Falling Darkness. Karen Harper
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have Heck here, but he’d walked Gina downstairs to say goodbye until later.
In case someone tried to stop him, Nick had not brought the paper Rob Patterson had given him about covert contact. He’d type in the message first, then address it so it couldn’t go out by mistake before he had it just the way he wanted it:
My stock market investments have crashed, but we’ll get through it with your advice. We want to return to your firm. Any thoughts on how to get back in the market? I’d hate losing everything. I’ll keep a low investment profile until I hear from you. Hotel Nacional in Havana is excellent. Jack Randal
He typed in the email address he’d been given by Patterson. It sounded like an investment firm in Chicago. Then he hit Send.
* * *
Claire bought Lexi a bathing suit in one of the first-floor shops, then let her go to the pool with Nita and Bronco. Lexi had promised that, if she could go swimming, she would only whisper to Lily and not repeat anything her friend said. Jace had gone down to the pool too, just to keep an eye on things from the shade, he’d said. Claire took a fast shower, and then Nick took his turn.
When Nick came out of the bathroom, Claire almost hurled herself in his arms. With just a wet towel tied around his waist, he sat on the bed and lifted her onto his lap. “Hang in there, sweetheart,” he tried to calm her, but she knew he was on edge too.
“I know we don’t have time for this, but I—I just needed your arms around me,” she stammered. “I put mine around Lexi to try to comfort her, but she was kind of not there. Stiff. Angry. I mean, I understand but I just couldn’t seem to talk her out of Lily—to help her.”
He rocked her a bit. She clamped him to her. “We’ll get out, get back to normal—whatever that is living under WITSEC protection—until they get their hands on Ames.”
“What if these rooms are bugged?”
“I don’t think so. They’d lose their business if anyone found out and word spread. This is a hub of savvy, greedy foreigners with money the Cubans want, so they have to be careful. At least we won’t stand out here, except for our lousy wardrobes. Want to go down to the pool, get a bite to eat there, keep an eye on Lexi until we hear from Patterson?”
He shifted her closer. Claire could tell he was wavering about making love to her. She wanted that, but the world spun whenever Nick touched her that way, and they needed to be aware and wary. She almost told him she thought she might be pregnant, but there had to be a better time than this for such momentous news.
Clearing his throat, he said, “So Heck should be back by now, and I need to talk to him about our next step online—waiting for my so-called investment banker to contact us with instructions. But if we go down, I can check to see if there’s a reply yet. I’m hoping—praying—he responds fast.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Heck didn’t come upstairs with you?”
“He wasn’t with me. He walked Gina out, said he’d only go as far as the Malecon and be right back. He’d better not be hanging with her longer than that. Go look in the suite for him, and I’ll get dressed.”
She went out but soon came back in. Her slacks around her hips were darker blue where his towel had spread its dampness. “Nick, he’s not here.”
“Let’s go down to the pool to see if he’s there,” he said, not bothering to tuck in his shirttail. “Right now.”
* * *
But Heck wasn’t at the pool. The others hadn’t seen him.
“I really don’t think he’d just go off with her,” Claire said.
Jace, who was with them now, said only, “Guys in love have done stranger things. But—once again—can we trust her? He would be easy to interrogate with his Spanish—and his ties to the old regime.”
“Don’t even think that,” Nick muttered. “Let’s look in the café bar. Maybe he or both of them ducked in there, couldn’t say goodbye to each other even for a few hours. I should have done a better job reading him the riot act about her, but he’s always been so loyal and levelheaded.”
Claire watched the lobby from the door while the two men walked around inside. She overheard a woman with a British accent say, “I heard this bar used to be terribly chic years ago. Look at the pictures on the wall of Sinatra, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and—oh, what’s her name, over there, she married Sinatra. Oh, that’s right, Ava Gardner. And I heard it was here Sinatra was spotted with gangsters and that shot his reputation.”
“Indeed,” her male companion said. “At least it was only his rep that was shot, since some of the blokes who had monetary interest in this place got shot by Fidel and Che’s firing squads.”
Despite the warmth in here and the strangely comforting smells of cigars, coffee and coconut pastries on a tray near her, Claire shuddered. The statue of Venus in the corner past the bar reminded her of that statue—and her own face—in the cemetery staring at her. She felt slightly nauseous. And where was Heck?
* * *
Since Claire felt a little queasy, Nick walked her up to the room. Jace was sitting in the lobby, waiting for Heck, and Nick planned to go down to join him. “It’s terrible not to have cell phones on us,” Claire said as she lay down.
“Yeah. I’ve seen people with them but they use them like pagers, and Gina said you can’t risk any sort of questionable conversation on them anyway. You just lie here, and I’ll go down and tell Nita to bring Lexi—and Lily—back up here.”
“Don’t even kid about Lily. Nick, I’m worried about Lexi. She’s deeply disturbed. Aren’t we all, but she doesn’t have the resources to handle it.”
“Kids are resilient. Once we get out of here she—all of us—will be fine.”
He kissed her cheek and went out. She heard him lock the hall door. So here she was in a top-floor luxury suite in the best hotel in Havana and all she wanted was to be in some nice little house, safe in Naples with Nick and Lexi. But there were sharks between here and there—sharks here too.
She put her hands gently on her flat, upset stomach. Could there be a child growing there? She could never love another one as much as she loved Lexi—but, of course, she could, especially Nick’s baby. Besides, this might still just be upheaval and nerves and her powerful meds and...
Exhausted, she drifted on the sea for a while, but she sat straight up when she heard the woman’s distraught voice.
“Mrs. Claire? Mr. Nick said you’re here. Where are you?”
Nita! Nita must be back with Lexi.
“Here! In here!”
Claire got to her feet, feeling slightly dizzy. There was something wrong. Nita sounded panicked, and she never raised her voice. Was Lexi hurt in the pool?
She rushed into the living room. She saw only Nita with tears streaming down her face.
“Where is she? Where is she?”
“She being naughty. When we step out of the elevator, she run back in and press the button, saying Lily did it. I try to stop the door, but it close. I hit the button, but the elevator leaving. I watch the numbers. She go down, maybe to second floor, maybe lobby. I wait for that same elevator to come back, and she not there, she not there!”
“We’re a pair,” Nick told Jace as they watched for Heck by scanning the faces of people coming toward the hotel. “Two guys whose past careers and current lives depend on keeping cool, calm and collected, and we’re both a wreck. Getting out of Cuba’s starting to vie for first priority with getting rid of just one man, one bastard wreaking havoc on all our lives, and I don’t mean you-know-who,