Hot Contract (6 page)

She nodded abruptly and shoved past Jen, her
mouth folded tight. Her partner gave Deacon a look that promised
retribution wasn’t far off and followed. Deacon watched them go.
Keegan watched Deacon, and Jen felt like she was caught in a
rip-tide without a life preserver. What was going on?

“I’ll call ahead,” she said to Deacon. “Make
sure you bring some form of picture ID.”

****

Jen brushed aside an old jacket and some
sneakers to get at the dress she'd thrown in the back of her
walk-in closet. The fancy padded hanger was from her aunt's
favorite designer and smelled like civet. Or maybe it was the way
Corlis leaned against the door, blocking the flow of fresh air,
hands shoved down in her pockets.

Too bad she wouldn’t go away.

Jen pulled the thin gold film off and held
her aunt's family-approved dress to her throat. “What do you
think?”

The only thing Corlis moved was her eyes.
“It’s too much of a risk.”

“The dress or the party?” Keegan stepped out
on the landing and crossed to them. He glanced at the dress. “It’s
a pretty color.”

Jen turned on the closet light, and moved to
look at herself in the wall mirror.

Big pink ruffles ringed the bottom of the
dress. Bright pink ruffles. She didn’t remember them being so big.
Or so pink. Pepto-Bismol pink?

Keegan met her eyes in the glass and for a
second, the dress didn’t matter. Her lips parted.

Corlis made a disgusted noise. “Pick
something easy to run in.”

“The skirt’s really loose,” said Jen. “It’s a
holomu’u. You know, a native Hawaiian dress? My aunt wanted me to
have something special to wear to the luau.” She folded the dress
down over her arm and gave Keegan another quick look before she
disappeared into the bathroom.

Keegan moved away to stop his sister from
making another sound. He was tired and sore. “Looking doesn’t
hurt,” he growled at her. Anything to take his mind off his burning
shoulder.

The bathroom door opened and Jen walked out,
brushing her hair down over one shoulder. The dress was long and
bell-shaped, the fabric too stiff to drape. She looked like a big
pink Popsicle, but when she smiled at him, he couldn't breathe.

“What do you think?”

Everything from his hips on down had a mind
of its own and wanted to get under that Popsicle shell.
“Beautiful,” he managed.

She tied her hair off and flipped it back.
“Thanks for helping me out,” she said, like talking made her
uncomfortable. Or maybe it was just the situation that made her
uncomfortable. She gave thanks like they were wedged in her
throat.

He shrugged and stared out the window.
Sunlight spreading over the silvery gray leaves made the
surrounding forest glitter like it was carved of precious
metals.

“We're too isolated,” he said abruptly. “We
don't have enough manpower to control your perimeter.”

Behind them, Corlis started down the stairs.
Keegan heard her in the lower stairwell, working the front door
just before it closed with a sharp snap.

Jen joined him at the window, skirts gathered
up in her fists. “StallingCo is never quiet. I love the peace here.
The…lack of eyes.”

“It won’t last. Once that power plant goes
live, there’ll be people all up in here.”

She shrugged gracefully. “People and jobs. Ua
mau ke ea o ka aina I ka pono. The life of the land is preserved in
righteousness. It’s the state motto. It’s what the Project is all
about,” she told him. “Change.”

He turned to face her. “People don’t like
change. They fight it.”

Jen studied him with a bemused air. “Are
those your only clothes?”

After he'd taken a shower, he'd put his dirty
ACUs back on. Everything else was sitting in the Seattle-Tacoma
airport.

“They're dry,” he said defensively.

“My aunt has high standards. Security won’t
let you out of the parking lot looking like that.”

His sweat-stained, slept-in pants picked that
moment to crawl up his ass. “Your father wanted the team. Clothes
weren’t a priority.”

“I don’t think clothes are ever a priority
with you.”

“I’m good with guns,” said Keegan.

“Are you?”

“Guess we’ll find out.”

He followed her pink ruffles down the stairs
and out to the driveway before pointing to the borrowed sedan
wedged in next to a plain blue rental car.

Corlis leaned out. “Hurry up. I need to stop
at a gas station.”

Jen folded her dress in around her and tried
to get in. “It’s tighter than I thought,” she muttered, tugging at
the material around her hips.

“You’re not that fat,” he told her.

It wasn’t until he got in on the other side
that he saw Fallon roll his eyes.

“Man, no wonder we keep you at home.”

Corlis started the engine and threw an arm
over the back of the chair. “Drop it.”

Keegan frowned, glancing at Jen out of the
corner of his eyes. “I didn’t mean to call you fat.”

She rolled the window down and refused to
look at him. “I’m not fat.”

“I really didn’t mean—”

“I don’t want to hear what you meant. You’re
my bodyguard. We shouldn’t even be having this conversation.” Jen
folded her arms tightly over her chest and spent the rest of the
trip down into Hilo staring out the window.

The highway was clean and sterile. It could
have been any highway, anywhere in the highway system.

“I’m hungry,” said Corlis.

At least she’d waited until they got to
civilization before hitting him up for food. Keegan took out a wad
of currency and tossed it into the front seat.

Fallon scooped it into his pocket, and pulled
a couple of tired-looking twenties out of his wallet. “Filipino
pesos don’t cut it, man. Not here.”

Corlis turned into a drive-thru and pulled up
to the order screen. When they had their meal, she ripped out of
the parking lot, cutting up and down sleepy side streets until she
was sure no one was following them.

In thirty-two miles, highway 11 dropped over
four thousand feet. For some reason, from that perspective, the
capital of East Hawaii looked a lot like Cambodia. Hilo dozed in
the sticky morning heat, buildings poking up through the choking
greenery like Angkor Wat without the Khmer Rouge or maybe with
them. The majority of his clients came from Pacific Rim countries.
He knew what islands looked like. He’d internalized some image of
Hawaii with white sand beaches and gorgeous women in bikinis, but
the only woman he saw at the tiny bay where Corlis finally stopped
to let them eat was a big woman in a loose purple house dress with
arms like a stevedore.

Jen got out and waddled off to sit on a small
wooden bench overlooking the water. Keegan sent Fallon after her.
He didn’t think she’d want to talk to him yet, and from the way
tension eased out of her hard-held shoulders, Keegan knew he was
right.

Corlis joined him leaning against the
car.

“Quiet,” he said.

She didn’t take her hand off her gun until
she’d checked out the tiny pull-off. There was one bench and two
trash cans. It wasn’t much of a destination.

“Yeah,” she said.

Sunlight filtering through the banyans made
the rock-strewn bay sparkle with motes of light. A container ship
chugged by out beyond the breakwater, pushing waves against the
shore in slow, oily swells.

Keegan took one of the takeout bags from his
sister. “I’m not letting her go to that party because I want to
fuck her.”

“Yeah, right.” Corlis opened her bag and
eyeballed the contents. “Four specials, I said. This thing has
gravy on it.”

“Connor doesn’t have much time.”

His sister pulled out the Styrofoam tray and
investigated the contents. “Tell me something I don’t know. There’s
an egg under here and I think it’s sunny-side up. Nasty,” she said.
She took a suspicious sniff.

Keegan watched Jen talk to Fallon. He barely
knew her, and what little he did know told him she was far outside
his range of experience. “How could anyone walk away from all that
money?”

He wasn’t aware of speaking until Corlis gave
him a level look. “I think you’re more than capable of asking
her.”

“She’s already too damned real. Connor is the
mission objective. Jen is the means. We need to put her out there
and get some reaction.”

“You want to use her as bait,” said
Corlis.

“Yeah.”

Corlis scraped her egg to the side and
flipped it out on the ground. “Going to tell her?”

Keegan pulled out his bowl and broke the
yolk. “No.”

****

Shopping wasn’t something Keegan did well. He
followed Jen into the store and hovered like a stork, foot up, foot
down, shifting from side to side like someone was going to jump out
from between the tables and gut them both.

He said it was the store but after a quick
glance at Fallon and Corlis, Jen knew it was just him. The two
DalCon operatives were as jumpy as rocks. Jen noticed how Keegan
chafed over being in the store, and bought him a pair of loose
cargo pants and a soft short-sleeved button down. Besides, she
wasn’t exactly dressed for shopping, herself, in her lurid pink
ruffles. He should be grateful she hadn’t bought him a matching
pink aloha shirt. She’d wanted to get him slacks and a dress shirt,
but he’d insisted on jeans, and while cargo pants weren’t the
perfect compromise, anything was better than jeans.

“My aunt is a stickler,” she told him.

“Not a jeans person?”

“No.”

He followed her into the car and waited until
his sister clattered over the Wailuku River Bridge before leaning
out the window. The Hamakua Coast rose before them in a series of
tall green headlands. “This isn’t what I expected.”

Jen shifted away from him. “And what did you
expect?”

“Beaches? Blue skies. Leis and stuff.”

“We just passed a beach,” said Jen.

“Honey, that was a whole lot of nothing. I’ve
been to Oregon, and that expanse of pebbles you call a beach is
damned close. It’s cold and wet. Down here, it’s hot and wet. So
far the only thing this place has going for it is the color of the
ocean.”

“I live on a mountain,” said Jen. “There are
mountains in other parts of the Pacific.”

Keegan shook his head. “Not like this.”

The road carved through the Hamakua Coast
like a tightly strung wire, with the lush green vegetation and the
distant rise of Mauna Loa on one side, sea cliffs and deep water on
the other.

“Then it’s a good thing you don’t have long
to suffer.” Jen readjusted the ruffles around her ankles. “It’s
only a twelve mile drive.”

Jen slid down in her seat as the car rolled
through a headland and out on a high trestle bridge. The sound of
falling water echoed through the deep gorge, hidden by a drift of
red cloud-like flowers. Her stomach clenched up tight. Did the
delicate spider-web of concrete and girders seem to sway in the
stiff breeze?

Keegan noticed her slumping. “You okay?”

She glared at him. “I have vertigo.”

“Vertigo isn’t one of your documented
weaknesses.”

“And you have my complete dossier. Don’t you,
Keegan?”

“Damn straight. Keep your eyes closed and
stick your head out the window.”

It was a known fact her family bred for
genetic supermen. With unlimited money and opportunities, it was a
wonder any of them were less than physically and mentally
perfect.

She took a deep breath. “Don’t worry, I won’t
throw up on you—I can control it, to an extent.”

Corlis pulled into the small turnaround at
the entrance to Kate’s valley. “I can give you a few minutes.”

Jen gave her an icy look. “Don’t feel sorry
for me.”

“Suit yourself.” Corlis turned back to the
wheel and started down, whomping over the speed bumps. The fading
light made the narrow road look like it was held on with duct tape.
A big green gravel truck roared toward them, grille glittering.
They were too close to the edge, and the road was barely
adequate.

Jen abruptly found herself in Keegan’s lap,
nails gouging into his arm.

“Trust me,” he whispered. “I won’t let you
fall.”

“I just—you plan for situations like this,”
she said. She took a quick, shallow breath. “Stay close to the
inside edge. If I drive, I stay on the other side of the car away
from the guardrails and stare straight ahead.”

“So we’re the only people who know about the
vertigo?”

She stilled. “Are you going to tell on
me?”

He shook his head and went silent. Silence
didn’t do much good. He could hear the quick pant of her breath as
she tried to ignore her fear. He smoothed her hair uncertainly and
stared out the window, over her shoulder. Dusk darkened the groves
of wild banana clinging to the valley walls. From this angle, it
looked like a miniature train-set, too damned perfect. A small
parking lot at the base of the cliff opened out into a manicured
lawn contained by a wall of tangled vegetation and a tiny white
sand beach, like an English estate done up Hawaiian-style.

“We’re down,” he said finally, wanting to
hold on to her.

“Thanks,” she muttered, moving to her corner.
She rearranged her hair and dress while Corlis parked the car.

Kerosene lanterns strung along the edges of
the lot peopled the already parked cars with fitful yellow ghosts.
His shoulder felt sticky. Keegan glanced down to find blood on his
fancy new shirt.

Jen choked, “You’re bleeding again.”

“Jesus.” Keegan shrugged out of the
button-down and pulled his black t-shirt back on. “If you’re going
to freak every time my shoulder breaks open, I need to know
why.”

Jen flounced out of the car and slammed the
door behind her. “You’ve read my files. You tell me.”

Keegan followed her, careful to leave the
width of the car between them. She was obviously in no mood to be
messed with. “Your files aren’t complete. I’m part of your
protection detail. Don’t make me do this job blind, Jen. Tell me
what you see.”