Flirting with Disaster Part 4

d.a.m.n. Pennington wasn't the only idiot around there who couldn't keep his eyeb.a.l.l.s in his head. Why couldn't he have been looking at anything else at that moment besides Lisa Merrick's a.s.s? Pennington wasn't the only idiot around there who couldn't keep his eyeb.a.l.l.s in his head. Why couldn't he have been looking at anything else at that moment besides Lisa Merrick's a.s.s?

Because trying to take his eyes off her was like trying to stop an avalanche from rolling down a mountainside.

For the first several days they worked on that project together, she'd gone out of her way to dress provocatively, bombarding him with so much s.e.xual innuendo that he couldn't even apply a screwdriver to something without her finding all kinds of meaning in it.

Then one day she'd been sitting in a chair next to the workbench, twisted around in such a way that he could barely look at her without having an un.o.bstructed line of sight right down the front of her s.h.i.+rt, and of course she wasn't wearing anything underneath that s.h.i.+rt that might get in the way of his view. It had taken a significant amount of orchestration for her to reach that pose, and in the beginning it would have rattled him. But slowly his perception s.h.i.+fted, and instead of letting it intimidate him, he started to see it for the attempted manipulation it was.

"Lisa?" he said, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g a bolt and removing it, dropping it to the workbench with a soft clatter. "Why don't you just go ahead and take off your s.h.i.+rt? I can see everything you've got anyway. But then, you know that, don't you?"

A self-satisfied smile crossed her lips. "So do you like what you see?"

"I'm not interested."

"Oh, you're interested, all right. You're just too whipped by that prissy little girlfriend of yours to consider taking a walk on the wild side."

"We're getting married this summer."

"Yeah? Well, I was thinking about all the fun we could have in the meantime. You're not bad-looking, DeMarco. A girl could do a lot worse."

He tossed the wrench down on the workbench, then turned and leaned over the chair where she sat, putting a hand on either arm. He stared down at her.

"Let's get something straight, Lisa. I don't think much of girls who hand out s.e.x like candy. The truth is, though, that you don't think much of yourself, either, or you wouldn't dress like a s.l.u.t and go after anything in pants."

Lisa met his gaze evenly. "Am I to take that as a no?"

"Someday you'll figure out that you've got a lot more to offer than just your body. As soon as that happens, maybe some decent guy will have you."

"Decent," she said, rolling her eyes. "You mean boring."

"I said exactly what I meant."

As he returned to his task, she gave him yet one more of her patented "go to h.e.l.l" looks, and he was sure that all he'd accomplished was to p.i.s.s her off to the point that the remainder of the semester was destined to be one gigantic confrontational nightmare. Then she'd shown up for cla.s.s the next day, and he couldn't believe his eyes.

She wore a pair of jeans topped by a solid blue T-s.h.i.+rt that, if anything, was a size too big. She'd pulled on a pair of worn Reeboks. Her short reddish-blond hair was free of the gel she used to spike it, fluttering in soft curls around her face. She still wore makeup, but she'd toned it down considerably. It was so unlike the in-your-face fas.h.i.+on statement she usually made that he couldn't take his eyes off her. The longer he watched her, though, the more defensive her expression became.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said, but he couldn't stop staring. "I don't know. Your hair, I guess."

"Yeah. My hair." She ran her fingers through it, then gave him an offhand shrug. "I didn't have time to do anything with it this morning."

"It's pretty. I like it that way."

She blinked with surprise. "You do?"

"Yeah."

She looked away self-consciously, stroking her fingers through it again. "Like I said. I ran out of time."

In spite of her explanation, he was sure he saw a blush rise on her cheeks. In that moment, something tripped inside him, an awareness he hadn't felt before.

She did it for you. Because of what you said. She cares what you think. what you think.

That realization astonished him. It was as if a window opened up and he began to see inside her, revealing tiny fragments of a vulnerability he'd never imagined. And it fascinated him.

For the next hour, she talked to him only about pistons and carburetors and other engine-related topics without a hint of the s.e.xual suggestiveness that had filled practically every word she'd spoken to him up to that point. Still, every glance they exchanged seemed to take on new meaning, and when the bell rang to signal the end of the cla.s.s period he actually felt a rush of disappointment.

As the weeks pa.s.sed, instead of the verbal sparring that had characterized their first few days together, they started to have actual conversations, and soon Dave found himself coming up with reasons to drag their shop cla.s.s projects into after-school time. Because Carla would have flipped out if he'd shown Lisa any attention at all, he rarely talked to her if their paths crossed in the hall. But looking back, he thought Carla must have sensed just how many of his waking moments were spent with Lisa on his mind.

Dave flicked off the flashlight and leaned his head against the wall of the bunkhouse with a heavy sigh. He thought about getting some sleep himself, then decided maybe he'd better stay awake on the off chance that Mexican marauders with machine guns stormed the place.

G.o.d, that sounded loony, like some kind of B movie playing at two o'clock in the morning.

He thinks he killed me. If he finds me now and realizes he failed, I'm dead. failed, I'm dead.

B movie all over again.

With luck, she'd wake in a few hours completely lucid, feeling a little silly for going so far off the deep end tonight. Then he could get her to a doctor or anywhere else she needed to go. His duty would be discharged, his promise fulfilled. He'd return to his real life, she'd return to hers, and that would be that.

Wouldn't it?

He froze as those words played through his mind, then settled back against the wall, telling himself how crazy that sounded. Fate had been a real b.i.t.c.h to him in recent years, taking him places he'd never wanted to go. But now he couldn't fight the sense of inevitability he felt, as if the past eleven years had existed only to get him to this place at this moment to see Lisa one more time.

chapter four.

As Adam Decker navigated the rugged rain-furrowed road on his way back to Santa Rios, every muscle in his body ached, and he felt as if he hadn't slept in a week. When he finally saw the city lights through the darkness ahead, he breathed a sigh of relief, but not just because he was so eager to hit the sack and get some sleep.

He hated driving at night. He hated it even more when he was forced to navigate a dark, deserted road like this one that seemed to twist and turn right into the middle of nowhere. The quiet unnerved him. The isolation made him tense and edgy. His fingers throbbed from gripping the steering wheel so tightly, and he shook them alternately to release the tension.

He took a single deep breath and let it out slowly, focusing on the lights in the distance, telling himself again, as he had repeatedly for the past hour, that he needed to get a grip. Sunrise would be coming soon, and that always worked wonders for him, clearing away the tension that fogged his mind at times like this.

He couldn't believe that he'd been within ten minutes of flying out of Santa Rios with Lisa when the woman's husband came to the clinic. Adam had wanted so badly just to turn his back and leave, particularly since he needed to be with Lisa to hand over those pills to U.S. Customs agents and tell them what they'd discovered.

Instead, he'd traveled an hour to a farm where he helped the woman through nearly two days of grueling on again, off again labor, followed by a delivery that had been one for the record books. At age forty-three, pulling all-nighters was starting to become a real ch.o.r.e for him. It would be a relief when he left his practice in San Antonio in two weeks and moved to Chicago to take over as head of Greenbriar Medical Center. Not many chiefs of staff were called out to deliver babies in the middle of the night, and from now on that was just the way he wanted it. In Chicago he could begin again. Leave bad memories behind. Start a new life.

Even if it meant he'd never see Sera again.

No. He couldn't think about that now. He couldn't think about how beautiful she was, or how every moment he spent with her was singular and special, or how he'd lain awake nights sometimes wis.h.i.+ng their friends.h.i.+p could evolve into something more intimate. But he knew that any relations.h.i.+p between them would only end up breaking her heart as well as his, so leaving now was the best thing for both of them. He couldn't think about that now. He couldn't think about how beautiful she was, or how every moment he spent with her was singular and special, or how he'd lain awake nights sometimes wis.h.i.+ng their friends.h.i.+p could evolve into something more intimate. But he knew that any relations.h.i.+p between them would only end up breaking her heart as well as his, so leaving now was the best thing for both of them.

No matter how much he was going to miss her.

A few minutes later he pa.s.sed the clinic, a simple modular building that was more functional than attractive. It contained a waiting room, three exam rooms, a small kitchen, an administrative office, and a storage room. Next door, a cramped, aging, four-unit apartment building had been renovated for volunteers to stay in when they were in Santa Rios. Right now all he wanted was to go back to one of those apartments and sleep for about twenty-four hours straight.

After that, he'd have to deal with Robert.

By now Lisa had put the physical evidence into the hands of U.S. Customs officials and told the story of how they'd found the counterfeit drugs Robert had tried to smuggle aboard Lisa's plane. Adam had no doubt that the moment the man crossed the border back to the U.S. he'd be put in jail.

Since Adam had been gone for a few days now, he had no way of knowing what had happened since Friday. But if Robert was still down here, he would have no idea that Lisa had tipped off the U.S. officials. Adam could simply pretend nothing at all had happened until he could get Lisa to swing down here again and fly him back to Texas.

A minute later, Adam opened the front door of the apartment building and went inside, heading for the first door on the right. He dropped his keys as he was pulling them out of his pocket, and they clattered against the floor. As he was picking them up, a door across the hall opened. Robert appeared in the doorway.

Robert Douglas was a tall, imposing man who wore a permanent frown intended to intimidate anyone in his presence- friends, patients, and colleagues alike. On first glance he was a handsome man, but a second look easily picked up the arrogance and insensitivity he exuded with every breath. But right now there was another dimension to his expression Adam hadn't antic.i.p.ated: complete and utter shock.

"Decker? What in the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l are you doing here?" are you doing here?"

"What do you mean?"

"The plane. You were on that plane with Lisa."

"No, I wasn't. Something came up at the last minute."

Robert's eyes s.h.i.+fted with suspicion. "Where have you been for the past few days?"

"A patient went into labor before I could leave," Adam said. "Selina Victoro. I had to go there."

"Did you come straight back here?"

"Yeah."

"See anybody along the way?"

Adam paused. "No. It's five in the morning."

"Come in here."

Robert's voice had escalated, with a commanding tone that went beyond his usual authoritative manner, and Adam felt a shot of apprehension. "I'm pretty tired, Robert. I need to get some sleep."

"Come in here now."

Something's wrong. Something's very, very wrong.

Adam followed Robert into the living room of his apartment. Robert closed the door, then turned to face Adam. "Looks like I've got a little problem here, doesn't it?"

Adam stood stock-still. "Problem?"

"You're certainly acting ignorant for a man who discovered a hundred thousand dollars' worth of counterfeit drugs."

Adam was so startled by Robert's out-and-out admission that for a moment he was speechless.

"That's right, Decker. It's just as you suspected. I'm the guilty party. But then, you're not really surprised by that, are you?"

Robert nonchalantly opened a box on the top of the desk and extracted a cigar, dragging it under his nose and inhaling with pleasure. "Did you know it's a crime to import Cuban cigars into the U.S.? A crime crime. Most asinine thing I've ever heard of." He put the cigar to his lips and lit it. He puffed on it, then blew out the smoke. "That's what I like about Mexico: no rules. You'd be shocked at how simple it is to manufacture counterfeit pills that look like the real thing. Why more people aren't taking advantage of the opportunity I'll never know."

Adam couldn't believe this. It was as if Robert were talking about a legitimate enterprise he'd had the foresight to invest in.

"It's a lucrative business, Decker. I'm talking millions. Not hard to ama.s.s that kind of money when a single phony Lasotrex is worth up to ten bucks on the U.S. retail market." He gave Adam a sly smile. "I might even consider giving you a piece of the action if you're interested."

Adam felt a surge of pure disgust. "I work for a living, Robert. That's something you know nothing about."

"Oh, yeah? I know nothing about work? As if I haven't spent hours at a time elbow-deep inside the body cavity of some seventy-year-old man who's one foot in the grave already? Put up with whining, lawsuit-happy relatives? Dealt with all that insurance company bulls.h.i.+t?" He dragged on the cigar. "I know all about that kind of work. I prefer something a little more . . . entrepreneurial."

"Entrepreneurial?" Adam said, his voice escalating. "How about illegal? Unethical? Immoral?"

"Easy, Decker. You're starting to hurt my feelings."

"How did you know we found the drugs?"

"Lisa was being watched."

"Watched?"

"I don't leave anything to chance. I wanted to make sure the defibrillator got onto that plane. Lisa transports medical equipment all the time, so there was no reason for her to suspect anything. I told her to fly the device to San Antonio because it needed service, and my contact was going to pick it up from her. Should have gone like clockwork." He shook his head with disgust. "But clumsiness? She dropped dropped the d.a.m.ned thing. How the h.e.l.l was I supposed to prepare for something like that?" the d.a.m.ned thing. How the h.e.l.l was I supposed to prepare for something like that?"

Adam remembered how they'd been hurrying to beat the storm and get off the ground, only to have lightning explode a short distance away. Startled at the sudden noise, Lisa had dropped the defibrillator onto the runway. The plastic casing had cracked wide open, and a huge bag of tiny blue pills had spilled out. They'd both been stunned at the sight and even more stunned when Adam scratched the surface of one of the pills to discover that they were counterfeit. But neither one of them had been surprised in the least when they realized who must be at the heart of the operation.

"You should have known Lisa would eventually find out," Adam said. "Why did you have to involve her?"

"I didn't intend to. Not for the long haul, anyway. It was a short-term fix. My usual supply line broke down, and my distributors were crawling up my a.s.s for me to get the product to them. I've got customers to satisfy."

"Customers to satisfy? Customers? Customers?" Adam took a threatening step forward. "Shut it down, Robert. Shut the whole operation down. Now!"

"Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? I don't think so."

"How can you do this to your father?"

Robert's eyes narrowed. "My father has nothing to do with this."

"The h.e.l.l he doesn't," Adam said hotly. "He started this clinic. You're running it only because he's in bad health and he's got this idea that maybe someday you'll care about it as much as he does. When he finds out you're using it as a front for a counterfeit drug operation, it's going to kill him."

"What my old man doesn't know won't hurt him."

"Oh, he's going to know, all right. It's only a matter of time. Lisa's in the States right now with the drugs in hand, telling the authorities everything. You haven't got a prayer of getting out of this!"

"I'm afraid Lisa can't tell anyone much of anything right about now."

"What?"

"Lisa is dead."

Adam froze. "What did you say?"

Robert flicked his cigar into a nearby ashtray. "Her plane went down shortly after takeoff, nose-first into the river. She didn't survive."