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“You realize that chicken was to die for?”
“But not worth dying for.”
“We’ll simply have to go back.”
“Let’s lose our tail before we start making plans.”
The ladder stopped about four feet off the ground. An easy jump for him. At the bottom, he waited for Remi—very much enjoying the view as she climbed down.
She noticed. “We’re running for our lives and you’re watching me?”
He grinned as he took her by the waist, helping her to drop the last few feet. “At least I’ll die happy.”
They stepped from the relative cover of the dumpsters. Remi looked both directions. “Which way?”
Good question. If Avery’s men just started their search from where they saw the rental car parked, they’d be heading to their left. “Right.”
At the end of the alley, he poked his head around the corner, then ducked back just as the white SUV turned onto that street. They’d be caught in seconds. On the other side of the alley, he saw several doors, the second one closed only with a screen, undoubtedly to let the breeze flow through the shop. “This way,” Sam said, running across the alley, hoping the screen door wasn’t latched.
Twenty-three
Remi followed Sam into the building, the screen door clattering shut behind them. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior as they rushed down a hallway, its dingy white walls covered with a mix of graffiti and scrawled names and cities from past visitors. The beat of reggae music thrummed louder as they emerged into a barroom. Judging from the look of the rough clientele—Jamaica’s equivalent of a biker bar, Remi presumed—it was not the sort of establishment she and Sam tended to frequent. At least eight men and two women eyed them over the tops of their beer bottles. Most wore leather vests over sleeveless black T-shirts, their burly arms covered with tattoos, though some were hard to see against their dark skin. Remi smiled, hoping they weren’t being sized up as an easy mark.
Sam dug some money from his pocket, slapped it on the bar. “Drinks for the house, Mr . . . ?” He gave a questioning look toward the bartender.
“Jay-Jay to my friends,” he replied in a melodious accented voice. “That amount of money, my good man, makes you one of them.”
Sam introduced himself, then extended his hand. The bartender shook it. “My wife will be safe here? I won’t be gone long.”
“Very safe. You have my word.”
Sam turned to Remi. “I’m going to see if I can get to our car. Back in a flash.” He walked to the front door, peered out, then left.
Remi glanced at the bartender, then his customers, who regarded her as they drank, and she told herself that Sam was very good at reading people—he wouldn’t leave her anywhere he didn’t think was safe.
Even so, she found it hard to sit and wait.
Alone.
Jay-Jay smiled at her. “Who are you running from, pretty lady?”
She swiveled around on the stool and faced him. His long dreadlocks were pulled back in a ponytail, and he wore a black T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson logo on the front. His dark eyes held no malice, and she realized this was probably what Sam had noticed. “A couple of men who apparently think we’re better off dead.”
“Those would be the white men who came in here earlier asking if we had seen two Americans—one a woman with red hair?”
That feeling of vulnerability increased, and Remi suddenly wished that women’s head scarves were back in fashion. “They were here?”
“About twenty minutes ago, but not to worry. As I promised your husband, you will be safe here, pretty lady. What will you have to drink?”
“Water, please,” she said. Serious alcohol would have to wait.
He poured her a glass, slid it toward her, then took a rag and started wiping down the bar.
Remi sipped her drink. But as the seconds ticked past into minutes, her gaze kept returning to the door, hoping Sam would appear. At one point, she walked over, cracked open the door, noticed a number of motorcycles parked out front but no sign of Sam.
The bartender joined her. “Perhaps you should let me have a look instead. No one will notice a man like me. But you’re a different story.” He stepped out to the sidewalk, wiping his hands on his towel as if merely taking a break from bartending. When he returned inside, he guided her back toward her stool. “Your husband will be here soon. He is good at hiding, but I am better at finding.”
Less than a minute later, Sam rushed in. He crossed the room toward Remi, somewhat out of breath. “Big problem.”