Wild Fire
Page 68

The server knocked hard into Elijah, sending the drink flying. The glass shattered all over the floor and the contents ended up on his immaculate shirt. The tray clattered to the floor, food scattering everywhere.
“Teresa!” Philip roared, his fist missing Isabeau by a mere inch as it shot toward the woman’s horrified face.
The crack of flesh hitting flesh was loud. All conversation ceased and the room went eerily quiet. Conner stood in front of the woman, Philip’s hand in his fist. No one had seen him move. He looked hard. Dangerous. His golden eyes burned into the smaller man.
“Perhaps you didn’t notice, but you bumped the woman and knocked her into Mr. Lospostos.” His voice was so quiet, Isabeau doubted anyone other than their small group could hear his words. “And you nearly struck Miss Chandler.”
Philip Sobre looked murderous and then the dark promise was gone from his eyes and he was smiling. “I guess I didn’t.”
Conner let go of Philip’s fist, his arm dropping back to his side. Isabeau knew the cameras had recorded every moment and Imelda would be intrigued with that interesting move on the bodyguard’s part. He’d stood up for a servant. And he’d moved so fast he’d be a blur on the camera. She’d be more than intrigued. She’d want to get up close to such a daring, dangerous man. Not once had he looked at Philip’s bodyguards, as if they were beneath his notice and no threat to him.
Isabeau’s heart began to pound, and she could taste fear in her mouth. Conner was setting himself up, and these people were all killers. She even suspected the weasel Philip—who was smooth and charming all over again and ordering his servers to help Teresa clean up the mess—of being a killer. He appeared to ignore Conner, but she saw him glance several times toward the shadowed wall where Conner had once more disappeared.
If Adan had known about Sobre, he would never have allowed her to talk him into bringing in a team to kidnap back the children. So how had Conner gotten his information, because they definitely knew something was wrong with the chief of tourism and had come prepared. What other sources did they have?
“Come with me, Isabeau, while I get a clean shirt,” Elijah commanded. With another smoldering look at Philip, he took her arm and walked her toward the entrance. “You’re biting your lip.”
“Am I?” She felt like she could breathe again, out of the presence of the chief of tourism and his penchant for hurting others.
“You do that when you’re upset.”
“How did you know about Sobre? He’s a sadist, isn’t he?”
“He’s a killer. He likes to hurt people. He gets off on it. Men and women both from what I understand and he’s got a perfect partner in Imelda. She shares his dirty little secret, in fact, she encourages it. As long as he kills his victims, she can control him.”
“They sound like a perfect couple.”
“They were a couple for a while. I suspect Imelda wants a dominant personality, and Philip would never be that to her. He’s too afraid of her.” Elijah stepped back to allow Rio to open the SUV door for him. Elijah waved her into the car.
“When we go back inside, I want you to look as if you’ve received a lecture from your badass cousin. Sobre will expect that I don’t want you near him—which I don’t. I know exactly the way his mind works. He thinks I have a weakness for my cousin and as he would never stop himself from taking what he wants, he believes neither would I.”
“He makes me sick. His smell. His eyes. The way he looks at me. Everything about him. Something was in that drink.”
Elijah nodded. “I got a whiff of it.” He unbuttoned his shirt. “If the server hadn’t bumped me, I would have found a way to drop it. Don’t you find it interesting that he didn’t want me drugged? Cortez is more anxious to talk to me than I expected.”
“How did Rio know about Sobre?”
“Adan gave Rio Marisa’s diary as proof of who he was. He needed to establish that he meant us no harm. She was investigating Sobre. She’d been suspicious of him for some time. Apparently . . .” He pulled a black shirt from a small suitcase, flashing her a small grin. “ . . . always be prepared.”
She rolled her hand in a circle over and over indicating for him to continue. “Apparently what?”
“Several women had disappeared in the area over the past few years, enough that Marisa became suspicious. She was the ‘medicine woman’ around these parts and many people, both from the tribes and other villages, sought her out, so she heard things more than others.”
“And she heard about Sobre?”
Elijah nodded as he buttoned his shirt. “She zeroed in on him after a young woman from England disappeared. The woman had come here with three friends to hike in the rain forest. She somehow got separated from the others and they never found her.”
“Why Sobre?”
“Sobre had told them about a particular trail, one little known and he didn’t recommend a guide. At least that’s what the other two women said. He claims he mentioned the trail in a conversation to them and even handed them cards with the names of tour guides on them.”
“What else?” She knew there was more and she didn’t know whether to be angry or just sick about walking into Sobre’s lair without her team fully disclosing what they knew.
“Sobre came here when he was seventeen years old. He’s now fifty-one. Marisa discovered that girls have been disappearing for thirty-four years.”