“I’ve got my PSD gig coming up in a week, so we’ll leave our sweet little apartment to poor Esmeralda. That gal’s gonna shit at how bad this place looks. More work for her…”
“She always does, so it’s nothing new,” Cav muttered. The two of them never cooked and always ate out. Their dirty clothes were strewn all over the place, and Esmeralda, their housekeeper, always picked up everything, muttering under her breath, and shooting them looks that would drop a jaguar at ten feet. She was an older woman, round, five foot two, and part Quechua Indian with long, black braids.
Esmeralda hated dirt and dust as much as the men didn’t mind living in it. Hell, after being in the desert of Afghanistan for six years, Cav was used to filth. It rubbed like fiery sandpaper into every part of his exposed body. He’d learned early on to wear a protective tribal shemagh around his neck to prevent that fine, gritty gray sand from leaking down his neck and into his inner body parts.
So what was a little dirt? Hell, their place was clean compared with where they’d lived all those years in Afghanistan.
But the old Indian woman didn’t know that. She just muttered in pidgin Spanish and part Quechua, reprimanding them, shaking her finger at them and then pointing to the messes they’d left everywhere. Cav grinned and Butch patently ignored her.
“I guess the General’s not callin’ back,” Butch said finally. “He said to meet him five days from now at the Costa Rica airport. He’ll have his assistant email the particulars, so all you gotta do is show up. He also said he’s emailing a photo of Lia Cassidy to you, so you can ID her once you’re on the ground in San José. They’ll have drivers and a rental SUV’s, and you’ll all be taken north to La Fortuna, the village where the attack occurred. Right now, the police are crawling all over the place trying to find out who torched the joint and murdered those two women.”
“Cowards,” Cav muttered.
Butch grimaced. “They were pro’s, Cav.” He held up his thumb and forefinger, pretending it was a gun. “A clean shot in the head to each woman, and then they were left outside the building, unmolested and in their nightgowns. I guess there are three small buildings that serve as living quarters for the three women.”
Frowning, Cav said, “I wonder how the third woman, this Cassidy woman, got away?”
“Maybe she heard the shots,” Butch offered.
Shrugging, Cav said gruffly, “I’ll find out more when I get boots on the ground.”
By mid-afternoon, Cav was over the worst of his hangover. He’d shaved, which he didn’t do often, and now, as he stared in the foggy mirror in the bathroom, he saw all the small scars and cuts his face had accumulated over the years, since working with the team. He didn’t look too closely at his bloodshot hazel eyes. There were bags beneath them, too. And he’d nicked himself twice with the damned dull razor.
No, he wasn’t a pretty picture, but he had five days to try to look like a normal human being. He grinned. He’d found out since childhood there was no such thing as “normal.” “Normal” was a setting on a clothes dryer.
Tomorrow, he’d go to the barbershop over in Los Flores and spend some money to get a decent haircut. No bilingual American teacher would show up looking like a junkyard dog, and Cav knew he had to play the part, especially since he was going in undercover.
“Hey,” Butch whistled, stopping at the opened door to the bathroom. He waved a piece of paper in his direction. “I think your sorry ass just got a gold star.” He chuckled. “Not that you deserve this kind of luck. Take a look, pardner.”
Frowning, Cav wiped his hands on a towel and took the proffered piece of paper. When he turned it over, he froze. There was a colored photo of a woman, a damn beautiful woman. The name beneath it read, Lia Cassidy.
“I wonder if she’s single?” Butch said, his grin turning evil. He waggled his bushy red eyebrows in Cav’s direction.
Cav’s scowl deepened as he quickly perused the photo. It showed a young woman with short, curly brown hair, edged in red and gold highlights. Her gray eyes were large, intelligent looking, and spaced far apart. He felt his whole lower body flame to life. The woman was truly a looker, with her oval face and wide, soft mouth. Cav could almost taste her lips beneath his. She had delicate ears and was wearing a set of white pearl earrings, along with a conservative white blouse to bring out her English complexion.
“She looks pretty serious to me,” Butch said, craning his neck, studying the photo.
“I wonder when this was taken,” Cav asked absently. In fact, he had a whole lot of questions about this woman who worked for Delos Charity.