Double Vision

Esther’s breath stopped in her throat, every cell in her body on high alert. She couldn’t place Alex Lopez, but she had no problem placing his accountant.

The handclasp was brief, but even so her stomach turned, and for a moment she wondered if she was going to throw up. She remembered the village in Colombia—Los Mendez. Families casually machine-gunned; a baby left crying in the mud.

The accountant might call himself Mike Vitali, but his real name was Miguel Perez, one of a coterie of men surrounding Colombian drug lord and all-round cold-blooded murderer, Marco Chavez. It had been Chavez who had been attempting to move the funds. They had turned him down. An investigation by Interpol wasn’t the best credential in the international banking community.

Cesar threw her an annoyed glance. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Esther forced a smile. Touching Perez had been like dipping her hand into a sewer. She needed to wash, and she needed to get him—all of them—out of her house. But she couldn’t afford the simple luxury of ejecting them; she would have to tread carefully. Perez was a butcher. If he suspected that she knew who he was, she would place them all in jeopardy. “I just felt dizzy for a second.”

She sent Cesar a hard stare, indicating she needed to talk with him now, in private.

His brows shot up as he misinterpreted her expression, and for a moment the distance that had grown between them over the past few months dissolved and she caught a glimpse of the “old” Cesar, the arrogant financial wizard who had swept her off her feet. The only time in her life she had been dizzy had been when she was pregnant, but they were both well aware it couldn’t be that. Lately, they had been either too preoccupied or too busy for even casual conversation, let alone sex.

They had problems. Big problems. Over the past year almost everything they had touched had fallen through. Their net worth had more than halved. In the past two months their position had worsened, unbelievably, to the point that they now faced losing everything. Esther had abandoned her own projects and had been working overtime, researching the labyrinthine twists and turns of the contracts Cesar had signed in an effort to stave off a massive loss on a development that had collapsed when a major investor had withdrawn. Cesar had gambled heavily on the failed Ellis Street project—they both had, throwing all of their resources behind the mall complex in a bid to recoup their losses. He should have succeeded; she had checked the deal herself. Incredibly, he had lost. Now they were facing the imminent failure of a second project. Even liquidating her own considerable assets, they were so close to bankruptcy she could feel the chill at her back.

Drinks were stilted. Cesar was unruffled, always the elegant host. Esther forced a smile and circulated with canapés, trying to isolate Cesar, but he continued to ignore her signals.

Frustrated by Cesar’s stubborn refusal to wangle a few seconds alone with her, Esther deliberately spilled wine on his sleeve. Seconds later, in the privacy of a downstairs powder room, she grabbed a bunch of tissues and sponged the wine. “Do you have any idea who Vitali is?”

“Lopez’s accountant.”

Jaw tight, she filled him in on Vitali’s real name and history. Cesar went pale, but something about his expression was just a little too wooden. “Please don’t tell me you knew that already.”

His gaze flashed. “Of course I didn’t. I didn’t pay him much attention—he’s Lopez’s accountant. I’ve met him briefly, maybe twice.”

She tossed the tissues in the trash can. “After tonight, cut ties. Don’t get involved with any of them, including Lopez.”

Cesar’s expression was evasive. “There’s a problem. Remember the Pembroke Project?”

How could she forget? It was the second of their major property developments that was threatening to pancake. If that went down, they would go with it.

“Lopez wants in on the deal.”

“Does he know about Ellis Street?”

“He knows. Now do you understand my position? I can make Lopez get rid of Perez, but not right now.”

Not if there was a chance of salvaging Pembroke. Unpalatable as it was, Esther had to back down. If either she or Cesar made an issue of Perez now, Lopez might pull out of the project altogether. Esther didn’t like the idea of partnership with Lopez—the man was a snake—but in this instance Cesar was right. They were fighting for survival.

Dinner proceeded at an agonizingly slow pace. Carmita was harried because not one, but two of the kitchen hands she had employed for the night hadn’t turned up. Esther, unable to stomach small talk, helped Carmita serve and clear.

As she moved smoothly from table to kitchen, serving first an appetizer then the soup, she kept a weather eye on Rina, who had taken one look at the three visitors and retreated like a turtle withdrawing into its shell. Her baby might be quiet and a little dreamy, but the girl had instincts.

For the past half hour Rina had eaten what was placed in front of her and answered when spoken to. Other than the usual pleasantries, no one had paid her any attention, for which Esther was relieved. She didn’t like the ability Rina had to shut herself off at will, but at the same time, she didn’t want any of their guests to find anything at all interesting about her child—especially not Perez.

Every time she looked at his dark, narrow face, she thought about the dead children and her stomach turned. Accountant he might be, but he had been in Los Mendez when almost an entire village had been gunned down, allegedly on Chavez’s orders. The only survivors had been villagers who had been able to escape into the jungle. Horror-stricken by the attack, they had provided eyewitness reports, but, despite that testimony, Chavez hadn’t been indicted. Perez and a number of other members of the cartel had disappeared, escaping certain jail terms, but Chavez had remained in Colombia. According to a Reuters report, his influence within the government and more important, the military, had made him untouchable.

After the formality of the dining room, the kitchen was alive with heat and sound. Steam erupted from a pot as a lid was lifted and dishes clattered as bowls of vegetables and salads were loaded onto a serving trolley.

Dumping a tray of dirty dishes onto the kitchen counter, Esther stepped outside, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It wasn’t often that she envied Carmita the hustle and bustle of her job, but tonight she did. From the second she’d laid eyes on Perez she’d been a bundle of nerves. Her stomach felt tight, she had barely been able to eat, even her skin felt tense. She’d taken every excuse to leave the table and distance herself from him, but the few minutes she’d managed weren’t enough.

Stepping farther into the garden, she breathed in the rich scent of gardenias and willed herself to relax, her gaze automatically drawn to the limpid surface of the lit pool.

Lifting her hair off the back of her neck so the air could cool her skin, she strolled closer to the pool, gaze drifting over jardinieres of trailing ivy and the glossy leaves of palms. On impulse, she slipped off her shoes, dragged the clinging silk jersey of her dress around her thighs and lowered herself to the tiled edge of the pool. As her feet slid into the water, a small shudder went through her. The water was tepid, barely cooler than the surface of her skin, but it was enough to provide relief from the heat and give her a few moments to assess exactly what was going on between Cesar and Lopez.

Cesar had said the dinner was simply a social “warm-up” while he and Lopez assessed their compatibility as business partners, but nothing about the evening felt warm. Lopez wasn’t going out of his way to charm anyone, and Cesar wasn’t himself. If she didn’t know better she would think—

A shadow flickered, jerking her head around. Esther frowned, more at her own jumpiness than the fact that some small animal or a bird might have taken up residence in the thick grove of palms. The movement had been at the periphery of her vision. It was possible it had been a shadow generated by someone in the house moving in front of a lamp, but with everyone seated in the dining room, that left the sitting room—the only lighted room that faced the patio—empty. Unpalatable as it was, the movement had more than likely been made by a rat. They loved the thick subtropical undergrowth. Carmita’s husband, Tomas, was forever setting traps.

The clash of a dropped pan and the sharp edge of Carmita’s voice broke the balmy quiet. Shaking off her tension and the growing anger that, desperate or not, Cesar had allowed a man like Perez into their family home, Esther swung her feet out of the water and straightened, her shoes dangling from her fingers.

The branch of a magnolia quivered. She frowned. The quivering branch was some distance from the first disturbance. The obvious answer to the small movement was the breeze. But there was no breeze.

Eyes unblinking, she probed the shadows, but the glow from the pool destroyed her night vision. She couldn’t make out much more than the outlines of shrubs and trees.

A further flickering movement sent her heart slamming hard against the wall of her chest.

The breath drained from her lungs when she realized the movement was a leaf dropping into the pool. For long moments she stared at the leaf where it floated, and the fine shimmer of concentric circles forming around it.

Nothing could have demonstrated more clearly that she was becoming paranoid. The estate was security-fenced and monitored twenty-four hours a day. If any of the alarms had been breached, either Tomas or Jorge, Tomas and Carmita’s son, who lived with his parents in a cottage on the estate, would have rung through to the house.

With disgust she strode back into the kitchen just as the main course trolley was finally wheeled through to the dining room.

Within an hour dessert was cleared and Carmita was circulating with the coffeepot and a dish of her homemade chocolates.

Cesar refused coffee, instead refilling his wineglass. Esther noticed he was drinking heavily and talking too much, which wasn’t usual. Normally he kept a clear head when they entertained because he was well aware that his strength lay in playing stocks and his ability to make a failing business soar, not in dealing with people. That was where Esther’s expertise was invaluable. Cesar weeded out the bad risks; she weeded out the bad people.

Rina, who must have sneaked her Walkman to the table while Esther was out of the room, despite the fact that she was expressly forbidden to do so, abandoned listening to music, attracted by the silver dish of chocolates. Carmita pushed the dish into Rina’s hands and urged her to take them around the table. Normally, Esther would have been more than happy for Rina to lend a hand, but on this occasion she wished Carmita had stuck to etiquette.

As Rina drifted past with the dish, Cesar’s arm curled around her waist, halting her. Rina stiffened, clearly not in the mood for a public display of affection. Cesar, usually more sensitive to his daughter’s moods, refused to take the hint, and for the first time Esther realized what was behind Cesar’s uncharacteristic behavior: he was afraid.

She’d been so preoccupied with her own perceptions, her own knowledge, she hadn’t stopped to think about Cesar’s state of mind. Usually, the bigger the monetary challenge, the more he relished it. He was like a general in battle, every deal a campaign to build his empire ever larger. She had always admired his courage and his audacity. Normally his instincts were good and, more important, he was lucky. Or, he had been.

Cesar’s smile widened, a sharp edge to the grin. “C’mon, honey, show our guests what you can really do.”

Esther’s smile slipped as the focus turned on Rina.

Suppressing the urge to hustle her daughter from the room, she pushed her chair back, rose to her feet and began gathering dishes. “Mr. Lopez and his friends aren’t interested in school tricks.”

Cesar frowned at the clatter of plates. “A photographic memory isn’t a school trick.”

Esther ignored him as she moved around the table, deliberately adding a swing to her hips. The impulse to preserve her child was knee-jerk and primitive. Perez made her skin crawl, Lopez didn’t make her feel much better and Dennison had about as much charm as a piranha. She didn’t want any of these men looking at Rina or focusing on her. She didn’t want any of them remembering one thing about her daughter.

Cesar produced a sheet of paper and a pen and began writing figures in bold print. “Here, honey, you get five seconds to look.”

Rina stiffened. Her gaze automatically connected with Esther’s, the communication clear. She had stopped enjoying performing in public at age five and she was in no mood to start again now.

Grimly, Esther jerked her head in assent, indicating Rina should go along with her father. As much as she wanted to get her daughter out of the room and away from Perez, she would have to wait another few minutes. Things were tense enough. If Rina dug her heels in there would be a scene, and after the reversals of the past few weeks, a dinner table brawl with his daughter was the last thing Cesar needed.