His only excuse was that Lily had caught him off guard. But who the hell could have predicted she'd fancy herself in love with him? Or that she'd look so betrayed when he'd insisted she wasn't?

Who could have predicted that hearing him say they were friends would make her look as if she were about to throw up? Jesus. He found himself feeling pretty hollow-stomached himself.

His back grew even stiffen Dammit, he would not feel guilty. He could have handled the situation much better, plainly, but he'd rectify the damage as soon as she came back. He'd make it clear it wasn't her—that he was the one destined to fail at the relationship game. No matter whose fault it was, though, the fact remained that ultimately it would never work, and it was better to clear up these misunderstandings from the start. It might not make either of them happy, but it sure as hell beat the complete mess matters would be in if he allowed them— her —to get in too deep.

What the Sam Hill was taking her so long, anyway? He wanted to go get her so he could begin making her understand it wasn't really love she was feeling. But he remained obstinately in his chair, refusing to chase after her. He'd done that already—damned if he planned to do so again.

When she still hadn't returned fifteen minutes later, however, he conceded that her stubbornness far outshone his own tonight. He paid the bill and went in search of her.

It took another fifteen minutes to figure out she'd left. He sent a waitress into the ladies' room and searched the resort's public rooms himself. The bell captain remembered seeing Lily go outside, and Zach went over the grounds with methodical precision. Finally, furious, he headed for his Jeep. Clearly she had called Jessica to come pick her up. Of all the childish, vindictive, bitchy little stunts…

The first person he saw when he slammed through the front door of the Beaumont mansion a short while later was Jessica, who was descending the staircase.

"Well, hey there," she said with a smile. "How was din—"

"Where the hell is she?"

"Where is who?" Jessica's befuddlement was obvious, but even as it registered, Zach watched it segue into irritation. She loped down the last steps and strode straight up to him. Hands on her hips, she drew herself to her loftiest posture and thrust her narrow nose up at him. "What do you mean, where is she?" she demanded. "She was supposed to be with you."

"She was. but we had a… disagreement… and she took off. I figured she called you to come pick her up."

She stepped back. "Well, you figured wrong. And how dare you wreck her big night out, anyhow?"

A guilty sense of having done exactly that made him testy. "What the hell makes you assume it was something I did? Maybe she wrecked my big night out."

She just looked at him, and he rolled his shoulders uneasily. "Okay, I didn't handle something she told me very well." Then he snapped erect. "But that's no excuse to run away like some irresponsible little teeny-bopper, and if you didn't pick her up, then someone else must have. I want to talk to everyone."

Jessica shrugged. "Knock yourself out." She started to turn away, but then hesitated, a vestige of unease coloring her expression when she turned back to him. "Lily isn't exactly the irresponsible type."

"I know. But she was pretty upset." He heard Jessica mutter something beneath her breath, but since he was pretty sure he didn't want to know what it was, he ignored it and headed for the house phone in the parlor.

When he hung up several minutes later, he, too, was beginning to feel uneasy. Everyone was accounted for and no one would even admit to having spoken to Lily, let alone to having collected her from the resort. Jessica had followed him into the parlor, and he vaguely registered the weight of her stare as he pulled out a telephone book and flipped through its pages. Finding the number he sought, he punched it out on the telephone keypad. A moment later he was connected to Rosario's bell captain.

"'My name is Zachariah Taylor," he said crisply as soon as the other man identified himself. "I talked to you earlier about—"

"The pretty blonde," the bell captain said. "I remember."

"Yeah, well, the pretty blonde didn't come home with me. I thought at the time she must have called someone else for a ride, but nobody here has heard from her, either. You told me you saw her go outside. Did she by any chance ask you to call a cab for her first?"

"No, sir. She came out of the ladies' room and went straight outside. It's possible she called one herself from a cell phone, though. We got busy about then, so I couldn't say whether or not a taxi actually arrived during that time."

Zach thanked him for his cooperation and slowly replaced the receiver. He looked at Jessica. "I don't like this," he admitted. "The resort didn't call her a cab and it's not like she could have called one for herself, since she doesn't have a cell phone."

Jessica made a skeptical sound. " Everyone has a cell phone."

"Except Lily and me, apparently. It's one of the things we talked about at dinner—how we seem to be the last two techno-dinosaurs on earth." Then out of the blue, he got a flash of the call he'd been in the midst of making to Camp Pendleton regarding a certain South American when his sister and David had shown up. Swearing, he took off for the stairs at a dead run.

"What?" Jessica was right behind him. "What have you thought of?"

He didn't slow down as his longer stride outstripped hers, but he said over his shoulder, "Call the cab company, Jess, just to be sure. I'll be back in a minute to explain." Meanwhile, he'd hope to hell he was wrong and this had nothing to do with Miguel Escavez.

He checked Lily's room quickly, just in case she'd somehow slipped into the house without being seen. But nothing had been disturbed and she'd clearly not been back. He went next door, grabbed his address book, and headed back downstairs.

Glynnie, David, and Christopher were in the parlor with Jessica when he walked in, and they all turned worried eyes his way. "Jessica says Lily's missing?" his sister asked.

Shrugging aside her question with a dismissive wave of his hand, he snatched up the phone and punched in the number from his book. But as the phone rang and rang, he realized it was long past office hours. He disconnected and dialed information for Jake Magnusson's number. As the man in charge of the Colombians' training, he'd be the fastest source of information.

Jake's home phone also rang several times, and Zach, on the verge of disconnecting, was trying to think who to contact next when the phone at the other end of the line was abruptly picked up. A deep voice growled, "What?"

"Maggie? It's Zach. Look, I'm sorry to bother you at home, but—"

"Where the hell have you been, Midnight? You picked one helluva time to go on leave—I've been trying to get hold of you practically since you left. We've got a problem with one of the nationals you brought back with you from Colombia."

Ice crawled through Zach's gut. "Shit. Miguel Es-cavez?"

"That's the one, all right. The boy's gone AWOL on us."

Chapter 24

MIGUEL SHOT HIS CURVACEOUS PRISONER A triumphant glance as he drove slowly up Rosario Road toward the main highway. The sight of her bound wrists and the gratifying cautiousness with which she regarded him filled him with powerful satisfaction. He felt like dancing and singing, and it was all he could do to remain still in his seat.

"This is the third time I've seen you," she said when he glanced her way again and their gazes met. "Who are you, anyway?"

Intimidation was a potent weapon—the master sergeant had taught him that—and Miguel bestowed his iciest glare upon his enemy's woman and growled, "Your worst nightmare." Ha! He'd wanted to use that line ever since he'd heard it said on the television the night he'd played cards with the GIs.

Such a menacing statement deserved a respectful reaction—or at the very least something more deferential than the abrupt crack of bitter laughter that escaped his captive.

"Not tonight you aren't, pal," she said. "Ordinarily, maybe, since it's not every day I get abducted at gunpoint. But it's been a really lousy evening."

His wonderful threat was meant to instill terror, not disrespect. But not even the puta's refusal to give him his due could wreck his mood—he simply felt too good, was infused with too much power. He, Miguel Hector Javier Escavez, had accomplished his goal. And to think he'd almost given up!

He could only blame the low morale from which he'd suffered this afternoon on the sheer boredom of sitting around day after day after day , waiting for events that never happened. But that was of no consequence now. It had ceased to be important the minute the master sergeant and his woman had suddenly materialized, motoring out of the mansion driveway in the commander's black Jeep like a sign from Dios Himself.

Or not long after that, anyway. He had to admit that even then he had doubted the Divine One's intentions. But who could blame him? He'd found himself sorely disappointed on more than one occasion just when he'd thought his objective was in sight.

But he would never question his Savior again, for although he'd been afraid to depend on much in the way of results this time either, in the end his patience had been rewarded beyond his wildest expectations. He'd sat in his car and he'd paced the grounds, keeping an eye on Taylor's Jeep and the main door of the resort. But finally, just when he'd been sure his limbo would never end, who should exit the fancy white hotel all by herself but the master sergeant's woman?