Shattered Trust

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Authors: Leslie Esdaile Banks

BOOK: Shattered Trust
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Also by Leslie Esdaile Banks
Betrayal of the Trust
 
Blind Trust
 
No Trust
 
 
Published by Dafina Books
Shattered Trust
LESLIE ESDAILE BANKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
This is for my daughter, Helena ...
my best friend, giggle-buddy, warm hugger,
and the light of my heart.
I am proud of you in every way. May the
good guys win in the end your whole life long!
Love, Mom
Acknowledgments
Thanks to: Manie Barron, my agent, who always finds the best projects; Karen Thomas, for her willingness to let me test my hand at creating many different heroines; Nicole Bruce, for her steadfast support ... and my daughter, Helena, who is my best girlfriend.
Chapter 1
Villa on Grand Cayman, Present Day
 
J
ames Carter's skin was like dark, bittersweet chocolate. Smooth, a confection that had slowly melted in her mouth all night long, a flavor that she could still savor hours later on the back of her tongue.
Laura stood in the kitchen of their newly rebuilt house, her hands besotted with mango nectar, as she meticulously peeled the skin away from the fruit and watched dawn burn the dew from the hibiscus that nearly covered her kitchen windows with their bright-hued wash of color. Heaven on earth.
After the terrible storms that had decimated the property over a year ago, only her battered memory of the disaster remained. There was no physical evidence left of the destruction. So why were their souls restless after more than a year of hiatus from the hectic, insane urban reality of Philly? she wondered. All those who'd hunted them had been either imprisoned or permanently neutralized by death. Her family was no longer at risk, nor was she in peril. The money was righteous; she'd come out holding financial aces worth millions once she was done. Therefore, the quiet, nagging feeling of unrest made no sense.
Her wild and crazy cousin, Najira, was safe and sound and living not far from their house on the island with James's partner, Steve, and her brother Jamal. Their father, her Uncle Akhan, had healed nicely, and was back in his old home in North Philly, safe. Her sisters and their children were stateside, well provided for, and going on about their normal lives without interruption. So why the case of nerves?
The only thing she could chalk it up to was memories. . . gruesome, visceral memories of treacherous games, dangerous liaisons, and heavy losses. Like the angry storms that had swept through Florida and the Caribbean, she'd swept through Philadelphia's black elite and had served a harsh blow of justice like a force of nature. Yet, by all accounts, it seemed as though the landscape had healed over, things had gone back to normal, and all evidence of her wrath was invisible to the naked eye.
But that didn't mean it hadn't happened. It had. Infrastructure had been rebuilt, just like it had been in paradise. Power, literally and figuratively, had been restored. Roads, water sources, homes, and buildings had been newly constructed and replaced. However, no one forgot what had taken place not so long ago. Every time it rained hard, people were wary. Human nature. Every time folks probably heard her name in Philly, she was also aware that they most likely whispered about Hurricane Laura in hushed, reverent tones. So be it.
What was there to do? She and Najira finally accepted the reality that her fund-raising business was dead from it all; it had died on the vine from foundations, politicians, and grant sources too wary of her capacity to inflict destruction to accept proposals. Thus, like some of the facilities in the Caribbean that would never come back after the storms, she'd ultimately shut down Rainmakers, Inc., and had given all loyal employees a hefty severance with glowing recommendations. Rest in peace. She and her small inner circle could live off the residuals of millions. Whatever. Maybe it was finally just time to meld into the obscure and become a private citizen again.
Laura rinsed her hands and reached up into the cabinet for the coffee to begin a fresh pot. Carefully opening the vacuum-sealed mason jar of fresh beans, she breathed in deeply before dumping some into the small grinder. Her new husband was like black coffee, too... . James always filled up a room without saying a word and eclipsed all vacancies within it, silently, mysteriously, and lingered in her subconscious with his wonderful aroma. In a very quiet way, he'd filled up her spirit like that as well, a gentle force that created an urge, a hankering that could rarely be ignored.
He poured over her senses still, hours later. The pungent scent of their lovemaking clung to her skin beneath her dampened robe. Remnants of his sticky essence made the flesh of her thighs fuse together as she made coffee and a small plate of fruit. She stared at the huge diamond on her hand, allowing the natural sunlight to bathe it and sparkle in the facets. More than a year of rapture, and her soul was now restless. Why?
For all his slow, calm delivery of words and actions, she could feel something palpable constantly roiling just beneath the surface of James's skin. He seemed to be at peace, but wasn't ... like her. In fact, as she turned the dilemma over and over in her mind, Najira and Steve also had a quiet desperation in their eyes when they all got together. The only one who was being honest was Jamal. He'd flat out admitted that for all the glory of paradise, he was bored.
Laura pressed the top of the Cuisinart grinder and the aroma of freshly ground coffee entered her nose. The slight hum in the kitchen connected to her spinal column and she lifted her hand; the noise seemed out of place in the early morning silence. This hour required reverence, stillness. The atrocities of the world seemed so far away, yet she knew they were also close enough to breathe against her ear until the hair at the nape of her neck stood up.
“Hey,” a quiet male voice whispered from the kitchen doorway.
She didn't turn around or start. “Hey,” she said calmly. “I was making coffee and some fruit. You want some?”
Laura glanced over her shoulder. James leaned against the doorframe and raked his hair, but didn't sit down.
They both just looked at each other for a moment.
“I know,” she said quietly, and then went back to the task of finding a filter for the pot.
He nodded. “You feeling it, too?”
“Yeah,” she said just above a whisper and added water to the coffeemaker. “How long have you?”
“Couple of months,” he admitted and entered the kitchen. “Something's nagging my gut.”
“It isn't over, is it?” She stopped making coffee and stared at him. “Your gut is never wrong, James. Neither is mine.”
He slowly sat down in a chair, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall. “I know, baby. I know.”
James let his breath out in an audible sigh. She turned on the coffeemaker and came to the table to sit across from him.
“You first,” she said with a half smile.
He opened his eyes and ran his palms down his face and gave her a sheepish grin. “That's not what you said last night.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, I know. But you're avoiding the subject. So, since I got mine multiple times last night—you first, this morning.”
He nodded and chuckled with her, leaning on his forearms on the table as he sat forward to stare at her. “I'm not trying to blow the groove, Laura, but I've got this weird feeling like ... like it's too quiet. I keep telling myself that it's just because I'm not used to a life without drama that I'm feeling like the other shoe is about to drop. Does that make sense?”
She leaned forward and clasped his hands within hers. “Yeah, I know exactly how you feel. I've been reading the newspapers from back home online.”
He chuckled, squeezed her hands gently, and then sat back. “I thought we were gonna banish the States for a while?”
She smiled and stood. “How about that coffee?”
He watched her move to the counter, loving the way her shapely body flowed beneath the peach silk of her robe. Her cinnamon brown skin looked like it sucked up the color of the fabric and reflected it back out through her pores. Her short, dark, velvety hair was a mussed profusion of curls on top of her head, evidence of the torrid night before. “Coffee, huh?” he said, trying to keep his nature at bay as he watched her fix their morning brew. “Isn't that how this all got started a long time ago?”
She laughed and glimpsed him over her shoulder. He loved the way her dark, smoldering eyes glistened with mischief in the privacy of their kitchen ... and the way her lush mouth pouted as she devised a comeback line. He waited patiently for her and the coffee, wondering why he was trying to ruin paradise. It made no sense.
He had all that any man could want. Screw the fledgling detective agency. He and Steve could open a small water sports business by the resorts and live out the rest of their lives in peace. What better way for two ex-cops to retire? They had both made it out alive, whatever gunshot wounds they'd sustained had earned them citations, they'd healed, had gotten out of the system with a solid pension, and they'd even scored a nice profit from their one and only job. There was no need to stir the pot with unfounded worries. But his gut was never wrong.
Laura brought two mugs of coffee to the table with a fruit plate and slid into a padded wicker chair. “Your coffee,” she announced, and then sipped her java with a sly smile.
“And the Internet says what?” he said, taking a slow sip and then picking up a piece of mango from the plate, his eyes never leaving hers.
“The good senator resigned office and got off with a spurious plea bargain. He's been acquitted. All charges against him have been focused on the doctor, Senator Scott's errant son, and dead people.”
James nodded and put the piece of mango in his mouth, half chewing, half sucking the flavor of the sweetness, and allowing his tongue to enjoy it before answering her. “Figured as much,” he said, casually sucking the juice off his fingers. “If he went down, a lot of other very high-ranking politicians all the way to D.C. would have also gone down, baby. You know how this goes.”
She sighed and took a piece of fruit up from the plate, stared at it for a moment, and then popped it into her mouth. “Uhmm, hmmm,” she mumbled, chewing. “It's a viper's nest all the way to the top. That's why I shut down Rainmakers.”
He smiled and slurped his coffee. “So, if you're out of the grant-making and political fund-raising business, then why are you following the stateside news like a hawk?”
“I'm not, really.” Her gaze slid away from his with a smile.
“My Scorpio wife is such a gorgeous liar,” he said, leaning his head back and dangling another piece of fruit above his mouth, and then allowing it to drop in.
She laughed. “It's not a lie. It's—”
“An evasion. Talk to me, Laura.” He smiled and leaned forward, taking up his coffee again. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” she said sheepishly, sipping her brew and staring at him over the rim of her mug. She set it down with precision. “I'm just watching our backs.”
He slurped his brew with a half smile. “You've got serious trust issues, baby.” He set his mug down calmly. “But I can't talk too bad about you, because so do I.”
“You've been online, too, I take it?”
He chuckled. “You know me well.”
“You're worried, too?”
His smile faded. “We did a lot of damage. People with an axe to grind are out in the world again—temporarily gone, but not forgotten.”
Her grip tightened around her mug, although her facial expression remained serene. “You think I need to get Akhan out of Philly?”
“Might not hurt to bring him in close with the family down here for a while, until our guts ain't in a knot.”
They both stared at each other for a moment.
“You know my uncle loves his community and won't leave Philly.”
“I know,” James said quietly. “He's one of those old-school warriors that will be there until the bitter end with a shotgun at his door, talkin' about ain't no revenuers coming on his property.”
Laura sighed and smiled. “You've talked to him.”
James smiled and nodded. “So have Najira and Jamal. Repeatedly.”
“I see,” Laura said, taking up her coffee again. “Glad to know I'm not the only one with secrets.”
He laughed and shook his head, his hand sliding under the table to stroke her thigh. “Nope. But it was all with good intent.”
The heat of his hand there made her relax, just as much as his words had. It was oddly comforting to know that he was also on alert and that she was not alone in her wariness.
“Now that I'm fully awake,” he said in a low murmur, “and I've had some Joe ... I have other intentions that are
real
good, too.”
“Hmmm ... sounds like an attempt to distract me.”
“No, more like an attempt to relax you and to get that big brain of yours to let go of what we can't do anything about until it happens.”
“I like to be prepared for the worst-case scenario,” she said, closing her eyes as his hand stroked warmth into the flesh of her leg.
“Me, too,” he said quietly, still caressing her thigh. “We'll get Akhan to visit, for an extended stay. I can beef up security here and I know Steve is on the same page.”
She opened her eyes. “You're not worried about an actual physical hit, are you? I was more thinking in terms of some financial attack, something to screw us business-wise, or to shut down our contacts to entrepreneurial ventures back home.”

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