Chapter 3
Chapter 3
J ones did his rounds at the same time each evening. If that happened to coincide with the resort’s massive buffet, well, that was a happy coincidence. What could he say? He liked good food, another fact his friends incessantly teased him over. Come to think of it, there wasn’t much they didn’t tease him about. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
He began to rethink his plan when he ran into Gum Lady. Not that he recognized her at first without the gum in her hair. She had apparently gotten that worked out because now it hung limply around her face like a soggy curtain. He thought perhaps it wasn’t her usual style because she kept pushing it impatiently from her face. The hair was different, but her expression was the same—cranky, impatient, imperious. What made it worse was that she was using it to stare at the fruit display. Who could find fault with fruit? Gum Lady, apparently.
“Problem, Miss?” he asked, easing up on her right. He expected her to jump. If there was one thing Jones prided himself on, it was his silent feet. But when she turned to him, her expression didn’t morph out of its perpetual annoyance. Maybe it couldn’t. Maybe she was born that way and had never learned to smile or laugh.
She pushed her hair out of her face before she answered. “No, it’s just…” she waved toward the fruit display as if he was supposed to understand the gesture.
“Did the watermelon say something inappropriate to you? Because we take that kind of thing seriously,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, reached for a plate, and began loading fruit onto it. And then she turned to him, holding the plate out for his inspection.
Jones stared at it, confused. “Is this some kind of cultural norm where you’re from? Because, I’m sorry, I don’t think we know each other well enough for me to touch your melon.”
She made an impatient little noise and picked up a piece of the fruit. “Look at this. It’s four different sizes.”
“So?” he drawled.
“So who is running your kitchen? Who cut this fruit, a toddler with a dull butter knife? And what kind of display is this? It looks like someone’s Aunt Jenny did a fruit salad for their bridal shower.”
Jones glanced at the fruit again. “Looks okay to me.”
“Of course it does,” Gum Lady said, staring disdainfully at the fruit. Until that moment Jones didn’t know it was possible to sneer at fruit. “Clearly no one here was ever in the CIA.”
Jones snorted a laugh and quickly wiped his expression. Obviously the woman was out of her mind. He shouldn’t find the humor in that. But, really, what did the CIA have to do with fruit? “Know that firsthand, do you? Were you in the CIA?”
Her eyes snapped back on him and narrowed. “I was the top of my class,” she said, drawing herself up to her full unimpressive height. If she weren’t so repugnant, she’d be cute, he realized. Too bad her personality killed any hope of that. Jones might go for looks on first sight, but a woman had to have the heart to back it up to hold his interest.
“And you cut a lot of fruit during your time there?” he said in the tone of someone dealing with the mentally ill. Maybe she had escaped from somewhere, or maybe she was one of the rich eccentrics he’d been warned about.
“Truckloads,” she said.
“Well, I’ve known a lot of spooks, and they’ve never mentioned fruit,” he said. Now she was the one who was looking at him like he was crazy.
“What is your capacity here?” she asked.
“At the moment I’m fielding fruit complaints. Normally I head up security.” If Jones weren’t watching her face, he wouldn’t have noticed the subtle shift, from annoyance to alarm, as she handed him the plate of fruit and took a step back. “Did you want to file a formal complaint? I could see if I could have this melon fired,” he added.
She shook her head, the curtain of hair swinging limply over her eyes. She pushed it away again. Oddly, now that she had so obviously withdrawn, he found he missed her angry banter, proving he must be lonelier and harder up for entertainment than he realized.
“How’d they get the gum out?” he pressed.
“Some kind of oil,” she said, grimacing.
“Is that not how they do it in the CIA?” he asked.
She gave him the odd, confused look again. “Our hair never came into play. If it did, you’d be in trouble for sure.”
“Obviously,” he said, nodding. Cuckoo, cuckoo. “Would you like to file a formal fruit complaint?” He held a square of the melon aloft between them.
“No,” she said, taking another back step away. He half expected her to bow to him as she eased backwards, keeping him in sight as if he were the dangerous one in this scenario.
“I’ll take care of it off the record, then,” he said, popping the fruit in his mouth.
Wordlessly, she took another step back, as if attempting to fade from view, and then turned and darted away. Jones watched her go and shook his head. Rich people.
He finished his rounds—scoring more fruit, a cookie, and a piece of pie—and then returned to his office to check his messages once more before logging out and closing down for the night. Not that he was ever really off the clock. About once or twice a week he dealt with some sort of “emergency.” Clearly the people who used that word to describe an unruly drunk guest had never dealt with an actual emergency. The first time someone roused him from slumber to deal with an “emergency,” Jones had come loaded for bear with two guns and a flak vest, only to find that the so-called emergency was a couple having a very loud and very public screaming match. Jones had cajoled them into separating and given the man his own room for the night. The next morning they made up and were canoodling poolside. Not that they didn’t have their fair share of petty theft and illicit drug use, because they did. And twice women had filed sexual assault complaints, but those were out of Jones’s realm. In those instances he had contacted the local police and let them handle it. The resort had no interest in being part of a cover up when it came to attempted rape.
He was about to close out his email when a message from Ridge popped up. Since his former SEAL team leader and friend wasn’t the type for friendly chatting, he first thought Ridge must have been writing to send a picture of the baby. His son was seemingly the only thing besides Maggie that could make him go gaga, but even that seemed like a stretch for the middle of the day. Jones’s heart thudded as he reached for the mouse. Was it one of their friends? Had someone died on assignment? That was the sort of dread he’d faced every day since joining up, the high likelihood that someone he cared about might not make it home.
Maggie flagged this because she recognized the name of your island. Looks like trouble might be heading your way. Don’t eat so much you can’t fasten your Kevlar. LT
Curious now, Jones opened the attached report and read:
A smuggling operation has been detected on the island of Cote de Paix with connections to the Pemuda Pancaslia (PP) gang in Indonesia, threatening to destabilize the entire country after a truce was reached among warring gangs. The country has asked for international help. An operative will be sent under cover shortly.
Huh. A smuggling ring, right here on his peaceful little island. The old adrenaline started to percolate, but he tamped it down. This wasn’t his circus; these weren’t his monkeys. The local police would handle it, as well as the undercover operative from the CI… He blinked and stared at his screen, reading the missive again. No. It couldn’t be, wouldn’t be Gum Lady. Spooks didn’t say they were spooks, did they? And why would she waste her time getting so upset about everything at the hotel if she was here as a spy? Unless that was her cover, angry customer. As covers went, it was a good one. She could be notorious but for all the wrong reasons, giving her access anywhere because everyone would likely give her a wide berth. Had the gum in the hair been part of that? Was the salon somehow involved in the smuggling? Was the resort? It chafed him to think that kind of thing might be going on right under his nose. And if Gum Lady had something to do with it, he felt entitled to know.
He would keep a closer eye on her. If she was spying in his hotel, he wanted to know. And maybe, just maybe, she would need a bit of backup. Unconsciously, Jones popped his knuckles and cracked his neck, the standard thing he did before the action was about to start. He’d been out of the game a long time. It would be good to get back in again. Ready or not, Gum Lady, here I come.