Chapter 23
It was just like riding a bike, Zara thought as she lounged by the Kona Queen Resort’s swimming pool a few days later.
She wore a tiny gold bikini and a silk coverup, along with her Panama hat and yet another pair of oversized sunglasses.
Her first stop, after they’d checked into their enormous suite, which was fortuitously empty because of the storm, had been to get a mani-pedi at the resort’s spa.
Manicurists always knew everything, and some very enjoyable gossipy chatter had revealed that the Tanaka family included a boy almost exactly Eddie’s age, along with two nannies, several bodyguards, a driver, and other assorted family members.
They were the talk of the resort because of how snooty they were.
They didn’t like to talk to the other guests or to the staff.
Tanaka’s younger son, Nathan, the former playboy, and his wife were having relationship issues; he’d been hanging out at the bar late into the night, until one of Tanaka’s bodyguards came to haul him back to the suite.
Both the mothers spent their time getting spa treatments or playing on their phones. They left most of the supervision of the younger children to a nanny called Yumi. The older children had a different nanny.
After Zara had reported all of this to Lincoln, they’d come up with a plan.
She would befriend Nathan Tanaka at the bar, while he would try for a nanny-manny friendship with Yumi.
They would both pick up anything they could, and whenever he had the chance, Lincoln would snoop around wherever Tanaka was holding court.
She was checked into the resort as Zaharina Morgan.
Zara would be her nickname so that Eddie wouldn’t have to call her by a different name.
Lincoln was Jim Spencer, which worked because Eddie had known him as Jim from the beginning.
To Eddie, this was all a fun vacation with a fantastic swimming pool.
He’d already made friends, though not with Tanaka’s grandkids. They kept to themselves.
The important thing was that Lincoln had plenty of time at the pool to bond with Yumi. Zara watched as Lincoln called Eddie out of the water for another application of sunscreen. Eddie pouted, but went along with it.
Hopefully Lincoln hadn’t resorted to bribery again.
He did make an extremely attractive manny; her biggest problem so far had been her difficulty keeping her eyes off him. He was just so…sexy with those strong forearms and the intense way he focused on whatever he was doing.
For three days and nights, they’d lived in the same suite. Each night, she’d fantasized about tiptoeing into his room and seeing what might happen. So far, she’d managed to fend off those instincts. So far.
Pretending to be Zaharina Morgan was like stepping through the looking glass. For once, she was the one being catered to and flattered and spoiled. The aura of money was like a magnetic field hovering around them. Was this what Lincoln’s regular life was like?
The sun sparkled on the swimming pool’s surface, as if a guest had scattered diamonds across the water. Zara sighed and sipped her virgin mai tai. This was the life. Lounging on a deck chair and watching a billionaire do all the work.
Yumi said something to Lincoln, and he handed her a small snack bag of pistachios from his crossbody bag. He sat down on the lounge chair next to her and they settled in for a chat, just as Nathan Tanaka strolled to the bar.
Time to get to work.
So far she hadn’t learned anything from Nathan, but she was sure he had something on his mind. She just had to catch him at the right moment.
He was in his thirties, with a remarkably fit body and a bunch of nervous tics.
He nearly always wore dark sunglasses to hide his hangovers.
Zara had established a friendly relationship with him over the past few days.
He liked to complain about the resort and the lack of amenities that he was used to in Japan.
She listened, agreed, and occasionally excused herself to google details about Japanese resorts.
She’d slipped back into this game so easily.
All you had to do was look the part. People didn’t delve below the surface.
If you could answer vaguely enough, people would fill in the blanks.
She had to assume that someone like Nathan was generally hyper-alert for threats.
But the spoiled, uber-wealthy trophy ex-wife with the no-limit black card didn’t register as one of them.
“Hey good-looking, what’s cooking?” she said lightly as she joined him at the pool’s bar. “Please tell me you’re here to buy me drinks and entertain me. Everyone’s being boring today. You’re my last hope.”
He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked a wreck.
“Jeez, are you okay?”
He shook his head wearily. “No.” Signaling the bartender for a drink, he sank onto a stool. “I’m in trouble.”
Her ears perked up. That sounded promising. Nathan had gone to college on the East Coast and spoke such good English that she could barely pick up his trace of an accent.
“Well, I’m almost always in trouble one way or another. Maybe I can help.”She sipped from her mai tai. “Work or family?”
He shot her a glance full of wry despair. “That’s the trouble. For me it’s the same thing.”
Interesting. Maybe she was finally getting somewhere. “How do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Ouch.” She pretended to be wounded. “Fair enough. I’ll leave you be.” She collected her drink and made to withdraw, but he snagged her arm.
“No, stay. Drink with me.”
“Well, only if it’ll help wipe that look of despair off your face. No one’s supposed to be that miserable on vacation in Hawaii.”
Nathan muttered something into his drink.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Lincoln was taking a break, leaving Yumi in charge of the boys splashing around in the swimming pool, including Eddie.
She didn’t trust Yumi’s lifeguard skills, but Eddie was an excellent swimmer. Besides, the resort paid a real lifeguard.
As he left the pool area, Lincoln caught her eye and gave a brief jerk of his head toward the wing of the hotel Tanaka had booked. Message received. He was going to skulk around Tanaka’s entourage. Her job would be to keep Nathan where he was.
She shifted her attention back to Nathan, who was complaining that he wasn’t really on vacation at all.
“My family doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘relax,’” he said. “When I went to Yale, that was my first encounter with the concept of ‘chillaxing’.”
“You found attending Yale to be chillaxing?”
“Compared to being at home in Japan, yes.” He drained another shot of tequila. He was really putting them away today. “You would understand if you knew anything about my family.”
“Well, I make it a point to know nothing about the families of handsome men.” She winked.
When he laughed, she knew she’d cheered him up, and a relaxed, happy Nathan was more to her advantage.
“I like you,” he said, cocking his head at her. “You’re not what you seemed at first.”
Uh oh. “I’m not?”
“I thought you were fucking the man who takes care of your son.” He glanced over at the pool, so she laughed loudly to keep his attention on her. She didn’t want him noticing that “Jim Spencer” the manny wasn’t there.
“Fucking him? God no. I never screw the staff, at least not literally.” She lifted her glass in a toast.
It worked. He grinned and clinked glasses with her. Phew.
“I will tell you that he wants to.” Nathan downed another shot, then signaled for one more. “But you must be used to that, Zaharina.”
Uh oh. Time to steer things back to their friendly drinking-buddies vibe.
“The thing is, my ex-husband has spies everywhere,” she murmured. “And he’s vengeful. So I have to be verrrry careful about who I spend time with. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”
He shifted away from her. “Neither do I. I have enough already.” Another shot down. All that tequila was starting to take effect. “Do you know the worst part? It wasn’t my fault. But I will get the blame.”
“Well, that’s unfair, if you ask me. Whose fault is it?” She lifted a hand. “Let me guess. The staff.”
In her experience, rich people loved to blame the staff.
“Yes. My security staff fucked up. It’s unfair of my father to point the finger at me. But he can’t be argued with.”
Her ears perked up at the mention of his security staff. She’d seen them around the resort with their black outfits. Luckily, she hadn’t seen the guard from hale twelve, who might have recognized her.
“No wonder you’re upset,” she said, pouring soft sympathy into her voice. “You shouldn’t take the blame for someone else’s mistake.”
“That’s it, exactly. I did nothing wrong. I did exactly what my father requested. My idiot guard is the one who lost—” He broke off and poured another shot down his throat.
His guard had lost something? She waited, holding her breath so as not to interrupt his flow.
“Now everyone’s worried that someone else got their hands on it.” His words were slurring now. “And if that happens, I’m a dead man. My father will strangle me himself with his own bare hands.”
“Oh come now. Whatever it is, it can’t be that important. I lost a twenty-carat diamond ring once, and my husband forgave me and simply bought me another one. Now I have two.” She smiled impishly. “It was like a miracle when the first one turned up in my old Chanel makeup bag.”
“You don’t understand,” he said through gritted teeth. “Your trivial problems are nothing compared to this.”
“Did you miss the part about the twenty carats?”
“This item is worth a million of those. Maybe more.”
She widened her eyes with a soft gasp. “Oh my. And you lost it?”
“I didn’t lose it.” He looked like his head might explode. “My guard did. And not all of it, but just enough to cause a huge problem.”
“You’re not making any sense.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lincoln emerge from the door into the pool area, framed by the soft fronds of ferns overflowing from their planters.
But she was onto something here, and she wanted to keep Nathan talking.
So she ignored Lincoln’s signal to join him at the pool. “How many diamonds did you lose?”
“I didn’t lose anything. It wasn’t me. And it’s not diamonds, it’s…
” He leaned forward and lowered his voice to an ominous whisper.
“It’s a weapon this world has never seen before.
Whoever owns it will control the nation, control any nation they want.
I asked for Spain because I like the bullfighting. And tapas. I love tapas.”
She made herself laugh as if chills weren’t running up and down her spine. Had he lost his mind? Why was he talking about a weapon? Lincoln hadn’t said anything about the crystal being used that way. She didn’t want to be in the middle of a battle over some insane nation-controlling weapon.
“You say the craziest things when you drink tequila,” she cooed. “I’m going to forget I heard a word of it. Bartender, can we have some coffee over here?”
Nathan startled as if he just now realized he’d done something very stupid. “Coffee. Yes, please. A big pot for me.” He clamped his mouth shut as if to stop any more words from coming out.
A few moments later, she told Nathan that it was time for her son to get out of the sun, and slid off the barstool. Nathan was still guzzling coffee, looking green around the edges. Should she have grilled him more about this mysterious weapon?
No. Crouching at the edge of the pool, she beckoned to Eddie to get out.
“Jim, will you make sure Eddie gets all that nasty chlorine off him?” she said to Lincoln. “He gets that rash sometimes, and I don’t want a visit to the ER interrupting my vacation.”
Play the spoiled, flaky divorcée who’d already forgotten Nathan’s drunken rambling, that was her strategy.
She didn’t know who was listening, and if his goons thought Zaharina Morgan knew anything about this alleged weapon, she might become a target herself.