He shook his head and told me Mateo would be there in a half hour.

I ordered water, then changed my mind and asked for a Panamanian beer. He brought me a bottle of something called Soberana.

I poured it into a glass. It tasted like a light beer with a little extra flavor.

The man with the Havana shirt turned to me and smiled. He was older than me, with gray, thinning hair. Last week, I would have smiled right back at him. Now, I felt my heart rate jump.

He pointed at my beer. “Don’t you think the name is funny? Sober-ana?”

I faked a chuckle. “Yeah, that is funny.”

“Where are you from?”

I wanted to ask, Don’t you know already? Are you one of the people who are following me?

But then again, I was here to talk to people, I was here to learn and I was here to find Sam. Even if this man was tailing me, I had nothing to hide. And again, I had that feeling of finally being alone.

“I’m from Chicago,” I said.

“Hey, we’re both Midwesterners. I live in Minnesota. You here on vacation?”

“Not exactly.” I thought about showing him Sam’s photo. “What about you?”

“I’m looking for property. My wife and I are planning on retiring in a few years, and we want to get a condo down here. It’s a lot less expensive than Florida and all those places in the States. Hardly any taxes.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Just got in last night. I’m waiting for my real-estate agent to go look at some places. You can’t believe how much property is available.”

We sat for a moment in silence and then he offered his hand. “Tom LaHaye.”

“Izzy McNeil.” I took Sam’s pictures out of my purse and showed them to him. “You haven’t seen this guy by any chance, have you?”

He said no and showed them to the bartender, who also shook his head. “Who is he?”

“My fiancé. I’ve sort of lost him.”

Just then a short woman in a yellow suit rushed into the bar. “Mr. LaHaye!” she said. “I’m sorry I am late.”

Tom LaHaye laughed. “Hello, Beatriz. You’re always late. Isn’t that what you told me? Panamanians believe in suggested time not being on time, right?”

“Yes.” She patted his arm. “But you are not Panamanian-not yet, until we find you a home-and so I should be on time for you. Come, come.”

Tom shook my hand again. “I hope you find him,” he said kindly, before he was swept off by his agent.

My beer was gone by the time a new bartender stepped behind the bar and began tying his black apron. He was a young guy with a chiseled jaw, who looked as if he could have been in a boy band.

“Mateo?” I said.

He gave me a sexy grin and nodded.

“Hi.” I tossed him my best hey-there-hottie look just for good measure, and ordered another beer. When he delivered it, I pushed Sam’s picture toward him. “Did you meet this man?”

He looked at the picture. He scrunched up his gorgeous face and nodded. “Yes, and someone called the hotel about him recently.”

“Yes! Exactly. That was my friend who called you. Can you tell me what you remember about this man?” I pointed to Sam in the picture.

The other bartender chuckled and moved away to serve a couple who’d just sat down.

“I told your friend that he was at the bar,” Mateo said. “Over there.” He pointed at a low black table surrounded by a cozy, blue velvet booth.

I felt my anger flare. I thought about giving Mateo the hey-there-hottie look again because who knew? Maybe, like Sam, I’d be finding my own Panamanian fling. But for now, I had to focus.

“Do you remember who he was with?” I asked.

“A woman.”

I gritted my teeth. “What did she look like?”

“Black hair.”

So far, nearly every woman I’d seen in Panama had black hair.

Was she pretty? I wanted to ask. Instead, I settled for, “Do you know her name?”

“No.”

“Was she Panamanian?”

“Yes, I have seen her.”

What did that mean? Was she a hooker? That seemed so very un-Sam, but what did I know anymore?

“Where had you seen her?”

“She is a real-estate agent.”

I felt excitement. Maybe the woman wasn’t a hooker or a new girlfriend, but possibly someone he contacted about the real estate owned by the Panamanian corporation. Yeah, I reminded myself. That Panamanian corporation he stole from Forester.

A woman in a tank top took a seat a few stools over from me, dumping a host of shopping bags on the floor.

Mateo began to move toward her.

“Wait!” I said. “Was the agent you saw him with the woman who just left here?”

He gave me a confused face.

“Just a minute ago,” I explained, “there was an agent named Beatriz here.”

He shrugged. “I do not know her name.”

“Is she big? Small?”

He laughed. “She is a woman.” As if that explained everything.

“How old was she?”

“She is maybe thirty? Thirty-five.”

Beatriz had looked to be at least in her late thirties, but I couldn’t be sure. “Can you tell me anything else about her?”

Now he looked impatient. “I don’t know anything more.”

“Okay, thank you.” My energy flagged.

I sat there another minute, sipping my Soberana, wondering what to do next. And then I suddenly knew exactly what to do. I went to the house phone and asked for the room of Tom LaHaye.

63

Day Eleven

The next morning at ten minutes after eight, I stood on the front steps of the hotel, waiting for Beatriz.

Tom LaHaye had been happy to give me her contact information when he got back to the hotel and I told him on the phone I’d decided to look for a second home in Panama. “You’re going to love her,” he said. “You’re going to love this place! It’s the best.”

I talked to Mayburn before I called Beatriz, and he thought my plan to pose as a wealthy American looking for vacation property was a good one, since it would get me in the ballpark of the properties owned by Forester, and we figured that if Sam was meeting with real-estate agents, it must have been about the properties owned by Forester through his bearer shares.

“I’ve been looking more into those types of shares,” Mayburn told me. “Forester’s estate could put liens on the shares if they’d been stolen. But since Sam had authority to possess them, at least while they were at the office, it’s probably not entirely clear if the law would view them as stolen, and it would take a bit of time to work it out. In the meantime, Sam probably knows this and he’s more than likely trying to liquidate the properties.”

“And just take the money?” I’d asked.

“I guess.”

I couldn’t fathom it-not the money or the thought of Sam stealing it, but I was taking it one step at a time, I decided. First, meet with the agents and see if I could find him.

Meanwhile, Mayburn had worked the phones and the Web, and found five other real-estate agents who fit the vague profile Mateo had given me of the woman he’d seen with Sam. I’d meet with them, we decided, look at properties, and I’d try to figure out if any of them was the mystery woman.

Mayburn cautioned me not to bring up Sam right away when I was with the agents. “If they’re involved in something shady with him,” he said, “they’re going to drop you off at a street corner-or worse-and disappear.”

Beatriz pulled up wearing an orange suit this time. I’d worn my best heiress outfit-a white skirt, blue blouse, high black sandals and huge sunglasses.

Beatriz hustled me into her car, an SUV, and talked fast as we pulled away. “Okay, so you want a condo, you said on the phone. And you would like to spend one to two million. Is that right?”

“Yes.” I knew from Sam’s boss that the properties owned by Forester’s Panamanian corporation were in that range and higher.

“Okay. I have showings at eleven o’clock, but I will take you to many places and if you don’t like, I pick you up tomorrow, okay?”