Название: Navy Seal To The Rescue
Автор: Tawny Weber
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9781474093644
isbn:
Her eyes tracked the cop’s steps, not so much to note his progress as to check the walls. The floor. Where was the blood?
Where was the body?
“This is the office where you thought you saw a man fall, senorita?”
The policeman threw open the door and gestured inside. Unwilling to move any closer, Lila craned her neck instead and tried to see the body. But the floor was bare of a body. Nowhere to be seen was a hurricane of scattered papers or broken furniture.
Lila rubbed a hand over her trembling lips.
“There is no dead body. No blood. No evidence of any wrongdoing,” the cop enunciated in careful English. “Perhaps you are used to attention in your country, senorita. But we frown upon such fabrications here in Puerto Viejo.”
He gave the office one last look around, then swaggered over to shift his intimidating stare between Lila and her companion.
“I’m not making it up,” she breathed, shaking her head. Not sure why, since he hadn’t believed her either, Lila shot Hawkins a beseeching look. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
“Why don’t you check on Rodriguez? Make sure he’s not floating facedown somewhere.” The suggestion was made to the cop, but Hawkin’s eyes didn’t leave Lila’s.
“Perhaps you should remember that we have no use for hotshots such as yourself here in Puerto Viejo, senor.” His beady eyes shifted between the two of them again before Montoya smiled.
Lila wanted to ask what the hell that meant. She clenched her fists, ready to demand to speak with the chief of police, the mayor. Whoever the hell was in charge.
But between his flat gaze and those small, sharp teeth, the cop reminded her of a shark. The kind of shark that’d chew her up and spit her out without so much as blinking.
So she kept her mouth shut.
“I will overlook your games this once, senorita. But only this once.” With that, and another sneering sort of smile, the policeman strode down the hall and out the door.
Leaving Lila with no dead body, a raging headache and a gun-carrying grouch.
Lila could only stare in shock as the dapper little cop strode away, his steps as rigid as his attitude.
He thought she’d made it up.
He thought she was lying.
The sexy beach bum with the lousy attitude thought that, too.
Years of being disregarded, of being dismissed or shunted off to the side as unimportant, exploded in her head. She wanted to scream. More, she wanted to grab something—the stapler off the desk, the rolling chair, the computer—and throw it to get him to pay attention to her.
She’d taken only one step, the red haze of fury blurring her vision, when someone laid a hand on her shoulder. Just one hand, but the simple touch calmed her.
Even as the frustration ebbed in her gut, her gaze shifted to meet Hawkins’s. In those dark eyes, she saw the same irritation that she felt. Then again, he’d seemed irritated since she met him, so maybe that was simply his go-to expression.
Regardless, Lila took comfort in his steady gaze.
“I did not imagine it, and I’m not making it up.” Her knees shook, but she forced herself to take three steps toward the office so she could point through the doorway. “I saw Chef Rodriguez killed. Right there.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t agreement, it wasn’t doubt. Lila knew the word was simply acknowledging what she thought she saw. It was enough to steel her spine, though.
So she wet her lips and took a hesitant step toward the office. Hawkins followed, so the next one was easier. Still, when she reached the door, even with Hawkins at her shoulder, she had to force herself to shift her gaze. To look around the office. To check the floor.
The policeman had said the room was clean.
He hadn’t lied.
Rodriguez was nowhere to be seen. The room was tidy, the floor bare.
She pressed her fingers to her lips to stop their trembling.
“Lila.”
The voice came as if from far away, its rumble soothing some of the tension in her belly. It didn’t explain the room, though.
“But...”
Her head doing a long, slow spin, Lila took two deep breaths, then stepped all the way into the office.
It was one thing that the body was gone. But where was the blood? The mess?
“They shot him. He fell. There.” She pointed at the doorway. At the bleached pine planks underfoot. “Blood. It was all over the floor. It smeared on the wall.”
But the floor was spotless. The wall clean.
Lila rubbed her knuckles over the pain throbbing in her forehead, trying to hold back a moan.
“I didn’t imagine it.” She turned to face the beach bum, her voice insistent. “I wouldn’t make something like that up.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“That policeman, Montoya, he thinks I made it up.”
Hawkins shrugged.
“He does have a point. There’s no body here.”
“I didn’t make this up.”
“Besides a body hitting the floor, what do you think you saw? Who shot him? What’d they look like? Sound like?”
“I only saw a hand. A man’s hand, holding the gun as it shot the chef.” Lila rubbed two fingers over her temple, trying to remember more. “He wore a long-sleeved jacket. Dark. The voices were low. Two men, at least, two, but they spoke too quietly for me to make out what they were saying.”
“That’s not a lot to go on.” His words as casual as his stance, the beach bum crossed his legs at the ankle, propped one shoulder against the door frame and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. The black tee gripped his shoulders like a tight hug, molded that broad chest.
Despite the confusion, beyond the misery in her gut, Lila couldn’t stop her gaze from taking in the perfect example of male beauty standing there. She’d admired it on the beach earlier today, but now all that perfection was a little irritating. Or maybe it was the look on his face: arrogant amusement and a hint of condescending impatience.
“A lot or not, Montoya still should have done more,” she stated, her frown sliding into a scowl.
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