Volcano Read Free Page B

you doing in St. Lucia, Penelope? Laptops and briefcases aren’t the normal tourist attire.”
    â€œI’m a management specialist in computer software design. I’m here on business. And you? You seem fluent in the native tongue.”
    She spoke stiffly, but Charlie noted that her hand no longer clutched as tightly at the weapon in her pocket. Maybe he’d found the key to getting where he wanted. Women always loved to talk.
    â€œI spent some time here in my misspent youth,” he admitted. “I’m here on business too. I can’t imagine anyone in Soufriere possessing a computer though. The electricity is erratic at best. Whose software are you designing?”
    She returned to regarding him warily. “I respect client confidentiality. Is Soufriere very small, then?”
    Well, that didn’t get him any answers. Charlie shrugged. “It’s a fishing village aspiring to be a tourist mecca. They sell arts and crafts to the few souls brave enough to wander that far. The tourists come for sun and water, and everything they want is at the resorts. Why risk getting ripped off by fast-talking hustlers outside their sheltered world?”
    Little Miss Albright grimaced. “There are streets in Miami I can’t walk down without fear of being hustled. I like nice, private little shops with prices clearly marked. I never learned to haggle.”
    He’d figured that. His mother had always turned up her nose at the village market. This conversation was getting him nowhere. Pointing out the window, he changed the subject. “There’s a cocoa tree. Have you ever seen one?”
    The driver obligingly slowed so they could observe the green pods. In accented English, he pointed out the banana plantation farther up the hill, and the mango trees along the road’s edge.
    The farther they drove, the more Penelope succumbed to the grandeur of the view, forgetting her fear. She admired the lush vegetation of the roadside and strained to determine one variety of tree from another. The natural spill of palm trees and bougainvillea down the mountainside captured her appreciation. It was as if she’d entered another world, a tropical jungle where none of the usual human hazards existed. The only people she saw were young children scrabbling in the dust along the roadside, and an occasional elderly man or woman watching the world go by from their front stoop. Mostly, the road wound through acres of vegetation, offering glimpses of the sea far below.
    Even the man beside her no longer seemed quite as ominous. She could handle old college football players. They were a breed she knew well. If he’d planned to hurt her, he would have tried by now. She’d still like to smack those mirrored sunglasses off his handsome nose. She hated the way the glasses hid his eyes—and his thoughts.
    â€œI’m surprised the area isn’t more developed,” she commented. The bag of white stuff nagged at the back of her mind, but she strove for calm. “I thought all these Caribbean islands were wall-to-wall tourist havens.”
    â€œCompetition is tough, and St. Lucia doesn’t have the services other islands have developed. They’re working on it. Castries, of course, is just what you’ve imagined. That’s where most of the tourists go, because that’s where the hotels are.” He shrugged. “On the other side of the island where we’re headed, the water and electric systems are unpredictable. Sewers, nonexistent. They’ve experimented with using the volcano’s natural heat for generating energy, but the government takes the cheapest bids, and the companies they hire don’t have the experience necessary for the task. Like everything, money is the key. Myself, I’d hate seeing this end of the island turned into a Miami parking lot. I prefer it as it is.”
    Penelope nodded at a shack on stilts with chickens pecking in the shade