While he’d been conked out, she’d made half a dozen phone calls, and he was damn impressed with the group of people she’d so quickly assembled.
He looked around the living room at the circle of faces.
He knew Jason Zacharias, of course. They’d worked together on a number of undercover assignments, including the time he’d come to rescue Jason and his wife Noel from a Scottish megalomaniac and Jason had ended up saving him. The other women of 43 Light Street and their husbands were strangers. But he knew they were Marissa’s friends. He’d always thought of her as so cold. But he could see from the faces around him that they were all deeply concerned about the turn of events in San Marcos. And they’d do anything they could to get her out of this mess.
He was especially struck by the couple sitting close together on the couch. She was Jo O’Malley, who’d been introduced as a private detective. He was Cameron Randolph, an electronics genius. Jo was expecting their first child, and it was obvious how happy they were about the pregnancy. Still, Jo had cancelled a prenatal appointment to attend this meeting.
“Start at the party,” Cassie requested.
Jed did, skipping over his personal reactions to Marissa and sticking with the facts, “I went straight from Sanchez’s to the American embassy, but they couldn’t do anything until nine the next morning. By then it was already too late to complain that an American citizen named Marissa Devereaux was being held incommunicado by General Miguel Sanchez.” He shifted in his chair.
“Too bad the embassy didn’t get right on it. I checked with the San Marcos Department of Immigration the next day and found out that no one named Marissa Devereaux had entered the country in the past three weeks the legal limit for a renewable tourist visa.”
Jo’s eyes narrowed. “Somebody must have been working overtime searching for her entry visa. But it paid off. If she’s not legally in the country, there’s no way to lodge any kind of official complaint.”
“You’ve got it,” Jed agreed.
“I’ve been burning up the phone lines to the State Department,” Cassie added. “Marci was on an undercover assignment for our old boss Victor Kirkland. He was willing to speak off the record because I’ve still got my security clearance. He says he’s sorry, but he can’t do anything to help her because State can’t acknowledge her mission.
“Can the U.S. State Department really operate that way?” The question came from a woman sitting in the corner. Small and delicate, she had curly brown hair and big brown eyes that seemed to stare right through Cassie. Her name was Jenny Larkin, and she was blind. Jed had wondered at first what she was doing at the meeting, since it was obvious that she had less experience than the others with the unofficial workings of government or with detective work. But he’d quickly discovered that her analytic mind and phenomenal memory were an asset to the group.
“I’m afaid they can do whatever they want to, as long as they don’t get caught,” Cassie explained. “But I’m not going to let Victor get away with stonewalling me.”
Jed admired her defiant posture, but he didn’t hold out much hope from that quarter. He knew the rules. And so did Marissa. She’d taken a job where it was understood she was on her own if there was trouble.
Until now, Abby Franklin had been silent. “What else have you got for us?” she asked him.
“After the scam at Immigration, I didn’t expect to find a record of a Marissa Devereaux checking in to a hotel. But I put it around that I’d be at the Café Primo and that I was willing to pay for information about a blond gringa travel agent who might have been in Santa Isabella within the past few days.
“I got lucky with a portero from El Grande who remembered commenting on Marissa’s snorkeling equipment. He took her to room 345.”
“So you let yourself in and had a look around the premises,” Jo guessed. Jed was pretty sure she’d have done exactly the same thing. Before her pregnancy, anyway.
“Right. The room had been ragged out. But the maid had forgotten to replace the notepad by the phone. The top sheet looked clean. But I could make out the impression of the previous message, which was the name of a taxi company and Miguel Sanchez’s address.”
“I couldn’t go into court with that,” Dan Cassidy muttered. As an assistant state’s attorney, he knew the rules of evidence.
Cassie slammed her fist against the arm of her chair. “I’ve been begging Marci for years not to keep taking these assignments. I told her this one was too dangerous. Damn her. What’s wrong with her? Does she want to get herself killed?” She shot Abby a pleading look.
The woman shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “There are reasons why she takes risks other people would consider unacceptable.”
Startled, Jed stared at the attractive brunette. She’d been introduced as a psychologist. And, like most headshrinkers, she’d shut up and let everyone else do the talking. It sounded as if she’d been seeing Marissa professionally. Remembering the way Marissa had always struggled to hide her emotions from him, he was seized with sudden regret that he’d never tried to understand her; he’d only reacted to what he perceived as her cold arrogance.
“Is that all you’re going to say?” Cassie persisted, her voice fierce. “Won’t anybody stick their neck out for Marci?”
“It’s not a matter of sticking my neck out,” Abby said gently. “You know it would be a breach of professional ethics to talk about the things Marissa and I have discussed at her therapy sessions.”
Cassie looked down at her hands.
“You think someone betrayed Marissa?” Jenny asked Jed.
“I know she wouldn’t have crossed the patio unless she’d been assured it would be empty. There could have been a backup security system only Sanchez knows about. Even a silent alarm,” Jed observed. “Or someone at the party could have spotted her heading for forbidden territory and alerted security.”
“Who?” Cassie snapped.
“Any of over a hundred guests. She was talking to Thomas Leandro just before she left. But there were a lot of other people there. One of them might have jumped at the chance to do the general a favor. Or it could be someone with his own ax to grind. Pedro Harara, the president of the Banco Nacional, doesn’t much like American women.”
“Why not?” Cassie asked.
“He married one who caught him in bed with his secretary and took him for several million dollars when she moved back North again.”
The laughter around the room cut some of the tension.
Jed answered more questions, gave more opinions and assessments, all the while trying to keep certain pictures out of his mind pictures of what could be happening to Marissa. He couldn’t allow emotion to cloud his judgment. And he dared not let his private fears show on his face because that might panic the group.
Jason had been silent through most of the discussions, letting the others ask questions. Then he began to formulate a plan.
“Too harebrained,” Jed snapped when the security expert had finished.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Give me a little time to think.
* * *
“MARISSA SHIFTED uncomfortably on the narrow bunk. It was made of wooden planks and topped with a straw tick that prickled where it touched her skin. Not very comfortable, but at least the mattress wasn’t resting directly on the unwashed stone floor.
She shuddered. She’d been in this tiny cell for three days, and she knew she was in danger of coming unglued. After the scene on the patio, two women had strip-searched her before she’d been locked up.
It had been humiliating, but thank God they hadn’t found anything incriminating. Now she was praying that her