In Too Deep (2 page)

She tried to remember how much better he was already, but it didn't help. Her heart seemed to lodge in her throat every time she walked through the door to his room. Ever since the nearly fatal heart attack had felled her boisterous, vital father four weeks earlier, she'd felt like a child again, terrified by the prospect of being left alone. It had been worse when he'd been in intensive care, lying so incredibly still, the tentative rhythm of his life monitored by machine. She'd tried desperately then to keep her gaze averted from the equipment, but simply holding Scottie's huge, callused hand in hers had brought tears to her eyes. The faint squeezes he'd given in response to her reassurances had been pale, unsatisfactory imitations of his hearty hugs.

He really was better now, but the visits still left her shaken. She knew, though, that Scottie would be bewildered by her reaction. Despite its severity, he didn't see the attack as an ominous sign of his mortality. In fact, he was taking the whole thing in stride, already chomping at the bit to get on with his life. As far as he was concerned this had been no more than a damned inconvenience.

“Sleep,” she ordered.

“Who the hell can sleep when people keep hiding things? Get on the phone and find out what's going on down in Mexico.”

“I'll find out, Scottie,” she promised. Then she winked. “But I won't tell you unless you behave.”

She spent the next forty-eight hours in a frustrating attempt to get the answers she and her father wanted. Efforts to reach Rod Craig by radiophone proved futile. According to the hotel where he'd based himself in Palenque, he'd been in the field for the past three weeks. They hadn't heard from him, either.

She hung up after her last call and stared out the window. Scottie wasn't going to rest until he knew what was going on. For that matter, neither was she, and it was up to her to find out. She searched her desktop for the scheduling sheet for the engineers on staff. Not a one of them was available for an emergency trip to Mexico.

If she wanted immediate answers, that left one alternative. She buzzed for Louise.

“I'm going to Mexico,” she announced, while flipping through the flight schedules she kept on file. “Make the arrangements and get whatever supplies I'll need. I'll go home for my passport, pack a bag and be back here in an hour. I want to leave on the afternoon flight.”

Used to Scottie's spur-of-the-moment decisions, the attractive brunet secretary never even blinked at Cara's impromptu plans. She began jotting down Cara's instructions and added a few of her own.

“That does it, then,” Louise said, when
she
was satisfied. Cara grinned at the secretary's smooth takeover of the planning.

“I'll have your ticket when you get back,” Louise promised. She started for the door, then turned back. An expression of concern filled her sparkling brown eyes. “Does your father know?”

“I'll call him from the airport.”

When she made that call several hours later, Scottie was not nearly as enthusiastic about the decision as she'd anticipated he would be. Silence greeted the announcement.

“What's wrong?”

“Maybe you should send Mark,” he suggested finally.

“I thought about that but Mark's in Brazil. He's right at a critical stage of the work down there. He couldn't fly up till the end of the month. We can't wait that long.”

“Hank, then.”

“You know perfectly well that Hank's in Cairo. Everyone else is tied up, too. I'm going, Scottie. I can be there in twenty-four hours. I can assess things just as well as they can.” That, of course, was the crux of the matter. She still had this ridiculous need to prove herself to her father, to win his approval along with his love.

He muttered an exasperated curse, and she knew he had seen right through her.

“Dammit, girl, I know you're a good engineer or I wouldn't have made you a vice president, but you ain't used to tromping around in the jungle.”

“I'll manage,” she said with what she hoped was enough confidence to reassure him. “I made that trip to Brazil with you, didn't I? I didn't even faint when I found that snake in my bedroll.”

“No. You just screamed your fool head off till I came running. What'll you do this time? I'm not going to be there.”

“Scottie, I'm only going for a day or so. As long as I don't fall into a snake pit, I'll be just fine.”

“And what if you do?”

“Do what?”

“Fall into a snake pit?”

“Scottie, I was joking.”

“I'm not. You don't know what the hell you're likely to run into down there. There could be wild savages in that jungle.”

“We're talking about Mexico, not the interior of Africa.”

“Okay, then, bandits.”

“You're the one who taught me how to defend myself. I've packed my malaria pills. I have a snakebite kit. I'll buy bottled water and cans of food in Palenque.”

“Hiking boots?”

“I have them.”

“What about a hat?”

“It's in my hand.”

“Mosquito netting?”

“Scottie, I sent Louise shopping.”

“Then you have everything.” He sighed, though she wasn't certain whether it was in resignation or satisfaction.

“What about Craig, though? How're you gonna handle him? He's not like those guys you're used to ordering around at the office or leading around on a dance floor. He won't quake in his boots the minute you lift one of those eyebrows the way you do when you're about to lose your cool.”

“How difficult can he be? He works for us, not the other way around.”

“He works for us precisely because I leave him alone to do the job I pay him for. Rod Craig's his own man, missy, and you'd be doing well not to forget it.”

It was only after she was in the air that she wondered what the hell her father had meant by that.

D
ear God in heaven, there really was a jungle down there, Cara thought, staring out the filthy airplane window with a sort of horrified fascination. Brilliant shades of emerald green splashed across shadowed hues of olive. This wasn't the idyllic green of an unexpected patch of sunlit grass discovered deep in the forest. Nor was it the rich, darkly mysterious color of rain-soaked valleys in Ireland. This was an endless, undulating sea of tangled vines and elephantine leaves, of impenetrable undergrowth and hidden dangers.

“What did you expect?” she muttered under her breath. “Central Park?”

Actually, that would have been nice. In fact, it would have been terrific to be in Central Park right now, jogging along a familiar paved path. She loved being surrounded by the towering skyscrapers of civilization, listening to a Mozart tape as she ran. At this hour she'd be close to home again, just starting to anticipate the day's first savory cup of her favorite special blend of coffee, a buttery croissant with thick raspberry jam and the
Wall Street Journal.

Instead, she was heading deep into the Mexican rain forest in search of a man everyone had been telling her for years now was an independent, arrogant, bullheaded rogue. The company gossip about the man's professional and amatory exploits was the stuff of which legends were made. Even her father had said that Rod Craig was nothing but trouble. What confused her slightly was that her father's voice held a note of envy when he said it.

From the moment she'd heard it while still in her teens, that unexpected note had intrigued her. Scottie, who'd founded WHS Engineering nearly thirty years ago, had a well-documented independent streak of his own. He envied few men. That alone, then, would have been enough to make her curious, but that wasn't all. In some way she couldn't quite define—and didn't like admitting—her father's apparent affection and admiration for Rod Craig also hurt her. It reminded her that there was a time in his life she hadn't shared, a carefree time that Rod epitomized and her father still, after all these years, longed for. This life they had in New York was second best to her father.

Now Cara was about to find out for herself if Rod Craig lived up to his reputation. After a four-hour delay on the ground in New York, two flights, a hair-raising drive over twisting mountain roads and a night in a bug-infested room in Palenque, she was back in the air in some plane that looked like it had been patched together with Krazy Glue and rubber bands. The hotel manager had reluctantly arranged the charter. Amid muttered prayers to all the saints, he had also drawn her a map of the area along the river where she was likely to find Rod.

She'd studied the sketch carefully, asked several questions, then nodded in satisfaction. It appeared straightforward enough, a walk of perhaps a mile, maybe two from the airstrip. It was hardly the dangerous or physically taxing venture her father had feared. She walked farther than that between appointments in New York. She'd hiked more treacherous distances on sites in the desert. She was accustomed to getting along on unfamiliar terrain. Scottie had taught her well. The hotel manager had remained horrified by her blasé attitude. She wrote it off, first to Latin machismo, then to avarice.

“Please, señorita, you go by boat. I find you best guide,” he had argued. “Normally he take tours on the river, but for you special deal.”

Scottie's concern echoed through her mind. “How long to arrange it?”

“Two, maybe three days, he be back.”

“I'll go by plane.”

“It is dangerous, señorita, no place for a woman alone.”

“Give me the map.”

More prayers had been muttered for her stubborn soul. As the plane dipped and swayed, she was beginning to be thankful for the manager's communications on her behalf. It was going to take a heavenly influence to keep her alive on this flight. And she very much wanted to live, just so she could kill Rod Craig for causing all this inconvenience.

Carlos, the pilot, had the look of a bandit with a streak of the daredevil in his soul. He'd been lavishing gap-toothed smiles on her since takeoff. With the plane's engine coughing and sputtering, they were flying awfully low over this endless, intimidating jungle, which should have required enough attention to keep his mind off her. Instead, he seemed determined to terrify her with his aerial acrobatics.

She sat back and closed her eyes. Despite her appearance of calm, this was not the sort of adventure she relished. She'd never admitted it to Scottie, but she preferred the challenge of the boardroom or the excitement of her drawing board. Those were the things she understood, things she could control. Though she'd done fieldwork with Scottie and was more than qualified for this assignment, it was not the aspect of her job she preferred.

As a result of her present anxiety and the unappealing prospect of worse to come, Cara was in no mood to deal politely with some irresponsible rake who was off in the wilderness indulging his lusty libido on company time. If it had been up to her, she'd have fired the man, but that would have upset her father, and she would not have Scottie worrying himself into another heart attack. So, instead, she was going to get this project moving if she had to join ranks with Rod or, if he didn't like that, simply do it herself.

Suddenly the plane dove downward into a tiny clearing. Her heart thumping wildly, Cara watched wide-eyed as Carlos landed on a cleared stretch of dirt that had been barely visible from the air and was not one inch longer than it needed to be. The trees and vines seemed to close in around them. Though the sun was high in the midday sky, it was filtered by the density of the greenery, reaching the ground in pale fingers. She swallowed hard and wondered exactly what the hell she'd gotten herself into.

“Which way, Carlos?”

He pointed her toward a narrow dirt path barely visible in the wild undergrowth and towering mahogany trees. If it had ever been intended as a road, time had choked off its potential.

“No problem,” he said, grinning broadly. Cara spoke perfectly fluent Spanish, but Carlos had insisted on practicing his English. “One hour. Maybe less. You find river. Señor Craig, he be there. Somewhere. Maybe.”

Her heart thumped irregularly at the vague qualification.

Sensing her hesitation, he added, “One hundred dollars American, I take you.”

It was a tempting offer, but the price seemed outrageously high just for the comfort of having someone to walk with for an hour or so.

“You just be back here tomorrow afternoon,” she told him.

Carlos's bright brown eyes regarded her with respect. “You very brave señorita. You have a man at home?”

“No man,” she confessed.

“This Señor Craig, he your man?”

“Hardly.”

He nodded sympathetically. “Take very strong man to be good for you, lady. My brother, he very strong. You want to meet?”

Cara laughed at his hopeful expression. “No, thank you, Carlos. I'm not looking for a man in my life right now.”

He shook his head. “Not good to be without a man. Man-woman is way it is meant to be. You think about what I say. We talk again tomorrow.”

Then he was gone. She was surprised to feel a lump in her throat as she watched him fly away. She stood gazing after the plane until it was no more than a spark of light glinting through that narrow slit to the distant sky.

When she could avoid it no longer, she took a slow look around and shuddered. The landing strip was no more than a deserted stretch of cleared ground. The small tin-sided shack fifty yards away had an abandoned air about it. The only sounds were the wild shrieks of birds she couldn't even see in the dense foliage. Storm clouds were gathering, temporarily muting the full force of the hot sun. She suddenly felt incredibly lonely and far, far out of her element.

“I really don't like this,” she muttered, but she determinedly picked up her small flight bag with its change of clothes and the backpack of essentials Louise had assembled. There was no point in standing around.