Excerpt
As the airplane circled the runway, Penelope's stomach clenched with panic. She'd never flown out of the country before, never dealt with the unanticipated complications of foreign travel alone. She'd never had such an important assignment, either, one that carried all her desperate hopes and prayers.
Given a choice, she'd take the security of the known any day. She blamed the unfairness of life for assigning the most important project of her career to a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean, where she knew nothing and no one.
As the airplane wheels bumped on the runway, Penelope watched the tropical landscape fly by with an interest heightened by fear. She was such a damned coward. She should be thrilled at this opportunity.
She steadied her emotions by envisioning the interminable wait to file off the plane, the ordeal of negotiating the soulless terminal with thousands of strangers hurrying toward unknown destinations, and the cab ride to some faceless hotel like all the other hotels she'd ever known. Only then could she finally start the job that would establish her foothold in the career of her choice. She needed that partnership so desperately her teeth ached with it.
Her uneasiness arose from hunger and exhaustion and nothing more. If she could readjust her thinking and consider this as simply one more assignment in a string of successful assignments, she would be all right. She knew she was good. She might be an emotional basket case, but she had brains.
Carting her briefcase and overnight bag off the 747 into unknown territory, she just wished she could solve her growing anxiety along with her growling stomach. The initial gnawing had originated with her 6 a.m. arrival time without breakfast at the Miami terminal for international passengers. The line had been endless, offering no opportunity to grab a bite before boarding. The plane had sat on the tarmac for over an hour after that, so she'd missed her connection in Puerto Rico. She'd spent another hour standing in lines to book another flight, leaving her just enough time to run through an unfamiliar airport, without lunch. Naturally, neither of the flights had served meals. Surely her nervousness had more to do with an empty stomach and incompetent airlines than fear.
Heat slammed into her the instant she stepped down the plane stairs. No brief hike through weather-protected tunnels into an air-conditioned terminal on this underdeveloped island. Warily watching more seasoned passengers, Penelope followed them across the tarmac to a shaded walkway. The tropical sun glared off the pavement, and drooping palm trees shimmered behind the heat in the distance. Even coming from Miami, she could feel the difference.
Penelope skirted around the chattering passengers trailing along the walkway as if they had all day. Even in her low pumps, she still towered over most of the crowd. As a twelve-year-old, her height had utterly embarrassed her. She'd come to terms with it since then, but sometimes she still felt like that gawky teenager, especially when people stared.
She'd been warned her destination required a lengthy taxi journey to the other side of the island. She wanted to arrive before dinner, so she needed to hurry. But she was starving now. Would a restaurant be too much to hope for? Garbed in a man-tailored business suit meant for an office and not the tropics, Penelope felt moisture pooling beneath her shirt as she hurried toward the terminal.
Adjusting her horn-rimmed glasses as she entered the building, Penelope breathed a sigh of relief under the slow-moving fans cooling the high-ceilinged immigration office. The sight of half a dozen long lines ahead of her didn't help the gnawing in her stomach, but the consequences of Beth's accident had taught her patience. She was almost there. The hotel had promised an agent would meet her outside the gates. She wouldn't have to find her way alone after that. Setting her briefcase safely between her navy pumps, she tightened the pins in her upswept hair.
She knew how to find her way alone by now. Admittedly, she'd led a sheltered childhood in an upper-class environment, but she'd spent these last eight years since college making her own way in the world. Caught up in their divorce, her parents had never helped her. Besides, they were still disappointed that she hadn't married Zack and settled down back in Charlotte as Beth had. And she certainly didn't have any man holding her hand, pretending she was too helpless to manage these journeys alone. Zack had never forgiven her the day she'd gone back to Charlotte on her own, leaving him drunk in Daytona on spring break.
Looking around at the tourists crowding the room, Penelope summoned pity for the harried women with crying children clinging to their hands while their husbands juggled baggage and pretended competence. If those women had fooled themselves into believing their husbands would take care of everything, they would be sorely disappointed. Men couldn't do a blamed thing without a woman behind them.
As if confirming her opinion, the man at the head of her line searched frantically through the pockets in his expensive L.L. Bean traveling jacket while his wife held a crying baby and watched in bewilderment. Lost the passports, Penelope thought cynically.
The next man in line looked vaguely familiar. Wearing an expensive suit in contrast to the casually dressed tourists around them, he clutched a leather briefcase as he handed over his passport. Penelope frowned as she tried to figure out why a middle-aged, balding, burly man would look familiar until she realized he was one of PC&M's clients, a major contractor. Interesting that PC&M had acquired a new client here at the same time one of their contractors was moving in on the area. Could be some connection. Maybe the contractor had recommended PC&M to Anse Chastenet. That was how these good ol' boy networks worked. She mentally filed the knowledge for future use.
Shoring up her confidence, she decided that after a few more trips like this one, she'd be an experienced traveler, ready to specialize in Poindexter, Combs, and MacMillan's Caribbean accounts. Maybe then she could take the time to enjoy the exotic setting of the islands.
Right now, she worried about finding her suitcase, getting through customs, and locating her assigned agent. Then there would be the perilous journey to the hotel. Cadogan's guidebook hadn't called it perilous, but she could read between the lines. "Tortuous paths," "series of switchbacks," and "rough, potholed roads" meant any number of things, none of them pleasant in her current frame of mind. She didn't like situations she couldn't control.
Finally, her turn arrived. The agent gave her passport a cursory glance, stamped it, and motioned her away. Penelope had already watched the passengers ahead of her and knew they'd disappeared somewhere to the left. She couldn't see any signs to guide her, and the agent's heavily accented English reduced the possibility of asking questions. Gathering her courage, she shouldered her bag and trudged down another corridor.
At least the natives of St. Lucia were supposed to speak English. Her high-school Spanish and college French wouldn't hold up well in this nerve-racking environment. She'd known the islanders spoke a patois. She hadn't counted on their heavy accents converting their English into a foreign language. She prayed the hotel management had a better grasp of her native tongue or she'd be in for an uphill struggle in installing their software.
She saw no sign of the contractor in the crowd of tourists circling the baggage claim. He must have only brought his briefcase for a quick trip. Pity. She might have made some new connections here if he knew the area. Maybe another time.
Native porters hustled around them, practically grabbing the unloaded luggage from unsuspecting hands. Vowing to hang on to hers if only to avoid figuring out how to tip with the Caribbean equivalent of her American currency, Penelope trained her gaze on the carousel. Finding her wheeled travel case, she snatched it away from an eager porter and glanced around for the next step in this circus.
Customs. She still had to carry the bag through customs. She'd hoped they'd had the efficiency to inspect the bags while she'd waited in those interminable lines in the first room. She should have known better. Airports and efficiency were a contradiction in terms.
Resignedly listening to her stomach growl--she couldn't find so much as a vending machine in this barn--Penelope arrived in still another mob of harried tourists with crying toddlers. She eyed the children with suspicion and chose a different line. She didn't have time for thinking about children. Even her sister's had become alien creatures now that her brother-in-law had them. Considering her options right now, it was probably best if she kept things that way.
She transferred her attention to the line ahead of her. She couldn't decide what system the clerks used for inspecting baggage. A muscled man in a tank top, heavy mustache, and mirrored sunglasses she could swear was a drug dealer passed through with a wave of a hand. Teenage girls with pimply faces had their purses emptied.
Penelope's nerves teetered on edge as a tall man jostled her from behind, and another traveling alone eyed her with an interest she recognized only too well. She had contemplated removing her stiff, buttoned jacket, but she tugged it around her now. She pushed her glasses farther up her nose and checked to make certain her hair hadn't strayed from its knot. The glasses were more protective disguise than necessity. She'd bought them to correct her distance vision but discovered they aided her goal of emphasizing her intelligence, not her looks.
Ahead, the muscle-bound jock in the revealing red tank top handed his backpack to a porter, then leaned his shoulders against the far wall, apparently waiting for someone. She hated people who affected sunglasses inside, and she hated mirrored sunglasses even more. The men who wore them were inevitably egotistical asses. This one with his droopy mustache definitely looked like a drug dealer.
Uneasy, she checked her money belt and the pepper spray in her pocket.
The man in the mirrored glasses seemed to be staring at her. She hated this adolescent self-consciousness that struck her at the most inopportune times.
Forcing herself to look away, Penelope concentrated on her empty stomach instead of her jumpy nerves. Next time, she would pack food in her briefcase. She just couldn't believe any airline was so inconsiderate as to think passengers checking in at 6 a.m. could travel all day without food.
The man in the sunglasses was still lounging against the wall as she reached the desk. The clown probably thought he was hot stuff, showing off that bronzed-all-over look. To
Penelope, it simply meant the man had nothing better to do but feed his vanity while developing skin cancer in tanning booths. He reminded her of Zack. Except by now, Zack probably had a beer belly and a bald head. This man proudly displayed his trim physique in low-cut jeans that emphasized slim hips and muscled thighs, and there was nothing balding about that headful of wind-blown chestnut hair.
He crossed his arms over his massive chest as the customs agent ordered her to open her suitcase. Cringing at the thought of revealing her undergarments and nightwear, Penelope bit her tongue and reluctantly unzipped the case. At least she'd had the forethought to put her more intimate items in the overnight bag.
She winced as the uniformed agent dangled a bra in one hand while rummaging through her clothes with the other. He couldn't have been ruder if he'd done it deliberately. Tired, starving, and nerves already frayed, Penelope contemplated the tongue-lashing he deserved. Before she could release it, the agent held up a plastic bag of suspicious white powder and yelled over his shoulder excitedly.
Stunned, she felt pure panic sweep through her, amplified by the gasps of people behind her. She knew what that white powder meant. So did everyone else. Her empty stomach knotted and nausea rose in her throat. Visions of foreign jails danced through her head. This couldn't be happening. She'd dozed off in the heat and was having a nightmare. There was no way that bag could have gotten into her suitcase--unless someone had planted it there.
Uniformed soldiers sprinted through the building, all shouting in the native patois, crystallizing the nightmare into reality. Dark skins, baleful expressions, and ominous automatic weapons spun the situation into a surreal hallucination. She couldn't understand a word anyone said. Although she recognized some of the French root of the dialect, none of the sounds made any sense. Only the anger and accusation in their voices penetrated.
Before Penelope realized the agent had asked her a question in English, the man in the tank top had elbowed his way through the crowd and caught her arm. She squealed and tried jerking away, but he squeezed her arm reassuringly. She was trembling too much to shake him off. Fainting appeared a very real possibility.
"Alonzo, what seems to be the trouble here? I've been waiting all day for my wife to arrive, and now you're holding up our honeymoon."
Penelope considered sinking right through the floor at the stranger's joshing tone, but the red haze of fear prevented anything except recognition of his clear Southern drawl and his obvious familiarity with the customs agent.
The agent replied in rapid-fire patois, and the man in the sunglasses responded in the same language without hesitation. Penelope watched in astonishment as the stranger dismissed the plastic bag of white powder with a wave of his hand and a burst of sarcastic verbiage. With equally astonishing ease, he produced a wallet full of bills, displayed his passport, and slipped a few bills across the counter with it. "You know where to find us. I've got a taxi waiting," he said in English.
Leaving the customs agent literally holding the bag, the man in sunglasses grabbed Penelope's suitcase, and clasping her arm firmly, towed her out of the customs office toward the bright light of day.
Terrified, Penelope attempted to free herself from the stranger's hold. She had thought he would smell of sweat and suntan lotion, but he exuded the spicy fragrance of expensive aftershave. That didn't reassure her enough to allow his manhandling, although she had to wonder briefly if her knees wouldn't collapse under her should he release her.
"You can let me go now," she hissed as he maneuvered her outside into the hustle and bustle of people locating tour guides, porters, taxis, and rental cars. The concrete shed reminded her of a livestock consignment barn with all the inhabitants mooing in protest, but she didn't linger on that image. The hard hand scorching her through the sleeve of the raw silk jacket held her attention.
"Not until we get you out of here. Do you have someone meeting you?" He scanned the crowd with deliberate precision.
"The agent from Anse Chastenet," she told him reluctantly. She didn't know any way of escaping his hold unless she let him know she was expected. She should have been grateful for his aid in rescuing her from an impossible situation, but his hand on her arm terrified her almost as much as the sight of the drugs. What on earth had he said to get her away so easily? Who the hell was he? Mafia? CIA?
"Anse Chastenet, excellent, although I would have picked you as the Jalousie Plantation type. There she is. Stand right here, don't move. I'll take care of her."
Penelope didn't like the way he said that, but he gave her no opportunity to protest. Carrying off the suitcase containing all her clothing, he approached a petite woman in a business suit with a gold name tag bearing the Anse Chastenet motif. The woman listened to his swift patois, responded in the same, smiled in Penelope's direction, and waved them off.
She couldn't believe it, not even after seeing it with her own eyes. Events had happened too fast. She couldn't collect her thoughts. But as her would-be rescuer grabbed her arm and hustled her down the pavement toward a line of taxis, Penelope had the distinct impression that she had just been kidnapped.
