Angelica found herself on the balcony again. Funny how her life had come full circle in just a matter of days. She looked at the landing strip through the gloom of the falling rain, the cascade of water tumbling over the edge of the roof above reminding her of the waterfalls where she’d first seen the tiger. The image of that meeting was burned in the back of her eyes and would remain there for her lifetime.

However long that was going to be. She pushed the thought from her mind and thought of Taylor instead.

Tigers were impossibly large animals. Larger than the eye can conceive when they’re close enough to swallow you whole. Even now, knowing it was him, knowing that he would never hurt her as man or beast, it still left a quiver in her soul when she thought about that moment his face touched hers, and his great muscled frame covered hers.

She sighed and fanned herself with her hand. Of course, that thought led to another, completely different memory altogether. His body on hers, over hers. Her beneath him, wrapping her legs around him, breathing him in, feeling him fill her and cover her and his hardness in her hands and in her mouth and in her sex.

I don’t want to think about this right now.

But it was all she could think about. Wondering whether he was alive or dead. Wondering how far away he was right now. Wondering if she’d ever even see him again, much less ever have the opportunity to be his lover again.

Maybe I have to think about these things or go crazy. Maybe holding on to the memories is the only way I can hold him close right now.

She thought back over every detail of their being together. Which, of course, led to that horrifyingly embarrassing moment where she’d yielded to temptation and popped him into her mouth. She still blushed at the boldness she’d had. There was a form of madness that night and sanity had been found in his arms, in his touch, in her need. So maybe the action wasn’t so outlandish an idea at that.

Her mouth watered thinking about it, and she blushed again.

I want to do it all over again. Every bit of it, as terrifying as it was. I want to go back to the jungle, and be his lover. I want to live!

She slapped the railing again. Three times fast, three times slow. SOSOSOSOSOS. It had worked once, it might work again.

The bedroom door opened, just the way it had last time. She ignored the intrusion and found herself looking into the night to see if he was out there somewhere, pretending he didn’t see her like he did that first time.

If I recreate the circumstances perfectly, will he come back to me?

It was a foolish thought. And impossible to do. Instead of a thug making her follow him to the boss, it was the maid again. She wheeled a little cart into the room. It had two plates on it, both of them covered with domes. Two glasses, a bottle of red wine.

“Who’s joining me?” she asked as she came back into the room. She left the door open but closed the screen against the creatures of the night, and crossed her arms tight around her middle, not ready to face the new master of the house. Not ready to leave the security of her room. Or have him in her room.

“I am, Doctor,” the older woman said brightly, a smile breaking out over her face. “You choose.” She pulled up the domes with a flourish. They held exactly the same thing. Roast lamb, baked potatoes, fresh grilled asparagus spears, English muffins, and marmalade. It smelled like heaven’s own reward for a favorite saint.

“They’re identical,” Angelica said, looking from one plate to the other, looking for the differences that had to be there. Wondering what new trap this was.

“Sí, but if you choose I eat the other one, and then you know there’s no poison or double-cross. Or you can choose parts of both and I have the other parts.”

“I’m not that suspicious,” Angelica said, and blushed because in the last days she had become so. Had she been more suspicious a few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have been kidnapped in the first place. One learns, she thought ruefully.

“Only with mirrors?” The maid raised an eyebrow and Angelica sighed, knowing she’d been caught out in a lie, and disliking that she couldn’t even trust a member of the staff who had been nothing but kind to her. She picked up the tray nearest her and sat down at the little table near the door to the balcony, biting her lip and wondering if she should apologize. The maid picked up hers and took the other chair, bringing the wine and glasses with her. The moment for apology was past. Or it felt too out of place in this surreal dinner overlooking the jungle.

Is it the custom for maids to eat with the guests, or am I being given a message? They want to show me what, that I can trust them? That I will eat and not get poisoned or drugged or... what? Maybe that I’m not so honored a guest after all, just another hired hand?

Still, so far, this unassuming round little woman was her only ally in a small world of leering men. Maid or not, she seemed to have the run of the place and knew her way around. She wondered how she could use that to her advantage.

“I was sorry to hear about your friend,” the woman said as she eyed her lamb chop and carved off a succulent morsel with the precision of a surgeon. “It was a terrible thing. But then, I also hear that some other men died while they were waiting for the helicopter.” She shook her head. “They say it was a large cat, but there are no cats larger than panthers in the jungle. Do you know what it was?” She took a bite of the meat and set her fork down. She closed her eyes and waved her fingers, as her face creased in a rapturous ecstasy that seemed almost an orgasm, and left Angelica feeling somewhat uncomfortable as witness to such a response. “Oh, my, oh this is so good.” The maid washed the bite down with a sip of the wine. “I cannot cook,” she admitted. “It was never one of my strengths. And a good cook is very hard to find.”

“I don’t cook either,” Angelica admitted, slightly amused, staring at her own plate, somewhat uncomfortable and half fearful that the next bite would have the same response.

“No, of course you do not. You’re a doctor. You’ve no time for cooking, cleaning, all of that. What you do is important. But I do need to know, from a doctor’s... eat up! Eat up!” She waved her hands as if she could levitate the food into Angelica’s mouth. Angelica took a bite. It truly was the best lamb she’d ever had. Crispy, seasoned perfectly, and yet the inside of the cut was still juicy and tender enough she barely needed to chew before it fell apart in her mouth, releasing the flavor all at once like a prize.

“Wow,” Angelica said, trying to swallow the last of the bite alongside the first. Never had she eaten so fast. Her brain catalogued all the reasons why eating quickly wasn’t healthy. Right now she didn’t care about any of them. “That is good!” she mumbled around a mouthful of food.

“Ah, you see? Even great doctors need food. You’re too skinny, eat up!” The maid laughed.

It was like being held hostage by her grandmother. She took another bite and relished the flavor, and so did the maid.

“Anyway,” the older woman said, refilling Angelica’s wine as the glass emptied. “Tell me what it was that killed the men.”

“I was tied to a tree,” Angelica said truthfully, a little cautiously. “With my elbows bound up behind me and forced to the ground. I couldn’t see anything but the man who was standing over me. He was trying to lift my shirt with the barrel of his rifle, if that helps.”

“Oh.” The maid’s eyes darkened, and she shook her head. “These boys think that to be a man is to be tough and... macho. Makes them rude and stupid. But he didn’t do that as the men died, though.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No,” Angelica admitted. “Before.”

The maid sighed, and ate for a while quietly. “Let me ask you a question,” she said as she finished off the last of the meal by sopping up the grease with half of the English muffin. “When you ran into the jungle, you have anything with you? You survived sometime out there without supplies; that was very impressive. You must be very good. Girl Scout?”

Angelica laughed. She’d tried Girl Scouts once and lasted all of an hour. “No. I wouldn’t have survived so much as an hour on my own. It was all Taylor.”

“The pilot?” The woman’s eyes were wide; she was enraptured by the tale. “He was a good-looking man, yes?”

“Oh, yeah.” Now that the topic was on Taylor, she found it easy to chat with the woman. She’d needed someone to talk to about everything that had happened. “Huge,” she said, and held her hand the breadth of his shoulders.

The older woman caught Angelica’s arm and laughed. “I thought for a moment you meant something else!”

Angelica paused, and realized what she’d been saying. She blushed furiously and laughed until the lamb threatened to come back. It was as much a release of tension as anything. “No!” She gasped and raised her hands again, somewhat of a smaller difference between them this time.

The maid nearly choked on her wine and howled along with her.

“But you can’t live off of...” She held her hands apart in mimicry of Angelica’s measurement. “I’ve tried. How did you... okay, how did he do it?”

“He found some supplies in the plane,” Angelica said, wiping a tear from her eye. “Threw it all into a bag he found.”

“What bag?”

Angelica blinked. What the hell difference did that make? “Just a bag he found, a leather one with some papers in it.”

“Ah.” The woman nodded. “Important papers, to be sure. Tell me, Doctor, where are they now, those papers?”

Angelica stopped. A feeling of terror washed through her. A friendly chat over dinner had suddenly turned into the Inquisition. She felt the blood drain from her face, and started thinking back over what she’d already said. Had she betrayed him? Had she betrayed them both? “I... hid them,” she said carefully, trying for the same casual tone as the rest of the conversation, and knowing she’d failed miserably as the woman’s face changed before her eyes. Her expression grew hard. Her eyes lost the laughter, the softness that had lured her into thinking of her as a friend.

Not suspicious enough.

I’m a doctor. I’m not trained in subterfuge.

Taylor was. Damn, she needed him right now.

“Where?” All the humor had leached from the woman’s round face. The eyes were those of a viper, cold and unfeeling. Calculating.

“Who are you?” Angelica whispered, dropping her fork to the plate with a clatter, ignoring the fact that only half her dinner had been eaten.

“Griselda,” the woman said, extending her hand. “Carlos works for me.”

She stared and things clicked into the place. “You’re the...”

“I run the cartel. This one at any rate.” Griselda snorted. “And others. I like to keep busy.” She waved the matter away, and Angelica saw the clues she should have before. The soft hands unaccustomed to physical labor. The way the woman carried herself, shoulders back. Confident. Like she owned the place.

Because, after all, she owned the place.

The sharp intelligence that would have marked her for better things than serving as a ladies’ maid.

I’m an idiot. I’m an absolute idiot.