Miami Midnight

by Maggie Davis

Overview

From the award-winning author: An enigmatic millionaire leads one unsuspecting woman into an underworld of pleasure and passion.

The elegant and classy Gabriel Collier returns home from Europe to find her mother drowning her sorrows in vodka, having squandered the family fortune. Determined to repair her family’s honor and save her mother’s health, Gaby begins the seemingly impossible task of mending the damage. When she meets the mysterious and exotic millionaire James Santo Milion, her troubles seem to melt away. But those dark, enchanting eyes hide secrets that threaten to destroy the security Gaby has worked so hard for. When the family pet is murdered, her home is violated, and the occult show up on her doorstep, Gaby begins to suspect polo is not James’s only hobby. Underneath the glitter of glamorous Miami resides a dark world of superstition and pleasure. As Gaby becomes engulfed in the depths of sin, her love burns ever brighter under the stars of the mysterious Miami midnight.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781497614154
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	220
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Maggie Davis, who also writes under the pen names of Katherine Deauxville and Maggie Daniels, is the author of over twenty-five published novels, including A Christmas Romance (as Maggie Daniels) and the bestselling romances Blood Red Roses, Daggers of Gold, The Amethyst Crown, The Crystal Heart, and Eyes of Love, all written as Katherine Deauxville. Ms. Davis is a former feature writer for the Atlanta Journal‑Constitution, copywriter for Young & Rubicam in New York, and assistant in research to the chairman of the department of psychology at Yale University. She taught three writing courses at Yale, and was a two‑time guest writer/artist at the International Cultural center in Hammamet, Tunisia. She has written for the Georgia Review, Cosmopolitan, Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Holiday, and Venture magazines. She is the winner of four Reviewer’s Choice Awards and one Lifetime Achievement Award for romantic comedy from Romantic Times Magazine and received the Silver Pen Award from Affaire de Coeur Magazine. She is also listed in Who’s Who 2000. Ms. Davis’s Civil War novel The Far Side of Home was rereleased and published in 1992. Her romantic comedy Enraptured, set in the Regency Era, was published in June of 1999, and the following September, Leisure/Dorchester Books published her historical romance "The Sun God" in the Leisure romance anthology Masquerade. Her novella All or Nothing at All is included in the August 2000 anthology Strangers in the Night. Further information for Maggie Davis can be found at www.maggiedavis.com.

Maggie Davis, who also writes under the pen names of Katherine Deauxville and Maggie Daniels, is the author of over twenty-five published novels, including A Christmas Romance (as Maggie Daniels) and the bestselling romances Blood Red Roses, Daggers of Gold, The Amethyst Crown, The Crystal Heart, and Eyes of Love, all written as Katherine Deauxville. Ms. Davis is a former feature writer for the Atlanta Journal‑Constitution, copywriter for Young & Rubicam in New York, and assistant in research to the chairman of the department of psychology at Yale University. She taught three writing courses at Yale, and was a two‑time guest writer/artist at the International Cultural center in Hammamet, Tunisia. She has written for the Georgia Review, Cosmopolitan, Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Holiday, and Venture magazines. She is the winner of four Reviewer’s Choice Awards and one Lifetime Achievement Award for romantic comedy from Romantic Times Magazine and received the Silver Pen Award from Affaire de Coeur Magazine. She is also listed in Who’s Who 2000.


Ms. Davis’s Civil War novel The Far Side of Home was rereleased and published in 1992. Her romantic comedy Enraptured, set in the Regency Era, was published in June of 1999, and the following September, Leisure/Dorchester Books published her historical romance "The Sun God" in the Leisure romance anthology Masquerade. Her novella All or Nothing at All is included in the August 2000 anthology Strangers in the Night. Further information for Maggie Davis can be found at www.maggiedavis.com.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

The annual champagne brunch and charity fashion show of the Coral Gables Hispanic Cultural Society was going smoothly until the redheaded model lost her balance. She teetered wildly on the makeshift runway that spanned the lily pond, then fell into the water with a resounding splash.

For a long moment, no one moved or made a sound. Then a concerted gasp rose from the fashionable crowd at the lunch tables.

Gabrielle Collier was still struggling with the lead for her story, and had just written: "Dark colors definitely usher in the fall season for fashion-conscious Floridians." As she bent over her yellow legal pad and scratched out the word "usher" and substituted "bring," the model in the lily pond got to her knees, slipped on the algae-covered bottom, and sat back down again.

The crowd suddenly came alive. A loud, dismayed scream reverberated in all four corners of the vast blue-and-white striped tent that covered the back garden of one of Miami's most elegant estates.

Gaby looked up, confused. She was aware, as the new fashion reporter for the Miami Times-Journal, that her writing was "inept," a description her boss, the features editor, used almost daily. But shrieks of horror? she thought. When she'd hardly gotten the words down on the page?

The Times-Journal photographer had shot out of her chair at the first splash. Now Crissette Washington waded into the lily pond in her French jeans and strappy gold sandals, the szznick-szznick of the black woman's camera going almost nonstop. The Miami Herald photographer, Gaby saw, was not far behind.

The redhead model, apparently too dazed toscream, was now sitting in four or five inches of water with fragments of torn green plants floating around her. Chic, alarmed society women were rushing down through the garden terraces to see what had happened. A group of busboys ran past, bumping the press table. Gaby clutched at her notes.

Across the way the fashion editor of the Herald shouted to her, "Is that the Galanos suit she's wearing? Or is it the Ted Lapidus?"

Gaby couldn't answer. She still didn't know one designer from another without a program. She thought it was the Ted Lapidus, but the suit might have been a Galanos for all she could tell. She shrugged, and the Herald's fashion editor gave her a look of ill-concealed disdain before she turned away.

Gaby stared down at the metal surface of the umbrella table, feeling slightly sick. The Herald and Times-Journal were competitors. Their employees were not expected to be friendly. On the other hand, Gaby suspected she'd just messed things up again. She wiped away a drop of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. It was relentlessly hot under the acre of blue-and-white striped canvas, despite the luxurious portable air conditioners. After five years in Europe, she still hadn't readjusted to Miami's blistering heat, even though she'd been born and raised in south Florida.

Gaby glanced at her pad. Perhaps, she thought, she should throw away what she had written and start another lead to her story. But she was practically certain you couldn't open a fashion story with, "When the model wearing Neiman-Marcus's Lapidus suit missed her footing and fell into the lily pond..."

She looked back down toward the runway. The other models had come to a stop on the steps leading up to it. A woman in a large black hat, the fashion show's director, hurried up to the microphone. Whatever she tried to say was lost in the clamor of almost a hundred of Miami's Latin social elite crowding around her.

Beyond them, on the little wooden platform erected in a grove of coconut palm trees, the salsa band struck up a frantic rendition of "Guantanamera," effectively drowning out all conversation.

Gaby gazed past the fashion show's temporary stage to Biscayne Bay, its aquamarine water glittering through a curtain of live oaks and palms. Their hosts' yacht, a magnificent white power cruiser designed on space age lines, lay at anchor offshore. The Hispanic Cultural Society's brunch and fashion show was one of the most prestigious social events of Miami's summer season, a major story for the Miami Times-Journal's Modern Living section and Gaby's first big assignment after only three weeks on the job. Unfortunately, no one had told her what to do if one of the models fell off the runway and landed in a lily pond.

The salsa band ripped through the endless verses of "Guantanamera" but curiously enough, Gaby saw, with the exception of the photographers still snapping the floundering model in the pool, no one seemed to be doing anything. The fashion director from Neiman-Marcus's Bal Harbour store was still trying to announce a short delay, but her words were lost in the uproar.

Crissette Washington climbed out of the pond and flopped down in the chair next to Gaby. "I should have seen that coming," she said breathlessly. "That chick was wired, flying so high when she came out on that runway, she needed an air traffic controller!" Gaby watched the sodden model try to get to her feet again. The girl's wide green eyes were rather glassy. "Isn't anybody" -- she had to shout to make herself heard -- "going to do anything?"

Crissette leaned close to Gaby's ear. "There's only about four inches of water in there. She isn't going to drown." The photographer paused, lifted a foot, and watched water drain from her high-heeled gold sandal. "Anyway, honey, that's men's work. They're all waiting for some latino male authority figure to come pull her out."

As if on cue, three men in pastel business suits hurried down the garden terraces from the main house. The band promptly struck up a Julio Iglesias tune, and the Neiman-Marcus show director reappeared at a run carrying a tablecloth.

Gaby bent toward the photographer. "Crissette, what's 'wired'?" she shouted.

Crissette gave her an incredulous look. "Lord, Gabrielle, you've been in Europe too long." She abruptly lifted her Nikon and focused it on the men arriving at the pool. "Wired, snowed. What you get when you use nose candy." Crissette looked away from the viewfinder long enough to see if Gaby understood. "Cocaine, Gabrielle, cocaine."

Gaby felt an embarrassed rush of blood to her face. She knew it was stupid, but returning to Miami after five years working in Europe was like visiting another planet where the inhabitants spoke a baffling, unknown language. Wired. Snowed. Flying. Gaby wasn't so out of touch that she hadn't heard about the drug traffic in Miami, but she was still shocked. Surely, she told herself, not right out in public. Especially not a model taking part in something like a society fashion show.

From behind her camera Crissette murmured, "Here come the marines to the rescue."

The three men had rapidly crossed the garden. The tallest, in a magnificent white linen Italian suit, strode unhesitatingly into the pond, grabbed the model under the arms, and hauled her to her feet.

Gaby frowned. "How can you tell that the model was... uh, wired?"

The exquisitely dressed audience broke into a ripple of applause as the tall man wrapped the tablecloth, handed to him by the Neiman-Marcus director, around the dripping model. The redhead smiled fuzzily at him as he blotted the front of her black-and-red outfit with indifferent thoroughness.

"The look," Crissette said, focusing her Nikon on the man in the white suit. "Like crazy eyes. A friend of mine says crazy eyes are a sure sign. Nonstop talking, like wanting to do and say crazy things. Nobody flies higher than somebody on coke. Sheesh, what a tiger," the photographer murmured appreciatively as she watched the tall man hoist the model onto dry ground. "He can pull me out of a lily pond any day."

Abruptly, she lowered her camera to stare at the two squat, copper-colored men wearing beige-and-pink suits and mirror sunglasses. "Two Colombians," she muttered under her breath. "What are those cats doing here?"

"What tiger?" Gaby asked. There was still so much screaming she could hardly hear. She gazed back down at the pond as Crissette refocused her camera on the man in white. "Oh," Gaby said, staring. "Who is he, some movie actor? Is that why you keep taking his picture?"

She was thinking she hadn't seen such blatantly macho male beauty since she'd left Italy. Crissette's "tiger" was more powerfully built than his Spanish forebears, yet was still fiercely black-browed, fluidly graceful. The mobile curve of his mouth was flattened, at the moment, rather irritably.

Crissette laughed. "Eat your heart out, honey. What you're looking at is one of south Florida's great natural wonders. That's the famous Prince of Coral Gables, James Santo Marin."

Gaby watched the tall man gingerly brush the soaked front of his expensive suit. Tiger? she thought. Tomcat was more like it. In Italy, men as good-looking as that one were bound to be monumentally spoiled. It was almost a tradition. And all of them wanted only one thing from American women, Gaby thought glumly. That, too, was traditional.

The man's heavy gold wristwatch caught glints of the hot sun. Gaby would bet that under that expensive-looking white silk shirt was a big, flashy gold medallion on a flashy gold chain.

"Coke goes with the scenery in Miami," Crissette was saying. "You see a chick like that flying down a runway, not even looking where she's putting her feet, and you know something just went up her nose." She pointed with her chin. "You see those two Colombian cats in the mirror shades? You don't think they're out here just to see the fashion show, do you? They're probably somebody's cocaine suppliers."

Gaby watched the model allow herself to be led away by the fashion director. The Miami in which Gaby had grown up, a slightly seedy resort city in a long decline from its heyday in the forties and fifties, bore almost no resemblance to this baffling present-day megalopolis. But then, as the whole world knew, something had happened. In just a few years the city had become what Newsweek magazine called "the new Casablanca," equated with Paris, London, and Rome. But for a native-born Miamian like Gaby, it was like being a stranger in a strange land.

Miami still had its crushing poverty, and refugees from South America and the Caribbean, including an influx of Haitians, mixed with the city's own indigenous poor in seething downtown slums. But Miami was also a boomtown for the new Latin American banking industry, an exploding real estate market, and a port for cruise ships that brought a rush of European and American tourists. If Miami's new glamour had begun with a television show, Miami Vice, the myth had quickly become a reality. And, as anyone could see, Miami was doing its best to live up to all of it.

The members and guests of the Coral Gables Hispanic Cultural Society were drifting back to their tables. The dripping redheaded model had disappeared. The handsome man in the white suit was directing the removal of the runway over the lily pond.

"He's not really a prince," Gaby said doubtfully.

"The way the chicks act you'd think he was," Crissette drawled. "Voted Miami's 'most eligible bachelor,' filthy rich, drives a Lamborghini -- Look," she said suddenly, "here comes the Queen Mother, Señora Estancia Santo Marin. And the pale chick in the black dress is the younger sister." She took a series of grab shots of the women. "Gabrielle, you were born and raised in Miami. Haven't you ever heard of the Santo Marins?"

Gaby supposed she had. But there were so many exiles in Miami, it was impossible to keep track of them, even the wealthy, socially important ones. Yet the name Santo Marin did ring a bell.

At that moment the man below looked up. His narrowed black gaze passed over the crowd and the press table, then stopped and backed up with a flicker of interest.

"Hey," Crissette said excitedly, "you should see this cat close up, through the viewfinder. He's unbelievable! And Gabrielle, you should see him watching you."

But Gaby had turned away. The Miami Herald's fashion editor, she saw with a sinking feeling, was interviewing the director from Neiman-Marcus. It was probably something she should have thought to do.

"Suppose he comes up here?" Crissette asked. "You want me to try to introduce you?"

Gaby wasn't interested in James Santo Marin; the macho peacocks she'd known in Italy had been enough for one person's lifetime. "For goodness' sake, Crissette, will you stop taking his picture?" She tore her notes and the beginnings of her story off her yellow pad and stuffed them into her purse. "Look, since the fashion show is stalled, why don't I go look for the chairwoman of this event and do an interview?"

Crissette flapped a thin, graceful black hand at her. "Wait, don't run off! These Latin dudes go mad for the Grace Kelly look. Gabrielle, he looks definitely interested!"

Gaby knew her "Grace Kelly look" was, at the moment, a sweat-shiny face surrounded by long blond hair that had been exposed for too long to the furnacelike breeze sweeping across Biscayne Bay. "Please, Crissette, I'm working! Now," she said, looking around, "how do I find the chairwoman of this event?"

"He heads up the family import business," the other woman persisted, "races a whole stable of power cruisers, wears great clothes--"

"I've got enough problems," Gaby interrupted her, "trying to learn this newspaper job without gorgeous hunks with" -- she looked for the coppery men in sunglasses and pastel suits -- "sinister friends."

"Hey, he likes it when you stand up," Crissette said, unperturbed. "You've got a sexy figure, Gabrielle. You just don't show it off in those clothes."

The man by the lily pond was standing perfectly still. Without looking in his direction Gaby could feel the impact of his darkly glittering look. She gathered up her purse and stuck her notebook under her elbow, feeling irritated. "Just tell me where you think I can find the chairwoman."

"Try the main house. I think half this crowd's gone up to the ladies' room. Who are you supposed to be looking for?"

Gaby tried not to look in the direction of the lily pond as Crissette began taking the man's picture again. "Alicia Fernandez y Altamurez," she said, consulting a scrap of paper. "At least that's what it says on the press release."

The main house was nestled in a setting of sculpted lawns and palm trees, a multimillion dollar example of the new-old art deco style that was being publicized as Miami's own historic look. Smooth white concrete walls and plate glass shone through the tropical greenery, surrounded by an untouched jungle of native palmetto. A decade ago, when Gaby was still in high school, all that had been down this way south of Miami were mangrove swamps and a few mullet fishermen.

A path led through royal and queen palms and flowering oleanders, ending at an asphalt parking lot. Two women in dark-colored silk dresses, wearing almost identical Givenchy toques with fancy nose veils, strolled around a turn of the white shell driveway. A uniformed chauffeur, who had been sitting in a black stretch Mercedes limousine reading a newspaper, immediately discarded the paper, jumped out, and opened the door for them.

Gaby stared at the slender, beautifully dressed women with as much curiosity as they stared back at her. Their large dark eyes, enormous in their heavily made-up, expressionless faces, looked over her rumpled linen jacket, khaki skirt, and low-heeled sandals with the avid, baffled intensity wealthy Latin women reserved for what they regarded as Anglos' astonishingly ugly clothes.

Gaby was aware Coral Gables was now full of wealthy Latins, some of them multimillionaires, but she hadn't forgotten the poverty-stricken Cuban exiles of her childhood. Then, one of Havana's leading neurosurgeons had a job mowing the lawns at the Miami Beach Country Club. A university professor drove a Hialeah taxicab. And the convent-bred society women, once queens of sugar plantations and palatial town houses in Havana, worked as cleaning women or dressmakers. Times had certainly changed. Looking at the elegant women Gaby knew their diamonds were real by the shooting sparks of fire in the bright sunlight. So, apparently, was the heavy string of matched pearls the younger woman was wearing.

She gave them a tentative smile. "I'm looking for Mrs. Fernandez y Altamurez. Could you tell me if this is the way to the main house?"

One woman said something to the other in Spanish, then with a shrug stepped into the huge black limousine. The second woman followed her. The chauffeur slid into the front seat and started the engine.

Gaby realized she'd used the wrong language. "Donde está el enfrente de la casa?"

She was fluent in Italian, but her high school Spanish was not great. It was apparently understandable, though, for a hand, decorated with heavy gold rings set with rubies and emeralds, came out of the limousine's back window and pointed. That way.

Before she could acknowledge the help -- if it was help -- the Mercedes slowly drove forward and disappeared under the trees.

Alicia Fernandez y Altamurez, the chairwoman of the Hispanic Cultural Society's fashion show, was waiting in a long line of women outside one of the downstairs bathrooms. Gaby interviewed her on the spot as the queue inched forward to the accompaniment of toilets flushing. The hallway where they stood was enclosed on one side by a white stucco art deco cloister. The sun-drenched cactus garden featured a stainless steel abstract sculpture that had recently been photographed for Architectural Digest.

Alicia Fernandez was a member of Miami's longtime pre-Castro Cuban community. The Fernandez family were sixth-generation Floridians. Mrs. Fernandez y Altamurez spoke English with a southern accent, had graduated from Smith College cum laude, and thought she knew Gaby.

"Which Collier are you, dear?" she asked interestedly. "The Miami Shores Colliers or the William Colliers of old Pine View Avenue? A Collier girl went to Ransom Country Day School with my daughter Susan. Was that you?"

"Palm Island," Gaby murmured. She didn't miss the quick, perceptive flicker in Mrs. Fernandez's eyes. Most of Old Miami remembered the extravagant, high-living Palm Island Colliers very well. "I did go to Ransom Country Day School, but only as far as the fifth grade." If Alicia Fernandez really knew her family, she also knew that would have been about the time Paul Collier had lost most of his money.

To cut short any further conversation about her family, Gaby pushed on with her interview questions. Alicia Fernandez graciously agreed that the crowd was big, that everyone seemed to love the clothes from Neiman-Marcus, and that the Coral Gables Hispanic Cultural Society had made a lot of money. She did not comment on the model's falling into the lily pond, and Gaby didn't bring it up.

"Darling, you are Paul Collier's daughter, Gabrielle, aren't you?" the other woman asked. "I remember your grandfather's beautiful house. They used to have such magnificent parties there. I read about them all the time in the papers." There was something in Mrs. Fernandez's voice that said she wanted to be reassured that things were better for the Palm Island Colliers than she'd heard. "Haven't you been traveling in Europe?"

Gaby didn't look up from her legal pad. My father is dead, and Mother is a drunk, some perverse inner voice answered, as nearly all of Old Miami well knows. The money is gone and the house is falling down. That's why I'm back.

Aloud Gaby only said, "I was working in Florence, doing art research for a professor who was writing a book. It was a job I got my junior year at college."

"Ah, Italy." Mrs. Fernandez smiled her disarming smile. "I went to Venice and Rome on my honeymoon." She gave Gaby an impulsive pat on her arm. "You're such a pretty girl, Gabrielle. Did you leave a few heartbroken Italians behind?"

Gaby knew it was her own fault she froze up when people remembered her family. "Italian men are looking for rich American women," she said stiffly, "not poor ones."

Alicia Fernandez looked momentarily disconcerted. Then she covered it by saying, "Working for a professor, it sounds wonderful! And to be in Italy... I'm afraid Miami's going to be so different for you." She paused. "Life here has changed so, Gabrielle, it's difficult to explain. People have always come to Miami to act a little crazy and have a good time. After all, it's a resort town. But now, I swear, it's surreal! Life in Miami is like one of those music videos kids watch on television." She lowered her voice. "Did you see what happened today?"

So Crissette wasn't the only one who'd spotted the model's real trouble, Gaby thought, feeling uneasy. "I've got to be going, Mrs. Fernandez. I hope you'll excuse me. This is only my third week at the Times-Journal and I'm still learning my job."

The other woman held her arm. "Darling, I did know your mother and father, a long time ago. I'm sure you went to school with my daughter. Susan goes with such a nice young crowd in Miami. If we can be of any help..."

"Thank you, that's very kind of you." Gaby only wanted to get away. "I'll let you know," she promised, and fled.

Gaby reminded herself as she walked down the side path through the palm trees that meeting people who remembered her family was going to happen all the time now that she was back. It was one of the hazards of trying to live down the past. Also, dissipated fortunes were nothing new in Miami; it was her own attitude she had to work on. Especially if she was going to keep the Times-Journal job she needed so desperately. She went over the questions she'd asked Alicia Fernandez, worrying whether there was enough interest to make the story the features editor wanted.

She was still agonizing over the interview when she gradually came to a stop in a clump of mangroves at the edge of Biscayne Bay. "Oh damn." She sighed, rubbing her perspiring upper lip with the back of her hand. She had no idea where she was.

She could still hear salsa music and the noise of the crowd, but somehow the sandy path had turned into black Florida mud. She rested an arm against a fishtail palm and scraped the sole of one sandal against the other, trying to get rid of it.

There were people, Gaby knew, who regarded the opportunity to live and work in glamorous sun-drenched Miami, the city one saw and thrilled to in travel posters and on television, as a lifetime dream come true. In fact, her coworkers in Florence had said as much when she left.

The trouble was, Gaby was the last person on earth to appreciate what was glamorous or exciting. She'd always known she would have been much happier somewhere else -- anywhere else. Running away to Europe without even finishing college had been one kind of solution.

Slowly, she picked her way back through the woods in the direction of the voices and music, pushing mangrove limbs and trailing vines out of the way. After a few minutes she came out onto slightly higher ground. She knew she had to reach the end eventually. After all, how long could anybody be lost on an estate in Coral Gables?

She found herself at the edge of a small clearing where the yellow sunlight filtered through the canopy of palm leaves. She wouldn't have expected to find anything back there in the garden's overgrown, untended wilderness, so she was shocked to see some fifty feet away, illuminated in a stray shaft of tropical sunlight, a tall man in a white suit standing with his right arm extended. In front of him, down on one knee, a figure in a beige-and-pink suit and mirror sunglasses pressed his lips to the back of the other man's hand. The figures were poised in the bright Florida sun in the attitudes of one doing homage to the aristocratic "patron" for some favor.

Or closing a deal.

Gaby stepped quickly back among the mangroves.

It was impossible not to recognize the man in the magnificent white suit -- that dark, curling hair, the hard-boned features, that air of hair-trigger energy. It was the same man who had dragged the model out of the pool. James Santo Marin.

The damp mold under her feet gave soundlessly as Gaby moved back another step.

She'd only seen the kneeling man's back, but she knew the flashy pastel jacket. One of Crissette's sinister Colombians.

Gaby felt as though she couldn't breathe. It was stupid to be virtually paralyzed by irrational fright, when actually nothing had happened. Still, she turned and lurched away from the clearing into the woods, stumbling over the snakelike roots of the mangroves. An unseen vine caught her across the neck and she jerked up short.

What was she running from, anyway? she wondered frantically. Two men in the woods? Who hadn't even seen her?

She found she couldn't stop. She crashed through a tangled growth of flame vines and ruby red ixora. Then her feet slipped on something. She skidded, stopped, her nerves screaming, and looked down.

For a moment Gaby stared at the ground. She told herself she didn't believe what she saw there.

Crissette was waiting at the press table, her cameras packed into her bag. "What happened to you?" she asked when Gaby appeared. "Jeez, Gabrielle, you're all muddy! Where have you been?"

Gaby could only shiver. "I got lost."

The words were totally inadequate, and she almost giggled as she leaned against the table. If she weren't so breathless and shaken it would be funny. She'd gotten lost, but that wasn't the half of it!

The Latin band was still going strong. With bongos clicking, trumpets blaring, it was playing a popular Dominican merengue. The members and guests of the Hispanic Cultural Society stood in chattering groups, making the most of the long pause before the fashion show resumed. Down the grassy slopes of the back terraces of the Santo Marin gardens, beyond the fringe of royal palms at the edge of Biscayne Bay, the magnificent yacht still rode at anchor. Reflected in the turquoise water and with the mirrored towers of downtown Miami behind it, it looked like a full-color photograph from a travel magazine.

It was all so reassuring, so different from what she'd blundered into in the mangrove jungle, that for a moment Gaby doubted her senses. "Crissette," she managed to say, "you won't believe this, but I think I just saw a drug deal being closed." She wanted desperately to sit down for a moment and catch her breath, but they were on deadline. They were probably already due back at the newspaper. "Over there." She nodded in the direction of the mangroves.

Crissette picked up her camera bag and slung it over her shoulder. Her designer jeans were wet, as were her elegant gold sandals. She was not in a receptive mood. "I think the sun's getting to you, Gabrielle," she snapped, "because you're seeing things. Maybe you ought to start wearing a hat."

"Not only that." Gaby felt like an idiot, wanting to laugh because the whole thing was so incredible. She'd really been scared out of her wits. "You won't believe this, but while I was back there I stepped into a puddle of blood that looked like somebody had just been murdered!"

Copyright © 1989 by Maggie Davis