The Spy Who Left Me (6 page)

Ty reached for his water, talking as he coughed. “Swallowed down the wrong pipe.”

Treflee smiled to herself.
That was low, but he deserved that shot below the belt. He really did.

Fortunately for Ty, the sun had slipped below the horizon and the stars were beginning to twinkle. With the sun gone, it was time for the below-deck entertainment to begin.

An announcement blared from the loudspeakers. “Passengers, please report to the glass-bottom viewing deck for our fantastic Polynesian dancing show!”

Ty zipped out of his chair and toward the stairs with Laci almost running to keep up with him as she hung like a barnacle on his arm. The rest of the group followed.

On the lower deck, they took seats on benches around the glass deck viewing area. An array of exotic, curvy hula girls and several ripped, dark, and handsome Polynesian men danced onto the glass in a rustle of grass skirts. Treflee was pushed to the edge of the crowd with about five women between Ty and her and Greg on her right. Probably just as well. She didn’t think Ty was thinking kind thoughts about her at that minute.

“Hula, hula!” Carrie said in a hubba-hubba tone as she spotted the men. “I want one of those.”

Beside Treflee, Carla’s gaze was glued to the male dancers.

“Careful,” Ty said. “You’re in danger of being as bad as Treflee’s husband.”

Was Treflee the only one who caught the irony?

Carrie waved aside his concern. “We’re single. We’re allowed.”

“All right, how reflective is that glass?” Carla said, leaning forward for a closer view. “I’d like to see some wildlife and I don’t mean tropical fish.”

“Oh, for a stiff breeze right now.” Faye sighed.

“In the hull?” Treflee asked.

“A big fan would do,” she retorted.

“I doubt they’re commando under those skirts,” Treflee said, trying to maintain her rain-cloud status in the group. “They’ve gotta have on a Speedo.”

“Nooo!” Faye said. “That would kill the fun.”

“I vote for commando.” Brandy was leaning forward with her elbows on her lap and her head in her hands, mesmerized.

Tiki torches blazed around the perimeter of the hull, reflecting in the glass of the viewing area. A band of Hawaiian musicians started strumming ukuleles and pounding drums. The dancers began undulating and swishing, their hands telling a story Treflee wasn’t interested enough to follow.

The last time she’d seen a hula, she’d been with Ty in Waikiki. She didn’t feel like remembering that right now. Being on the edge of the show, and emotionally and physically exhausted, she quickly lost interest and zoned out, staring almost sightlessly at the dark pane of viewing glass nearest her.

This vacation was turning into a bigger disaster than she had even imagined. Was there any way she could blackmail Ty with the dead guy, get her divorce, and come out of the whole thing without being charged with treason or something?

She was lost in her thoughts when a thump startled her. It wasn’t the beat of a drum or the patter of feet. The dancers were deft and moved across the glass quietly. Treflee frowned, thinking at first that a fish must have bumped into the viewing glass. But when she looked, there was nothing there.

Her frown deepened. Why couldn’t she just enjoy the show?

She was still frowning and staring when a face appeared from the water and pressed against the ocean’s side of the glass. The face of a man she recognized—the dead guy from Woo Ming’s.

She screamed.

CHAPTER FOUR

The dancers froze. The drumbeat stopped. A hundred-plus pairs of eyes stared at Treflee as she pointed toward the face in the water and gesticulated, muttered, played a bad game of charades, and did everything but speak coherently about the dead guy with the tiny fish nibbling at his face.

Greg understood first and cursed beneath his breath as he put his arm around her and whispered for her to cover her eyes. “Stop the boat! We’ve hooked a floater.”

Ty jumped into action, taking a look for himself before grabbing Greg, yelling to the crew for a wet suit and gear, and heading to the main deck as Treflee disobeyed Greg and stared pale-faced into the dead zone along with everyone else.

A few minutes later, a pair of divers appeared behind the glass as everyone watched. They grabbed the body and pulled it away.

Someone called the coast guard. Carla jumped up and, screaming that she was a nurse, headed to the main deck to provide medical assistance. As if that would help the Woo Ming guy. He was lucky his head was still attached to his body, and Treflee was willing to bet he had no blood left. No, that guy had been dead for hours. He was way beyond help. And Treflee needed that third mai tai.
Badly.

*   *   *

Sometimes the show does not go on. Sometimes it’s just disrespectful to watch a gig full of eye candy and undulating hips when some poor fool’s just turned up dead and swimming with the angelfish.

They kept everyone in the hull as the boat immediately headed back to Lahaina Harbor. The crew offered people coffee and tea, nothing stronger. They were met at the dock by the coast guard and the cops. Although Treflee had discovered the body, neither showed much interest in little old her. If only they knew!

Treflee guessed simply seeing a body through a glass window didn’t hold much vital information for them. They asked her just the one cursory question—where’d you see the body?—and then escorted her from the hull to the main deck.

Greg and Ty were on the main deck, standing in a pool of water over the tarp-covered body with a crowd of cops around them. As Treflee came up the stairs, she watched Ty’s profile in the overhead lights. A chill rippled down her back. He looked completely calm.

He turned to look at her so suddenly she didn’t have time to wipe the guilty, knowing expression from her face. He saw it. She knew it by his subtle reaction to her. He knew she knew something.

The man knows me too well.

A courteous crewman escorted her to the waiting party bus for the ride back to the plantation. This ride was the polar opposite of the ride to town—no drinking, no flirting, no wild lights or music. Just hushed conversation, questions, and surmises about what had happened to the guy.

Since Treflee had gotten the best look at the dead guy because he appeared in the glass pane nearest her, she bore the brunt of the questioning.

“I can’t tell you much,” she said, and shuddered. “His eyes looked dead and glassy. His hair swished back and forth in the water. His skin was pale and ghostly. And fish were nibbling at his face.” Treflee choked up on the last sentence.

The fish-eating mental image pretty much shut them up. For a while.

“Did you see any wounds?” Faye asked Treflee, shifting her skinny butt in her seat and leaning toward her.

Treflee paused, frowning in thought. She knew what and who killed him. But what had she actually seen in the glass window? It was better to play it safe. She shook her head. “It was all so shocking and gross. I don’t remember anything but the face. It looked like it came straight out of a nightmare.”

*   *   *

Back at the plantation, Tita greeted them with the equivalent of a Hawaiian hot toddy—warm coconut milk spiked with rum. The other girls gathered in Carrie’s room to gossip more about the evening’s events and dissect the police procedure and response from a military, cop-type-girl point of view.

Treflee didn’t particularly want to be alone, but she couldn’t stand another question. So she begged off and headed to her room where she changed into her pajamas—a cotton cami and shorts—and a knee-length robe. She lay down on the fluffy bed, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. Trying to sleep was futility at its finest. Especially after she realized that neither Ty nor Greg were around.

Now that the police had a body, would they trace the murder back to Ty? Would Emmett Nelson, head of the National Clandestine Service and Ty’s boss at the CIA, be able to cover for him?

Treflee was worried. On all counts. And curious about Ty’s mission. Did it involve the dead Chinese guy? She needed to get a look at Ty’s room. She doubted he’d left any incriminating evidence around, but at the very least, she could retrieve her camera and phone.

Treflee had no idea how she was going to get into his room. But however she was going to do it, she wasn’t leaving any fingerprints behind. She grabbed the pair of manicure gloves she’d brought with her. What could she say? She liked soft skin. Every few days she slathered her hands with lotion and slept with gloves on.

She checked the hall. All clear.

She knew which room was Ty’s. Earlier, she’d seen him come out of it. She was no good at picking locks, though heaven knows she’d tried. And she knew Ty—he was careful about locking up. But just on the off chance she’d get lucky twice in one day, she went to his room.

She put on her gloves and gently tried the door. It fell open in front of her. That was almost too easy. She wondered for a second if this was a trap. Ty knew her as well as she knew him. He’d expect her to try to get her stuff back and spy on him.

She hesitated, wondering if he’d booby-trapped the room. She scanned the floor at her feet, looking for the old match-in-the-door trick. When she didn’t see one, she shrugged.
What the heck.

Treflee slipped into the room and closed the door behind her, pulling the security latch to slow Ty down if he came home before she could get out.

He’d left his patio deck door open, which seemed a bit odd. She stiffened, on alert.

The white curtains floated in the evening breeze. She relaxed. It would take a stronger man than Ty to resist that fresh ocean breeze and the moonlight slanting in to light the room with shafts of silver. For all his bravado, he had a romantic streak in him.

Speaking of romantic, her gaze flitted to his bed. Her chest tightened with longing she’d been trying to get rid of, and a lump formed in her throat. There was a time he would have been waiting for her in that bed, wearing nothing but a come-here-and-let’s-get-it-on look.

She walked to the bed and ran her fingers over the comforter. It was useless and silly, totally futile remembering. Not to mention it fueled the frustrated yearning.

She missed him. She missed so much about him—the way he made her laugh. The way he made her feel safe and protected. The way he could tell a story to make even the most mundane thing sound fun. How he pushed her out of her comfort zone into adventures and experiences she’d never have had without him. Although, to be honest, she could have done without this one.

Treflee did her best to push the memories of better times away.
Get back to the mission, Tref,
she admonished herself.

There was a lamp on the dresser and one on the nightstand. She debated turning one on, then decided against it, afraid it would give her away and shatter the beauty of the setting. She could live with moonlight.

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she scanned the room and frowned. The man hadn’t changed. He was still frustratingly messy. Piled clothes filled the upholstered chair by the curtains and spilled onto the floor. Towels, rumpled shirts, and shoes littered the floor.

She tried to think like Ty. Where would he stow her camera and phone? If she was lucky, he’d simply tossed them in a drawer, though he was usually more creative than that.

Yeah, she had a lot of experience spying on him. Though she couldn’t say she ever really caught him at anything or discovered any clue about what his missions were, she worked hard at it. The man was good at what he did. Her skills as a spy basically sucked.

Ty was smart enough to realize she was always trying to find out what he was up to. He used to call her his own little Cato. She kept him on his toes like Cato did for Clouseau. Only when she pounced on him, she did it with sex appeal, and he never minded taking her.

Fortunately, Ty didn’t have as many options for hiding things here as he had at home. Treflee was hoping that would work to her advantage.

She walked over and opened a dresser drawer.

Great. Typical Ty.
When she did the laundry, she folded his briefs in thirds and then in half. And she bundled his socks into nice, tidy balls. His socks were unmatched and his underwear not even folded.

She sighed. Ty used to hide love notes for her to discover in odd places, including his drawers, when she was snooping on him.

She leaned over the drawer to get a closer look, half curious to see if he’d left her a note this time. If he had, it was likely to say, “Fooled you. They aren’t here. Mind your own business,” not “I love you.”

She frowned. Something was off. She glanced at the chair piled with clothes and back to the drawer. This wasn’t ordinary Ty messiness. This was much worse. Someone had rifled through Ty’s things!

A chill rippled up her spine. The breeze brought the goose bumps on her arms to new heights. The silver glow of the room shifted to gray. She had to get out of here.

Too late, she heard the weight of a footstep behind her.

Before she could spin around, someone threw a plastic lei around her neck from behind and wrenched it tight, stifling her scream in her throat.