Paradise Burning Read online

  And hit a wall as strong as the ribbons of stone framing New England’s fields. Until now. Until Eleanor had actually called him.

  Jesus. Mandy was on her way, smack in the midst of the seasonal southbound crush on I-95. Not to worry, of course. Anybody who could drive in Boston could handle traffic anywhere.

  But he did worry. His sheltered Mandy Mouse might as well be a cloistered nun. Hell, he used to wonder if they let her up from her keyboard long enough to pee. And he doubted things had changed. Eleanor agonized over slave labor, yet just what the hell did she think she and Jeff were doing to Mandy? Just because they paid her well and surrounded her with luxury didn’t mean Mandy wasn’t a captive.

  Loyalty. That was the trap. As far as he was concerned, five years ago loyalty became a dirty word.

  So what had changed? What had broken the barrier and let his Mandy Mouse out of her gilded cage?

  Did it matter? Mandy was on her way. To the house he’d built in an aerie of live oaks, pines, and palms, with a dock along a river right out of Apocalypse Now. A house where wild creatures ran across his roof at night.

  Peter had longed for the solitude of his private bit of Florida, perfect for a writer, but he’d never planned to live alone in this vast expanse of space with nothing but Florida critters to keep him company. Every time he looked at the jungle river from the third floor cupola he used as a studio, every time he looked a twittering bird in the eye, every time he cooked a solitary meal in his shining white kitchen, he thought of Mandy.

  He had the perfect house in the perfect setting—the culmination of writing efforts that had begun while he was still working for AKA. And now he needed a mate to share it. For some ridiculous reason—a tendency toward masochism?—only Mandy Mouse would do.

  Not that he hadn’t tried alternatives—five years is a damn long time—but for some mysterious reason Mandy Armitage was the only woman he could see in his elaborate tree house set in a primeval Florida few tourists ever got to see.

  Mandy. In his house. Where she belonged. If she thought she was ever going back . . .

  Well, too damn bad.

  Better see if his cleaning service could give him a few extra hours.

  Hands on hips, Mandy stood in the doorway and scowled at the luxurious suite she’d been forced to accept just south of Brunswick, Georgia. Shit! Not that she was a cheapskate, but a hundred and forty dollars for eight-hours sleep was ridiculous.

  If she got out more often . . . Mandy supposed Eleanor was right. She should have known she couldn’t just pop off I-95 at the height of the winter season and expect to find a room.

  What an innocent she was. On a few occasions—for very special clients with unlimited assets—AKA let her out of her cage. Amanda Armitage, Systems Consultant. Airplanes, helicopters, limos, armed escorts—all ready and waiting to ease her way. All arranged by AKA.

  Vacationing by herself on Cape Cod or in the mountains of New Hampshire, despite the boredom, had some exhilarating moments of freedom. But once again, AKA made all the arrangements. Driving to Florida, however, was a lesson in humility. Surprise! The world of AKA did not come to an end because Mandy wasn’t at her keyboard. The traffic on I-95 didn’t give a damn who she was. She was lucky to get a bed, even at one-forty a pop.

  She was no longer the linchpin of AKA. She was Peter Pennington’s Mandy Mouse. The wimp who sat at a computer while others took the risks. The foolish girl who had dug in her heels and clung to AKA as if it were the only safe place on earth . . .

  Mandy stalked into the suite’s bedroom, slung her overnight bag onto one of the two queensize beds, and turned to find herself reflected in a bank of mirrors filling the wall above an oversize dresser. Face crumpling, she sat abruptly on the end of the bed.

  Double shit. Could she look any worse? Lank brown hair scraped into a pony tail that probably hadn’t looked neat since five minutes after she popped on the scrunchie this morning somewhere in Virginia. Not a drop of make-up. Like there was some rule that female computer nerds didn’t even own lipstick. Nose too small, mouth too big. Cheekbones . . . not bad. Eyes . . . gold-flecked green that would look a hell of lot better enhanced by eye shadow and mascara. Figure? Tallish, slim, with boobs that had never blossomed no matter how many hot tears she’d shed in teenage agony.

  And then there were the frayed jeans and ancient KISS T-shirt from Goodwill. The leather jacket, however—Mandy stroked its soft black sheen—now that came from Neiman-Marcus, one of few fashionable items in her current wardrobe.

  But even back in the days when she’d made an effort, she hadn’t exactly been a fashion plate. No wonder Peter had called her Mandy Mouse.

  How much of her clothing choice was flat-out rebellion? she wondered. How much simply giving up? After all, what did it matter?—her computer didn’t care what she wore. And her colleagues most definitely didn’t want a mini-Eleanor in their midst. So she’d fitted herself to AKA’s control room, by personal choice and by calculated design.

  But now . . .

  Now she was going to be working for—working with—Peter. No way was she going to show up looking as jarringly out of place as she did in this elegant suite of rooms designed for the ease and comfort of successful business types. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know about make-up. She’d sneaked in beauty makeovers at Saks nearly every time she made it into Boston. Amazing what those cosmetic specialists could do. And she got a kick out of their crows of triumph when they’d worked their magic and transformed such unpromising material into something surprisingly close to a runway model.

  Oh, yeah. Mandy knew her makeup. And as for clothes . . . She reached for her overnight bag, drew out the two catalogs she had brought from home. Last night, at her motel in Virginia, she’d studied the pages, carefully marking numbers on the front covers. Tonight . . . tonight she’d winnow her list and take the plunge. Money was not a problem. Eleanor and Jeff believed in paying their employees commensurate with their skill, and Mandy was very skilled indeed.

  She’d have supper, then come back to her room and let the fun begin. The cream of the catalog fashion world was about to descend on General Delivery, Golden Beach, Florida.

  Or . . . or was that too obvious?

  Pride was a hell of a motivator—she couldn’t let Peter see how she’d gone to seed. Yet to Peter . . . all those fine new clothes might look like she was trying too hard. Chasing him.

  But he didn’t know she’d gone completely scruffy. He expected her to look at least half-civilized. And with dewy youth no longer on her side, she needed costly props to bolster her still-shaken ego.

  Peter should never have left her.

  Half-truths, deliberate self-delusion, could be so comforting.

  Speaking of self-delusion . . . Mandy raised her head, once again staring at the disheveled washout in the mirror. Just where was she expected to live while she worked for Peter? Everything was arranged, Eleanor had assured her. But there’d been a strange gleam in her usually cool gray eyes. And the only instructions Mandy had were directions to Peter’s new house.

  Grandchildren. That could have accounted for Eleanor’s look.

  Mandy groaned, plunged her head into her hands. If they—Eleanor, Jeff, and/or Peter—actually thought she was going to move into Peter’s house . . .

  Okay. So right after her visit to a beauty salon, she was looking for a rental agency.

  Golden Beach, here I come.

  Chapter Two

  Juggling seven plastic bags of groceries, Peter strode up the L-shaped ramp that led directly into his kitchen, some fourteen feet above his garage. While steadying one of the bags in his teeth, he managed to enter his keypad code. Times like this, he wished he’d put in an elevator. But before he’d signed a building contract, Brad Blue, the developer of Amber Run, had pointed out a ring around a live oak about four feet off the ground. From a flood, he’d said. Worst in forty years, but anyone building this close to the river had to expect to get wet feet at the end of the rai
ny season, every other year or so. Had to expect to park out near the highway, maybe even pole home in a skiff.

  Peter had signed the contract anyway. In fact, after searching Florida trying to find an upscale design that wasn’t a stucco Mediterranean Revival wall to wall with its neighbors, he’d been intrigued to discover his choice of a stilt house along a jungle river was even more adventurous than he’d anticipated. Mandy would like the wildness of it, he’d thought. Mandy, who was on her way. Driving south. To him. Oh, yeah! That’s why he needed all the groceries. Mandy. In his house. At his table.

  Peter flashed a grin. Good thing he could cook. He bet she still hadn’t learned how. Spoiled brat. Okay, so pampered genius was more accurate.

  After putting the groceries away, Peter stuck a glass under the ice dispenser, topped it with single malt scotch. A heresy, some would say, but this was Florida and ice was a necessity, even in February. Glass in hand, he walked out onto the twelve-foot deck that surrounded the house and tried to picture it as Mandy would see it.

  Every house in Amber Run was built on the old Florida style known as Key West, and surrounded by as many trees and original vegetation as the builder could leave in place. The House of Peter was simply larger than all the others. A glorified tin-roofed tree house, built on stilts, and topped by his third-floor office, an oversize Widow’s Walk that flirted with the treetops, eye to eye with birds and squirrels. Close around the house, gray-green Spanish moss dripped from century-old oaks. Pine trees towered over rustling cabbage palms. The chittering of birds, squirrels, and insects provided a constant background hum.

  On the west side of the house was the main entrance with curved double stairs leading up to an elegantly carved front door that, so far, had never been used. To the east, a small swath of green lawn led down to the tea-colored Calusa River. Dyed brown by massive amounts of live oak leaves, Brad Blue had told him, and chock-full of alligators.

  Across the river . . . nothing but pristine Florida wilderness. Peter had heard that Brad Blue’s grandfather ran cattle over there, but nothing could be seen beyond the tangle of greenery lining the riverbank. To a world-roaming investigator turned author, the dark mysteries of the Calusa and the land around it were just another perc. Peter had bought two lots the first day he’d discovered Amber Run.

  Home. A real home. A forever home. All it needed was Mandy.

  “Hey, up there!”

  Speak of the devil. Peter waved to Brad Blue, who had just skidded his blue pickup to a halt in the driveway below. Brad’s pale blond hair, long enough to be tied back at the nape of his neck, gleamed in the late afternoon sun. According to rumor, he wore it that way because his Grandfather Whitlaw, the one with all the cattle, hated it. Fact, not rumor, added that Brad’s uncle, heir to all those cattle, was married to Brad’s ex-wife, Golden Beach’s hottest real estate broker.

  Peter grinned. Golden Beach might appear to be a somnolent retirement community, but it had its moments. Rather like the dark river below, slowly gliding toward the sea . . . until the rains came and it turned into a swollen, raging torrent sweeping away everything in its path.

  “Saw you drive by,” Brad called. “Been wanting to catch you when you weren’t working. Good time now?”

  “Sure.”

  Brad was also a fan of single malt scotch. A few minutes later, drinks in hand, the two men stretched out on the comfortable patio furniture under the roofed portion of the rear deck that overlooked the river. Brad took a hefty swallow of scotch, shifted in his chair. An uncharacteristic gesture for a man who tended to be confident to the point of arrogance. Peter’s lips quirked. It looked like Amber Run’s developer might be looking for a favor.

  “I don’t like to trouble you,” Brad said, “but I have a couple who fell in love with your house. None of my models were good enough. They drove the whole site and only your house would do. They begged to see it. Look, man, I hate to ask, I know how you value your privacy, but—”

  “But you have to make a living, and another house fifty or a hundred thousand more than your largest model is not to be sneezed at.”

  Brad flashed a rueful grin over the rim of his scotch. “You got it.”

  Peter raised an eyebrow. “So when do you anticipate this invasion?”

  “They’re renting for three months—through the end of March. You set the date and time.”

  “But the sooner the better.”

  His eyes carefully fixed on his drink, Brad nodded. Peter almost laughed out loud. Seeing the kick-ass Brad Blue beg a favor made his day. One of the many rumors he’d heard was that Blue spoke fluent Russian. Now how intriguing was that? To someone who’d spent the last fifteen years of his life as an investigator of one kind or another, it was like waving a red flag.

  Peter let Brad talk him into showing the house the following week. That would give Mandy time to settle in before being invaded by strangers. And now . . . time for the quid pro quo.

  “Hey, Brad, is it true you speak Russian? I only ask because I was born Peter Rodcyzk. Third generation from somewhere in Poland. You a newbie too?”

  “Second generation,” Brad admitted. “Father jumped ship off a Russian trawler. Married the daughter of an old bastard who used to run cattle on this land. By some miracle the land on this side of the river came to me, and I’ve betrayed my responsibility to the land—so my Grandfather Whitlaw says—by building houses on it.”

  “Hard to fight the inevitable.”

  “Yeah, but the hell of it is, I don’t want to see Florida paved over any more than my grandfather does.”

  “Yet even old spooks have to make a living.” Peter endured Brad’s basilisk stare.

  “Takes one to know one,” Brad ground out.

  “Right. But I managed to get out while I was still on my feet. I hear you zigged when you should have zagged.”

  Deadpan, Brad shook his head. “Just goes to show that beneath the building boom Golden Beach is still a small town. With big mouths.” He didn’t, Peter noticed, deny the rumor.

  So . . . they understood each other. The builder and the author. The two men whose ancestors came from Eastern Europe. Whose previous lives had been anything but peaceful.

  As they shook hands and said goodbye, neither had any idea they were living their last quiet moments before the storm.

  “No apartments?” Mandy sputtered. “None?”

  “I’m so sorry,” the young woman behind the desk at Tierney & Tierney Realty apologized, “but there’s only one apartment building in Golden Beach, and it has a waiting list about a mile long. And our rentals for the winter season are always snapped up by the end of August.”

  “What about other agencies?” Mandy demanded, suddenly very much aware she was out of her element. Golden Beach was almost as alien and inhospitable as the time she’d exited her LearJet only to have a black chador tossed over her head by two equally black anonymous gliding tents. To the accompaniment of clicking tongues and admonishing hisses, they’d whisked her off to ugly female-only accommodations. The next day she’d been delivered to work in a room full of computers, with not another human in sight, the work stations deserted by male operators who seemed to fear their immortal souls might be contaminated by her presence.

  After that, she’d dug in her heels, told Eleanor no more Middle Eastern consults. She might not be a brave and daring field agent, but she didn’t have to work for countries who treated women as pariahs. To her astonishment, Eleanor had simply nodded. One small victory for Mandy Mouse.

  “Let me ask my broker,” the Realtor was saying. “She’s lived here all her life. If anyone can help you, she can.”

  In only a few minutes the young woman was back, accompanied by a strikingly attractive woman of perhaps forty. The perfection of the broker’s grooming, the cut of her silver gray suit trimmed in black, the subtle glitter of her gold jewelry proclaimed her a poster example of the Successful Realtor.

  Shit! Give her a decade or so and it was Eleanor.


  “Phil Whitlaw,” she announced, holding out her hand. “It was Tierney, but my husband’s in politics and prefers to have his name as prominent and wide-spread as possible.”

  Okay, Phil Whitlaw might look a bit too perfect, but Mandy suspected she might like her anyway.

  “So what’s your price range?” T & T’s broker asked, plunging straight to the point.

  Mandy leaned back in her chair, offered a lop-sided smile, green eyes meeting Phil’s nut brown straight on. “Not a problem. I can live without a condo on the beach”—though relinquishing that cherished hope was tough—“but ratty doesn’t do it for me. Any suggestions?”

  Phil rested a hand with a diamond the size of Mount Washington on top of the rental desk’s computer monitor. “Lizbeth tells me you’ll be working at Amber Run. That’s almost ten miles out of town. There’s nothing there but jungle, cattle, a few private homes and”—she paused, a gleam lighting her eyes—“a campground.”

  Campground. She had to be kidding. Mandy had visions of a canvas tent. Or maybe one of those nylon igloos too low to stand up in. Or would there be log cabins? Bears?

  Lions and tigers and . . . alligators, oh my.

  “Not quite your style, I know,” said Phil, “but Calusa Campground’s a good bet for a last-minute rental. It’s mostly RVs and trailers. Lots of full-time or full-season residents. And, frankly, Miss Armitage, since Golden Beach has the second highest median age in the country, someone’s always going into a nursing home. Or passing on.”

  Embarrassed at what must be showing on her face, Mandy ducked her head. Was she a snob? Is that what living in the sheltered world of AKA had done to her?

  “Or,” Phillippa Whitlaw added hastily, “you can rent an RV from a dealer. Something almost new. It wouldn’t be so much like living in someone else’s home.”

  Mandy didn’t hear that last. An RV. Big and shiny. Easily mobile. She could stay . . . or go. Complete her assignment . . . or lose herself on the vast network of roads that led from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.