“You think…?”

He examined the script on the cap. “I’ll be damned. Corona del Mar.” He gazed at her, thinking out loud. “How much do you want to bet Uncle Calvin took Miranda to Cancún last December?”

“But her passport-”

“Would have been examined by customs officials but not necessarily stamped. Airports for private planes operate differently.”

“Do you think they were, you know, involved?”

He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Good thing I’m not on the force anymore. They’d bust me down to writing traffic tickets. I should have considered the romance angle before now.”

‘I didn’t think of it, either. The age difference-”

“What? Twenty years-give or take. My uncle was a good-looking guy with a lot of money. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman ignored a few years when a guy was rich.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

RYAN SHAVED AND inspected his reflection in the mirror. Where in hell was Ashley? It had been almost dawn when he’d come home. He’d expected her to be asleep but it was evident that she hadn’t even touched the bed. He’d lain awake-thinking, wondering.

He was willing to admit that he had been harder on Ashley than necessary. Poor baby couldn’t help it if she had a heart of gold. She hadn’t wanted Whitney to suffer. Ashley had no idea how much trouble Whitney was causing him.

“Wait!” he exclaimed to his reflection. “That’s it.”

Last night he had told Ashley they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Ashley must think she’d caused their troubles. She loved him so much that she might be trying to singlehandedly solve their problems. She might have gone to borrow money from someone she knew.

In the middle of the night?

Ryan splashed on the aftershave lotion Ashley had given him. “She’s mad at me,” he again said out loud. “She spent the night with a friend.”

That made sense. He probably deserved it, but she had no idea what pressure he was under. Thanks to Whitney.

Ryan walked into his closet to get dressed. He halted and spun around. How long was Ashley planning to stay with her girlfriend? He went into her closet, but he couldn’t tell what she’d taken. She had too damn many clothes.

Brooding, he wandered back into the bathroom and checked the vanity area where Ashley kept her cosmetics. “Oh, shit!” What did women do with all this crap? He couldn’t tell if she’d removed a thing.

It didn’t matter, he decided. He had to get dressed. A hell of a day was ahead of him. Tonight, Ashley would be here waiting for him. He wouldn’t make it easy, but he would forgive her.

He loved Ashley so much that it hurt sometimes. It pained him not to be able to give her everything she wanted or be the successful doctor she believed him to be when they’d met. He needed her love in a way that he’d never needed anything else.

ADAM LOOKED OUT THE AIRPLANE window at the aquamarine water. It was so clear he could see the reefs below the surface. The ocean off California and the west coast of Mexico was deep blue. Here on Mexico’s eastern shore the sea was the blue-green of the nearby Caribbean. Judging from the beaches below, Cancún enjoyed the same white sugar sand, too.

He glanced to his right and saw Whitney was still asleep. No wonder. They’d talked until almost dawn, then she’d been forced to get up and walk her clients’ dogs, arrange care for her own dogs and buy some things for this trip. He’d arranged to have a security guard from HiTech go with her-just in case.

The timing couldn’t have been better. While she was out, Quinten Foley’s team had thoroughly searched the house.

Nothing.

They’d gone through every book, checked every CD and DVD, examined each photograph for hidden text, knocked on paneling to see if there was a secret hiding place and they’d used some special machine to inspect the stonework for loose places where the disc might have been hidden.

Nothing.

If Calvin Hunter had hidden the disc at the house, the experts hadn’t had any better luck than Adam. When they’d finished with the building-interior and exterior-they’d gone over Uncle Calvin’s Lexus sedan.

Nothing.

While all this had been going on, another team had searched the charred, water-soaked contents of the garage where Miranda had stored her things.

Nothing.

Adam would have bet that they were coming up empty because the disc wasn’t here. He was positive Miranda had it. Now that he thought about the situation, it made perfect sense. She’d faked the robbery and made off with the computer and the disc or discs.

The information on the disc was worth a lot of money. Not for the first time, he wondered if Miranda had killed his uncle. If they’d been involved, his uncle might have confided in her. She would have had access to the house, his car, his computer.

Beside him, Whitney stretched and yawned. “Are we almost there?”

“Yes. You can see the beaches below.” He moved back so she could look out the window.

“Wow! Such white sand. It’s nothing like Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta. Their beaches just have regular sand like California.”

He nodded his agreement, thinking how special Whitney was. He needed to clear up this mess before something happened to her. He’d tried to piece the puzzle together but hadn’t been able to make things fit. Miranda was the key.

Last night, after they’d discovered his uncle had also been to Corona del Mar, Adam went round and round in his head trying to decide how much to tell Whitney. He would have told her everything except she was still shell-shocked by the incident with the car.

In the end, he’d elected not to complicate matters by explaining his uncle’s involvement with Quinten Foley in some clandestine government deal. What did he know for certain anyway? Not a damn thing, really.

He thought back to the last time he’d seen Calvin Hunter. His uncle had been worried, certain someone was going to kill him. He’d refused to reveal any details, but Adam felt his death had to be linked to the missing disc.

What other explanation could there be?

The plane had been slowly descending for some time. Now it dipped lower on final approach. The endless blue of the sea stretched out to the horizon.

“What’s our first move?” Whitney asked.

He wanted to lure her to some cabana where sea breezes would cool their naked bodies while they made love. Business first, he reminded himself. There would be plenty of time for them later.

“Have a margarita and take a swim.”

“Seriously,” she replied with a laugh.

“Check into our hotel. Change clothes, then drive out to Corona del Mar for a drink. The cocktail hour should bring out residents who may have met your cousin.”

“You think Miranda is out there?”

They’d discussed this last night, but Whitney had been a little groggy. “Hard to say. If she’s not there, someone may recognize her picture. Cancún isn’t that big. The thing to do is check Corona del Mar. Then we’ll show the photos you had made around at supermercados and other places people who stay here long-term would shop. If she’s living here, she’s shopping somewhere. She can’t be eating out all the time.”

IT WAS NEARLY TEN WHEN Ryan checked the clock mounted on the wall beside the pool. The device gave the temperature and the time. He didn’t need to check the temperature. He could tell it was still in the mid-seventies even though it was dark and the temperature had dropped the way it usually did on summer evenings.

Where in hell was Ashley?

He’d been ready to forgive her, but now he was pissed big-time. He’d come home to an empty house and a refrigerator with nothing but low-fat yogurt and cottage cheese in it. He’d gone for a swim to keep his body toned, expecting Ashley any minute. He’d been home for three freaking hours when he tried her cell. It immediately kicked into voice mail.