Lethal Lover Part 11

"Say goodbye to the nice folks, Crissy."

Instead of complying with her grandmother's wishes, the child shook her head and shouted, "No," before lunging at Tess, straining against Reed's arms. "Mama," she wailed.

"Mama, mama, mama!"

Tess was almost as shocked by the child's outburst as her grandparents appeared to be.

"Come on, Crissy," her grandmother. insisted, gently but firmly extracting the squirming, fussing child out of Reed's arms.

"Her mother's been ... ill," Crissy's grandfather explained as his wife struggled to control the child who was still fighting to get to Tess.

When Crissy started to cry in earnest, her grandfather reached over and patted her back.

"It's all right, baby," he soothed.

"It's all right."

The three of them hurried in the opposite direction, leaving the echo of the child's pathetic cries in their wake.

"Mama!" they heard one last time, and the sound still tugged at Tess's heart as she followed Reed into the lobby.

"Poor little thing. She really misses her mother," she noted almost more to herself than to him.

"She was a real charmer, though, wasn't she?"

Reed kept walking and didn't reply to her offhand observation. But the look on his face told Tess that his brief encounter with the toddler had affected him more deeply than she would have imagined.

Countless times over the years, Tess had wondered how Reed McKenna had reacted when he first learned of Meredith's death. Now she felt she finally had an answer.

Chapter Nine.

"The Mustang's been towed," Reed informed her as he ushered her into the pa.s.senger side of the Jeep the valet brought round to them.

"And I returned the moped to the rental agency this morning." He shot her a playful grimace.

"Honestly, Tess, I thought I'd taught you better.

After riding a Harley, I don't know how you tolerated that piece of plastic.

She shouldn't have let it, but his sudden friendliness and unexpected teasing made her feel infinitely better, easing the tension that was building in her shoulders again like a good back mb would've.

"As you may remember, I didn't exactly have time to'be choosy." ' He smiled and nodded as he shoved the Jeep in gear and they jerked out of the driveway.

Even with the breeze whipping through the rag top Jeep and the sun setting behind them, the air was hot ad humid and Tess was glad she'd chosen to wear a light pair of cotton shorts and a tank top. While Reed drove, she twisted her hair expertly into one long French braid down the back and secured it with a small barrette she found in-the bottom of her purse.

Before closing her bag, she withdrew Selena's notebook, which she'd placed inside last night.

She felt Reed's eyes on her and on the journal. "You looked surprised to find it there," he said.

She'd never admit that she'd wondered more than once if he'd removed it.

"Not really."

"Why not?" he asked, keeping one eye on the road. "You're not starting to trust me," are you, Tessa?"

She knew he was baiting her and she changed the subject.

"No one calls me that anymore."

"Sorry. Force of habit."

She shrugged.

"At first it bothered me," she admitted, "but now ..."

Her voice faded before she added hastily, "It really doesn't matter."

It was a lie, but she was careful to keep her eyes focused elsewhere so that he couldn't read them, wouldn't see that another icy layer around her heart had melted.

HALF AN HOUR later the sky was almost completely dark, but when the Jeep's headlights. .h.i.t it, Tess had no trouble reading the hand-lettered sign that read The Dive in garish, fluorescent green.

"There it is," she said.

"Up ahead on the right." The long, low wooden structure seemed to tilt precariously to one side and yet miraculously managed to support a sagging tin roof. Along with a dozen other restaurants and bars, The Dive was situated on a beach above a raids' we harbor where bobbing strings of lights revealed a cl.u.s.ter of commercial fis.h.i.+ng rigs and dive boats docked.

In the distance Tess could see the twinkling lights of the modern high-rise office buildings in downtown Georgetown. She stared at the city's skyline and wondered how many times Selena had traveled this strip of highway to indulge in the shady business practices that had now put her life at risk.

Tess had to swallow the resentment she felt rising.

Reed swung the Jeep into the sandy parking lot of a noticeably more upscale establishment a few hundred yards north of The Dive. They climbed out and walked around th building to the patio. A reggae band was in full Caribbean swing. The mellow music with its distinctive beat seemed again strangely irritating to Tess, whose jangled nerves begged for quiet, They found an empty table and de red a beer and Tess followed suit, pa.s.sing on rum punch she knew she could never drink without thinking of the da} When the waiter brought their drinks, Tess a menu.

An enticing spicy smell had greeted them a,n soon as they'd walked in, convincing Tess that might be able to find an appet.i.te with bination of foods.

"Take your time," Reed said after the waiter had left them alone again.

"We have almost an hour be fore we're expected next door."

"We?"

He lifted his beer and took a thirsty swig before answering. "You saw that place. Do you really expect me to let you go in there alone?"

"But they'll recognize you from last night. He said" -- Tess began in a whisper, feeling any hint of an appet.i.te evaporate as her heart beat accelerated.

"I don't give a d.a.m.n what he said;" Reed inter-xupted in a burst of uncharacterisfic emotion.

"Besides, when I tackled you last night I was at a dead run. I doubt they got a long enough look at me to distinguish me from any other tourist wandering into the neighborhood bar to have a beer."

When she glared at him, he added, "Listen, I don't intend to advertise the fact that we're together, but you'll know I'm there should something go wrong." He drained his beer and stood up.

"When the waiter comes back, order me another beer."

Tess opened her mouth to protest his leaving, but he stopped her.

"Will you relax? I'm only going to the head. I'll be back before my drink gets warm."

Tm Diw was aptly named. Its atmosphere was dark and the lingering smell of stale cigarette smoke was almost enough to make Reed glad he'd quit.

In one corner a group of locals played dominoes, while at another tablea heated argument over a game of gin was turning ugly.

At the back of the bar, a group of loud played pool beneath a plastic beer lamp that had yellowed with age and grime and cast off an eerie green light.

From a jukebox beside the front door Willie Nelson crooned "You Were Always On My Mind." Idle curiosity caused Reed to wonder who among the a.s.sembled group had chosen the sentimental ballad.

When he walked up to the bar, he could feel a dozen eyes on his back and was glad he'd changed clothes before leaving the hotel and that the loose s.h.i.+rt be, d put on over his T-s.h.i.+rt now hid the gun shoved in waistband. ' Reed held up the bottle he'd brought in with M: and indicated to the mahogany-skinned giant the bar to bring him another.

"Are you the owner of this place?" Reed asked huge man whose full card and was a dirty yellow-white.

"Yeah, mon," the bartender responded as he Reed's beer down in front of him.

"My haree's Get it, mon? Davey's Dive?" The big man head back and broke into a hacking "Hey, you wouldn't be interested in buying Dive, would you, mon?" He eyed Reed "She's always for sale, you know?" he wiping his hands on the corner of the grimy stretched across his ample girth.

"To the with the right money eve tything for sale, you know what I mean, mon?"

When Reed didn't answer, Davey lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level.

"But maybe you're looking to buy something else tonight, like maybe the company of a pretty lady?" This time his laugh was low and dirty.

Reed shrugged and took a long, slow swig of his beer, while keeping one careful' eye on the big man behind the bar. Experience had taught him that not all clowns were benign.

"I've been told that if I need to get a message to someone, this is the place to leave it. Is that true, Davey?"

The facade of friendliness slipped.

"Message?" Davey asked, leaning back against the row of bottles behind him and crossing his ham like forearms over his stomach.

"No, mon. We don't deliver no messages here." He shook his big hairy head and his eyes narrowed. "Maybe somebody's playing a joke on you or you got some bad advice. Or maybe you're just confused. You want a message delivered, you got to go down to the post office."

Reluctantly, Reed pulled a fifty-dollar bill out of his s.h.i.+rt pocket and slid it across the bar.

With a look of undisguised greed, Davey eyed the bill.

"Take it," Reed instructed and when the bartender bent to pick up the money, Reed's hand snaked out and grabbed a handful of dirty beard and jerked the big man's face down level with his.

"I'm here to pick up a message, mon," Reed mimicked in a menacing voice only he and the bartender could hear.

"A message left for an American woman. Tess Elliot. And you're going to give me that message regardless of what you've been paid to do."

The man's eyes bulged and he opened his mouth, only to have Reed interrupt.

"Ad after you give me that message, you're going to tell me ev about the sc.u.m who delivered it. Everything," he repeated in a voice dangerously low.

"You'll remember him like he was your own father. You got that, mon? You got my message?"

The hulking bartender tried to nod, but Reed's grasp on his beard was unrelenting.

"Good. I knew I'd come to the right place." Reed sighed as he released the startled giant who stumbled backward rubbing his chin, his black eyes watering. '"Now, talk, I haven't got. all night."

When the bartender had finished talking, Reed knew little more than he had when he'd walked into The Dive. The young, black man Davey described as having left the cryptic message for Tess could have been any one of the dozen locals in that very room.

You're sure all he said was to tell her to wait at th table near the jukebox and nothing more?"

"He said he'd be late--ten minutes or so. He said I should make sure she waited."

Reed put a twenty-dollar bill on top of the fifty.

"Let me get this straight," Reed began, "after this guy gives you the message he just walks out, right?"

Davey's eyes darted to the money and he shook his head.

"No way. He finished his beer and played five or six songs on the jukebox.

He really liked music, that mort. He hung over that thing, dropping in coins like he didn't ever want to leave. Then, like he forgot he had to be someplace else, he pays his bill and runs out ."

"And he didn't talk to anyone, call anyone or meet anyone before he left?"

"No. But I' wasn't watching him that close, you know, mon? I was busy.

The fis.h.i.+ng boats were docking and my regular customers were coming in."

Reed didn't take his eyes off the man, but he toyed with the bills on the bar in front of him, as if he might pick them up again.

"I'd hoped you could be more helpful, Davey," Reed said.

Davey rubbed his heavy beard and tilted his head thoughtfully.

"You know, there was one thing about him that I remember now that I think about it."

"Oh, yeah? What's that, Davey?" Reed asked, setting his beer down on top of the money.

"That mon, that messenger, he had the weirdest eyes. Gray--no, more silver, like a picture of an Eskimo's dog I saw once in a magazine. I ain't never seen no eyes like that on a black man before. But after this' guy leaves, one of my customers--Elmo--he says he's seen the guy with the silver eyes down in Bodden Town. You know about that place, mon?"