Best Kept Secrets by Rochelle Alers Read Free Book Online Page B

more appropriate description. “Why did they fire you?”
    “I got sick.”
    Dark eyes regarded a pair of gold ones, glittering with rage and something else. It took less than three seconds for Samuel to identify the something else: revenge.
    “What did you come down with?”
    “Consumption, also known as pulmonary tuberculosis.”
    Samuel successfully curbed the urge to take a step backward. “Are you contagious?”
    “No. Not now.”
    “Are you certain?”
    “I got a clean bill of health last week.”
    Praying that he wasn’t being lied to, Samuel forced a smile. Tuberculosis had claimed the lives of his father and grandmother. The debilitating disease had laid waste to their bodies with fatigue, weight loss and a persistent cough with green, yellow, and finally bloody sputum.
    “What did you do at United Fruit?”
    “I worked in their accounting department.”
    “Are you an accountant?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you attend college?”
    “Yes.”
    “How much can you tell me about their financial stability?”
    “That all depends.”
    “On what?”
    “On how much you’re willing to pay me for the information.”
    “What do you want?”
    “Enough money for a ticket back to the United States.”
    Samuel blinked once. “What are you going to do, or where are you going once you get back?”
    “That is for me to decide.”
    Samuel felt a strange, numbing comfort. There was something in the man’s tone that belied his outward appearance. His speech and choice of words revealed that he was educated, and there was a spark of defiance in his eyes that reminded Samuel of himself. The same look he’d given Charles Cole whenever he sought to break his spirit.
    “Have you eaten?”
    The gold eyes were steady. “Not today.”
    “Do you have a change of clothes?” Samuel asked, continuing his questioning.
    The man shook his head. “I don’t have the money right now to pay the woman who does my laundry.”
    “I don’t want to insult you, Mr.—”
    “Kirkland. It’s Everett Kirkland.”
    “Mr. Kirkland,” Samuel said softly, “you need to wash and change your clothes. I’m going to give you some money so you can clean yourself up. Meet me at the Casa del Caribe in three hours.”
    He handed him a ten-dollar gold note. It was enough moneyto feed Everett Kirkland for at least a week, that is, if he didn’t squander it on rum, but definitely not enough for a ticket to get him back to the States. And if Everett was serious about wanting to return to the United States, then Samuel knew he would keep their appointment.
     
    If it hadn’t been for his voice, Samuel never would’ve recognized Everett Kirkland. He’d bathed, shaved and wore a clean shirt and slacks; he’d also gotten a haircut. Without the beard, his thin, angular face was made up of sharp angles that did little to detract from what should’ve been quite a handsome countenance. And despite the large portions of food on the table in the hotel dining room, Everett ate sparingly.
    Samuel listened intently, not interrupting as the accountant talked openly about growing up in Tennessee as an only child of elderly schoolteacher parents. A maiden schoolteacher aunt encouraged him to attend Tennessee State University in Nashville after his mother and father died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. Three months after he’d graduated, he went to work for a colored insurance company in Richmond, Virginia.
    “How did you wind up in Costa Rica?” Samuel asked as Everett paused to take a swallow of a blended drink of rum, mango, pineapple and guava juices.
    Everett stared across the small table at the man who would provide him with the opportunity to return to the United States after a three-year absence, and despite his current financial status he knew instinctively that he and Samuel were more alike than not.
    “My aunt made me promise her that after she passed away I’d take time off and travel. I kept her promise, took a leave from the insurance