Читать книгу Dangerous Passions - Brenda Harlen, Brenda Harlen - Страница 9

Where the hell was she?

Mike banged on the door again, more than loud enough to wake her if she was sleeping.

There was still no response.

He’d been gone twenty minutes—fifteen minutes longer than he’d intended. But his phone had been ringing when he’d stepped into the room and he’d automatically picked it up. It had been Romeo Garcia, a detective with the Miami P.D. and a friend of Dylan Creighton, calling to update him on the situation with respect to Conroy’s connections in Florida.

According to Garcia, word on the street was that certain key players in Conroy’s organization had a new quest: to avenge their leader’s death. Although Natalie was the most obvious target for retaliation, her relationship with Lieutenant Creighton made another attempt on her life risky. As a result, Garcia believed Shannon could be in danger for no reason other than that her sister had been involved in the altercation that had cost Conroy his life.

Armed with his new information, the back-up battery in his cell phone, and his Glock, Mike had returned to Shannon’s room. But in the twenty minutes he was gone, something had happened.

He turned back to the stairwell, racing away from the memories that haunted him as much as he was racing to find her.

He was on his way toward the manager on duty at the registration desk, to demand to be let into Shannon’s room, when he spotted her. She was outside the front doors of the hotel, being helped into the passenger side of a late-model silver-colored Mercedes sedan.

He started to run.

The car was pulling away from the curb before he’d even made it outside.

Damn. He’d been an idiot to expect that she’d stay put in her room until morning. Now, everything was FUBAR.

He considered getting his own vehicle, but it was parked at the back of the hotel. By the time he got to it, Shannon would be long gone. Instead, he jumped into the back of a taxi parked beside the hotel and directed the driver to follow the Mercedes.

He tried to convince himself that there was no reason for the humming of his nerves, no rational foundation for the escalating feeling of dread. But he knew better. After Brent was killed in Righaria, Mike had stopped fighting his instincts, and he was cursing himself now for ignoring the intuition that had warned him against leaving her alone—for even a few minutes.

But he’d been so caught up in wanting her, he’d been unable to separate his personal desires from his professional instincts. Mistakes were made when impulse was allowed to overrule reason, and mistakes could cost lives. Brent’s death had taught him that more effectively than any training exercise ever could.

He pushed the memory to the back of his mind. He didn’t have time to deal with the ghosts of the past; he couldn’t let himself be paralyzed by grief and guilt—not if he was going to protect Shannon.

Protect her from what?

The question nagged at him, unanswered, as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number Garcia had given him. From what he could see, Shannon had gotten into the vehicle willingly. She certainly hadn’t appeared to be in any danger.

But Mike knew that things weren’t always what they seemed, and what Garcia told him confirmed this suspicion. The registered owner of the Mercedes was Andrew Peart, a suspected illegal arms dealer and member of Conroy’s organization.

Again his instincts hummed. The information had been too readily available. If Peart was abducting Shannon, why wouldn’t he have taken more care to cover his tracks? Why would he have used his own vehicle? What kind of game was he playing?

The taxi driver signaled to turn onto the private drive leading to the exclusive Tradewinds Marina. Mike ordered him to stop. If Peart caught sight of another vehicle on this road at this hour, he’d know he was being followed. He shoved a fistful of money at the driver, then slipped out of the vehicle and into the shadows to continue his pursuit on foot.

He followed the taillights of the Mercedes, conscious of the growing distance between himself and the vehicle. Again he thought of Brent, about the obstacles he’d failed to overcome to save his friend. He couldn’t fail again. He ran harder, refusing to believe that he would be too late.

He had to save Shannon.

Shannon shifted in her seat, turning to press her cheek against the cool leather. She blinked, but her vision remained fuzzy. She tried to think, but her mind was even fuzzier.

She was conscious of only two things. The first she accepted with overwhelming relief: she wasn’t dead.

At least, not yet.

The second caused trepidation rather than relief: she was going to vomit.

Whether it was fear of imminent death that had churned up her insides to the point of nausea or a reaction to whatever drug had been injected into her system, she only knew that she was going to throw up.

Drew braked abruptly, threw the gearshift into Park.

It was the final straw for her heaving stomach. She felt the bile rise up in her throat, groped frantically for the door handle. Her fingers finally closed around the metal but seemed unable to interpret the command from her brain to pull.

Then the door opened from the other side.

She fell out of the car, the rough concrete abrading her palms and her knees. She tried to swallow, gagged.

“What the—?” Drew started to reach for her.

She clamped a desperate hand over her mouth and tried to will away the nausea.

He finally seemed to recognize the reason for her position and carefully stepped back, out of range, just before her stomach spasmed and emptied its contents.

“Are you okay?” he asked, almost courteously.

She would have laughed at the absurdity of the question if she wasn’t too groggy and weak to do anything but nod.

“Come on, then.” He took her arm to help her to her feet.

The world tilted and swayed.

He tightened his grip and hurried her along.

Where were they going? And why was he in such a hurry?

She tried to focus, but everything remained a blur.

“Shannon, wait!”

The distant call, the vaguely familiar voice, startled Shannon and spurred Drew into action. He picked her up and lifted her onto the deck of a boat.

A few seconds later she heard the rumble of engines and felt a cool breeze against her cheeks. She could smell salt in the air now, confirming that they were on the ocean.

But where was he taking her?

Why?

She had so many questions but her brain was still too muddled to attempt to come up with any answers.

Instead she closed her eyes and drifted into sleep.

From as far back as he could remember, Mike had been groomed to take over the family business. For almost the same amount of time, he’d balked at being fitted for that mold. He wanted to make his own way, without reliance on the family fortune or social connections. He’d done so, first by joining the army and later—and quite successfully—through his partnership in Courtland & Logan Investigations.

Still, Mike’s father never passed up an opportunity to express disappointment that his only son had abandoned his legacy. And his mother never failed to point to his single status as proof of the unsuitability of his career for someone of their social standing.

Only his sister, Rachel, supported his choice. Partly because she coveted the job he’d been offered at Courtland Enterprises, but mostly because she understood him—what he wanted and what he needed—better than anyone else ever had.

So when he found himself at the end of the dock, watching Peart’s boat disappear into the darkness, he didn’t think twice about what he was going to do. He didn’t wonder whether it was luck or coincidence that Peart had chosen to moor his yacht at the same marina where Rachel docked Pure Pleasure. His only concern was getting to Shannon.

Not that his sister’s boat was any match for the powerful engines on Peart’s luxury yacht, but if he couldn’t catch up immediately, Mike was confident he could at least keep track of it while he radioed back to the Coast Guard for help.

He wasn’t too proud to ask for backup, not when Shannon’s life could be in danger.

He picked up the handset, saw that it had been forcibly disconnected from the receiver/transmitter. He stared at the broken radio, suddenly sure Peart’s choice of location had been deliberate—an intentional act to bait him into following.

Which meant that his cover had been blown. Somehow Peart had figured out that he was in Miami to protect Shannon, and he was counting on Mike to go after her.

Even knowing it was a setup, he considered no other option.

He flipped open his cell phone, glanced at the signal indicator. It was weak but steady. He kept his eyes focused on the dwindling shape of Peart’s boat as he steered through the choppy water and pressed redial.

She was still on the boat.

It was Shannon’s first thought when she woke up, substantiated by the gentle rolling motion of the vessel moving through the water.

She glanced around the room, at surroundings illuminated by the gentle glow of light from a shaded lamp on the bedside table. Dark walnut furniture polished to a high gloss and trimmed with gleaming brass hardware. A wide bed with fluffy pillows and a cream-colored satin comforter.

She sat up cautiously, leaned back against the headboard and exhaled a slow sigh of relief that the world remained upright and relatively stable.

Her vision was clear but her throat was tight and dry and the inside of her mouth tasted sour. She slid her legs over the side of the bed, found the floor.

Her legs trembled when she stood, but she carefully made her way toward the door only a few feet away.

A bathroom.

Head, she automatically corrected herself. On a boat it was called a head.

She nearly whimpered with relief as she opened the taps and cool, clear water poured out.

She splashed her face, rinsed her mouth, then drank, deeply, greedily. As she drank, her trembling eased and her mind cleared, and the events of the past several hours came flooding back to her.

A spiral of events that had all started with the man on the beach.

She thought she’d learned from the mistakes of her disastrous relationship with Doug. The impulsive marriage had been followed by a carefully planned divorce and a determination to never again succumb to impetuous desires that could easily lead her astray.

Then she’d met Michael—or whatever his real name was—and invited him back to her hotel room.

It was humiliating to admit that she could be so weak, embarrassing to accept that her more-basic instincts could overrule her common sense.

She turned off the water, dried her hands.

She felt no compunction about rummaging through the cupboards, and when she found an unopened toothbrush, she didn’t hesitate to use it. She hadn’t had a chance to retrieve her own toiletries and she was desperate to clean her teeth.

After she’d done so, she went back to the stateroom to search for her suitcase. She remembered packing it, but she couldn’t remember carrying it out of her room. She didn’t even remember leaving the hotel, and she still wasn’t entirely sure why she was here.

All she knew was that she was on a yacht in the Atlantic Ocean on the way to God-and-Drew-only-knew-where. She frowned, desperately trying to get a handle on the direction in which they were headed. They’d been moving eastward when they’d left the marina, her senses hadn’t been so disoriented she’d failed to register that fact, but she didn’t know if they’d changed direction since then.

Maybe she’d take a walk around and try to get her bearings.

It wasn’t until she was tiptoeing down the narrow, dimly lit corridor of the boat that she found herself wondering why she hadn’t been locked in the stateroom. Why wasn’t Drew concerned about her wandering around the boat?

She made her way up onto the deck and stared out at the endless expanse of ocean, the answer to her questions suddenly and painfully obvious: Drew wasn’t concerned about her going anywhere because there wasn’t anywhere to go. Everywhere she looked was water—eerily dark and ominously deep.

She looked up at the sky, at the thin crescent moon and the brilliant array of stars sparkling in the black velvet darkness. She could see the outline of an island in the distance, faint but discernible. The Bahamas?

If she knew anything about astronomy, she could use the stars to ascertain their direction, maybe figure out where they were going. Unfortunately, she knew nothing about the subject.

She sighed as despair threatened to overwhelm her. She shook off the sense of impending doom. Maybe she’d be able to see something more from the other side of the boat.

Silently she made her way around the stern, biting back a yelp of pain when she rapped her shin on a large wooden crate. As she bent to rub her injured leg, she saw that the lid had been knocked askew by her collision with it. Curious, she pushed it aside farther and stared in a combination of shock and disbelief at the contents.

Weapons packed in a bed of straw. Lethal-looking military hardware she’d only ever seen on news reports about wars or terrorism in faraway countries.

Then she heard voices, softly at first, distant, then growing louder as they drew nearer.

Her breath caught in her throat; her pulse hammered.

She glanced around frantically. There was a pile of scuba gear in the corner: wetsuits and tanks and masks and fins. She moved in that direction, crouching down to melt into the shadow of the equipment.

“…she wasn’t part of the plan,” an unfamiliar voice protested.

“The plan changed.” It was Drew who answered, unapologetically.

“I didn’t sign on for this,” the other man grumbled.

“When you signed on with the organization, Rico, you signed on to do whatever needed to be done.”

“Not murder.”

She’d known what Drew was planning, had seen the blood-lust in his eyes before he’d jabbed the needle in her arm, but it still shocked her to hear the word spoken and know they were talking about her.

“I’ll do it,” a third man offered.

“No one is being asked to do anything…yet,” Drew said. “But I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jazz, and will be sure to communicate your offer to A.J.—along with any concerns I may have about employee loyalty.”

It was obviously a threat, and it hung heavy in the air between the three men.

The one referred to as Rico cleared his throat. “My loyalty is, and always has been, to the organization.”

“Good.” Drew obviously wasn’t concerned by the lack of enthusiasm in his cohort’s statement. “Because I’m leaving the two of you in charge while I return to Pennsylvania to attend Mr. Conroy’s funeral.”

“For how long?”

“Until I get back.”

“But the shipment—”

“Will be made tomorrow afternoon as scheduled.”

“What about the woman?” It was Jazz who asked this question, obviously relishing the prospect of her demise.

“She will pay for the role her sister played in killing Conroy,” Drew said. “But A.J. will determine when and how she dies. No one is to do anything until then.”

They moved farther along the deck to continue their conversation, their voices fading into the distance. Shannon had overheard more than enough and she had no intention of sticking around to find out the when and the how. She had to get off this boat before “when” became “now.”

But they were in the middle of the ocean. How could she possibly escape?

She rose to her feet unsteadily, put a hand out for balance. Her fingers braced against the cool metal of an oxygen tank, and the first seeds of an idea were planted in her mind.

No—it was crazy.

She couldn’t just strap on a tank and flippers and swim back to Miami. Even if the night wasn’t dark and the distance prohibitive, she hadn’t been diving in more than two years.

Although she’d planned to book an excursion while she was on vacation, she’d changed her mind when she’d heard a group of returning tourists raving about the incredible pair of hammerhead sharks they’d encountered on their dive. Shannon had walked away from the tour desk with no regrets, because if there was one thing she hated, it was sharks. Well, sharks and snakes, actually.

Even if she knew where she was going and was willing to swim with the fish, there was the fact that she’d been injected with some kind of drug only a few hours earlier. She didn’t know what substance she’d been given or whether traces of it might still be lingering in her system, but she knew it would be dangerous to dive under such conditions.

Despite the obvious and numerous risks of such an escape attempt, Shannon didn’t see that there was any other choice.

If she stayed on this boat, she would die.

She felt the tremor of fear ripple through her. She wasn’t ready to die. There was too much she hadn’t seen and done, too much living she still needed to do. There was no way she was going to give up without a fight.

She’d have to take her chances in the water.

Impatient fingers drummed on the scarred oak desktop as the second ring echoed through the handset. Each unanswered ring represented yet another delay, and there had been too many of those already.

The organization could afford no more.

A.J. would tolerate no more.

Conroy’s death—so sudden and unexpected—had shaken everyone. The powerful, fearless leader taken down in a simple sting operation he should have been able to smell from a mile away. It was an unnecessary tragedy, but not really a surprising one.

Because Conroy had been weak.

His affection for a woman had interfered with his reason, allowed him to get caught. Or maybe it was the fault of his ego as much as his fondness for the woman, because he’d truly believed he was invincible.

And he had been—until three bullets snuffed out his life.

There had been widespread shock and some tears, subtle shifts of power and bold demands for vengeance. Through it all, A.J. had risen to the top and was determined to stay there.

At last there was a click as the connection was made, then he answered. “Peart.”

“Why are you on the boat?” The demand was made without preamble. There was neither the time nor the need to exchange pleasantries—a hierarchy was being reconstructed and the only purpose of this call was to enforce the new order.

“A.J., I was just going to call you.” There was surprise, and maybe just a hint of fear, in his response.

“You shouldn’t be calling. You should be on your way back here by now.”

“I know. But I’ve got her.” There was pride in his voice now, bold and unapologetic.

Both his confidence and his pride would need to be squashed. He was a tool—a valuable and necessary instrument on occasion, but still just a tool—and he needed to be reminded of that fact.

“I didn’t tell you to get her. In fact, I didn’t tell you to go anywhere near her.”

“But I know you wanted—”

“You don’t know anything about what I want unless and until it is expressed in terms of a direct order.”

He didn’t respond. He knew better than to speak out of turn again.

A.J. let the silence grow, felt his tension mount, before asking, “What about Courtland?”

“He’s in pursuit. We’re waiting for him to get close enough to—I mean, we, uh, we’re waiting for orders to, uh, eliminate him.”

It was satisfying to hear the stammer, to know he already recognized his mistake.

“You’re going to wait a while longer,” A.J. said. “What I want now is for you to get on the next plane to Pennsylvania.”

There was a pause as Peart fought to swallow the silent “but” that hummed across the line as loudly as if it had been spoken.

To his credit he managed to conceal his dissent and respond, “I’ve already made plans. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“He will be buried tomorrow.” A.J.’s voice had lowered, thickened with just the slightest hint of what might have been grief. In reality, it was excitement—the anticipation of opportunity overshadowing any remnants of sorrow. Tomorrow, finally, all the key players would be in place. “And we have some serious planning to do.”

“What—” he hesitated, aware that he was treading on dangerous ground. “What about the woman?”

There was a pause, long enough to make him sweat, before the response. “I’m not going to commend you for over-stepping your bounds, but I recognize the value of the offering and I will decide how to deal with her.”

“Of course.”

A.J. smiled at the submissive response and disconnected the call.

Peart was falling in line, as so many others had already done, recognizing the rightful heir to the throne of power.

Zane Conroy’s authority had been absolute, his name spoken with reverence; his orders obeyed without question. He’d been unforgiving of mistakes, intolerant of fools and ruthless in dealing with any hint of disloyalty.

He’d been a truly great leader.

A.J. would be greater.