Good Deed Bad Deed, Marcia Morgan [summer beach reads TXT] 📗

darkness, the dull pain robbing him of relaxation, his brain trying to formulate some sort of plan to help his mother. However, there was very little information, and until she was contacted again, neither he, nor his father, could make any decisions or enlist help from Interpol. Ben could not reconcile the failure to kidnap him with any plan villains might have to go forward with a crime, whatever it was to be. Eventually he got out of bed and rummaged through his luggage for the bottle of ibuprofen. While he swallowed several tablets with a swig of water, he wondered if they had actually abandoned the plan. He hoped that his father would learn something from tomorrow’s trip to the museum. He climbed back into bed and lay staring at the ceiling of his room, where so many years ago stars had been painted for a boy who had become fascinated by thoughts of space and time. The first silvery light of dawn had begun to filter through the shutters before Ben finally dozed off into a deep but fitful sleep.

* * *

Ana sat in the sunny breakfast room nursing a coffee with cream and too much sugar. It was the second cup, her need for caffeine being stronger than usual. She had slept hard, with vivid dreams seeming too real to be discounted. She had slept eight hours, but it felt like four. Ben’s parents had left very early, long before she came downstairs. Ben’s mother had left oatmeal in a double boiler on the stove, a full carafe of coffee, and on the counter next to it, a plate of scones with a crock each of butter and jam. Ana settled onto the cushioned window seat adjacent to the table, coffee in hand, a scone split and buttered on the plate in her lap. The view from the window was lovely. A wide expanse of lawn gave way to a stand of mature trees, spaced far apart—she thought they could be Chestnuts—and directly under the window was a bed of pale pink cabbage roses, no doubt the source of the generous bouquet in the sitting room. Spiky purple flowers she couldn’t identify flanked the rose bed on three sides. Ana’s thoughts strayed from the visual pleasures beyond the window to the matter at hand. Their instructions—orders really—had been to stay put, but even her short acquaintance with Ben suggested that he was unlikely to acquiesce.

She stood, then walked over to put her breakfast things in the sink before starting upstairs to dress. As she passed the door to Ben’s room, he opened it slowly and stepped out into the hall. He was dressed in gray sweat pants and a long sleeve tee whose logo advertised some long-forgotten rock group whose name she had heard, but whose music she had managed to avoid. His hair was tousled and a new growth of beard gave him a casual and sexy air, even though the tiredness in his eyes remained. He saw her and brandished the weapon of his smile, stopping the woman in her tracks and putting her at a loss for words.

“Is it still ‘good morning’ or have I slept into the afternoon?” Ben closed his door and then leaned against it, waiting for Ana’s response.

“You barely made it with ten minutes to spare. It’s almost twelve. But I’ve only been down for about half an hour.”

“I just couldn’t get to sleep. This whole thing was spinning around in my head until the wee hours, and I know you’ll say I told you so, but my shoulder was giving me fits on top of it.”

“I’m not one to jump on an opportunity to be right,” she said, smiling. “But I would have driven, if you’d asked— even if I had reservations… fear, actually.”

“That brings me to the confession I mentioned last night.” Ben took a deep breath and waited for Ana to respond.

“Go ahead. But I think I know what you’re going to say. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“I could have just trusted that you’d do what I advised, but I don’t know you well enough to have depended on that. It was clear there was a chance you were in danger too, because of having been seen with me. I just couldn’t leave you in London to fend for yourself.” Ben paused, again waiting for Ana’s reaction. She remained quiet, so he continued. “Whatever this is about, whatever risk is ahead of me, I couldn’t worry about what could be happening to you. I figured the best place for you was with me, and with my father. He has years of experience with criminals and has a lot of contacts at Interpol.”

“How did that come about?” Ana was suddenly curious about what Ben’s father had done for a living. “Was your father with Scotland Yard or something?”

“No. He spent his career as an investigator with Lloyd’s of London. He advanced to running the department that deals with thefts of high-end jewelry, art, cars—whatever wealthy people see as ‘priceless’ and are willing to insure at exorbitant rates. He was working in their office in San Francisco when I was born. But then he was just an investigator. When he was promoted to department head we moved back to England.”

“So that’s why he’s trying to get on top of this, and why he went to the city with your mother. He obviously knows how to take care of her. Is he in possession of a firearm? I know that sounds formal. It just sounded so crass to say ‘gun.’” She stopped herself and took a deep breath. “Sorry to rattle on, but this is a lot of new information to take in.”

“In San Francisco he carried a weapon. I stood at attention for many lectures about not touching it. And when I was about ten, he took me out to a shooting range and taught me how to be safe around that weapon—firearms in general. I never liked even holding