“I see you speak our native tongue.” The agent swiped the bill and glanced over his shoulder. “Find Borja at The Palm Inn.” Without another word, he jogged back to the terminal.
“Please tell me The Palm Inn is the hotel where we’re staying,” Ryder said.
Devin pulled out his cell phone and texted a travel change request to George’s executive assistant, Suzie, so she could make the reservation change, then he climbed into the Jeep’s driver’s seat. “It is now.”
“So, it seems Sarah was hiding more than just her embezzlement scheme.” She slid into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door. “If her family is the local badass clan, this whole operation just kicked it up a notch.”
With that thought hanging in the wind, he hit the highway for the ten-mile drive to Andol City proper. As they drove, he rolled the idea of a Molina crime family around in his mind, and the best way to go after her, if it was true.
“I see the wheels turning in your head.” Ryder twisted in her seat to face him. She wore sunglasses, but he could still feel the weight of her glare. “You can forget about it. George hired Maltese because we’re good. I’m in charge of this case because I’m good. You’re going to have to relax and let me take the lead.”
“So, in your imagination”—he put a full slathering of prep school snob into his voice—“I’m just your driver?”
She raised her sunglasses to her forehead. “If it makes you feel better, you can add arm candy to your list of duties.” She winked, and lowered her glasses.
“That doesn’t fly. I’m the client, and whatever the client says, goes.”
“When we set up base camp, go through that list of files on your laptop and look for the Maltese contract. You’ll see it in black and white. When George signed the dotted line, he ceded primary decision-making on the case to Maltese—ergo, me.” She grabbed her long, thick hair and whipped the wavy mass into a braid that fell between her shoulder blades.
“I’m not George.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel before he bent the damn thing. “And I’m not the assistant.”
“Pity. I think this case would go a lot smoother if you were.” She scrolled through her notes on her tablet. “We need to hit the tea shop first.” Wisps of the wavy strands whirled around her face, a few sticking to the shiny gloss of her full lips.
How could such a hot woman be so fucking annoying?
He pulled his gaze from her in time to see a beat up van that was coming toward them drift into their lane. Heart racing, he slammed his hand on the horn.
The van continued straight for them, the driver either too out of it or not giving a shit that he was about to ram another vehicle head on. Considering the horror stories Devin had heard about drivers here, it could be either one.
Devin swerved off the road, the dirt shoulder rumbling beneath the tires, and hit the gas. The Jeep bolted forward, avoiding the van by inches before leaving the bucket of bolts in the dust.
“Shit. Tell me everyone around here doesn’t drive like that.” Ryder tested her seat belt.
“I sure as hell hope not.” Adrenaline sailed through his veins.
The first brightly-colored, single-story buildings of Andol City appeared around the bend. Something about the cheerfulness of it all calmed Devin’s jittery pulse. He kept his gaze locked on the unlined blacktop road and the rolling hills beyond it. “You sure we should hit the tea shop first and not Sarah’s family farm?”
If he were hiding out, he’d pick a huge tract of land to get lost on, instead of a tiny store in the heart of downtown Andol City. But it wasn’t like Sarah gave a flying fuck about getting caught. Everything she’d done so far had been thrown straight in George’s face, like a woman scorned.
“I went through the pictures of her office and the written inventory of her stuff.” Ryder tapped her stylus on the screen and brought up a photo. “There are teapots from the same Andol City shop everywhere. This is a woman with a serious kettle addiction and almost five million dollars burning a hole in her pocket. Trust me, if she’s not at the shop now, it’s only because she’s already been there.”
He hated to admit it, but her plan made sense.
“Sarah’s niece, Dominga, manages the place, so I’m guessing the staff probably won’t be open to telling us if they’ve seen Sarah,” she said.
“It’s a small island. We’ll find her.” He turned the corner. “Anyway, it’s not like she’s been inconspicuous so far.”
Andol City was home to fifty thousand residents and several thousand tourists every season—enough to make finding Sarah a challenge, but not impossible. Especially when she wasn’t trying to hide her tracks.
Tea Time was located in a teal blue building that sat on the north corner of the tourist-clogged downtown square. Everywhere he looked, the distinctive ring-tipped Andol cats roamed the streets, free and unafraid of humans, much like the monkeys in India.
Devin parked the hot pink monstrosity of a vehicle in front of the store. The six-feet-high windows showcased shelf after shelf of delicate china teapots painted in island colors.
“I didn’t realize tea was so big here.” Ryder’s seat belt zipped across her high breasts as it rewound into the Jeep’s frame.
Devin fought to make his brain process her words, while his body processed something else entirely. “It’s not, but a majority of the tourists are British, so the teapots make sense.”
“Is there anything your research didn’t turn up?”