle this.

The widow fixed her gaze on Dante again. “Yes. The doctor thought he had malaria. He gave him some pills, but it didn’t do any good. He just got worse.”

“In what way?” Dante asked.

The widow made the sign of the cross. “Something was wrong with him, very wrong. His skin turned yellow with bright red specks. His eyes became red, as if
un diablo,
a demon, was inside. And…he changed.”

“Changed how?”

“He got sullen, lethargic. He just sat in his chair, staring out the window, his face like a wooden mask. And he wasn’t the same inside.” She tapped her head.

“You mean he was delirious?” Paloma couldn’t help but ask.

The woman shot her a furtive glance, then directed her words to Dante again. “No. If I asked him a question, he answered. But he didn’t know anything—where he was, who we were.... His memory was gone.”

For a minute no one spoke.

“Did he ever go to the casino? Was he a gambler?” Dante asked.

The widow sat upright and flushed. “No, never. We don’t have money for that. He just went to work and came home. Sometimes he stopped to see his friends at the bar.”

Paloma’s hopes dove as their theory crashed. If Jaime Trevino hadn’t frequented the casino, how had he contracted the disease? A chance encounter with a carrier or something else?

Dante signaled to her, and they rose, thanking the woman for her time. But as they stepped outside the door, Paloma turned to the widow again.

“Señora, we’re urging everyone to get a flu vaccine.” The widow stiffened, fear once again flashing through her eyes, but Paloma forged on. “You, your children, anyone who had contact with your husband. The free clinics will be giving them out.”

When the woman didn’t answer, her frustration rose. “Please, señora. We don’t want to see anyone else get sick.”

Dante stepped in then. “Meet me at the bike,” he murmured. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“All right.” Hoping Dante could convince her, Paloma turned and headed down the street. Then she glanced back—just as Dante took out his wallet and handed the woman some cash. The widow hugged him and kissed his hand.

Struck by the scene, Paloma paused. The woman treated him like a hero, not just another
paisano
—the diffidence, the trust, the kiss. Could Dante really be El Fantasma, a revered figure in these parts as the rumors implied? He certainly had a motive—his mother’s killing—and the skills.

She mulled that over as she walked along, more certain than ever that she was right. But while it hurt that he wouldn’t reveal his identity, she didn’t blame him for his distrust. In his place, she would have felt the same.

As she gazed up at the brewing storm clouds, a sudden longing gripped her heart. If only she could lead this country someday. She ached for the chance to reform it, to right the wrongs of the past centuries, and use her family’s resources to do some good. But her father refused to change the laws.

And maybe it was just as well. The people wouldn’t want her to lead them, even if she could. After her lifetime of screwups, they disliked her too much.

Dante jogged up beside her, then slowed, keeping pace with her shorter strides.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I asked her to keep our visit quiet.”

“You think she’ll do it?”

“Probably not, but hopefully I’ve bought us some time, enough to get back across the border, into País Vell.”

She arched a brow. Technically they were in País Vell, but this wasn’t the place to argue that. “Any idea what she was hiding?” she asked instead.

“So you picked up on that?”

Paloma reached the bike and stopped. “She wasn’t only afraid of me. She acted worried, almost guilty, as if she’d done something wrong.”

“Yeah, I got that impression, too, but she didn’t say.” He picked up his helmet. “By the way, I asked where her husband worked. It was at a pharmaceutical packaging company about an hour from here. Vell Pharmaceuticals.”

Paloma’s heart skittered hard. Suddenly feeling dizzy, she reached out and clutched the bike.

“Are you all right?” Dante asked, sounding concerned.

Oh, God.
She pressed her fingers to her lips. She didn’t want to believe it. It
had
to be a coincidence. Because if not…

Should she tell Dante? He already despised her family. This would only make him suspect them more. But he’d lost his beloved sister. They had a deadly disease on their hands. He deserved to know the truth.

Dread gathering inside her, she met his eyes. “No one knows this, but Vell Pharmaceuticals belonged to my mother’s family.”

Dante turned dead still, his expression suddenly alert. And a chill slithered through her heart.

“Who runs it now?” he asked carefully.

She inhaled, released a shuddering breath. “My brother, Tristan.”

Chapter 7

D
ante stared at Paloma, an intense rush of adrenaline charging through him at her news. “Your brother owns the pharmacy?”

“It’s not a pharmacy. It’s a pharmaceutical repackaging firm.”

“Meaning?”

Looking reluctant to tell him, she crossed her arms. “They’re middlemen. They import bulk medications from the manufacturers, repackage them into smaller containers and ship them to wholesalers around the world. It goes to the pharmacies and hospitals from there.”

“That sounds convoluted.”

“Maybe, but it’s cheaper for the manufacturer that way. And easier for the pharmacies. They don’t want to stock huge bottles of pills. A repackager puts the medications into smaller lots they can sell, like bubble packs and vials.”

Mulling that over, Dante turned and paced away. But his excitement mounted with every step. This changed everything. It could finally be the breakthrough he needed to incriminate the prince, giving him more to go on than a few vague clues.

Because Dante had no doubt the prince was in this thing up to his eyeballs. And if a worker at his factory had died of that disease, it
had
to mean something big.

Now he just had to find out what.

But he had to be careful. He needed Paloma’s cooperation in this. If she guessed his intentions, that he planned to destroy her beloved brother, she would turn him over to the guards or bolt.

He swung around to face her. She stood with her slender shoulders hunched, her troubled gaze on his, and her vulnerability knocked his heart off course. And he realized with a jolt that this wasn’t only about revenge anymore. Not completely. Something inside him had changed in the past twenty-four hours. He didn’t want to protect only his goal; he wanted to protect
her.
He didn’t want to see her hurt.

His stomach sank, decades of resentment for the royal family rising up in outrage at the thought. But like it or not, that kiss had changed something fundamental between them. He didn’t see Paloma merely as a princess now, but as a person. A woman. An attractive woman with feelings he was reluctant to hurt. A woman he was beginning to respect.

He didn’t want to like her. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t convenient. And it sure as hell wasn’t what he’d planned. But he couldn’t deny the truth.

Still, he’d worked too damned hard for too many years to forfeit his plans for revenge. Her father had murdered his mother. Her brother had murdered Lucía. And no matter what Dante felt for Paloma, he refused to let that killer go free.

Knowing he was walking a tightrope, he headed her way. “You know what this means?” he asked carefully.

A cautious look entered her eyes. “What?”

“The casino isn’t at the center of this thing. Your brother is.” Her spine went stiff, but he forged on. “Think about it, Paloma. My sister worked at the casino where your brother gambled. Gomez blackmailed him. Your brother sent you there to get the evidence. Now we find out that a worker in his factory died of the same disease.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“No, but you heard his widow. Trevino never gambled. He couldn’t afford to. So if he did have that disease, he got it somewhere else. And the prince is the logical link.”

“How could he be? That blackmail evidence has nothing to do with the disease.”

Dante couldn’t argue that point.
Yet.
Not until Miguel finished decrypting those computer files and located the safe-deposit box.

But he still had to convince her to cooperate. “Look, I know you don’t want to think badly of your brother. I get that. But you said it yourself—we have to protect the people before anyone else gets sick. So we have to at least consider that there’s a link.”

“I still don’t see how there could be.”

“I don’t know, either. And maybe you’re right. Maybe he isn’t involved. Maybe we’ll find out he had nothing to do with this, which would be fine. But we at least need to check it out. You have to admit that makes sense.”

“Check it out how?”

“Go visit the company and nose around. See what we can find.”

“Try to find evidence against him, you mean?” Her voice was tight.

“Try to find out the truth. Whatever it is. Good or bad.” Banking on her sense of fairness, he held her gaze.

She stared straight back, emotions ping-ponging through her amber eyes—denial, doubt, resistance, fear. And then her shoulders slumped like a balloon suddenly devoid of air. She reached up and massaged her eyes.

“All right. We’ll take a look. I agree that it looks bad. But there might be another explanation,” she said, meeting his eyes. “It could be a setup. He might have an enemy who’s trying to ruin him. It might not be what it seems.”

He nodded. She’d find out the truth soon enough. He strapped on his helmet and straddled the bike, waiting for her to climb aboard.

But as her hands gripped his waist, warning bells clanged in his mind. Paloma was loyal to her brother. No matter how obvious the connection, she defended him to the hilt. She instinctively tried to protect him—a trait he understood. God knew he’d made enough excuses for his sister over the years.

But when that loyalty collided head-on with the truth, which side was she going to choose?

Could Tristan really have a connection to that disease?

Paloma tramped through the woods behind Vell Pharmaceuticals an hour later, still praying that Dante was wrong. But, of course, he had to be wrong. It didn’t make sense. What did he think her brother had done?

The cold wind blew, making the surrounding pine boughs moan and sending icy rain spattering over her head. Shivering, she pulled her borrowed sweatshirt higher around her neck, then hurried to catch up with Dante, who was forging a trail through the woods. She understood his logic, though. Tristan
appeared
to be the link in all these threads—at least for now. And even if that appearance was only an illusion, they had a duty to check it out.

She just hoped that storm held off. She glanced through the swaying branches at the seething gray sky, which was turning more ominous with every step. Bad enough they had to trek through the woods. Worse, she could hardly stay upright, that blasted headache flaying her skull with such a vengeance that she could hardly concentrate. But if those clouds let loose, dumping freezing rain on the mountain slopes, she’d end up sick.

Pulling her sleeves over her hands to warm them, she ducked under a low-hanging bough. Another gust of raindrops whipped her cheeks, and she shuddered at the bone-numbing cold. Then Dante stopped on a knoll ahead. Relieved that they’d finally made it, she joined him and glanced around.

They’d reached a small wooded area on the slope behind the sprawling pharmaceutical complex. The firm’s main entrance was on the right. To the left were the repackaging facility and warehouses, flanked by the loading docks. A short series of high-pitched beeps drew her gaze to a delivery truck parked near an open bay. Half a dozen men worked to unload it, using forklifts and dollies to haul the pallets inside.

Dante pulled her behind a bush. He hunkered down beside her, his broad shoulder touching hers. Thunder rumbled close by.

“It’s Sunday,” he said, his voice low. “The factory should be closed. It’s strange that they’re getting a shipment now.”

He was right. Except for the men working below them and a handful of cars in the parking lot, the compound appeared deserted—normal for a Sunday afternoon.

Not sure what to make of the off-hours shipment, she blew on her freezing hands. Still shivering, she shifted her weight to minimize the chill seeping through her boots. But the wind blasted again, spitting more rain over their heads, and it was all she could do not to groan.

Several minutes went by. The wind began to pick up speed, adding to her misery. Then suddenly, Dante tensed. “You recognize those guys?”

Gritting her teeth so they wouldn’t chatter, she squinted to see the men. Although it was hard to tell at a distance, they seemed to range in age from their late twenties to their sixties, and they all had the Mediterranean coloring typical of País Vell. But none looked familiar to her. “No. Why? Do you?”

Dante nodded toward the men. “See the old guy operating the forklift? That’s Gaspar Serrano. And the guy with the red shirt is Paco Roig. They’re both members of La Brigada.”

La Brigada.
The outlawed terrorist group. The group that had tried to assassinate her family last month.

“How do you know that?” she asked.

He slanted her a glance. “I grew up around here. Everyone knows who the members are.”

She held his gaze. “And El Fantasma? Does everyone know who he is, too?”

Dante turned dead still. For what felt like an eternity, she didn’t breathe. But then his strong jaw worked, and he looked away. “Yeah. Everyone knows. But no one has proof.”

Her pulse racing, she inched out her pent-up breath. But she continued to study his profile—his rough-hewn nose, the hard, sloping planes of his cheekbones, the strong angles of his whiskered jaw. Stealing was wrong. If Dante was in fact the infamous thief, she couldn’t condone his activities, no matter what the cause. But she had to admit that the thought intrigued her.
Dante
intrigued her. She longed to know more about this sexy, complex man. But this was hardly the time.

And he hadn’t exactly confessed.

Still, as she returned her gaze to the compound, a new worry crawled through her mind. Most people in Reino Antiguo hated the aristocracy. But El Fantasma had gone a step further, actively mounting a vendetta against the nobility to cause them harm. And if Dante really was El Fantasma… Could she trust him? Would he keep quiet about her brother’s actions at the casino? Or was she being seriously naive?

And what about that kiss? What had that meant? Had he merely suffered a moment of insanity and succumbed to the chemistry sparking between them—or something more?

“Looks like they’re done,” he said.

The men unloaded the final pallet and closed the hydraulic lift gate on the truck. And another question churned through her mind. “If those men are terrorists, why would they work for my brother? They’d hardly want to help the crown.” And why would Tristan hire them? Unless he really was involved in something shady…

A sliver of doubt pierced her heart.

But Dante shrugged. “You said most people don’t know who owns this place. And there aren’t many jobs around here.”

That was true. Jobs in the mountains were scarce. Men either farmed, mined or worked in the shale-oil fields, where production had recently stepped up.

The forklifts disappeared into the warehouse. The men put their dollies away. A second later, they came back out and closed the sliding bay doors. Then one man jumped into the delivery truck and drove it around to the parking lot while the others walked back to their cars. Within minutes, their engines started up, and they drove away.

“What now?” she asked as the sound of their motors faded, replaced by the rustle of leaves.

Dante rose, then extended his hand and pulled her up. “I want to see inside.”

“Isn’t there security. A guard, maybe?”

“Probably.” He nodded toward the parking lot, where only one car remained. “But it won’t take long to deal with him. I’ll let the surveillance camera pick me up. Then, when he comes to investigate…” He shrugged.

Not happy with that idea, Paloma frowned. “What if he triggers an alarm first?”

“He probably will. But it’s an hour to the nearest village, and farther than that to País Vell.”

“So?”

“So we’ll have time to nose around and get out before anyone else shows up.”

Uneasy, she shook her head. “I don’t know.” Why risk another arrest?

“Look, if you’re worried about getting caught on camera, you can wait for me here. I’ll go in alone.”

She vacillated, tempted to let him, but she couldn’t take the easy way out. “No. If this has anything to do with my brother, I need to know.” Besides, she’d already appeared at the scene of two dead bodies. What did breaking into her brother’s company matter now?

But as she set off with him down the slope, more doubts crowded her mind. Dante struck her as a careful man. If she was right about him, he’d spent nearly two decades working as El Fantasma without divulging his identity or getting caught. And if he was willing to break into this pharmaceutical plant without even bothering to cover his tracks, he must suspect they’d find something big.

But what?

A short time later, they stood inside the cargo bay doors. While Dante set the timer on his watch, Paloma flicked her gaze around the cavernous warehouse, knowing the surveillance cameras were recording their moves.

“Let’s find the office,” he said, striding off.

Her trepidation rising, she hurried to catch up. Bad enough that Dante had lured the security guard into the cargo bay and handcuffed him to a metal post. But somewhere out there, more guards had spotted them on camera. And they would be mobilizing their forces right now, charging toward the complex to arrest them....

She battled down a flurry of dread.