Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(80)

Her little hopeless interlude end in failure, but the mission would not.

She peered into the blackness, following the beam of Mal’s flashlight.

Alana Cevallos lived in a small house tucked into dense woods at the end of a dirt road. Mal scanned the place with the small light that highlighted a well-kept front yard and a recently painted home that had a welcoming feel, except for the utter blackness of everything.

“This whole freaking island is dark,” Chessie said. “It’s like the land of blackness.”

“True enough,” he agreed.

“Wouldn’t there be a light on somewhere? It’s only nine or ten o’clock.”

Mal didn’t answer, his eyes narrowing as he looked around. “Yeah, I’ve been here this late before, and she had working electricity, and there’d been plenty of activity in the house.”


Working electricity, which Chessie now knew was not always the case in rural Cuba. Did Alana Cevallos have some special deal? Or…a lot of money? Money that was “never recovered”?

“I want you to wait out here, over there.” Mal aimed the light to a clearing about fifty feet from the house. “I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get there.”

“I have a better idea,” she said. “If this somebody who’s following you is in there and I knock on the door, he won’t know me. I’ll say I’m lost or my car broke down or something. If he’s not, I’ll tell her that I’m with you.”

He cut her with a look. “Not a better idea. A really dumb idea. Whoever it is knows we’re together. You’re going to stay hidden. With this.” He held out the gun to her, barrel down. “You know how to use it?”

“In my family? That comes before riding a bike, but you need it. I’ll stay out of sight, I swear.”

He moved suddenly, turning toward the road, and a second later, Chessie saw a beam of headlights and heard the hum of an engine. A sizable engine, possibly a truck.

“Someone’s turning in.” Mal gave her a solid nudge to the side, making her take the gun. “Hide in the bushes back there. Stay there until I tell you.”

“Mal, I—”

“Holy shit,” he murmured, staring at the double headlights turning into the drive. “That’s a Gitmo van. Go.” He gave her a gentle push. “Hide and stay out of sight, no matter what you see or hear.”

She didn’t hesitate, darting away before she got caught in the lights. She practically dove into a thicket of bushes, not caring that they scratched as she found a place where she wouldn’t be seen. She squinted through the darkness at Mal’s shadow, watching him hang just outside the beam of light as the van approached and stopped. The door popped open, and Chessie instantly raised the gun, ready to shoot to defend Mal.

But the woman who climbed out of the driver’s seat didn’t look like she’d hurt anyone. Small, wiry, with enough wear on her forty-some-year-old face that it was clear she’d been through plenty of hell but had landed on her feet.

“Alana,” Mal said, making no move toward her. “Where are the kids? What are you doing in a detainee van?”

“Malcolm.” Alana didn’t exactly exclaim his name, more like exhale it in sheer frustration. She muttered something in Spanish. Then, “My car was taken away by the government. They are still watching me, Mal.” She spoke accented English, crossing her arms and shrinking back in a little as he approached her. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

Chessie didn’t know the woman, and she had to remember she wasn’t speaking her native language, but she didn’t sound sorry.

“Where are the kids?” he repeated, more edge in his voice.

“My mother has them because I had to work late.” She sounded scared. Tentative. Mal moved one step closer, cautiously, it seemed, as if he sensed the same thing.

Of course! The little boy. She probably guessed that’s why he was here and felt protective about him. Chessie wanted to just come forward and tell her story, explain who she was and see the child. But she’d promised Mal she wouldn’t, so she hung back and listened.

“I need some information, Alana. And I need it now.”

“I…I…can’t do this.” She looked from one side to another, her voice cracking. At the sound, Chessie’s heart did the same thing. She’s not going to give him up.

“I’m not asking you to do anything.”

“But he is,” she hissed in a whisper.

“Who?”

Chessie cursed the sudden uptick of her heart and the pulse in her ears. She wanted to hear this.

Alana walked toward the house, muttering. “It’s not enough that you went to prison,” Chessie caught her saying. “Not enough that you protected me when I needed it the most.”

Mal turned and signaled to Chessie to stay, then followed. “Alana, I understand you adopted an orphan.”

Alana slowed, glancing back at Mal with a strange look. Guilt? Surprise? Chessie couldn’t tell from this distance.

“Isadora Winter’s child?” he prompted.

She let out a long, slow sigh. “He is over there now, in the field.” She pointed to the bushes, not far from where Chessie stood, then pivoted and walked into the house.

Mal froze for one second, then he asked, “What?” as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.