Hot Schemes by Sherryl Woods Page B

certain she knew what was coming. She doubted it was because he was ashamed of her appearance.
    “If Paredes is even here, he may not be willing to talk with you present,” Michael explained cautiously.
    “Because I’m an Anglo?”
    “Worse,” he admitted.
    “What could be worse?”
    “Because you are a woman.”
    “Of all the idiotic, chauvinistic attitudes,” she said without much energy. As much as she hated the macho world of a certain breed of Hispanic men, it was relatively pointless to flail away at its existence. The discovery that Paredes was such a man wasn’t exactly a stunning surprise.
    “I don’t suppose now is the time to try to mend his ways, though, is it?” she said with an air of resignation.
    “Not really.”
    “Okay. I will wait in the car like the dutiful little woman.”
    “Thanks.”
    “No problem.” As Michael stepped out of the car, she beckoned him back. “Just one thing.”
    He regarded her warily. “What?”
    “Hand over your cellular phone.”
    He gave it to her with trepidation written all over his face. “You don’t know anyone on the other side of the world, do you? Liza, for example,” he said, referring to Molly’s best friend and neighbor. “Isn’t she on some trip to the rain forest again?”
    “Worried about me running up your bill? As a matter of fact, Liza’s in Tibet,” she informed him cheerfully. “Hurry back.”
    With one last worried look over his shoulder, Michael walked determinedly up to Orestes León Paredes’s front door and knocked. Heavy draperies slid aside a fraction while someone peered out. Then the door opened a cautious inch. She noticed Michael did not flash his badge. Whatever he said, though, got him admitted.
    Molly caught a brief glimpse of a tall, olive-complexioned man, his military fatigues straining over a potbelly, right before the door slammed shut and what sounded like a seriously heavy-duty bolt slid home. It was not a comforting sound. The only thing keeping her from outright panic was the reassuring weight of that cellular phone and the knowledge that help was only three quick digits away.

CHAPTER
EIGHT
    Huge, heavy black clouds began to build up to the west over the Everglades. Molly put the cellular phone on the dash as thunder rumbled through the muggy air. A jagged bolt of lightning split the sky, followed within seconds by the ear-splitting crack of thunder. The first fat drops of rain splashed against the windshield, followed instants later by a downpour so intense she could barely see the house only fifteen yards or less away. She felt cut off and isolated as she waited for Michael to return. The feelings of foreboding that had begun with the slamming of that door no longer seemed quite so absurd.
    To distract herself, she tried to read more printouts. Gradually she began to put together an impression of Orestes León Paredes. He was a man who came from great wealth in Cuba, only to have his property taken over by the government. Angered by the loss and young enough to take his ideals to the streets, he had publicly opposed Castro, organizing a band of guerrillas known for the daring and violence of their attacks. He had brought the same attitudes and tenacity with him when he escaped to Miami.
    He had participated in the CIA-planned Bay of Pigs invasion, meant to spark an uprising of the Cuban people. It had failed dramatically. But once again the remarkable Paredes luck had held. He had neither died nor been taken prisoner. He had just added to his mystique.
    He had also realized during that abysmal failure that any overthrow of Castro was in the hands of those who believed as passionately as he did. They could not count on Washington for the help they needed.
    Over the years since then, he had surrounded himself with a veritable army of commandos anxious for their chance to provide the spark that would ignite a revolution. Molly wondered if even now Miguel was in Cuba fanning such flames at Paredes’s