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“Of course you have, chiquita. Is that why you resisted my men when they found you in the forest yesterday?”
She might have known he was too sharp to simply believe her! She let her eyes widen incredulously. “Those were your men? Well, why didn’t they say so? They were shoving me around, and I was afraid they wanted to…to attack me. I had managed to slip away from that crazy man; I’d have made it, too, if it hadn’t been for all the noise your men made! They led him right to me!” Her voice quivered with indignation.
“It is over; I will take care of you now.” He led her to the truck and assisted her into the cab, then climbed in beside her and gave terse instructions to the driver.
That was exactly what she was afraid of, being taken care of by Turego, but for the moment she had to play up to him and somehow convince him that she was totally innocent of her escape from under the noses of his guards. He hadn’t gotten where he was by being a gullible idiot; though she’d successfully fooled him the first time, the second time would be much more difficult.
“Where are we going?” she asked innocently, leaning against him. “Back to the plantation? Did you bring any of my clothes with you? He brought me this blouse this morning,” she said, plucking at the soft white fabric, “but I’d really like to have my own clothes.”
“I have been so worried about you that I did not think of your clothes, I confess,” Turego lied smoothly. His hard arm was around her shoulders, and Jane smiled up at him. He was unnaturally handsome, with perfect features that would have done better on a statue than a man, though perhaps Turego wasn’t quite human. He didn’t show his age; he looked to be in his twenties, though Jane knew that he was in his early forties. Emotion hadn’t changed his face; he had no wrinkles, no attractive crinkles at the corners of his eyes, no signs that time or life had touched him. His only weakness was his vanity; he knew he could force himself on Jane at any time, but he wanted to seduce her into giving herself willingly to him. She would be another feather in his cap; then, once he had the microfilm, he could dispose of her without regret.
She had only the microfilm to protect her, and only herself to protect Grant. Her mind raced, trying to think of some way she could free him from his bonds, get some sort of weapon to him. All he needed was a small advantage.
“Who is he? You seem to know him.”
“He hasn’t introduced himself? But you have spent several days alone with him, my heart. Surely you know his name.”
Again she had to make a split-second decision. Was Grant’s real name commonly known? Was Grant his real name, anyway? She couldn’t take the chance. “He told me that his name is Joe Tyson. Isn’t that his real name?” she asked in an incredulous voice, sitting up to turn the full force of
her brown eyes on him, blinking as if in astonishment.
Oddly, Turego hesitated. “That may be what he calls himself now. If he is who I think he is, he was once known as the Tiger.”
He was uneasy! Grant was tied, and there were ten guns on him, but still Turego was made uneasy by his presence! Did that slight hesitation mean that Turego wasn’t certain of Grant’s real name and didn’t want to reveal his lack of knowledge—or was the uncertainty of a greater scope? Was he not entirely certain that Grant was the Tiger? Turego wouldn’t want to make himself look foolish by claiming to have captured the Tiger, only to have his prisoner turn out to be someone much less interesting.
Tiger. She could see how he had gained the name, and the reputation. With his amber eyes and deadly grace, the comparison had been inevitable. But he was a man, too, and she’d slept in his arms. He’d held her during the long hours of darkness, keeping the night demons away from her, and he’d shown her a part of herself that she hadn’t known existed. Because of Grant, she felt like a whole person, capable of love and passion, a warm, giving woman. Though she could see what he had been, the way she saw him now was colored by love. He was a man, not a supernatural creature who melted through the dark, tangled jungles of the world. He could bleed, and hurt. He could laugh, that deep, rusty laugh that caught at her heart. After Grant, she felt contaminated just by sitting next to Turego.
She gave a tinkling laugh. “That sounds so cloak-and-daggerish! Do you mean he’s a spy?”
“No, of course not. Nothing so romantic. He is really just a mercenary, hiring himself out to anyone for any sort of dirty job.”
“Like kidnapping me? Why would he do that? I mean, no one is going to pay any ransom for me! My father doesn’t even speak to me, and I certainly don’t have any money of my own!”
“Perhaps something else was wanted from you,” he suggested.
“But I don’t have anything!” She managed to fill her face and voice with bewilderment, and Turego smiled down at her.
“Perhaps you have it and are not aware of it.”
“What? Do you know?”
“In time, love, we shall find out.”
“No one tells me anything!” she wailed, and lapsed into a pout. She allowed herself to hold the pout for about thirty seconds, then roused to demand of him again, like an impatient child, “Where are we going?”
“Just down this street, love.”
They were on the very fringes of the town, and a dilapidated tin warehouse sat at the end of the street. It was in sad shape, its walls sagging, the tin roof curled up in several places, sections of it missing altogether in others. A scarred blue door hung crookedly on its hinges. The warehouse was their destination, and when the truck stopped beside the blue door and Turego helped Jane from the cab, she saw why. There were few people about, and those who were in the vicinity quickly turned their eyes away and scurried off.
Grant was hauled out of the back of the truck and shoved toward the door; he stumbled and barely caught his balance before he would have crashed headlong against the building. Someone chuckled, and when Grant straightened to turn his unnerving stare on his captors, Jane saw that a thin trickle of blood had dried at the corner of his mouth. His lip was split and puffy. Her heart lurched, and her breath caught. Someone had hit him while he had his hands tied behind his back! Right behind her first sick reaction came fury, raw and powerful, surging through her like a tidal wave. She shook with the effort it took to disguise it before she turned to Turego again.
“What are we going to do here?”
“I just want to ask a few questions of our friend. Nothing important.”
She was firmly escorted into the building, and she gasped as the heat hit her in the face like a blow. The tin building was a furnace, heating the air until it was almost impossible to breathe. Perspiration immediately beaded on her skin, and she felt dizzy, unable to drag in enough oxygen to satisfy her need.
Evidently Turego had been using the warehouse as a sort of base, because there was equipment scattered around. Leaving Grant under guard, Turego led Jane to the back of the building, where several small rooms connected with each other, probably the former offices. It was just as hot there, but a small window was opened and let in a measure of fresh air. The room he took her to was filthy, piled with musty-smelling papers and netted with cobwebs. An old wooden desk, missing a leg, listed drunkenly to one side, and there was the unmistakable stench of rodents. Jane wrinkled her nose fastidiously. “Ugh!” she said in completely honest disgust.
