CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The electronic key sliding through the reader on the hotel door partially wakened her. The muffled sound of the door opening caused her to sit bolt upright in bed. Taylor glanced next to her for Alan—he was gone. The bed was empty. Her heart was racing as she glanced at the clock on the night table. Just after four in the morning. They had returned from the nightclub after midnight, made love, then drifted off to sleep. She pulled the covers up to her chin to hide her naked body as a figure entered the bedroom. It was a man’s figure, Alan’s size, but he was moving unsteadily. Then, just inside the door, the man collapsed.

“Taylor.”

It was Alan’s voice, but faint and filled with pain. She shot out of bed, wrapping a sheet around her as she moved quickly to where he lay on the plush carpet. He was groaning slightly and cradling his right arm. She flicked on the light and gasped. Her husband was curled on the floor, his entire right side covered with blood.

“Oh, my God,” she exclaimed. “Alan, what happened?” She bent down, her eyes scanning his body, trying to determine the extent of his injuries. His right hand was bloodied, as was his forearm. His shirt was soaked with blood, but not torn. She couldn’t tell whether the blood had run down from his hand and arm or if he had been shot or stabbed. His face was unmarked, but his eyes were filled with pain.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Just shaken up a bit.”

She stroked his hair back off his forehead. “You’re not shot?”

“No. Nothing like that. It probably looks worse than it is.” He uncurled slightly and then lay stretched out on his back. “I’ll be all right. I was unsure on my feet when I got here. I think I just need to clean up.”

“I’ll get a towel,” she said. “Don’t move.” Taylor scurried to the bathroom and grabbed one of the bath towels, wet it under the shower, then snatched another dry towel and hurried back to the bedroom. Alan had propped himself up against the foot of the bed. She took the wet towel and began dabbing at the bloodied areas. He grimaced in pain when she touched his hand.

“Where were you? What happened?”

“I went back to the antique shop,” he said in a raspy voice.

“You did what?”

“The antique shop. I went back after you fell asleep to have a look at Domínguez’s computer files.”

“Just a minute,” she said, disappearing back into the bathroom and reappearing with a glass of water. He drank it slowly. “That better?”

“Much. Thanks.”

“Why would you do that?” Taylor asked, wiping at the blood on his hand and arm. He was scraped and had a few cuts, but nothing that would require stitches.

Alan’s voice was stronger now. “I was lying in bed, just thinking. I couldn’t sleep. The one thing that kept running through my mind was that Fernando Domínguez was our only connection to Edward Brand. And that he probably knew more than he let on when we were in his store. Instead of just lying around all night, I thought I’d have a look inside his files. See if Brand’s name and address were in there somewhere.”

“Are you crazy? Look at what happened to you. You could have been killed.”

He shifted a bit, trying to get comfortable. “It’s not that bad.”

“Here,” she said, lifting him under the left arm and directing him to the bed. “Lie down.” She unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off. The right side of his chest and stomach were covered with splotches of blood. When she had him resting on the bed, his head propped up on a pillow, she took a towel and gently dabbed at the blood. As she worked, she asked, “Tell me what happened.”

“I caught a cab outside the hotel and the driver dropped me off about two blocks from Domínguez’s place. I asked him to wait for me, which turned out to be a good thing. I had to go in through the front door, but getting in was simple. The door locks were single tumblers. Takes less than ten seconds to pick those. Disabling the security system was easy—it’s a variation of the ones I installed in San Francisco.”

“Easy for some people, maybe. What happened once you were inside?”

“Aside from a couple of night-lights, the store was dark, and I had to remember my way through without knocking anything over. That was probably the toughest part. There was hardly any light coming in off the street. When I found the back room, I closed the door behind me and switched on a light. There were three computers on the desks. I powered them up and looked through their client base.”

“And . . .”

“I found a listing for Edward Brand.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Brand has a house in Cabo San Lucas. Some-where in the Cabo del Sol development. That’s where he lives some of the time.”

“Did you get an address?”

“No, he has invoices and shipments sent through the area developer. Note on the file said it was in case he wasn’t at his villa. But Cabo del Sol is a single development. I would suspect it’s not that big. It shouldn’t be too hard to find him. We just narrowed the entire world down to one subdivision.”

“Crazy,” Taylor said, “but well done. That’s obviously not the end of the story. Otherwise you wouldn’t be all scraped up.”

Alan glanced down at the right side of his body. “I was just coming out of the shop when this guy came around the corner and yelled at me in Spanish. I’ve got no idea if he was a mugger or a plainclothes cop or someone who knew I shouldn’t be in the shop. I cut through a narrow gap between the antique shop and the next building, but the ground was uneven and I lost my balance and fell into the stucco wall. It had a rough finish. That’s what scraped me up so badly.”

“Was he still following you?”

“Yeah, but he was having trouble with his footing as well. It was dark and getting any sort of good grip on the rocks was almost impossible.”

“How did you get away?” Taylor asked.

“Ran. Ran like hell. There was a wall at the end of the alley and I was in front of him. I hopped over. Straight down the road to where the cab was waiting and back here. Paid the driver really well on top of the initial hundred.” He rolled over a touch so he could see her face. “I did okay?”

“Yeah, you did okay. Just don’t do it again.”

“Promise,” he said, raising himself up on his elbows. “I think we’re done here.”

“Mexico City?”

He nodded.

“Cabo San Lucas?”

“That’s where Edward Brand is.”

“And when we find him?” Taylor asked.

“We get our money back.”

“And if he doesn’t want to give it?”

Alan was quiet, but his eyes told a story. The story of a man who had been wronged. A man who was fed up with being taken advantage of. An angry man. A dangerous man. When he finally answered her question, his voice was intense. More intense than she had ever heard.

“I’ll kill him,” was all he said.