Lost and Found Groom by McLinn, Patricia (most difficult books to read .TXT) 📗

“I’ll do it. I can use the practice,” she added with a smile. “Remember me? No more Ms. Nice Guy.”

They heard the squeak of the front door hinges, unaccustomed to being opened, then a male voice.

“Is this the home of Kendra Jenner?”

“Yes.”

“Never answer their questions,” Marti murmured.

But the overheard exchange absorbed all of Kendra’s attention.

“May I speak with her, please.”

Kendra’s heartbeat stuttered. That voice . . . She’d heard it before, hadn’t she?

“I’ll ask if she can see you. What’s your name?”

“Daniel Delligatti.”

The name meant nothing. But the voice nagged at her. Familiar, but not quite . . . right. She had stood when Ellyn appeared.

“Who is he?” Marti asked.

“I don’t know, but . . . there’s something about him.”

“There’s something about serial killers, too,” Kendra said grimly. “I know, I know. My cynicism is showing. I’ll see him.”

Aware Ellyn and Marti followed her closely, she turned the corner from the kitchen, staring down the short hallway created between the back of the couch and the wall, toward the man who stood at her front door.

Late August sunlight from the small windows across the top of the door backlit the figure. But she could see more than enough.

The clothes were vastly different–a soft blue oxford cloth shirt tucked into faded jeans instead of near rags. The hair was different, too, shorter and the waves mostly tamed by a precise cut. But the features were unchanged. She knew the strong jaw line and penetrating dark eyes in less than a heartbeat.

She should know them. She saw them every day. They were the features of her son.

And she saw them many nights in her dreams.

“Paulo.”

CHAPTER TWO

Three years ago,

Santa Estella

The damned hurricane was half a day early.

Wind rushed at Kendra Jenner like a mad bull. She barely saved herself from falling by bracing a hand against the rain-slickened adobe of Senora Valeria’s house.

Her cameraman and sound guy, surely safely in Miami by now and probably enjoying a drink in a hotel bar, would laugh at her being proved wrong. She could have taken the last plane out with them. They’d wanted her to. So had that American consulate official with the shaggy dark hair, thick glasses and baggy suit.

But she couldn’t give up on finding Taumaturgio–“Miracle Worker”–the benefactor to Santa Estella’s children whose daring so outraged the island’s officials. This story she had to tell.

So, she’d hired Esteban to guide her through narrow streets twisting between shanties, squat adobe buildings and pockets of partially completed construction abandoned under the weight of local corruption. She’d felt like a human pinball, bumped by every one of the hurrying crowd carrying bulging string bags of bottled water and canned goods. Like a pinball, she’d gone ever downward, from the hilltop where the consulate sat amid hotels and estates, down, down toward the water. Deeper into La Baja.

Senora Valeria was the seventh of Esteban’s promised sources–not one had anything to tell her of Taumaturgio. After he’d led her inside the old woman’s tiny adobe house, he’d stepped outside for a smoke. He’d never returned.

So Kendra would have to get herself back to the protection of the American consulate. She slung the strap of her shoulder bag across her body and started climbing the narrow street.

Rivulets of cold water, mud and stones tumbled down the rough surface under her feet. Rain beat into her face. Soon, her numbed feet no longer felt the stinging blows through her shoes. But they couldn’t feel the street, either, and walking required faith and guesswork. In unpredictable bursts, wind drove the rain at her like pellets. Her clothes became a sodden weight. A hunk of green wood that might have been a shutter cartwheeled in front of her.

From behind her, the surf she should have been leaving behind seemed to grow louder each second. She didn’t look back. She kept climbing.

The water was ankle deep, and coming faster. Fighting up another twenty yards, her feet slid on the slick stones. She came down hard on her palms, but saved herself from going all the way down. The wind eased, and she straightened, dragging in air.

A few more yards and she stumbled again. The water pulled at her, but she resisted. Against water now streaming past her mid-calf, she pushed on.

The third time she went down, she knew she’d never make it. Not like this. Not all the way to the consulate.

Fear crested over her. She pushed it back. Think, Jenner. Think. Panic’s the worst thing to do. Think, damn it!

First, she had to find shelter. That was the only practical thing to do.

Squinting against the rain, she caught a flash of movement. Someone else trying to find shelter? She pushed her hair back, but saw no sign of humanity. Not a person. Not a light. To her left, blue fabric that had once been an awning whipped and twisted in its death throes. The far side of the narrow street was a blur.

To her right, a narrow indentation cut into the street. Movement. A door, swinging wide on its hinges. Perhaps it covered only another, sturdier door that would be locked, but maybe . . .

She pushed off the wall and started toward the swinging door. Reaching it, she barely absorbed the fact that it opened into a dark space enclosed by plywood before she launched herself inside, then stood, hands on thighs, and gulped in air. Slowly she became aware of her shivering. Of the smell of mud. Of abandonment. And then of more . . . a presence. A faint sense of something else breathing in the space . . .

Her head jerked up. Someone stood on the bottom step of a steep, rickety stairway.

A man. Tall, with broad shoulders. That much she saw despite the shadowy gloom.

He said something she didn’t understand, and spread his arms, palms out in an apparent gesture that he meant her no harm. She backed up. He stepped forward. She pivoted and bolted out the door. A gust of wind-driven rain slashed into her like innumerable knives.

The next moment unfolded in slow motion.

The man coming behind her, a glimpse of