Better Off Dead

Must be getting old.

The first woman who’d interested him in a long time was frigid. Give Devon a break. Maybe she’d moved here to put a bad relationship behind her. She could be temporarily off men—or have a boyfriend.

Thanks to three sisters, Chad had a good understanding of how a woman’s mind worked. He got along with women and enjoyed them. He was even willing to go shopping, although that was a stretch.

He watched Devon disappear. He wanted to kiss her until she was breathless and begging for more. Hell, what he really wanted was to whisk her away to his place and peel that sundress off her.

Heat pooled in his groin. Chad silently cursed himself for thinking with his dick. Like a siren, Devon called to him, urging him to come closer…and be destroyed.

DEVON RUSHED OUT of the building, anxious to escape Chad Langston, but she paused to check the street. There were a few people, but none of them looked familiar. She hadn’t been followed.

She should have turned down the job because she found Chad attractive, but she quite literally couldn’t afford to. She’d been offered lots of jobs, but none of them met her requirements should she need to escape.

Chad Langston. Quite a hunk. Tall, sun-streaked chestnut-brown hair, blue eyes and a body to die for. No man had the right to possess so much masculine virility. He seemed to know it, she decided, remembering the aggressive boldness in his gaze.

She would just have to give him the deep freeze until he got the message. No matter how sexy the ripped bod or how adorable his smile, Devon did not need a man in her life. But she had to admit his long sensual look, as close to a caress as you could get without touching, had triggered a bittersweet sensation.

She hadn’t experienced anything like it for well over a year, when she’d been forced to leave Tyler behind in Houston. She’d immediately recognized the telltale gleam in Chad’s eyes for what it was—lust.

What had stunned her was her own reaction. She had been too long without a man, but she couldn’t afford to get too close to anyone. The last man to help her had paid with his life.

Over and over at odd, unexpected times, she kept seeing herself closing Romero’s eyes. Until we meet again, may God keep you in the palm of His hand.

The weight of the loss, realizing she would never see Romero again swept through her. Where would she be if not for him? Even more lost and lonely than she’d been.

Guilt had a stranglehold on her emotions. The hit team had killed something vital inside her when they’d murdered Romero. Problem was, she hadn’t died yet.

Death was terrifyingly final. Knowing she’d caused his murder brought the blur of unfallen tears to her eyes. No more star-filled nights for Romero, no more artists to discover, no more walks through the historic plaza. No more anything.

She forced herself to hit the speed dial on her cell phone and called Warren. “I got the job. I don’t think they checked my references.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re backstopped.”

From her first relocation, she knew phony credentials and references were fixed so that if they were checked, they would appear to be legitimate.

“Problem is I need to become an expert at planning a wedding by tomorrow morning.”

“Try the Internet.”

“I plan to.” She hesitated a moment before asking, “Has Masterson given the okay to call my sister yet?”

“No. I’ll let you know when he does.”

“Any word on selling my condo or the gallery?”

“Like I’ve told you before, Lindsey Wallace is wanted for murder. WITSEC can’t just quietly sell your assets without attracting attention.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

Warren was not a warm fuzzy guy. When Derek had been her handler, he had been much more helpful. She supposed Warren thought she knew the ropes since she’d already been relocated once.

This time she had to take the WITSEC stipend until her assets in Santa Fe could be sold and the money transferred. Meanwhile, like most other WITSEC witnesses, she had to live on the cash her handler doled out and establish credit on her own. Until she had an income stream, she had to live in an apartment the size of a broom closet.

The need for cash and the office’s setup with a back door and two escape routes made Devon take the job at Aloha. Otherwise, she told herself, she would have steered clear of pushy Chad Langston. For a moment she wondered if she should have told her handler about him. No way, she decided. Warren would have made her look for another job. Except for Chad, this office was perfect.

She climbed into the temperamental Toyota that Warren had helped her buy. The rattletrap car was rusted, a common occurrence in Hawaii, and probably wouldn’t last another year, but for now it was all she could afford.

Chad Langston drifted into her mind. His office was just across the courtyard. I’ll drop by tomorrow to see how you’re doing.

Oh, no, you won’t.

BROCK HARDESTY STARED at the special map on the wall that he had created for Samantha Robbins/Lindsey Wallace. He’d marked every state where she had attended school or had relatives or friends. He’d tagged the spots where she had vacationed. WITSEC wouldn’t relocate her in any of those places.

“She’s probably in the Pacific Northwest or California,” he muttered. She hadn’t traveled to those places and had no friends there. But exactly where was she?

The bitch was smart. He would grant her that. Not only had she evaded his hit team, but Lindsey had been clever enough to change the license plates on Romero Zamora’s car. When the APB went out, the police were looking for the blue Suburban, but they never spotted it because it had different plates.

He later learned, through a source at FBI headquarters, that she’d driven north to Denver. WITSEC had immediately evacuated her.

He’d caught hell from Kilmer Cassidy because his agents had muffed it. He reminded the scumbag CEO that he had advised him to have the bitch terminated the first time they had visited PowerTec.

He had been running checks on new licenses issued by DMVs in the Western states. Hacking into the DMV was a no-brainer. It took a badge number to get into the local police computer. No problem since badge numbers were stored with employment files.

Once Brock was into the local police computer, it was easy to springboard into the State Police computer. From there, it was a few keystrokes and you were in the DMV database. So far, nothing. He’d run hundreds of pictures of new applicants against an imaging software program with Samantha Robbins/Lindsey Wallace’s photograph on it, but none of them matched the picture of the woman he was after.

His operatives—the dumb shits who’d let Lindsey Wallace get away—had a contact at the Bank of Santa Fe. The minute her condo or gallery sold and the funds were being transferred, he would know about it.

It might take years. Romero Zamora had been a popular man with a lot of influential friends. His murder was getting more attention than Brock would have thought. With the media hovering, WITSEC wouldn’t dare sell her assets.

In the meantime, he would wait. And when no one at Obelisk was paying attention to Number 111 and 32, Brock would arrange for an accident. He hadn’t come this far to suffer fools. He was already grooming another top-notch hit man.

Man. Like Number 32, women were too emotional. Slitting Zamora’s throat was an unbelievable fuckup. Something only a woman would do.

One of his telephones rang. The caller ID said it was one of the secret sources he’d developed for Obelisk.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got some interesting info on a new device the DoD is testing.”

“The Defense Department is always testing something.”

The source chuckled. “How many times do they test it outside the department?”

“Never.”

“Never say never. Remember the Predator.”

“Right,” Brock reluctantly agreed. The Predator drone had been developed in astonishing secrecy.

“Archer Danson himself gave this prototype to some ex-military officer to test.”

“No shit! What is it?”

“I’m trying to find out.”

“Get back to me the minute you do.”

Obelisk had an unending need for military equipment. Something phenomenal would remind them how brilliant he was.

CHAPTER SIX

SITTING ON A BEACH CHAIR with his long legs stretched out, Chad chomped on a slice of pork slathered with a barbecue sauce that was supposed to be a family secret. It was store-bought sauce doctored with Worcestershire, Tabasco, and a bit of honey. The taste depended on who made the sauce. Keke made this batch. It was loaded with Tabasco.

It was almost sunset and he was with his sisters and their families under a cluster of date palms. His three sisters had seven kids among them, and they had brought along assorted rugrats who were friends or relatives. On most family birthdays and other occasions, Chad’s brothers-in-law came early in the morning to Waimanalo Beach on the west side of the island, not far from Honolulu. They’d dug an imu pit in the sand, lined it with dried banana leaves, and slow-roasted a kalua pig.

The waves were calmer here than in other parts of the island, and the fine sand made awesome sandcastles. Chad preferred the surf on the North shore where he’d grown up, or nearby Sandy Beach around Makapuu Point where the body surfers hung out. But for young children, this beach was perfect.

The luau was a Hawaiian family tradition. It had been botched by hotels that served gross food while hula girls and fire eaters performed. Family luaus usually didn’t have hula dancing. For entertainment someone might pick up a ukulele and start playing after having a few too many Primo beers. Keke’s husband Paul was sure to bring out his slack key guitar as soon as he’d had dessert.

For Hawaiians a luau was a chance to get together with their extended family and “talk story” while they feasted and celebrated a birthday or special occasion. Talking story was their way of passing on island lore and traditions to the young.

It was also a way of handing down family tales. Talking story meant telling the same tales over and over, but Hawaiians didn’t mind. It was customary to listen intently as if hearing the story for the first time.

His sister Keke came over and sat down beside him. “You’re awfully quiet. What’s up?”

Keke and Chad were closer than he was to his other two sisters because they had been born fourteen months apart. With his father away constantly managing the Turtle Bay Resort, their mother had been so overwhelmed that it had been another three years before the twins, Nola and Hana had arrived.

“Come on.” Keke poked him in the ribs. “Tell me.”

“I met a woman.”

“About time!” The blue eyes he saw every morning when he shaved sparkled with mischief, and Keke laughed. “Tell me about her.”

He didn’t know what to tell Keke. As much as he was attracted to Devon, something about her made him wary. It wasn’t anything tangible. It was a gut feeling, a holdover from his Special Ops days with Delta Force, when he’d learned to rely on his instincts.

“Her name is Devon Summers. She’s going to be the new wedding coordinator for Eddie.”

Around her finger, Keke twisted a strand of dark hair wet from swimming with her kids. “Remind her that I’m on the list if she needs extra help.”

Keke sometimes worked Eddie’s parties to make extra money. She was exceptional at tending bar for a large number of guests and could do the work of two bartenders.

“I’m sure Eddie will tell her.”

“You can’t have known her very long. Malaea told me yesterday morning that Eddie was still interviewing.”

Keke was very close to Eddie’s wife. Once Chad would never have believed it could happen. Eddie and Keke had dated steadily throughout high school. After Eddie left the North Shore for Honolulu, he’d met Malaea.

Chad had been overseas with the Delta Force fighting Desert Storm. Nola and Hana had sent him a barrage of e-mails to tell him how upset Keke was. The first chance he’d gotten, Chad had called Eddie and found out his calabash cousin was in love but not with his sister.

A little more than a year passed and Keke met Paul Nakamura. They married and had children. With young children so close in age and being thrown together at family gatherings, the women had the opportunity to get to know each other and become friends.

“Eddie must have just hired her.”

“This afternoon.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Chad watched his sisters’ brood splashing in the surf glazed golden by the setting sun and thought how perceptive Keke was. “I think the woman took an instant dislike to me.”

“No way.”

“Yes. Way. I was trying to talk to her and she walked off.”

“You didn’t come on too strong, did you?”

Chad shrugged one shoulder. “She walked in and—wham—a guy would have to be dead not to stare at her.”

“I might have guessed. Big tits.”

“No, not centerfold material. She’s hot, though. Slim, long legs, blond hair.”

Keke tsked. “Looks aren’t everything. Beautiful women are often conceited and looking for a rich husband. Better watch out. Playing hard-to-get is the oldest trick in the book.”

“Mommie! Mommie!” screeched Keke’s youngest. “Watch!”

“I’m watching.”

The three-year-old leaped over an incoming wave that was six inches high at most.

Keke clapped, and yelled, “Very good.”

“Way to go,” Chad shouted.

He waited until he had Keke’s attention again. “I don’t think Devon is playing a game. I usually have a sixth sense about women from living all those years with you three.”

Keke giggled. “Well, you should. Remember the time you had Eddie and the guys to the house for a sleepover? We put all our panties and bras in your room so the guys would think you were gay or a pervert.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t strangle you.”

“Mom stopped you. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here today.”

They both were silent for a moment. Chad was positive his sister was thinking the same thing he was. Their parents should be here today, celebrating their granddaughter’s birthday, but they both had died, his father in an auto accident and his mother two years later of ovarian cancer.

“About this Devon person. Think of hyenas.”

Chad groaned. Keke adored animals. Every time she could, she made a point with an example from the animal kingdom.

“Despite what people think about the law of the jungle, male hyenas who are too aggressive and try to dominate the females, don’t father as many pups as those who make friends before mating.”

“I guess I do come on too strong sometimes, but it always seems to work.”

“And we sisters—the fab three—have always warned you that some women don’t like it, especially if she’s had a bad experience with a man.”

The stupidity of allowing a brief encounter with a stranger to bug him like this made him groan inwardly. Aw, hell, he didn’t know what to think. Since his first sexual experience at fourteen, he’d called the shots in his relationships with women.

Sure, a few had blown him off. It hadn’t bothered him, but Devon had managed to get to him, Chad realized, perplexing emotions coursing through him.

Why her?

SHELBY SOMETHING—an unpronounceable Hawaiian last name that Devon couldn’t say let alone remember—gushed wedding trivia nonstop from the office to the posh residential area near Diamondhead.

“Why do brides wear something blue?” Shelby had asked, then immediately answered her own question. “It symbolizes faithfulness.”

“Who, like, thought of wedding cakes? They began in England in the Middle Ages. People would bring small cakes to weddings. They would, like, pile them up high. Soon people frosted them, like together. Get it? The tiered wedding cake.”

Devon had smiled indulgently. Surely, if Shelby could remember so much trivia, the girl could be a bigger help with the details of wedding planning. No such luck. Shelby was content to be an airhead.

Devon had come in early, prepared to give Chad Langston the brush-off. She’d worked all morning and had made a lot of headway with the three upcoming weddings, thanks to her crash course on the Internet. Chad hadn’t dropped by the office, even though Eddie was in and scheduling party boat cruises in a voice so loud that it was difficult to concentrate.

“Mostly we, like, do fab weddings on Eddie’s yachts,” Shelby explained for the second time, “but occasionally we get a request for a private home. You know, an awesome place with an ocean view like the mansion we’re using Sunday evening.”

Devon nodded, resisting the urge to say anything. Shelby had an overly friendly attitude, like a puppy who wanted its master’s attention. She didn’t want to encourage the girl to become too friendly.

She feigned interest in what was known as the Gold Coast. It ran along the shore east of Diamond Head along Kahala Beach. Most of the elegant homes were behind custom-made gates. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of lushly planted grounds.

Devon hadn’t expected to fall in love with Hawaii, but from the moment she’d stepped off the plane, she was greeted by a sky so blue, so clear it made her heart soar and momentarily forget her problems. Diamond Head stood nobly in the distance, burnished purple by the angle of the sun. The heady scent of plumeria mingled with the loamy smell of the tropics and the bracing scent of the sea.

I’m going to love it here, she’d thought.

Shelby drove her Honda through a set of open stainless gates flanked by towering, stately royal palms. In the center of the enormous circular courtyard was a huge bronze dolphin spouting water into a reflecting pool. The modern home had a curved wall of glass to view Diamondhead and the ocean.

Devon tuned out Shelby as they left the car and rang the doorbell next to towering stainless-steel doors etched with a wave pattern. She noticed how the contemporary lines of the home had been softened by banks of ferns and brilliant pink bougainvillea.

A barefoot, shirtless guy in his early twenties answered the door. His spiked hair was bleached a blinding white by the sun. His skin was as bronze as the dolphin in the courtyard.

“Hi, Rory. Aren’t you, like, surfing today?” gushed Shelby.

From the looks of the home, Devon had expected a house-boy in some sort of outfit. But the rich were different. Apparently this was the owner’s son.

“I surfed already. I was up at the Pipeline before dawn.”

“Getting ready for the contest?” she asked in a breathy voice.

“Right.”

Shelby turned to Devon. “Rory’s surfing in the Rip Curl Cup. The winner, like, gets two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“Wow!” Devon hadn’t realized there was so much money in surfing.

Rory pointed in the direction of an infinity pool visible off to the side. “He’s out there.”

Rory disappeared around a corner, and Devon followed Shelby through the dramatic black marble foyer where a dust mote would have had the good sense not to land on the pristine floor. They walked through a living room the size of a hotel lobby. What must be glass doors disappeared into the walls so the room naturally flowed outside.

“Ahoy, there,” Shelby called to the man on a plush chaise lounge with its back to them.

Ahoy? Sheesh, but this girl acted embarrassingly young. Devon wondered how she’d landed the job as the coordinator’s assistant. Obviously she wasn’t capable of taking over the coordinator position or Eddie would have promoted her.

“Ahoy? Shelby, you need to learn to be more professional,” called the man.

Oh, my God! Chad Langston. What was he doing here? Sunning himself obviously and toying with a handheld video game or perhaps a GPS.

Could this be his home? The Crockett Building was a modest office complex. It didn’t seem to be the type of place where a person who owned this mansion would have an office.

“I’m more professional, like, every day. Right now, I’m showing the new wedding coordinator around. Have you met Dev—”

“We met yesterday.” Chad deliberately glanced at her for only a split second, then turned his attention to Shelby.

He told Shelby, “Get Devon up to speed so the wedding on Saturday goes smoothly. I’m here if you need me.”

He settled back in his chair, pretending to be more interested in the gadget than her. No way was he going to hit on Devon. Let her come to him, he’d decided after his talk with Keke.

Devon told herself she wanted Chad to leave her alone, but a twinge of disappointment rippled through her. She tamped down the feeling, upset with the sensations he aroused in her.

Shelby led her across a broad sweep of diachondra that gradually dropped down to the water where a group of chaise lounges had been placed along the shore. Like holiday bunting, garlands of seaweed decorated the beach, a gift of the retreating tide. At the far end of the grounds was a lagoon where a black swan was swimming, barely rippling the water.

Now they were far enough away from Chad for Devon to question Shelby. “Is this Chad’s place?”

Shelby nodded and her dark hair fluttered across her shoulders. “Totally awesome, isn’t it?”

“Totally. What does Chad do?” She perched her sunglasses on top of her head.

“He owns lots of scuba diving shops and dive boats on, like, all the islands.” Shelby stepped closer and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “I’ve heard Eddie say Chad’s real money comes from underwater spying.”

“Spying? On whom?” Devon pretended to be consulting her notes in case Chad was watching.

“Like dead people. He goes underwater and looks for evidence. The family hired him in the Laci Peterson case.”

“Not spying. That’s underwater forensics.”

“Whatever.”

Fascinating, she thought. He would be an interesting man to get to know, but she didn’t dare.

From the chaise, Chad watched Devon, his eyes scanning each feature of her face. None was particularly remarkable but together, they were a stunning combination. She was pretty in an exotic cat-eyed way. Okay, he’d dated more beautiful women, but there was something about Devon, something elusive that called to him. He wanted her, plain and simple.

Be a hyena. Keke’s advice reverberated in his head. Be a friend first. See where that goes. Could be, if he came to know Devon, he wouldn’t like her.

Fat chance.

Her blond hair rippled across her shoulders as she studied a piece of paper. A full, pouty lower lip glistened with a hint of gloss. He’d noticed her mouth yesterday. Since then all he could think about was kissing her.

Devon consulted the printout in earnest, saying to Shelby, “Lori’s computer notes indicate about two hundred people are expected for the wedding. Where are we going to hold the service?”

“Here on the grass.”

Devon scanned the grass and silently cursed herself for taking this job. Her Internet searches had turned up valuable information, but estimating how many chairs would fit on this lawn wasn’t among them. It didn’t appear to be room for two hundred chairs plus an aisle and a place for the minister to perform the service.

“Are you sure? Were you with Lori when she spoke with the couple?”

“Well, no, but it’s an awesome spot. We’ve, like, had two other weddings on the lawn.”

Devon considered asking Chad, but being near him was too risky. She flipped open her cell phone and dialed Eddie. “I’m out at Chad Langston’s place. Do you know if the wedding is supposed to take place on the lawn? It doesn’t look big enough.”

“I have no idea. Isn’t it in Lori’s notes?”

“No.”

“All I remember her mentioning was the ten thousand red rose petals.”

“Rose petals?” She scanned the printout. Oh, my God! With two other weddings coming up, she hadn’t noticed. No flowers had been ordered at all.

“The petals will cover the lagoon. We grow roses in Hawaii, sure, but most are flown in.”