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“The heat got to her. I helped her get somewhere cool.”
“Aren’t you the Good Samaritan?” The other well-shaped eyebrow rose to join the first. “Where’d you take her?”
“I’m not at liberty to supply you with that information.”
“I can make it worth your while.”
He chuckled. “Lady, I’m not for sale. Tell you what I’ll do, though. I’ll try to find her for you and tell her you want to see her. Then it’ll be up to her. That work for you?”
He could tell she wasn’t entirely pleased. Probably wasn’t used to being at the mercy of other people’s whims. But she finally nodded her assent. “I’ll be released from the hospital tomorrow. If I don’t hear from you or your tourist friend by then, I’ll have Charles contact you with our location.”
“So you’re staying on the island?” he asked, surprised.
“Yes. I came here for business. I intend to keep to my schedule as much as possible.”
Maddox stood. “Well, I really am glad you’re feelin’ better. I hope the police can find out what happened to you.”
“Thank you. And despite what you seem to think, I am grateful for your help this morning.” She turned her head toward the window and closed her eyes, ending the conversation. He took the hint and left the hospital room.
Outside, Charles Kipler was pacing in front of the door. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s spiffy, Chuck.” Maddox gave a polite nod and headed for the elevators.
Out in the parking lot, the Harley was where he’d left it. The guard in the kiosk gave a wave, and Maddox waved back before straddling the bike and strapping on his helmet.
He headed south toward the St. George, trying to figure out how to approach Iris the Jet-lagged Tourist with Celia Shore’s request. From what little he knew of Iris, she’d probably volunteer to camp out in the woman’s room just in case she needed help. Fortunately, he could assure her that Celia had Chuck the Cabana Boy to fetch and carry.
Maybe he was wrong about Iris. Maybe her friend had finally turned up and Iris was out on the beach right this minute catching some sun. Maybe she wouldn’t give a damn that Celia Shore wanted to talk to her.
But his gut told him he wasn’t wrong. Iris had Goody Two-shoes written all over her.
As he slowed at a crosswalk on Seville Street near the club district, he heard someone call his name. He turned and saw Claudell standing in the doorway of the Beachcomber.
“Mad Dog!” Claudell flapped a bar towel at him to get his attention.
Maddox drew the Harley to the curb. “What now, Claudell?”
“Woman come lookin’ for you. Name Iris.”
Anticipation fluttered through Maddox’s chest, catching him by surprise. Ignoring it, he pulled off his helmet. “You didn’t take any of her money, did you?”
“No, sir. I figure you wanna see a pretty girl like that. I tell her you probably at the Tropico.”
“Damn it, Claudell, you sent that girl to the Tropico?” Anxiety washed into Maddox’s gut on a wave of acid.
“You know them guys not gonna give her no trouble. She safer down there than up at the Tremaine.”
Claudell was wrong. Iris wasn’t safe alone anywhere, not in her fragile condition. “If she gets hurt, I’m comin’ after you, Claudell.”
Stomach clenching, Maddox whipped back onto the street, weaving through the haphazard traffic congesting Seville. A couple of blocks down, he took a left, heading into a seedier part of the club district.
FROM THE OUTSIDE, the Tropico looked like a dive. Flaking paint on the clapboard facade suggested that at some point, the place had been painted a lively mango-yellow, but the color had long since faded under the tropical sun. A single wood door sagged off-kilter in the storefront, about as uninviting an entryway as Iris had ever seen.
Figured a guy like Maddox would frequent a place like this.
The street was dark and growing darker, a dilapidated two-story building across the street casting shadows on the scene. A glance at her watch told her it was nearly four. She was running out of time before the cocktail party. Taking a deep breath, she opened the sagging door and stepped inside the bar.
The bar’s interior looked as disreputable as the outside. A scuffed wooden bar took up the far end. Rickety shelves lining the walls behind the serving area were laden with dusty, half-full bottles that looked to be on the verge of tumbling off the shelves and shattering on the grungy concrete floor.
Several customers—all men—turned at the sound of the door opening. Most of them wore jeans and faded T-shirts stretched over bulging muscles or bulging bellies. Tattoos darkened their arms and necks and even faces.
It was a biker bar, Iris realized with a combination of fascination and dismay. Who knew there were biker bars in the Caribbean?
A large black man with a snake tattoo coiled around his neck stepped away from the billiard table wedged into a cramped space on the left side of the bar. “You lost, missy?”
She debated asking for Maddox, but he clearly wasn’t here, and she didn’t need to be here, either. “Must have taken a wrong turn,” she murmured and backed out of the bar.
The empty feeling that had begun to fade as she approached the Tropico slammed into her chest the moment she stepped into the street. Reeling from the sensation, she groped for the wall, the rough clapboard scraping her palms. She slumped against the bar front, trying to regain her equilibrium.
“Miss?” The raspy masculine voice was tinged with a foreign accent.
She jerked upright, opening her eyes.
A pair of hazel eyes stared back at her from a craggy face only inches away. It took a second to realize she’d seen the man before. He was the sandy-haired man with the Vandyke beard she’d seen earlier outside the café, talking on a cell phone.
“What do you want?” she asked, apprehension clenching her heart.
The man bent closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I may know something about your missing friend.”
Iris stared at him, suspiciously. Had he been following her? “What are you talking about?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“My friend Hana Kuipers was at the St. George for the conference, too,” he said. “She disappeared yesterday, just like your friend Miss Beck.”
Iris couldn’t tamp down a flutter of hope. But before she could speak, the door of the Tropico opened, and an enormous Mariposan biker emerged, his gaze moving immediately to the bearded man.
“You botherin’ the lady?” The biker towered over the man.
The bearded man shook his head. “I’m just talking to her.”
The biker stepped forward menacingly. “Go back to fancy town, Dutchman.”
Iris slumped against the wall of the bar, overcome by the fierce anger coming from the biker. The bearded man looked her way, his eyes darkening. For the first time, the sense of emptiness around the bearded man disappeared, filled in by a flutter of emotion she thought might be concern.
She looked up at him, releasing a small hiss of surprise.
The emotion cut off immediately, as if she’d suddenly run headfirst into a brick wall. The bearded man’s gaze shifted.
The biker lunged suddenly, driving the bearded man against the front wall of the bar. The impact made the clapboard rattle. As the biker reared back to deliver a punch, the bearded man rolled to the side in one nimble movement. The biker’s hand slammed into the clapboard, splintering the wood. He yelped in pain.
Iris gasped as shattering pain sped through her hand. She pressed her fist into her belly, trying not to cry out.
The bearded man delivered a pair of vicious jabs to the biker’s kidney, grunting with satisfaction at the man’s howl of pain. The biker slid face-first down the wall, landing on his knees. Iris fell with him, her back aching in sympathy.
The bearded man knelt by Iris. She stared at him, realizing he was no ordinary tourist. “Who are you?”
He didn’t answer. The door to the Tropico was opening, about to spill a dozen of the Creole biker’s comrades to join the fray. Somewhere down the street, a feral growl of a motorcycle approached, getting louder.
The bearded man gave Iris one last look and took off running.
Chapter Four
Maddox wasn’t sure what he’d find when he reached the Tropico. Iris playing Florence Nightingale certainly wasn’t it.
Yet there she was, kneeling next to Jacob Massier’s crumpled body on the street in front of the biker bar, her hands moving over the biker’s back while a small crowd of bar regulars gathered in a restive semicircle behind her. She didn’t look up as Maddox pulled the Harley to a stop nearby.
He took his helmet off and started to ask what the hell she thought she was doing when he realized he’d seen the glassy-eyed look on her face once before, on the beach when she’d held Celia Shore’s hand while they waited for the EMTs to arrive.
Jacob Massier stirred suddenly, pushing up on one elbow. Iris dropped her hands away from his back and fell sideways, slumping against the front wall of the bar. A murmur of confusion broke out among the gathered bikers, as if they weren’t sure if they should go to her aid or leave her alone to recover from whatever was ailing her.
Maddox pushed past them and crouched by Iris, lifting her chin to check her eyes. They focused slowly on him, a soft breath escaping her lips. “I was looking for you,” she said.
“So I hear,” he responded, lifting his fingers to her throat to check her pulse. She flinched at his touch, as if it hurt her. He dropped his hand away, satisfied that her pulse was strong and steady, and rocked back on his heels. “I thought you were going to take a long nap and let yourself recover.”
“I was feeling better,” she answered.
“Obviously not better enough.” He offered her his hand.
She eyed it warily.
“I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”
She rewarded the hoary joke with a lopsided grin that went a long way toward easing the knot that had settled in his belly seconds after Claudell had told him where she’d gone. She took his hand, trembling as he closed his fingers over hers.
“Is he okay?” Her gaze slid past him to settle on Jacob, who’d made it to a sitting position.
“You okay, Jake?” Maddox asked the biker.
“I’m good,” he answered gruffly, his expression betraying a hint of embarrassment. “Lady got the mojo.”
Considering the way his stomach was fluttering just from the feel of her soft hand in his, Maddox couldn’t argue.
“ARE YOU SURE you shouldn’t be back in bed, resting?” Maddox scooted his chair closer to Iris, the spicy smell of him mingling with the chicory aroma of the coffee at her elbow. As she’d figured, he’d known where to find the only place in Sebastian with Internet-wired computers for rent.
“I want to know more about this Cassandra Society.” Iris typed the name into the search engine, hoping she’d have better luck than Lily had.
“I want to know more about the guy with the beard,” Maddox muttered. “Tell me what he looked like.”
She looked away from the computer. “Sandy blond hair and hazel-green eyes. His beard was trimmed Vandyke style, and a little darker than his hair.”
“How old?”
“Late thirties, maybe older.”
The Internet café was nearly empty, though with the dinner hour approaching, a few more people were beginning to filter in. Iris was glad they were mostly alone. The relative isolation had helped her recover from her experience at the Tropico. Only a twinge remained in the general vicinity of her kidneys, and the stinging sensation in her right knuckles was nearly gone.
“You said he had an accent?”
“Yes. Dutch, maybe. Or German.” She turned back to the computer, glancing over the listings. As Lily had indicated on the phone, the Cassandra Society didn’t appear to have a Web site, but the search engine had come back with a few links. She tried the first one and found herself on a self-help page full of paranormal psychobabble.
Great.
“When I showed Claudell a photo of your friend—”
“Where’d you get a photo of Sandrine?” she interrupted, looking up at him.
He pulled a cell phone from his pants pocket, aimed and pushed the button. A bright flash made her blink. “I took a picture of her photo while you were unconscious.” He scooted closer, showing her the photo he’d just snapped of her.
She grimaced at the deer-in-the-headlights look on her face in the photo, not liking the idea of him going through her things while she was unconscious.
“The picture was sticking out of your purse. I just grabbed it, took a quick snap with the phone and put it back in your purse.”
“Why?”
“I figured I could show it around, see if anyone had seen her.”
“I just don’t understand your interest.”
His silence drew her gaze again. This time, he was looking at the computer screen.
“You didn’t finish what you were saying,” she murmured. “Did your friend recognize Sandrine?”
He looked up at her slowly, his eyes narrowing. “No. But he’d heard about people going missing from the St. George.”
Dread curled inside her. With growing alarm, she realized that at least some of the cold, clammy sensation she was experiencing was coming from Maddox.
How bad did a situation need to be to scare a man called Mad Dog?
“How many people?” She tried to read his expression, see if she could discern any more of what he was feeling, but his expression was shuttered. And she wasn’t a mind reader.
“Claudell said more than one. And the man who approached you at the Tropico mentioned a missing friend.”
“If he was telling the truth.” She couldn’t shake the memory of the empty sensation emanating from the bearded man. He’d given off nothing. No fear, no pain—except for one brief moment when he’d looked at her with a quiver of concern that had quickly fled.
“Why do you think he wasn’t? Because he ran?”
She shook her head, unable to explain her instincts without going into details about her gift. “I just got the sense he was hiding something.”
Another wave of darkness washed through her, as if her words had opened a floodgate of anxiety inside him. She forced herself not to move away, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to reach out to him, either.
