Cayman Capers

CAYMAN CAPERS

By

Cassidy Bell

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Cassidy Bell on Smashwords

Cayman Capers

Copyright 2012 Cassidy Bell

Formatted by eBooksMade4You

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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

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Many thanks to all my friends for reading and helping to edit and revise this story. Also thank you to all my ORWA cohorts for their support and for allowing me to practice my writing skills on them. Canadian spelling is used throughout. I hope you enjoy the story of Lewis and Kate as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Cover art© Karen Perry

3mamasan3@gmail.com

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

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Chapter 1

No, Charlie, she angrily responded. "I’m not going to any God-forsaken, backward island to please you or anybody else. I’m not going to be anyone’s sacrificial lamb just because you owe a debt. I have too many projects on the go here in Ottawa.

She held the phone away from her ear at the roar that came back.

So fire me then, defiantly, and hung up the phone.

She paced back and forth in agitation until the phone rang again. She didn’t want to pick it up. It would be her boss, Charlie Darkin, again.

What? she spit out.

I need you on site, Kate. You can look after my interests better than anyone. I have no one else who can do the job you can do. When you come back from the Cayman Islands we’ll discuss full partnership terms, okay?

Kate Osgood hesitated. Full partnership would be nice. Who can take over for me here? I have at least three projects that need close watching.

I can oversee everything.

I’m not convinced. You’ve been really distracted for the last several weeks. I’ve had to settle complaints that have poured in from contractors who are working your building projects. How can you monitor more works sites when you are finding it so difficult to manage what you’re already responsible for?

She sighed in frustration. She owed him so much. He had had faith in her when she hadn’t even believed in her own ability to do a job. Okay, Charlie, I’ll go for two weeks. I know this has to be very important to you or you wouldn’t insist that I go. Have someone ready to replace me down there at that time. I’ll get construction started but that’s all the time I can afford to be away from my own work.

She hung up the phone after talking to Charlie. What was going on with him? He was hardly ever in the office anymore and when he was, it was difficult to get him to pay attention to the ongoing concerns she needed to discuss with him. She had left work early to nurse a miserable headache. This latest demand from Charlie only added to her fatigue and frustration.

She’d have to call Marnie to let her know she wouldn’t be able to look after the girls next week. She’d been looking forward to having them with her while her friend was away on business.

There was a thundering knock on her apartment door. Oh, no. Not now, as she pressed both hands to her pounding head.

A male voice demanded, Open the door, Kate. We need to talk.

Not tonight we don’t, she muttered to herself and checked to make sure the security chain was on the door. Not tonight for sure.

Kate, I know you’re in there. Open the damn door. The angry voice outside the door was punctuated by louder and louder thumps.

Her conversation with Charlie was about all the agitation she could handle for one evening. She slowly and deliberately returned to her small kitchen, took a bottle of white wine out of her fridge and a long-stemmed wine glass from the cupboard and made her way to the living room. She put a Mantovani disc on the stereo and turned it up high enough to drown out the loud voice still complaining at her door. When she had the music at a satisfactory level she made her way to her bedroom where she stripped naked.

In the same measured, even pace she headed into her bathroom where she proceeded to fill the tub with hot water, lit all the candles in the room, piled her thick, wavy hair into a top knot and slowly sank down into the steaming water with a contented sigh.

This, I think, will be a two glass soak, maybe even a three. I’ll think about anything else tomorrow. Marcus will just have to accept that we are no longer a potential couple, muttering with her chin half under the water.

She closed her eyes in an attempt to drown out the noise of the man still pounding on her door.

The warmth of the water was beginning to relieve her head and help her unwind. Over the last couple of weeks she had become convinced that this man was exactly like the man she had barely escaped from six years ago. Marcus had become more and more demanding, more and more controlling over the three months of their relationship. Was there something wrong with her that she had again allowed this kind of man into her life? Did she have some kind of mental aberration that it had taken her three months to see his resemblance to her ex-husband, Roderick? Being away for the next couple of weeks would be a good thing.

She sighed again. She wasn’t the naïve young woman who had married Roderick with stars in her eyes and no real idea of what she needed in a mate. She had been a very young eighteen, just out of high school, full of romantic ideas of love and everlasting happiness. It hadn’t taken long for her illusions to be shattered.

Never again, she emphatically declared as she sat up and let more hot water into her tub. Never again.

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Chapter 2

Lewis Tarrant was basking in the afternoon sunshine flooding his paper strewn desk at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade office, grinning as he anticipated next week’s wild competition in the Highland bike races. He smiled. He relaxed into his chair as he pictured himself flying through the air sideways, exploding around a bend in the trail. His hands gripped imaginary handlebars. His face contorted with the effort of keeping his bike under control, eyes intent on the path ahead.

The piercing double ring of his phone wipes away his day-dream. He sits up straighter, takes his feet off the desk and picks up the handset.

Yes, Sir, he responds, his stomach muscles tightening. All thought of trivial pleasures vanishes.

Yes, Sir, he says again. His scalp tingles. They need him again. The last time they had called him he almost didn’t make it home. The silence is eerie as he slowly hangs up the phone. He can no longer hear the pigeons on the window sill outside softly snuffling. The sunshine has dimmed. He runs his long fingers through his mop of curly hair, pushing his heavy-rimmed glasses up on his nose with a knuckle.

Damn, erupts through clenched teeth as he absently sorts the documents on his desk and throws them into folders.

Damn, he mutters again. This isn’t how I planned my life to go. Why couldn’t I have minded my own business? squeezes through his teeth.

Why did I have to be so nosy? as he throws all his folders into the filing cabinet.

Why couldn’t I have been happy just hacking into police files?

The memory of the urgency in his caller’s voice makes his heart thud in triple time. He can taste his own fear—heavy, numbing, bitter. The walls in his tiny office are closing in on him. Sweat breaks out on his forehead. This is a job he would never have sought but he is duty bound to do it. He had been moved around frequently in his work for the government. This could be the most dangerous assignment yet. His brief training for the intensive work they had asked him to do never seemed enough. He’d had six months at their secret training facility close to Ottawa while his family thought he was hiking through Europe.I’m nobody’s hero. I don’t want to be anybody’s hero. Damn. There goes my weekend. There goes the best race of the year.

Visions of the excitement he always experienced in the dangerous races were now replaced with visions of more sinister challenges ahead. He had never failed in any of his assignments in the last ten years. Deep under his misgivings about this one, there was a tiny flutter of anticipation, of challenge. He knew that somehow he would get the job done. People were depending on him. He had to pull it off. This time the threat was too close to his family and friends. His last assignment had netted five terrorist plotters who were now taking up space in a Kingston prison.

Canada, he knew, was slow to build up her defense, security and emergency response infrastructure to prevent terrorist attacks. Failure is not an option, he quoted to himself. He shrugged off his doubts and started planning for the coming challenge. Hi, Sis, Lewis began when his sister, Misty, picked up her phone. I’m off again on assignment, this time to the Caymans. I shouldn’t be gone long. I’m going to miss Dad’s birthday again. Can’t be helped.

Misty picked up on something in his voice. What’s up Lewis? The Trade Department has been active down there for years. What could be so urgent about tourists in trouble or money laundering? All that’s been going on for decades. Dad’s going to think you’re avoiding him again. Are there special circumstance that you have to leave so abruptly?

"Not especially. We do periodic visits to our satellite offices. It's time to check out Grand Cayman. Misty, he suspected, knew what he really did but she had never said anything to him about it. Of all his sisters she was the closest to him. She was still a little protective, a holdover from much younger days. There was a long pause. Lewis could tell that she wasn’t accepting what he was telling her. It had always been hard for him to lie to Misty. She could read him too well.

Lewis, if you ever need my help with anything you know I’ll be here?

I know that. I promise I’ll call on you if I need to, knowing full well he would never involve her in the job he had ahead of him. He hung up the phone slowly, almost reluctant to break the connection. Her quiet voice was an oasis of calm in a storm.

A high pitched female voice brought him back to reality.

What do you mean you have no information about trade with the Cayman Islands? I’ve been here for over an hour trying to get information I need for a job I have to do there. I need to know how things work between our two countries trade-wise. I need to know the right procedure for securing supplies needed for the hotel my company is building in the Caymans. Who can tell me what I need to know? Don’t you people know anything?

Lewis still felt disconnected from the ordinary but the strident voice emanating from the hall had grabbed his attention. He peeked out his door to see a sight not often seen in the Trade Department halls. His normally dignified manager desperately trying to disengage his arm from the determined looking female with her hand grasping his coat sleeve. His grey hair no longer every hair in place, his gray suit coat pulled askew, a combatant on the losing side of a battle.

Ma’am, if you let go of me, I’ll try to find someone who can tell you about protocol between Canada and the Caymans. We don’t get a lot of requests for this type of information.

The voice of the impatient female slowly quieted as she took her hands off the frazzled man. She smoothed his sleeve down and apologized for clutching his arm. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to attack you that way. I’m having difficulty getting the information I need and I don’t have much time. Her voice faded away as she followed him down the hallway, past Lewis’ door and into the elevator.

Lewis couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was mesmerized. She was a keeper. Chestnut hair curled around a heart-shaped face, brown eyes no longer shooting sparks at his dazed boss. She had loomed over the flustered man, a Valkyrie on a mission. In spite of his own dilemma he felt sorry for the man. He wasn’t geared to handle a human dynamo. Lewis chuckled softly and slipped back into his own office. Cayman Islands, eh? Interesting.

Lewis picked up the gym bag that always accompanied him to work and signed himself out with the Security guard on level one.

Off to race down another trail, are you? You know that trail-bike racing could be very dangerous, from one of the new guards.

Lewis nodded in agreement, picked up mail from his locked box and proceeded out the revolving door. His assignment brief from the chief would be coded to look like another invitation to a trail-riding competition. This new guard couldn’t possibly know what was in his mailbox, could he? Lewis shrugged off the uneasy feeling caused by the guard’s comment. He was already as up tight as he could get about this new assignment. He would have to call his current girlfriend, Danika, to cancel the arrangements for Saturday. She wouldn’t be very happy about it.

Once he got to his small apartment it didn’t take long to check that all his special gear for the trip was ready and to make the necessary call to Danika. He was right. She wasn’t pleased. Lewis was glad to put some space between him and Danika. Given the nature of his work he couldn’t afford any committed relationships with anyone. You’re reassigned again, Danika groaned, but we were going to have so much fun at the race meet.

It’s out of my control. I have to go where my job takes me if I want to keep getting paid.

Sometimes I think you’re trying to avoid me.

Lewis silently nodded in agreement.

I have some vacation time left. I could stay with you for a week or two. I’ve never been to the Cayman Islands. I would love to see them.

No, I’ll be too busy cleaning up problems in the Trade Office. It’s been short-staffed for too long now.

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Chapter 3

His talk with Danika had done nothing to lower his stress level. He was getting almost too good at improvising to cover his tracks. He had learned a lot from Misty in her salad days. Her mantra, Do it now. Beg forgiveness later, resonated with him.

Lewis headed for the rundown building that housed the Boys and Girls Club in the east end of Ottawa. He mentally thanked Misty for forcing him to get involved with the Club. It was her payback to keep quiet about his short-lived, teen-aged foray into the world of booze and drugs. He grinned to himself as he remembered her disgusted voice hammering in his ears.

You’ve been drinking and you reek of pot. How could you? How damn well could you get yourself into this state? Wait till Mom and Dad see you.

Lewis smiled at remembering how he had pitched up on her new shoes as she was trying to hold him up and get him into the house. He still couldn’t remember how he’d gotten home.

Next morning Misty smacked a piece of paper into his hand with the address of the Club on it and growled, Be there today or else. He knew what the or else meant. Misty was half-way to her doctorate in Psychology and she was no one to fool around with when she was in this frame of mind.

Good call, Misty, he softly reminisced as he wheeled his bike into the building where a noisy crush of teenage boys waited for him. Thinking about his time with the rambunctious kids mercifully distracted him from his own situation. He had exactly one day to prepare himself mentally for what lay ahead.

Hi, Coach, rumbled a big, shaggy-looking teenager, grinning his pleasure at seeing Lewis. Can’t wait to kick butt on Saturday.

You will, Rory. You will. Try not to get carded this time. We need all our strong players to stay in the whole game. I won’t be here on Saturday but Father Jim will be here to coach you,

Rory made a grimace but nodded in acceptance. I like it better when you’re coaching me.

The boys had all been accepting of Lewis’ absences but were more confident when he was with them. Lewis was still amazed at the change in Rory over the past year. Misty’s fine hand had somehow maneuvered Rory away from a group of trouble-bound older teens and into the Club. He had always wondered what kind of coercion she had used. From the resistance Rory had put up he knew it must have been a very big stick. But then, knowing how she operated, nothing would surprise him. Somehow he could almost believe that things would be okay. He had to believe that he would be successful.

Soccer time, everybody outside. he yelled, Last one out collects the equipment to bring back in when we’re finished.

He stepped out of the way as the herd of unruly teenagers stampeded for the door. Lewis grabbed the big, green mesh bag of soccer balls and headed for the field two blocks away. He took a deep breath to clear his head when he reached the field and sorted out the practice teams.

Lewis pushed the boys hard for the first half hour of practice then separated them into two teams for a practice game. Rory captained the red bannered team, Jose the blue. He watched as the inevitable happened. Rory made a sneering, thumbs down gesture at Jose. Jose responded by drawing a forefinger across his throat. Lewis knew there was trouble between them. Rory ignored Jose off the field and slammed him hard on the field. He would sort them out if and when he got back from the Caymans.

There was an unusual number of spectators for this ordinary practice, Lewis thought, people he had never seen before. Two dads who showed up regularly were put to work as linesmen for the game. One of the watchers looked vaguely like the new security guard from work but was too far away for Lewis to see clearly. Why would he be here? He had no kids in the group. Lewis was too busy to wonder about all the new watchers. He chalked his discomfort up to his upcoming trip to the Caymans. He shrugged his shoulders and headed for centre field to start the game.

There were lots of things he could worry about but right now his time belonged to these kids. Soccer was mostly a positive experience in lives which provided few positive experiences. He had gotten Misty involved in some of the worst cases of neglect and abuse that had come to his attention. He shook his head and got on with the game.

Kate was almost ready for tomorrow’s flight to the Caymans. She had carefully briefed her young assistant about the three work sites she was managing. She wasn’t taking any chances on Charlie. His performance for the past month didn’t inspire confidence.

She was embarrassed at the memory of how she had manhandled that poor man at the Trade Department. Her confusion over the change in Charlie flared again. There was so little time to arrange everything she would need for the Cayman job. Why was there such a rush now? This hotel had been in the planning stages for at least a year.

Something was going on with Charlie. He hadn’t been himself for at least the last two months. Was his wife, Julia, sicker? She would go see her tonight and try to sort out what could be making Charlie so distracted.

Julia had been like a mother to Kate, urging her to get away from her ex-husband, Roderick, and protect herself. She had supported Kate when Kate, fearing for her life one terrifying night, had finally escaped. Kate would never be able to repay her kindness.

Julia looked pale and seemed lacking in energy when Kate dropped in to see her that night. Charlie was out so she and Julia would have lots of time to talk. Julia didn’t talk much. She listened. She frowned when Kate told her Charlie was sending her to Grand Cayman Island to manage construction on the new hotel.

Why, Kate? Why is he sending you down there?

He says he can’t get away himself right now.

I can’t think of any reason why he has to be here. I have Mrs. Morgan to look after me and he has three people who can take over his work load. Don’t go Kate.

I’ve already agreed to go, Julia.

Tell him you’ve changed your mind.

I don’t like to back out of something I’ve already agreed to do.

Don’t go.

Julia is there something you’re not telling me?

Julia leaned her head back in the wheelchair. You’re a lot stronger now. I guess you have to follow your own path. I’m very tired, Kate. Would you call Mrs. Morgan for me?

Kate helped Mrs. Morgan, Julia’s nurse, get the ailing woman into bed. Julia’s back was reddened from sitting in her wheelchair. Kate gently massaged her back and hips with a lotion and braided Julia’s hair when her friend requested it. She stroked Julia’s cheek