Green Beret Bodyguard

As she sat with the phone between her knees, Jack tapped on her bedroom door. “Yeah, come on in.”

He nodded toward the phone. “You call the cops?”

“I did. Should you take off before they arrive?” She held her breath. If she didn’t want him to leave before, she really didn’t want him to leave now.

“Nah, they won’t be too interested in me, but I’ll give them a fake name just in case.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “All the other doors and windows seem secure. I went out to the balcony, and it looks like another partial footprint out there but nothing else, and neither one of those prints is clear.”

“I haven’t even checked my stuff.” She bounded from the bed and ducked into her walk-in closet, where she kept a safe. Everything was intact. She dug out a jewelry box where she’d stashed several expensive pieces her mother had worn. Nothing was touched.

“How about your office, your computer?”

Lola went into the second bedroom, which she used as an office, and sifted through her drawers and files, leaving behind a bigger mess than the thieves.

After verifying her tidy burglar hadn’t taken one item, Lola shoved her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders. “I don’t get it. Nothing’s missing. I can tell someone has gone through my belongings, even though that someone has been extremely careful not to leave anything out of place. If he hadn’t left that footprint, I never would’ve known he was here.”

“He was looking for something.” Jack drew his dark brows over his nose. “But he didn’t find it.”

“There’s nothing to find.” Lola spread her arms wide. “If he’d wanted money, he could’ve taken some from my safe. Jewelry? Not interested.”

“Maybe he was looking for some correspondence with me. Some indication we’d been in touch. Some evidence of my location.”

Lola twisted her fingers together as if she could wring out the anxiety. “I don’t know, Jack. None of it makes sense. Do you think he was looking for something in my car, too?”

“It’s possible.”

The knock on the door made Lola jump, and she flashed Jack a wobbly smile. “Probably the cops.”

The bored patrol officers measured the footprint, told her the sole was too smudged to identify the shoe type and dusted her window for prints. There were none.

Her concern about Jack coming in contact with the police was groundless, since they seemed about as interested in him as they did the victimless crime.

They hovered at her door, ready to leave. The taller officer gripped the door handle and turned. “Maybe someone was here when you came home, and you scared him off before he could take anything.”

The other one chimed in. “Maybe it was a friend who needed to get in for some reason.”

Lola blinked her eyes and raised her brows at the unlikely scenarios, but then these guys didn’t know the turmoil of her life. And she wasn’t going to fill them in.

As she ushered them into the hallway, thanking them, the shorter cop, the Cuban, turned slightly. “Aren’t you Eduardo Famosa’s daughter?”

Or maybe they did know the turmoil. Lola’s jaw tightened and she clenched her teeth as she nodded.

The cop’s eyes rounded. “You don’t think this break-in…”

He broke off as Lola narrowed her eyes and tilted her chin. “My father’s been dead for over three years.”

“Of course, of course.” He waved his hands and practically dragged his partner toward the elevator.

Avoiding Jack’s penetrating stare, Lola picked up a cushion in the shape of a daisy and plumped it in the corner of the sofa. “Should’ve figured the guy wore gloves. I suppose a smeared footprint isn’t going to be much use.”

“Who’s your father?”

“My father’s dead.”

“I gathered that, but who was he when he was alive?”

Lola hugged the daisy to her chest and perched on the edge of the coffee table. “My father was an influential businessman in the Cuban community. He had a lot of friends, and he had just as many enemies.”

“Like the barkeep’s father?”

“Mario’s dad was a friend. He just stepped out of line one too many times.”

Jack’s eyes were unreadable slits of obsidian. “Are you saying your father had Mario’s father killed?”

“I have my suspicions, but nobody could prove that.” She rubbed her upper arms. “Nobody could prove anything about my father.”

“That officer’s question has me wondering the same thing. Could any of this—” he waved his arms around the room “—have anything to do with your father’s business?”

She squeezed the pillow tighter. “I don’t think so, Jack. Gabe and I sold off most of Dad’s holdings when he and my mother passed away.”

“Passed away at the same time? How did they die?”

Lola’s throat ached, but only for her mother, the dutiful wife who had deferred to her husband in everything…even death. “There was a radon gas leak in their home. They both died in their sleep.”

Jack sucked in a breath. “Was it an accident?”

“The investigators ruled it an accident…nothing could be proved otherwise.”

“That’s tough. I’m sorry. And now your brother has been missing for over six months.”

“And someone apparently thinks I know something.”

Jack lifted a solid shoulder. “Or someone thinks you know me.”

Okay, time to get a spine back. Lola tossed the pillow onto the sofa. “Thanks for hanging around and talking to the cops with me. Really, I’m completely sober now, and I can give you a ride back to your motel.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone tonight.” He widened his stance and dug his heels into her wood floor as if he expected some kind of resistance.

All her resistance had been stamped out by that dirty footprint in her bathtub, but she should at least give it the old college try. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You’re still shaky. You’re pale. You don’t need to be alone tonight.”

The fluttering in her belly made her feel shaky again, but it had nothing to do with the break-in. Usually when a man tossed around orders, her hackles stood at attention. But her father had given orders to protect himself, never to protect her.

How this man could worry about her when facing his own fractured life spoke volumes about his character. Even if he couldn’t remember his life as a hostage negotiator, those same protective instincts had charged to the forefront of his brain.

“I’ll bunk on that bed of flowers.” He leveled a finger at the sofa. “Looks a lot more comfortable than the lumpy mattress at the hotel.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow.” She wrinkled her nose. “Might be a little short for you.”