The Espionage Effect(23)
Alec slowly shook his head, reached into the pocket of his cargo pants, then pulled out a money clip. He pointed toward a food vendor near the curb.
All four faces drew blank expressions as Alec kept walking. Seconds later, they chased after him with eager steps. Gesticulating over the metal counter of the food truck, he spoke rapidly. After a few minutes of the vendor scrambling back and forth, containers of food were being transferred from vendor to Alec to each child. The paper containers looked to contain tacos, hot dogs, and tamales.
Each child carried their meal up to the sidewalk in front of the nearest shop and sat on the curb. When the youngest settled, she started devouring a taco, and the rest dug in to their meals. Pulling up the rear, Alec joined them with additional treasure in hand and their eyes widened the closer he came. He handed the eldest four churros.
Then Alec peeled an additional two bills from his money clip and held them out to the boy. The child seemed beside himself, shaking his head with widened eyes. Alec gave him a stern look until the child relented and reached up to claim the unexpected gift. Then the boy safely pocketed the money as Alec gave a satisfied nod.
Away from the cool ocean breezes and the glamour of the resort, crowded in on all sides by a jungle teeming with predators of all shapes and sizes, the air stilled into a thick humid haze, lending an ethereal quality to the poignant scene. Yet through the mist, the image of those kids seared into my mind, the tragic dark parts of humanity on display from the obscurity of shadowed corners. And Alec appeared to be their brief ray of light.
An undefinable ache panged through my chest as he turned and left them. Yet I continued to watch the children, wondering about their story. Oblivious to my scrutiny, they ate with surprising slowness. Even the youngest. Like they wanted to savor the unexpected gift they’d been given.
Alec returned along the narrow dirt pathway, and I shifted my gaze toward him as he crossed into my line of sight. For a fleeting moment, his expression seemed unfocused, trained to some faraway place in his mind. But when he lifted his gaze to mine, his features blanked, then hardened into the mask he wore.
“Spy and humanitarian?” I murmured, trying to categorize a man continually breaking free of the typecast mold my analytical mind wanted to file him under.
He veered to my right and gave a slight shrug. “Been there. No child should go hungry.”
I blinked. Been there? On the street? Hungry?
Those instant unasked questions spiraled into countless more. But as I stared at his back, while he retrieved a black leather bag from the backseat, I found in my confusion I couldn’t voice one of them.
“What’s in the bag?” Amid the sea of churning questions, the seemingly harmless appeared a good place to start with a man whose entire body language screamed closed off.
As we neared the automatic glass doors of the hospital’s main entrance, they glided open with a soft whoosh. Alec kept pace beside and just ahead of me, his assessing gaze discreetly scanning left and right in a comprehensive arc as we walked.
Watching for threats?
A subtle warning pinged inside my head. Regardless of Alec’s casual attitude about potential gunmen stalking us, the danger remained.
“Gear,” he replied, curling his fingers tighter around the short black leather straps.
“Gear for what?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, heat in his gaze. “For later.”
Later? Us later?
Had I imagined the suggestive charge in his tone? The bag looked heavy.
Couldn’t possibly have anything relating to the...well, what we’d talked about doing…
Oh, hell. Get a grip, Devin. It’s called sex.
As we walked, my steps slowed, awareness of the vast space we’d entered taking hold. “This isn’t a hospital,” I whispered.
He chuckled, then slowed his gait and leaned closer. “Oh, it is. Obscene wealth sugarcoats everything.”
A shiver tripped through me as his warm breath danced over the shell of my ear and down my neck. I gasped at the sudden intimate connection, then camouflaged my reaction by inhaling a bit more slowly, trying to right my center of gravity again.
While I analyzed the degree to which his rich voice tantalized my nerve endings, he walked the remaining ten feet to the reception desk, then spoke in rapid Spanish with a woman wearing black scrubs trimmed in lime green.
As if he hadn’t just sent my body careening toward meltdown.
Taking a second calming breath, I turned and wandered toward the center of the main lobby, examining the muted visual tapestry around us. Black granite spanned the floors, silver and turquoise flecks within the stone flashing when my angle and the natural daylight caught it just right. The dark tiles spread up the walls thirty-six inches until they abutted a chiseled limestone molding. Cream-colored plaster walls stretched up to thirty-foot ceilings, and in the center, right above my head, suspended an elaborate blown glass chandelier in various shades of white from a milky opaque to glittering iridescent, some twisted spirals with textured surfaces, others smooth and oblong. A handful of clear lightbulbs nestled within the sculpture, difficult to distinguish from all the sparkling shapes around them.
“Ready?”
My whole body tensed at the surprising tenor of his voice, and I gasped in a short breath. He stood so close, his thin T-shirt sleeve brushed against my shoulder.
“You should wear a bell,” I muttered.