“The minute Miss Carlyle was confirmed missing, her disappearance was reported by every news media in the country and half of Europe.”
Yep, that had been his guess.
“Now they’re all going to want her story. She’ll probably be invited to appear on the goddamn Letterman show.” The general leaned forward and stared at Max. “You’ve spent time with her. What approach do we use to keep her quiet?”
“She’s a smart woman. She knows about the Cosellas, and I’ll remind her that she doesn’t want to be tied to anything that happened in the Bahamas. I’ll talk to her.”
“Negative, Max.”
“She’ll listen to me,” he said with a lot more certainty than he felt. Because the fact was, now that she’d had some time away from him to think, he wasn’t certain that she wouldn’t want to press charges against him.
“I want you to stay away from Ms. Carlyle and completely out of this, Max. The bureau is handling the situation.” General Winter stood. Subject closed. Meeting over. “I believe you have something for me?”
Max stood and reached behind him. From the small of his back, he pulled out the map and the ledger he found on the powderboat and tossed the map on the desk. “You’ll find four of Andre Cosella’s drug runners at those coordinates.”
“Dead?”
“I don’t believe so.” Next, he tossed the ledger on the desk. He’d taken a good look at it while still aboard the go-fast. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out what he had and what it meant. The ledger recorded dates, times, position of drug drops, descriptions and quantities, and the names of the rendezvous vessels. It was all written down in plain Spanish, and he’d chosen to pacify the general with this information instead of handing it over to the Coast Guard.
After the public relations the military had suffered recently, this was a plum opportunity to redeem itself to the American people. If they didn’t screw it up-which was always a possibility when dealing with pencil-pushers. “I think you’ll find that interesting, sir.”
General Winter glanced through the bound leather book, then looked up. “This is the reason I put up with you, Max,” he said as he hit a button on his intercom. “You have more lives than a damn cat and more luck than the Irish. Now get out of here and get yourself checked out.”
Max refused the general’s order of medical attention and was escorted from the room by security personnel. He rode an elevator to the VIP parking lot, where a black Cadillac waited for him. Once inside the backseat of car, he leaned his head back and finally relaxed for the first time since he’d sat in the galley of the Dora Mae, eating red snapper with Lola. He didn’t let himself relax completely, though, fearing he’d fall asleep if he did. The lights of D.C. sped past the windows, and the sound of the tires on wet pavement filled the interior of the car, letting him know that it had rained. The sights and sounds were familiar ones and reminded him he was home. Almost.
After a short fifteen-minute drive, the Cadillac pulled up in front of Max’s two-hundred-year-old townhouse in Alexandria. Now he was home. Finally. Max stepped from the car and tapped on the roof. The Caddie sped away, its tires splashing in inky puddles of water. The lights on the outside of the townhouse shone as they’d been programmed, but four days’ worth of the Journal were flung on his porch. Since he hadn’t anticipated being gone more than a day, he hadn’t suspended service.
He didn’t have a key. He didn’t need one. When he’d purchased the townhouse three years ago, he’d designed and installed his own security system.
An exterior and interior keypad controlled the motion detectors, the exterior lights, and the locks on the doors. Max walked up the steps to the front door, flipped open the keypad, and punched in his code. He picked up the soggy newspapers and moved through the dark house to the kitchen. Beneath the sink, he pulled out the rubber garbage pail and dumped the papers into the empty trash bag.
Pale moon, and light from the back porch, poured in through the window above the sink, lighting patches of forties-red countertops, cabbage-rose wallpaper, and his chrome coffee-maker. Except for the security system and the new pipes he’d had installed in the two bathrooms, he hadn’t quite gotten around to remodeling the townhouse like he’d always planned.
Without turning on the lights, he walked up the stairs to his bedroom on the second level. The hardwood floors creaked beneath his weight, and he sat on the edge of his mattress to unlace his boots. He’d been awake for forty-eight hours, and unbidden, memories of Lola rose in his head. Images of her bathing on the swimming platform of the Dora Mae. Kissing her on the aft deck. Holding her in his arms as the storm threatened to swamp the yacht. Touching and kissing her bare breasts, then making love to her as the sun set over an uncharted tropical island somewhere in the Atlantic. Hot memories and images flowed through him and he was too tired to fight them.
He took off his clothes and stood completely naked. Light from outside crept in around the shade covering the window. It striped the floor and lit up an edge of the dresser. Max stepped over the heap of clothes and reached for a battered St. Christopher medallion hanging from one corner of the mirror. He raised his arms and placed the gold medallion around his neck. It had belonged to his father, and the cool metal was familiar against his chest.
The crisp bedsheets brushed his skin as he slid between them, and he wondered if Lola slept well wherever she happened to be. The last he’d seen of her, she’d looked pale and exhausted, and he imagined she’d been kept for observation in the hospital.
He thought of calling Key West to check on her condition. Then he thought better of it. It would be best to make a clean break. To stay out of her life. Not because General Winter had told him to, but because even as the responsibility of Lola and her dog had weighed him down and choked the air from his throat, he’d come to crave it. There was something about the warmth of her eyes. The way she’d looked at him. The way she’d shared her life and her body. Something that expanded his chest. A place deep inside he hadn’t known for certain existed within his soul. Something reckless that made him ditch his better judgment and make love to her while ignoring the danger of that wild rash act. Something that consumed reason and caution and made him crave it all over again.
He’d saved her from drowning, and he’d saved her from drug runners. He hadn’t been so lucky. He hadn’t been able to save himself from her.
It was definitely best for both of them if he stayed away. She did not belong in his life, and he certainly didn’t fit into hers.
One of the good things that came out of Lola’s disappearance was all the press it generated. The same day the news of her disappearance was reported, her Lola Undercover line of delicately embroidered merry widows and silk nighties with cut-out roses and matching thongs had sold out and were now on back order. During those four days, catalog sales had topped projections by sixty-three percent.
Business was thriving. Life was good, and even the Enquirer was taking a break from calling her a heavyweight. Now the cut line read, Buxom Lola Finally Found. She’d take buxom over heavyweight or Large Lola any day.
The Enquirer had generated a story about her supposed elopement with a strange man she’d met in the Crystal Palace Casino. Another tabloid speculated that she’d been in hiding because of a plastic surgery blunder, but Lola’s favorite was a report that she’d been abducted by aliens and was living in a small wilderness town in the Northwest.
All of the speculation had given her more press than she could have bought, and they’d had to increase production of the Cleavage Clicker to meet demand.
The Lola Wear, Inc., offices were spread out over a ten-thousand-foot space in one of five old renovated tobacco warehouses in downtown Durham. The once-crumbling district had been transformed into an upscale eclectic blend of retail business, offices, and apartments. Lola had chosen to lease the space not only because it fit her needs, but because it was a part of her history. She had a connection here. A lot of her relatives had worked in the same warehouse, cranking out Chesterfields until the layoffs of the late seventies. Sometimes, on especially humid days, Lola could almost smell the sweet scent of tobacco leaves.