Chapter 2

      Stars scattered over the night sky like buckshot against black velvet. Music rolled out of Casa de Rico’s doors, blending with the crickets’ serenade to the fall of night.

      Another day over and done with, and not a damned thing to show for it. He hadn’t even come up with a freaking hint of an idea of what to do with the rest of his damned life.

      A beer tucked between his thighs, the braided cotton strands of the hammock digging into his flesh, Travis waited for the tension to leave his body. He’d been waiting so long, he considered it a miracle that he still believed it could happen.

      Maybe he should have tried a little harder with the blonde on the beach earlier. A bout or three of hot, sweaty sex would have relaxed him a little.

      Maybe it was time to give up the beach and head somewhere else. He just couldn’t quite work up the enthusiasm to figure out where.

      “Yo, Hawk.”

      “Yo, Manny,” Travis returned laconically, lifting a hand to greet the beanpole of a man so dark that he blended with the night. All but the brilliant white of that smile he was always flashing.

      “You had phone calls. I took messages.”

      “Thanks, man,” Travis said, taking the scraps of paper he didn’t want.

      “One is from Paulo. Others are your SEAL friends. I know their names from times they visited, fished here. But nothing from family,” Manny said in sad tones, as if not having a family calling to add their nagging to his teammates’ was something to mourn.

      “No family to be calling,” Travis said, tucking the messages into the front pocket of his cutoffs. “Only child, parents gone before I was twenty.”

      “That’s a bummer, man.”

      It’d been a decade, but the sympathy hit him hard. He’d thought he was long over the loss. But being around people like Manny, with an extended family so big that he had cousins in every other house in town, really brought it home how alone he was. For years, he’d had his SEAL team for family. But while they weren’t dead like his parents, they weren’t there anymore either.

      But all Travis could do was shrug. Nothing else to do, and absolutely nada to say.

      “You didn’t have to deliver the messages. I would have come by your place tomorrow.”

      Manny ran a small produce market with his brothers. Not quite a store, not quite a stall, it did brisk business with the locals and tourists alike.

      “Now’s fine,” the skinny man said before lifting a covered plate. “You want fish? I caught it this morning. Glory cooked it nice.”

      Rich spices escaped the dish, its foil glinting in the moonlight as Manny plopped it onto Travis’s bare belly.

      Travis grunted. He really didn’t want the fish. Just like he hadn’t wanted the gallo pinto Boon had brought by an hour ago or the cacao fresco that Senora Miguel had forced on him at breakfast. But the upside—or downside in his opinion—of crashing at a friend’s place was the friend’s friends.

      “Thanks, to Glory too,” he said as he lifted the plate and, bending at the waist, leaned over to set it on the battered crate that served as his table.

      “So what you doing for a job now? I’ll bet you get bored recreating, right?”

      Right. There was no appeal in forced recreating. But Travis only shrugged.

      “I know the perfect job for you. You should be a private investigator. Or the police. But joining the police means you follow a bunch of rigid rules, that’s no way to get the job done.”

      Debating whether to point out the plethora of rules he’d lived by in the military, Travis opted to keep silent. He’d learned in his first week in town that Manny and logic weren’t real close pals.

      “You become a PI and solve all the crimes around here. Like I heard yesterday, that a bunch of turistas, they were hit on by two hookers.”

      Not surprising. Since it was legal, prostitution was a way of life in some parts of Costa Rica.

      “The men, they do the grab and feel, but didn’t like the merchandise. Happens all the time in my market. Everyone squeeze the melons but not everyone want to buy. But these men? When they don’t want a guy, some big bruiser come out and rough them up. Says, ‘You touch, you buy.’ He put one in the hospital.”

      Travis frowned. Prostitution might be legal, but pimping wasn’t. Neither were prostitution rings, which was what it sounded like Manny was describing.

      “My cousin Luis, he says that a bruiser was the one who came around his store last week. He said Luis pay for protection or there will be trouble. Next day, Luis’s little girl Lupe got lost.”

      “She’s missing?”

      “Was missing until nighttime. The whole family, we went looking, but nobody could find her. She turned up at the market after dark. Said a big man stole her, tied her up and said she had to give a message. If her papa didn’t pay, she’d get hurt.”

      Damn.

      Travis grimaced.

      Helpless women and children, they’d always been his hot buttons. He was tempted to offer his services. But the reality was that he had no services to offer. Who needed a cripple slowing them down? So Travis forced himself to unclench his jaw and relax instead.

      “Sounds like a job for the cops.” He leaned back in his hammock again.

      “The cops, they are no good here. That’s why we need you, Hawk. You can be a PI, you can help with the crimes.”

      “Thanks for the food,” he made himself say.

      Manny’s face fell, but he didn’t push the subject.

      “You eat. It’s good. Then you go have fun.”

      Travis grunted, hoping Manny would take that as an affirmative and go.

      No such luck.

      Instead, the other guy squatted in the sand next to the hammock and grinned.

      “You gonna party like a wild thing, yes? Lots to choose from tonight, Hawk. There’s a bonfire at the big hotel, a band tuning at Lolo’s and the dancing is already kicking over at the Catfish bar.”

      Not too long ago, he’d have hit all three party spots in a single night. All three and more.

      But that was then.

      “No, thanks.”

      “You really should have some fun. Loosen up and have a good time.”

      “I’m close enough to Lolo’s