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She stood up, a little clumsy. How odd, that a total stranger should make her knees weak.
“I’m tracking my…” she began.
“Tracking?” he scoffed, as if he thought she were lying. His blue eyes narrowed. He looked oddly dangerous, as if he never smiled, as if he could move like lightning and would at the least provocation.
Her heart was racing. “His name is Kurt and he’s only twelve,” she said. “He’s redheaded and so high.” She made a mark in the air with her flat hand.
“That one,” he murmured coolly. “Yes, I’ve seen him prowling around. Where’s my daughter?”
Her eyebrows rose. “You have a daughter? Imagine that! Is she carved out of stone, too?”
His firm, square chin lifted and he looked even more threatening. “She’s missing. I told her not to leave the house.”
“If she’s with Kurt, she’s perfectly safe,” she began, about to mention that he’d been stranded once in the middle of Paris by their forgetful parents, and had found his way home to their hotel on the west bank. Not only had he maneuvered around a foreign city, but he’d also sold some of the science fiction cards he always carried with him to earn cab fare, and he’d arrived with twenty dollars in his pocket. Kurt was resourceful.
But long before she could manage any of that, the man moved a step closer and cocked his head. “Do you know where they are?”
“No, but I’m sure…”
“You may let your son run loose like a delinquent, but my daughter knows better,” he said contemptuously. His eyes ran over her working attire with something less than admiration. She had on torn, raveled cutoffs that came almost to her knee. With them she was wearing old, worn-out sandals and a torn shirt that didn’t even hint at the lovely curves beneath it. Her short hair was windblown. She wasn’t even wearing makeup. She could imagine how she looked. What had he said—her son?
“Now, just wait a minute here,” she began.
“Where’s your husband?” he demanded.
Her eyes blazed. “I’m not married!”
Those eyebrows were really expressive now.
She flushed. “My private life is none of your business,” she said haughtily. His assumptions, added to his obvious contempt, made her furious. An idea flashed into her mind and, inwardly, she chuckled. She struck a pose, prepared to live right down to his image of her. “But just for the record,” she added in purring tones, “my son was born in a commune. I’m not really sure who his father is, of course…”
The expression on his face was unforgettable. She wished with all her heart for a camera, so that she could relive the moment again and again.
“A commune? Is that where you learned to track?” he asked pointedly.
“Oh, no.” She searched for other outlandish things to tell him. He was obviously anxious to learn any dreadful aspect of her past. “I learned that from a Frenchman that I lived with up in the northern stretches of Canada. He taught me how to track and make coats from the fur of animals.” She smiled helpfully. “I can shoot, too.”
“Wonderful news for the ammunition industry, no doubt,” he said with a mocking smile.
She put her own hands on her hips and glared back. It was a long way up, although she was medium height. “It’s getting dark.”
“Better track fast, hadn’t you?” he added. He lifted a hand and motioned to a man coming down toward the beach. “¿Sabe donde estñaan?” he shot at the man in fluent Spanish.
“No, lo siento, señtnor. ¡Nadie los han visto!” the smaller man called back.
“Llame a la policñaia.”
“Sñai, señtnor!”
Police sounded the same in any language and her pulse jumped. “You said police. You’re going to call the police?” she groaned. That was all she needed, to have to explain to a police officer that she’d forgotten the time and let her little brother get lost.
“You speak Spanish?” he asked with some disbelief.
“No, but police sounds the same in most languages, I guess.”
“Have you got a better idea?”
She sighed. “No, I guess not. It’s just that…”
“Dad!”
They both whirled as Karie and Kurt came running along the beach with an armload of souvenirs between them, wearing sombreros.
“Gosh, Dad, I’m sorry, we forgot the time!” Karie warbled to her father. “We went to the mercado in town and bought all this neat stuff. Look at my hat! It’s called a sombrero, and I got it for a dollar!”
“Yeah, and look what I got, S—mmmmffg.” Kurt’s “Sis” was cut off in midstream by Janine’s hand across his mouth.
She grinned at him. “That’s fine, son,” she emphasized, her eyes daring him to contradict her. “You know, you shouldn’t really scare your poor old mother this way,” she added, in case he hadn’t gotten the point.
Kurt was intrigued. Obviously his big sister wanted this rather formidable-looking man to think he was her son. Okay. He could go along with a gag. Just in case, he stared at Karie until she got the idea, too, and nodded to let him know that she understood.
“I’m sorry…Mom,” Kurt added with an apologetic smile. “But Karie and I were having so much fun, we just forgot the time. And then when we tried to get back, neither of us knew any Spanish, so we couldn’t call a cab. We had to find someone who spoke English to get us a cab.”
“All the cabdrivers speak enough English to get by,” Karie’s father said coldly.
“We didn’t know that, Dad,” Karie defended. “This is my friend Kurt. He lives next door.”
Karie’s dad didn’t seem very impressed with Kurt, either. He stared at his daughter. “I have to stop Josñae before he gets the police out here on a wild-goose chase. And then we have to leave,” he told her. “We’re having dinner with the Elligers and their daughter.”
“Oh, gosh, not them again,” she groaned. “Missy wants to marry you.”
“Karie,” he said warningly.
She sighed. “Oh, all right. Kurt, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing, Karie.”
“Maybe we can find that garden hose,” she added in a conspiratorial tone.
He brightened. “Great idea!”
“What the hell do you want with a hose?” Karie’s father asked as they walked back up the beach, totally ignoring the two people he’d just left.
“Whew!” Kurt huffed. “Gosh, he’s scary!”
“No, he isn’t,” Janine said irritably. “He’s just pompous and irritating! And he thinks he’s an emperor or something. I told him we lived in a commune and you’re my son and I don’t know who your father is. Don’t you tell him any differently,” she added when he tried to speak. “I want to live down to his image of me!”
He chuckled. “Boy, are you mad,” he said. “You don’t have fights with anybody.”
“Wait,” she promised, glaring after the man.
“He reminds me of somebody,” he said.
“Probably the devil,” she muttered. “I hear he’s got blue eyes. Somebody wrote a song about it a few years ago.”
“No,” he mumbled, still thinking. “Didn’t he seem familiar to you?”
“Yes, he did,” she admitted. “I don’t know why. I’ve never seen him before.”
“Are you kidding? You don’t know who he is? Haven’t you recognized him? He’s famous enough as he is. But just think, Janie, think if he had gray makeup on.”
“He could pass for a sand crab,” she muttered absently.
“That’s not what I meant,” he muttered. “Listen, they call this guy Mr. Software. Good grief, don’t you ever read the newspapers or watch the news?”
“No. It depresses me,” she said, glowering.
He sighed. “Mr. Software just lost everything. For the past year, he’s been involved in a lawsuit to prevent a merger that would have saved his empire. He just lost the suit, and a fortune with it. Now he can’t merge his software company with a major computer chain. He’s down here avoiding the media so he can get himself back together before he starts over again. He’s already promised his stockholders that he’ll recoup every penny he lost. I bet he will, too. He’s a tiger.”
She scowled. “He, who?”
“Him. Canton Rourke,” he emphasized. “Third generation American, grandson of Irish immigrants. His mother was Spanish, can’t you tell it in his bearing? He made billions designing and selling computer programs, and now he’s moving into computer production. The company he was trying to acquire made the computer you use. And the software word processing program you use was one he designed himself.”
“That’s Canton Rourke?” she asked, turning to stare at the already dim figure in the distance. “I thought he was much older than that.”
“He’s old enough, I guess. He’s divorced. Karie said her mother ran for the hills when it looked like he was going to risk everything in that merger attempt. She likes jewelry and real estate and high living. She found herself another rich man and remarried within a month of the divorce becoming final. She moved to Greece. Just as well, probably. Her parents were never together, anyway. He was always working on a program and her mother was at some party, living it up. What a mismatch!”
“I guess so.” She shook her head. “He didn’t look like a billionaire.”
“He isn’t, now. All he has is his savings, from what they say on TV, and that’s not a whole lot.”
“That sort of man will make it all back,” she said thoughtfully. “Workaholics make money because they love to work. Most of them don’t care much about the money, though. That’s just how they keep score.”
His eyes narrowed. “You still haven’t guessed why he looks familiar.”
She turned and scowled at him. “You said something about gray makeup?”
“Sure. Think,” he added impatiently. “Those eyes. That deep, smooth voice. Where do you hear them every fourth or fifth week?”
“On the news?”
He chuckled. “Only if they had aliens doing it.”
His rambling was beginning to make sense. Every fourth or fifth week, there was a guest star on her favorite science fiction show. Her heartbeat increased alarmingly. Her breath caught in her throat. She put a hand there, to make sure she was still breathing.
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. She smiled nervously. “No, he doesn’t look like him!”
“He most certainly does,” Kurt said confidently. “Same height, build, eyes, bone structure, even the same deep sort of voice.” He nodded contemplatively. “What a coincidence, huh? We came here to Mexico to get you away from the television so you could write without being distracted by your favorite villain. And his doppelgñuanger turns up here on the beach!”
Chapter Two
“I don’t like having you around that boy,” Canton told his daughter when they were back in their beach house. “His mother is a flake.”
Karie had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting out the truth. Obviously the Curtis duo didn’t want it known that they were little brother and big sister, not son and mother. Karie would keep her new friend’s secret, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
Her eyes went to the new hardcover murder mystery on the coffee table. There was a neat brown leather bookmark holding Canton’s place in it. On the cover in huge red block letters were the title, “CATACOMB,” and the author’s name—Diane Woody.
There was a photo in the back of the book, on the slick jacket, but it was of a woman with long hair and dark glasses wearing a hat with a big brim. It didn’t even look like their neighbor. But it was. Karie knew because Kurt had told her, with some pride, who his sister was. She was thrilled to know, even secondhand, a big-time mystery writer like Diane Woody. Her father was one of the biggest fans of the bestselling mystery author, but he wouldn’t recognize her from that book jacket. Maybe it was a good thing. Apparently she didn’t want to be recognized.
“Kurt’s nice,” she told her father. “He’s twelve. He likes people. He’s honest and kind. And Janine’s nice, too.”
His eyebrows lifted as he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Janine?” he murmured, involuntarily liking the sound of the name on his lips.
“His…mother.”
“You learned all that about him in one day?”
She shrugged. “Actions speak louder than words, isn’t that what you always say?”
His face softened, just a little. He loved his daughter. “Just don’t go wandering off with him again, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And don’t go to his home,” he added through his teeth. “Because even if he can’t help what he’s got for a mother, I don’t want you associating with her. Is that clear?”
“Oh, yes, sir!”
“Good. Get dressed. We don’t have much time.”
In the days that followed, Kurt and Karie were inseparable. Karie, as usual, agreed with whatever her father told her to do and then did what she pleased. He was so busy trying to regroup that he usually forgot his orders five minutes after he gave them, anyway.
So Karie and Kurt concocted their “sea serpent,” piece by painstaking piece, concealing it under the Rourke beach house for safety. Meanwhile, they watched World War III develop between their respective relatives.
The first salvo came suddenly and without warning. Kurt had gone out to play baseball with Karie. This was something new for him. His parents were studious and bookwormish, not athletic. And even though Janine was more than willing to share the occasional game of ball toss, she wasn’t a baseball fanatic. Kurt had grown to his present age without much tutoring in sports, except what he played at the private school where his parents sent him. And that was precious little, because the owners were too wary of lawsuits to let the children do much rough-and-tumble stuff.
Karie had no hang-ups at all about playing tackle football on the beach or smacking a hardball with her regulation bat. She gave the bat to Kurt and told him to do his best. Unfortunately, he did, on the very first try.
Canton Rourke came storming up onto the porch of the beach house and right onto the open patio without a knock. Janine, lost in the fifth chapter of her new book, was so foggy that she saw him without really seeing him. She was in the middle of a chase scene, locked into character and time and place, totally mindless and floating in the computer screen. She stared at him blankly.
He looked furious. The blue eyes under that jutting brow were blazing from his lean face. He had a hardball in one hand. He stuck it under her nose.
“It’s a baseball,” she said helpfully.
“I know what the damned thing is,” he said in a tone that would have affected her if she hadn’t been deep in concentration. “I just picked it up off my living-room floor. It went through the bay window.”
“You shouldn’t let the kids play baseball in the house,” she instructed.
“They weren’t playing in the damned house! Your son slammed it through the window!”
