Cruz collared him with his forearm around his neck from behind. Latour struggled and tried to pry his arm away from his throat. “News flash, dick: You’ll never see Daisy and your boy ever again. I’ll make sure of it. And. You. Will, Never. Hurt. Another. Woman.”
Cruz tightened his arm around Latour’s neck while using his free hand and palm to grip him by the forehead. There was an art to strangling a man so it looked accidental. Cruz was a master. Careful not to leave scratch marks, he used the pads of his fingers and his strong palm and twisted, hard, feeling cartilage, tendons, and bones give way with the pressure. He kept twisting until he broke Latour’s neck with a final snap and the son of a bitch collapsed.
With Latour still in a headlock, he flung open the window, then, like a bag of sand, tossed the bastard over the sill. He waited until he heard the thud on the ground, then glanced down the forty-foot drop. From the awkward angle of Latour’s body, it was evident he’d broken his neck in the fall. Accidents happened.
He slid the window shut, then worked fast to straighten the bedspread and stuff everything scattered on the floor back in the drawer of the table, and turned on the light to survey the room. “Good enough.”
After carrying the long ladder he’d used for his roofing project around to the other side of the house, he propped it below the bedroom window, against the house, and near the body.
He tapped on the truck’s window to indicate that he was alive and well. Mia flung open the door and practically bowled him over.
He’d been gone for seven minutes eleven seconds.
• • •
The next morning she looked fresh and chic in a royal-blue sundress that bared her shoulders and the three sexy freckles on her clavicle. When the mailbox store opened at nine, Mia and Cruz were the first customers there. “I rented this when I first arrived.”
“Who did you give this address to?”
“You asked me that last night. Nobody until yesterday, when I gave it to the investment company. You’re more paranoid than Todd and Miles combined.”
If anyone wanted to find her, she would’ve been found, just as he’d found her. But there’d been no indication that anyone else had. Yet. He’d expected something last night. She’d shared this address with one person. That had been twelve hours ago. Someone could be here from anywhere in the world by now.
After Latour, no one else had shown up, though he’d been on high alert all night, watching her sleep as he listened for every sound.
The young guy behind the counter, with serious acne and an Adam’s apple that bobbed every time he surreptitiously glanced over at Mia, mumbled “Good morning” as they headed to the wall of small, numbered brass doors.
“Not even Todd has this address,” Mia said over her shoulder, key in hand. “At his request, I might add. Only Michael Ordway, at the investment company. For all he knows I flew here just to get my mail. This is my box right here.”
But when Mia unlocked it, it was empty. “That’s weird. Ordway assured me he’d overnight the paperwork so I could sign and send it back today.”
“Maybe your friend over there hasn’t put everything in the boxes this morning.”
“I’ll ask.”
Apparently, all mail and packages delivered that morning had already been placed in the correct boxes.
“Perhaps there was a mistake, and the papers will be here on Monday.”
Mia looked grim. Cruz knew this deal must be in the multibillions. Not something that some lackey would mail. “I’ll call him when we get back to the truck. I want to go back home—for some reason I feel really exposed here.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Cruz said dryly, tucking her hand in his elbow as they left. As soon as they were in the truck, he handed her his cell phone.
“Michael, the paperwork you sent yesterday didn’t arrive,” Mia said, sounding not like Mia but like Amelia Wellington-Wentworth. “What’s the holdup on your end?”
Cruz started the truck and eased into traffic to head back to Bayou Cheniere.
“Repeat that,” she said tightly. A quick glance showed him her pale face and tight jaw. “Yes, I was aware that investment and brokerage companies were conducting evaluations and analyses on us, but their interest was based on pure speculation. This is very different? And it happened when? Yes, maybe things would have been different if I was there, but, considering the circumstances, it was necessary for me to disappear.” She nodded. “What happens now?” She listened for several minutes.
“Up my offer by ten—all right, twelve percent. Keep upping my bid until I win. Yes, until they drop like flies. Call me at this number with developing updates.” She rang off and stared at the traffic ahead of them on the freeway. Cruz noticed that her breathing was a little heavier than it had been before the phone call.