Chapter 26
Chapter 26
J ones still had to do his job, despite his involvement with Carol, Ribs, and their more interesting case. Victoria went wherever pretty people go to pout, and Carol volunteered to teach Ribs to cook an omelet. Reluctantly Jones tore himself away from the sight of them laughing and cracking eggs in his kitchen in order to walk across the resort grounds and closet himself in his office.
Not much had happened in his absence, and he wasn’t certain how to feel about that. On the one hand his job felt boring and unimportant in light of the bigger case. On the other hand it was nice to grab a moment of peace and take a deep breath. The temptation was always there to follow Ribs not only back to the states but back to his former life. He could easily become a spy. He could take the same dashing and heroic assignments his friends took, travel the country, max out on lost sleep, never know where he was going to lay his head on any given night. But he had consciously chosen a path that ran contrary to that life.
Why?
Because I want a home and family someday. I want a wife and children. I want to be an active part of their daily lives, to live long enough to see them grown up.
As he sat in his office, skimming incident reports about drunken guests, he had no regrets about the hard choice he had made. It was right to walk away from a life of danger for something soft that paid well. After a few years at this job, he’d be able to retire comfortably and look for something 9-5 that would allow him to be the kind of family man he longed to be. The problem wasn’t his job; the problem was the family portion of that equation.
His mind and heart agreed he’d made the right career choice, but both shrugged when he tried to bring up the other half of his pending future. Who would his wife be? How could he be there for a family that didn’t yet exist? Somehow it had seemed so easy in theory: find a woman and make babies. In reality Jones felt confused and flustered when presented with the reality. How did people meet and fall in love? Who was he supposed to marry and why?
Previous to Victoria’s arrival he would have said she was his ideal woman. Someone equally beautiful and brave. But Victoria was horrid. What if everyone who looked that good on the outside was equally bad on the inside?
Not possible, Jones told himself, giving his head a little shake. Certainly there were plenty of beautiful people who were kind and lovely. But how would Jones ever meet them, secreted away on his island as he was? And what of Carol?
His heart gave a painful little flop at the thought of her, both of her presence and the possibility of her going away. He had a solid life plan: get a well-paying job, retire early, have family. Nowhere in the plan was “meet woman who makes you crazy.” She was a step out of time, something unforeseen, and he had no idea what to do with her.
Someone tapped on his door, making him realize he’d been staring vaguely into space, thinking about Carol, when he was supposed to be working.
“Come in,” he said.
Lucinda poked her head in, a plate of donuts held aloft like a sacrificial offering. “Fresh from the fryer.”
“Oh, my heart,” Jones replied, not sure if he meant it literally or metaphorically. It was sort of amazing that two women now fed him, Lucinda with the pastries and Carol with all the adventurous food he’d formerly been too skittish to sample. On the other hand the steaming pile of sugar fried dough really couldn’t be great for his cardiovascular system.
Lucinda beamed and set the plate on his desk. He studied her, thinking of Carol’s words as he did so. You should ask her out, she likes you. Did she? And should he? She was cute, with her dark skin and curly hair, a local who perfected her English by going stateside for college. He opened his mouth but, as with Carol, no sound came out. He couldn’t make himself utter the words. Lucinda, would you like to grab coffee sometime? They were easy enough to say but, unlike with Carol, he wasn’t afraid to say them. Rather he wasn’t certain he wanted to. What was wrong with him? Lucinda was cute, Lucinda fed him, Lucinda was available , and Jones couldn’t muster so much as a palpitation for her. It was so aggravating he was accidentally scowling when she set down the platter and looked at him.
She froze. “You know, don’t you?”
Now his heart was staccato because what did he know? Or what was he supposed to know that he didn’t? “Um…which what do I know?”
“That a spy is here,” Lucinda said, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Um…” He swallowed hard and took a breath. “A spy?”
She nodded. “A hotel spy, sent here by corporate to judge us and report back to them.”
“Oh,” he drawled, relieved. “How did you hear about that?”
“Manny.”
Manny, her uncle, was the resort’s manager. It occurred to Jones that he had the most to lose out on by Carol’s presence and pending report. If she noted too much going wrong or in need of change, Manny might find himself unemployed. He wondered, but didn’t ask, how Manny learned his information.
“I think I know who it is,” Lucinda continued, still in the whisper.
“Who?”
“That blond lady with the French accent. She’s horrible, and her manner makes me suspicious.”
Jones stuffed a donut in his mouth so he wouldn’t laugh. The actual spy had been found out. Meanwhile the fake spy, Carol, had been roped into doing real spy work. What a tangled web we weave…
“Better keep her happy, then,” Jones said after he’d swallowed.
“Impossible,” Lucinda sniffed, her pleasant accent making a return with her displeasure. “And everyone is on to her because she’s been snooping around, asking questions.”
“What kinds of questions?” Jones asked.
“Like kinds of things people smuggle off the island,” Lucinda said. “Not the staff, of course, but she went to the bar with some of the locals, let them buy her drinks, and began asking questions.”
“What would smuggling have to do with the resort?” Jones asked.
“Clearly she thinks the resort is a front for smuggling, and if that is happening then someone is not doing his job well, yes?” Lucinda’s brows rose in anticipation of Jones’s answer. He paused before he gave it, thinking. The conversation had taken an odd turn. All of a sudden he wasn’t certain if Lucinda had come to bestow gossip or try and get some. And if she wanted information, was it for herself or her uncle, the resort’s manager? Who knew there’d be this much intrigue at a tropical resort?
“What is the weather up to out there?” he asked, diverting to a safer topic.
“Bah, nothing good,” Lucinda said, waving her hand. “Once again they were wrong in their prediction for us. My grandfather says we will take a direct hit.”
“Already I know enough to trust your grandfather over a scientist. I guess we can be thankful it’s a tropical storm and not a hurricane. I should do some rounds, make certain our backup power and emergency prep are up and running.” He checked on those things weekly, as part of his routine, but suddenly he had the desire to make Lucinda go away. She made him uncomfortable, and he couldn’t put his finger on why.
“I’m certain you’ll find everything in order,” Lucinda replied. She lingered awkwardly.
“Thanks for these,” Jones tried. He tapped the plate she’d delivered, but somehow he’d lost his appetite for them, after only eating one.
“You’re welcome,” she said and finally took her leave.
Jones remained staring at the door a long time after she was gone, thinking. Was whatever intel he and Carol were about to receive in regard to smuggling? And, if so, what would it be? The island was a hotspot for drugs, caught as it was between Indonesia and the ocean. Money laundering was a possibility, but there were other things people tried to sell, namely wildlife and plants. Jones had been shocked to realize there was a big illegal market for kidnapped monkeys, stolen fish, and birds. Millions of dollars changed hands on a daily basis here, for anything and everything contraband. The Chinese wanted shark fins, the Japanese wanted plants, the Americans wanted animals, the Russians wanted minerals. It seemed everyone wanted something and would be willing to pay impossibly large sums, if the goods were illicit enough.
Outside thunder rumbled, stealing Jones’s attention. His head swiveled toward the sound, too far to be startling but ominous enough to create some low-level anxiety about what was to come. A storm would be the perfect cover for smugglers. This would be Jones’s second big storm since his arrival at the resort. He knew from experience everyone battened down the hatches and headed inside. Last time he’d gone on patrol during the storm and the place had resembled a ghost town. On a neighboring island a roaming gang of thieves had used the opportunity to steal over a hundred catalytic converters from the resort’s fleet of cars, vans, and trucks. If his resort was somehow connected to a smuggling ring, the pending downtime would be the ideal moment to make a move.
Maybe it’s time I took a second look at the resort, he thought, pushing aside the plate of donuts and heading for the door.