“Will.”
He looked over at Jade’s pale, pale face as the Jeep coughed to life. She’d seen, too. Everything he felt for her burst from his heart to his throat. He hadn’t expected to feel something like this, now, for her, but there it was. Emotions so deep and real, he didn’t know how he’d lived without them. “I know,” he said. “I see them.” Ignoring the pain in his arm, he hit the gas and took them out of the lot and down the road, the wind whipping at them, along with the knowledge that if they’d been any slower . . .
Jade kept her head turned away from him, taking in the landscape that had been too dark to see last night. The elevated plateaus and dry lowlands in the distance conflicted with the lush green tropical feel to the beaches they drove past. The resorts lined every square inch of beach, from high-end fancy hotels to the more economical dwellings.
She reached down and opened her backpack, pulling out the tourist pamphlet she’d picked up in the lobby the night before. “How do you say fish in Spanish?” she asked.
“Pescados.”
“Yeah, that sounds familiar. . . . Hey!” She turned a triumphant face toward his. “Dos Pescados Cantina. Two fish. His father named it that because he only ever catches two fish, in the ocean right outside the back door of the bar.”
Damn, if her smile wasn’t the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. “Is there a map in that thing?”
With her brow furrowed in concentration, her head bent to her task, she navigated, and fifteen minutes later they pulled into another parking lot. The Dos Pescados indeed sat right on the beach, next to a marina, both appearing to be past their heyday. A decade past. The building itself was pseudo-
Colonial, and probably would have been named a historical monument in the States. Or bulldozed for property value. A flashing sign in the window read: ABIERTO.
They sat in the idling Jeep in the pale gray dawn light and looked at it. “Why would a bar be open at six in the morning?” Will wondered out loud.
Jade lifted a shoulder. “Maybe it never closed.”
“Exactly.” He eyed the place for another moment. Too still. Too quiet. “Jade—”
“I’m not staying here. Don’t ask me to. After all this, and how far we’ve come, I want to see it to the end.”
He looked into her eyes. Beyond the exhaustion and fear, there was determination. She’d been through so much, and he didn’t mean just with Mario. Her childhood hadn’t been a walk in the park, and yet she’d made it herself. She’d grown up and done what she’d wanted to do. Now Mario had taken something from her, and she deserved to get it back. Personally. Not thrilled with what that meant, and the danger she could face, he blew out a breath. “Let’s go, then.”
Together they walked the dirt driveway toward the building, with Will keeping a hand on Jade’s back. There were no other cars around. The only sounds came from the obnoxiously loud bird in the bushes lining the walk and from the ocean pounding the surf across the street. The air felt thick and warm, and when they opened the door to the bar and looked inside, the air inside came thick and warm, too.
And smelled of death.
Through the windows the early sunlight slanted in, showing tables covered with empty bottles and glasses. Beneath their feet the floor felt sticky, and was littered with peanut shells.
But for the lack of a crowd, the place might have been frozen in time during peak business hours—except for the one person lying on the bar itself, arms and legs spread, mouth and eyes open.
Mario Alvarez, dead as a doornail.
“Oh God.” Jade put a shaky hand to her mouth. “Is he . . .”