Читать книгу The Warrior - Dinah McCall - Страница 7

Georgia—Present Day

Despite the hundreds of years that John Nightwalker had been on this earth, he had yet to feel completely comfortable wearing clothes. And from the look the female bank teller was giving him as he stood in line at the First Savannah Savings and Loan to cash a check, she would have been perfectly happy to help him strip.

John felt her gaze but was ignoring all the signals. Not only was he not in the mood for dallying with a stranger, she was wearing a wedding ring—a big no-no for him. He shifted from one foot to the other, then looked down at the two little boys clinging to the legs of the woman in front of him and grinned. The oldest one smiled back, while the younger one continued the exploration of his right nostril with his index finger.

“Hi,” the older one said. “My name is Brandon Doggett.” He pointed toward the little guy. “That’s Trevor Doggett. He’s my little brother.” Then he pointed at his mother’s backside, which John had already noticed was quite shapely. “That’s my mama. Her name is Doggett, too.”

When Mama Doggett realized her name was being bandied about, she glanced over her shoulder to see who her son was talking to. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw John Nightwalker’s face. The smooth coffee skin, high cheekbones, strong chin and nose were telling of his Native American heritage, but it was the sexy smile and glint in his eyes that stopped her breath. She might be married, but she wasn’t dead and the man was stunning.

“I hope the boys aren’t bothering you,” she said.

John grinned. “No, ma’am.”

“Daddy calls her Lisa,” Brandon offered.

Lisa Doggett rolled her eyes as John chuckled.

The low, husky rumble of his laugh made the female teller lose count of the cash she’d been dispensing. With pink cheeks and a muttered apology to her customer, she began again.

Lisa Doggett, being next in line, finally reached the teller and proceeded with her business. When they were done, the teller handed each little boy a lollipop, which they promptly peeled and popped into their mouths. Lisa flashed John a shy goodbye smile and started toward the front door with her sons in tow.

Being next in line, John moved up to the window, patiently waiting as the teller keyed in some data from her previous customer. There was a moment of silence—a soft, peaceful sound of shuffling feet and the distant murmurs between loan officers and their clients—then John felt the atmosphere change. To him, the room was suddenly stifling and charged with an anger he didn’t understand.

“Sir. How can I help you?” the teller asked, but John didn’t respond.

His gaze went from Lisa Doggett and her boys, who were on their way toward the exit, to the surrounding customers waiting in line. Suddenly one of the two boys cried out, then turned around and ran. John noticed a toy car in the middle of the lobby and figured it had fallen out of a pocket. He saw the mother’s irked expression turn to one of quiet patience as she waited for her son’s return.

His attention moved from them to the rest of the crowd. At first glance, no one stood out, and then his gaze fell on a tall, heavyset man standing in line on the other side of the lobby. He was wearing a pair of faded Levi’s and a heavy denim jacket. The jacket seemed out of place, considering the outside temperature was in the high eighties. That alone immediately set him apart. The man’s lower jaw jutted from his face like a bulldog’s—a strong protruding lower jaw that extended beyond the tip of a nose that had obviously been broken more than once. His skin was ruddy, his hair a brittle yellow color. John could feel the tension emanating from him. He didn’t know what was going to happen but sensed it wouldn’t be good.

As he continued to watch, the big man headed toward a teller, walked up to the window and slid what appeared to be a white cotton bag across the counter. It looked like an ordinary deposit bag, but when the teller’s face turned pale and her eyes widened in shock, John tensed.

He could see the man’s lips moving, but he was too far away to hear what was being said. All of a sudden the teller’s eyes rolled back in her head as she dropped to the floor in a faint. Everyone heard the thud as her head collided with the hard marble floor. The teller next to her screamed out for help as everything ground to a halt.

Wallace Deeds cursed beneath his breath, unable to believe what had just happened. In all the years he’d been doing this, he’d never had anyone faint on him before. He was a criminal, but he wasn’t stupid. At this point, his best bet was to retrieve the note he’d handed to the teller and calmly walk out of the building. To his dismay, the note was no longer on the counter. It was on the floor beside the unconscious woman.

“Crap,” Wallace muttered, and slid his hand in his pocket, taking comfort from the gun he could feel inside. He glanced up and around, quickly sizing up the number of people inside the bank against his need for dough. He opted for a hasty exit.

But his plan was screwed by a secretary who’d come to the unconscious teller’s aid. She was on her knees beside the woman and feeling for a pulse when she discovered the note.

I have a gun. Put all your money in the bag and keep quiet or you’re a dead woman.

Unaware that he’d been made, Deeds was already heading toward the door when the secretary stood up and screamed.

“Stop him! He has a gun!”

Wallace cursed and turned. The bank guard was pulling out his pistol and coming toward him on the run. Without thinking, Wallace grabbed the nearest customer by the arm and put her in a choke hold as he pulled out his own gun and fired a shot into the ceiling.

“Everyone on the floor! Now!” he screamed.

The bank guard stood his ground, still aiming his weapon and shouting, “Drop the gun! Drop it! Drop it and let her go!”

John groaned. The hostage was none other than Lisa Doggett, the young woman with the two little boys who’d been in line in front of him.

Bad move. Bad, bad move.

The young mother’s panic was evident as she cast a frantic, wild-eyed gaze at her little boys. Trevor, the youngest, began to cry and started toward her.

“Don’t anybody move!” Wallace roared, waving the gun at the guard, then at the kids and back again.

John knew the man was a hair’s breadth away from shooting someone, whether he meant to or not, and Trevor Doggett’s determination to get to his mother was putting him in harm’s way. There was no time for John to think about the wisdom of his actions.

In one swift move, he pulled a knife from his boot and leaped forward, desperate to draw the gunman’s attention away from the boys, his hostage and the guard with the gun, knowing full well that he was going to get shot. Knowing full well it was going to hurt like hell—but it wasn’t going to kill him.

That was the edge he had over everyone else in the room. He’d faced death and cheated it countless times over the last five hundred years and had every confidence in the world that he was going to cheat it again.

When Wallace Deeds saw the movement from the corner of his eye, he swung his pistol. A man was coming at him on the run.

“Son of a bitch!” he screamed, then fired.

The shot went straight into John’s chest. He felt the impact and a sharp, searing pain, but he didn’t go down.

When Deeds’ hostage fainted and went limp, she became a liability instead of a shield. Disgusted, he shoved her aside and squeezed off another shot. But it was the knife suddenly protruding from his chest that sent his second shot into the ceiling next to the first.

A collective gasp rose from inside the bank, followed by a silence so stark that everyone froze.

Lisa Doggett had come to and was on her knees, shielding her children with her body.

The tellers had ducked behind the counter.

The people who’d dropped to their bellies when the shooting started were staring but not moving.

No one ran.

No one spoke.

But the ones who could see were staring in disbelief at the two giants standing in the middle of the lobby—both bleeding profusely—waiting to see who dropped first.

The pistol slipped out of Deeds’ hand as he reached toward the bone handle of the knife stuck in his chest. But the moment he touched it, he shuddered. Had someone poured hot oil into his chest? He looked up. People’s faces were blurring.

“How…” He sighed, then staggered backward.

John groaned as he put a hand to his own chest. The warm gush of his blood was already slowing as he watched the gunman fall. Wallace’s head hit the tile with a sickening crack, but he never felt it. He was already dead.

The bank guard holstered his weapon and started toward John.

Lisa Doggett was shaking, but she was alive and her children were safe.

People were getting up and yanking out their cell phones, anxious to tell their loved ones what had just happened. While on his belly, one customer had videoed the whole thing with his cell phone, and now he was in the act of forwarding it to his brother. The image of what had transpired would be all over the Internet before nightfall.

Horace Miles, the bank president, was moving through the crowd, making sure everyone was okay. When he saw the blood on the front and back of John’s shirt, he gasped and yelled for someone to call 911.

John was anxious to be gone before he had to explain why the bullet hole in his chest was already nearly closed. He pulled his knife out of the robber’s chest, then wiped the blood off the blade onto the man’s jacket before slipping it back into the sheath inside his boot.

The bank guard reached John and took him by the elbow.

“You need to sit down, son,” he said. “You’ve been shot.”

“I’m okay,” John said.

“The police are coming!” someone said.

Sirens could be heard in the distance. John sighed. He needed to leave—now. He started toward the door, but Horace Miles cut him off. Like the guard, he took John by the elbow and tried to usher him to a chair.

“Please,” Miles said. “You’re bleeding. Let us help you.”

“I’m all right…really.”

But the bank president would have none of it.

Lisa Doggett came toward him, hugging her little boys to her legs as she stared at him in disbelief.

“You saved my life. You saved all of us,” she whispered. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Yeah…sure,” he said, then gave in to the inevitable. He was caught now, and there was no way out of it.

The two little boys stared at him—silent now in the face of what they’d witnessed.

“Mama’s okay, boys,” John said softly.

Brandon nodded. “You stopped the bad man,” he said.

John just winked and nodded. The pain in his chest was fading swiftly, but the sirens were also getting closer. Moments later, a half-dozen police cars were on the scene, followed by two ambulances. A paramedic team followed the police inside, then, at the guard’s direction, headed for John.

He sighed. How the hell was he going to explain his way out of this?

“I’m okay,” he said as the paramedics dropped their bags and began to cut off his shirt. “I said…I’m okay,” he repeated, and to prove he was right, he pulled up his shirt, revealing the wound that was almost closed.

Both paramedics rocked back on their heels, staring at John and then at each other.

“Mister…how in—”

“Er…uh…I studied with the Dalai Lama,” John said. “Learned how to control bleeding and heal myself with my mind. Ever hear of it?”

They looked at each other, shrugged, and then began packing up their gear while sneaking curious looks at him.

But they weren’t the only ones staring. The bank president was in shock. He’d seen the bullet pierce John’s chest, seen the blood spurting, yet now the wound was nearly closed. He’d seen the other scars on John’s chest, too, and was staggered by what this man had suffered and lived through.

Just when John was getting ready to leave, a skinny man in a suit followed several uniformed officers into the bank, paused long enough to question the guard, then headed straight for John, who recognized the type, as well as the badge clipped to the man’s belt.

Great. A detective. Naturally nosy, disinclined to believe anything he was told. This ought to be good.

John saw him pause to look at the dead man; then he looked straight at John, who stared back without flinching.

Horace Miles stepped into the silent breach by introducing himself as the cop approached.

“I’m Horace Miles, president of the bank. I saw everything.”

“Detective Robert Lee,” the newcomer said, then put his hands on his hips and gave John the once-over, eyeing the bloody shirt as well as the blood on John’s jeans. “So, hero, what’s your name?”

Sarcasm was the last thing John expected. It made him angry. He stood abruptly, well aware that he was now towering over the skinny man’s head.

“Considering the fact that right now, my chest hurts like hell, I don’t appreciate your sarcasm,” he drawled. “My name is John Nightwalker, and I’m not a hero. I was just in the wrong place at the right time.”

Lee wanted to be pissed, but the man was right. “Sorry,” he said. “That came out wrong. Let’s back up and do this all over again. So, Mr. Nightwalker, could you tell me what happened?”

John pointed to the walls where a half-dozen cameras were mounted. “I could…but it appears that Mr. Miles here will be able to provide several different angles on the incident for your viewing pleasure. Suffice it to say, the man tried to rob the bank, took a woman hostage and was pointing his gun at one of her kids. I distracted him. He shot me instead of the kid. I put a knife in his chest.”

Believing John had already been tended by paramedics, Lee’s next thought was the weapon in question. “May I see that knife?”

John winced as he leaned over, pulled up the leg of his jeans, then pulled the knife back out of its scabbard.

The detective’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped as he eyed the wicked blade. It was almost ten inches in length, with its widest point no less than three inches across. The handle appeared to be some kind of bone—maybe ivory. He frowned.

“Hell, mister, that thing’s big enough to fight bears with.”

“Yes.”

Startled by the easy answer, Lee gave John a cool look. “Don’t tell me you fight bears, too?”

“Okay,” John said, well aware he was pissing the man off. But he didn’t care. The detective’s attitude was anything but cordial, and John would have liked a couple of painkillers for his trouble.

Lee’s mouth dropped. “You fought a bear?”

John grinned slightly. “You don’t fight bears, detective. You either outrun them or kill them. I’ve done both.”

Lee snapped his mouth shut and glared.

“Do you have a permit to carry a concealed weapon?”

“Yes, actually, I do.” John pulled out his wallet and produced the license.

Lee eyed it without comment, then handed it back.

The bank president was surprised by the detective’s attitude.

“I’m sorry for interrupting, Detective Lee, but you don’t seem to understand. This man averted what could have been a long, drawn-out hostage situation. He saved a woman’s life and, most likely, the lives of everyone in here. There’s no way of knowing who that bastard would have shot next. Mr. Nightwalker did nothing but defend himself. The robber shot first. Ask anyone here.”

“Oh, I will,” Lee said.

“Am I free to go?” John asked.

“I’m going to need you to come down to headquarters and—”

“Why?” John asked. “Your case is closed.”

“Because you put a knife in a man’s chest, that’s why,” Lee argued, then realized people were staring and pulled back his emotions.

“He shot me first,” John said. “Don’t I get to defend myself?”

“Yes, but—”

“I have a permit for the knife.”

“I’m the one doing the questioning,” Lee snapped.

“Then ask me some questions,” John said.

Lee glared, then remembered that this man had supposedly been shot. “If you’re shot, why aren’t you on your way to the hospital?”

John sighed, resisted the urge to roll his eyes and yanked his shirt off over his head.

“That’s where it went in.” He turned around. “And that’s where it came out. I heal fast.”

The raw edges of burned flesh were obvious, but the wound was almost closed. Lee didn’t believe a damned word of what he was being told but couldn’t figure out the man’s angle.

“No one heals that fast,” he said. “Those are old wounds. You might have been shot, but not today. You and that dead man were in cahoots, and for some reason you backed out and killed him to keep from being brought down with him.”

“Bullshit,” John said, and pointed to the cameras again. “Watch the fucking movie, Detective. I’ve banked here for years. Mr. Miles has my address and phone number if you’re interested. Now…if you’re not going to arrest me, I’m leaving. I need to rest.”

John held out his hand, waiting for the cop to give back his knife.

The silence stretched between them, but John wouldn’t budge. Finally Lee handed back the knife and watched John return it to the scabbard, then pick up his bloody shirt and walk out of the bank without looking back.

Lee was angry and distrustful but had no reason to hold him. Instead, he pointed to all the cameras.

“I want that security footage. Now.”

Horace Miles waved a teller over. “Go to the back and get all the security tapes from today and bring them here, please.”

Savannah was far behind him as John neared the turnoff leading toward his home. Glad the two-hour trip was nearly over, he began to slow down. Moments later, he turned off the main highway and began the long winding drive up the bluff to his house. Owning the land where his village once stood had taken several hundred years to make happen, but once it had, he found an odd sort of peace in living here again.

He’d dodged civil wars, fought through world wars, and had long since gotten over the shock of watching the unsullied beauty of the country go to hell in a handbasket while trying to find the reincarnation of his enemy. It pained him to see refuse washing down once-pristine mountain streams. The clean air he’d taken for granted as a child was now a luxury. Landfills were a scourge on Mother Earth. The Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya would be shocked by what time and people had done.

He owned three other homes in separate parts of the country, and every few years he switched residences to keep from having to explain to neighbors why he never aged. It was simple. He would just change his hairstyle and choice of clothing, then present himself as a relative of the previous owner. So far, the system had proven to be foolproof, but he never took anything for granted. Caution—and finding the soul of the man who’d murdered his people—was always at the forefront of his mind.

For the past three years, he’d been back in Georgia. From his bedroom window he could see the place where he’d laid the bodies of his people to rest. Although their bones had long since turned to dust, his memory of the day was as vivid as if it had happened yesterday.

Usually he took pleasure in the drive up the bluff to his house, but not this time. He was heartily glad it was over. This morning had been unexpected and exhausting. He breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled into the garage, closing the doors behind him. His chest still hurt, but it was no longer open or bleeding. Within a couple of days there would be nothing left but another scar to add to the collection already on his body.

He got out of the Jeep, grabbed the groceries he’d bought earlier and headed for the kitchen. It was a long drive from Savannah, so his only purchases had been nonperishables. When he needed fresh vegetables or anything dairy, he bought it down in Justice, a little town only a few miles away. Justice boasted a population of almost five hundred people and was little more than a spot on the map. Down there, people referred to him as Big John. They knew nothing of the wealth he’d accumulated over the centuries, his skill in the stock market or the goods he imported and exported to different countries. He kept his acquaintances at a friendly arm’s length. The less he shared of himself, the better.

As soon as the groceries were put away, he headed for the utility room, stripping off his clothes as he went. The shirt was a bust. Even if the blood washed out, there was the small matter of the bullet holes. He tossed it in the trash, treated the blood spots on his jeans with stain remover, then tossed everything into the washer and turned it on. When he left the room, he was wearing his favorite outfit—the skin in which he’d been born.

His body was toned, his legs long and lean. His shoulders were wide, and bore the weight of centuries of despair with equanimity. His hair, which had once hung all the way to his waist, was now short and spiked. Instead of the occasional feather he’d once worn in it, there was a tiny silver earring in the shape of a feather hanging from his left ear, his only outward claim to his past.

Even though the wood floors were bare of rugs, he moved silently. The windows he’d left open earlier in the day were now funneling a cool ocean breeze against his skin, which he much preferred to air-conditioning.

On his way through the living room, his gaze automatically went to a small scraping knife decoratively framed and hanging on the wall between a stone ax and a dream catcher. That small piece of flint was all he had left of White Fawn. Regret tugged at his heart as he remembered her—bent over the task of scraping meat from pelts and skins with that very knife—remembered the soft, warm clothing she made for them after the skins had cured. If fate had been kind, he would have died with the others. But he hadn’t died. He’d asked the Old Ones for the impossible, and it had been given, even though he had yet to fulfill his side of the bargain. Angry with himself and what he considered his failure for being unable to find the enemy, he turned off the memories and headed for his room to shower.

Later, washed clean of blood and wearing a pair of old gray sweats, John went about the solitary business of preparing a meal for himself. His life was what it was—but by choice. Yes, there were times when he was so lonely he couldn’t think, when the memory of White Fawn’s laugh was so strong he wanted to weep. Yes, there had been other women in his life through the ensuing centuries, but none that had ever replaced her in his heart.

Living in his skin while the world grew up and old around him had not been easy. He’d been an “uncivilized” man to the hordes who’d invaded, when in his eyes, they’d been the ones with no heart and no civility. They recognized nothing of the indigenous people’s rights, but he’d soon learned the need to be able to communicate with the interlopers, and had become a guide and an interpreter for the explorers and trappers later on.

Throughout the ages, he’d watched the natural beauty of the land on which he’d been born become glutted with people with no conscience, no interest save their own wishes and desires. They’d come on ships by the hundreds, then the thousands. They’d cut down the trees, and built houses and dams; they’d made roads and cities, and fouled the water and the air so many times over the centuries that he’d lost count. When their numbers had been too many and their greed had been too great, then had come the wars. Fighting over religion and countries and the color of skin. It was enough to make a man go crazy, but he’d been raised in the old ways, and warriors didn’t cry. They endured.

After so much time of being a “lesser” member of society because of the color of his skin, the irony that it was now fashionable to be able to claim Native American heritage was not lost on John Nightwalker.

When his food was ready, he filled a plate and took it out onto the patio overlooking the ocean. It was the same place he’d been standing when he’d first seen the devil ship sail out of the storm and into their lives. He cut a piece from the steak that he’d cooked and put it in his mouth, chewing slowly while watching the horizon with a dark, steady gaze. Even though centuries had come and gone since the massacre, old instincts die hard. The need to still stand watch was strong. And even though he didn’t believe fate would be so kind as to send his enemy back to him that way again, he had learned long ago not to trust anyone or anything—not even fate.

What he did know, and had known for at least sixty years, was that the soul he sought had once again been reborn. And he knew this because of the signs that came with it.

The first was always the dream of the massacre, after which he would wake up shaking and sick to his stomach, drenched in sweat. He’d learned, too, that the closer he got to the reincarnated soul, the more rapidly his heart would beat. He’d followed those feelings all over the world so many times he’d lost count, but he had never been able to find his nemesis. When the feelings disappeared, he could only assume that his enemy was dead and once again his soul was no longer earthbound.

He finished his meal in silence, watched the sea until the sun had set behind him, then got up and went inside. He turned on the television in the kitchen as he cleaned up, only to find that the botched bank robbery was the topic of the national news. He watched the film clip without moving, wincing slightly when he heard his name come out of the newscaster’s mouth. Still, it was done, and he wouldn’t have changed anything in any way. When the newscast was over, he turned off the TV and went to bed.

Another day had passed.

One more night alone.

Detective Robert Lee hit Rewind on the bank security tape, then Stop. Then Play. Once again he saw the botched bank robbery in progress, from the moment the teller fainted to the point where the perp headed for the door. He saw the guard grab his pistol as the perp took a hostage. It wasn’t pretty, but it was, in the realm of law and order, what constituted an ordinary screwup, not unlike a dozen other scenarios he’d seen in his eighteen-year career on the force. It was what came next that didn’t make sense. And if he hadn’t been watching it over and over for the last few hours, he wouldn’t have believed it had happened.

When he got to the point where the perp, who they now knew was a man named Wallace Deeds, had taken a hostage, his attention shifted into high gear. First the hostage’s two little boys began to cry. When the smallest boy started toward his mother, Lee began to tense, waiting for that damned Indian to make his move. And even though he knew what was going to happen, it was still shocking to witness. All of a sudden, Nightwalker was in full camera range, running at the gunman and his hostage with a knife in his hand.

Lee watched Deeds spin and fire. He saw the bullet hit the Indian. He saw blood spurt out the back of his shoulder and his shirt instantly turn red. Then Lisa Doggett went limp and Deeds shoved her away. He watched her come to and run to her boys, shielding them with her body. Deeds seemed to be about to fire a second shot, but it never happened. One moment the knife was in Nightwalker’s hand and the next it was in Wallace Deeds’ chest.

Deeds went down, but the Indian didn’t. That was what kept freaking Lee out.

When the Indian bent over and pulled the knife out of Deeds’ chest without staggering or showing any pain, Lee simply couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He wanted to have a reason to go after Nightwalker, but there wasn’t one, and considering the half-dozen new cases on his desk, he knew it was time to let this one go, however reluctantly.

Two days later—Justice, Georgia

Alicia Ponte’s life was one of wealth and privilege. She was the daughter of a rich man, the type of woman who headed committees and organized charity functions. She wore the right clothes, knew the right people and always made the society pages. She had friends, but none were close. She’d had one boyfriend in college and a brief relationship with another man over three years ago, and nothing that mattered since.

At twenty-seven years old, she had always thought of herself as confident and self-assured, but the last twenty-two hours had proved her wrong. She was scared—as scared as she’d ever been—and of someone who was supposed to love her. The irony that she’d waited until now to run away from home was lost in the gut-wrenching fear that kept her moving. But her flight was about to be sidetracked by the need for fuel.

She glanced down at the gas gauge. It was too close to empty to dare trying to make it to Savannah, but according to a road sign she’d seen a mile back, Marv’s Gas and Guzzle should be able to take care of that.

A short while later, she came upon the city limit sign of Justice, Georgia, population: 488. Alicia didn’t care how many people lived here. She just wanted some of Marv’s gas—and maybe a cold drink and a snack—then she was back on the road. Only, running wasn’t going to solve her problem. She couldn’t run forever. She needed a place to hide. That she was hiding from her father was nothing short of horrifying, but there was no denying what she’d accidentally overheard.

Her father—Richard Ponte, the largest arms manufacturer in the western hemisphere—was selling weapons to the enemy in Iraq, as well as to the American soldiers who were fighting them. Profiting from the war in the most hideous manner and arming both sides with the same most up-to-date munitions money could buy.

Her father had been overseas for almost a year, opening a new recycling plant in Taiwan, overseeing the closing of a tire factory in India. She’d visited him a couple of times but had opted to go back to Miami. It made her uncomfortable to know that he was taking advantage of the poverty and strife in those countries by paying the workers only a fraction of what he would have had to pay American employees. Once he was back, she was excited to have company for dinner again.

She’d been on her way into his office to see if he would be staying home for lunch when she realized he wasn’t alone. She heard her father and his old friend Jacob Carruthers talking, and she smiled to herself, thinking she would get to share a meal with Uncle Jake, as well. Just as she started to knock, she heard her father curse, which shocked her. He didn’t behave like that in her presence, and she knew if she went in now, he would know that she’d heard him. So she hesitated, and as she did, she heard something far worse.

The phrase “shipment of arms” was common in her father’s world, and she normally thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until she heard the name Osama bin Laden that she knew something wasn’t right. Then, as she listened, for the first time in her life, she knew the true meaning of the phrase “her blood ran cold.”

Osama bin Laden was happy with the goods.

She put a hand to her lips to keep from gasping aloud. There had to be some mistake. Then she heard her father mention a delivery in Afghanistan to al Qaeda. Then the Kurds and Mohammed al-Kazir. The nail in her father’s coffin was when she heard Jacob say that bin Laden would double his offer if they could deliver before the end of the month, and something about the thirteenth being a problem, because it was some kind of holiday.

She heard her father chuckle, then comment with something to the effect that he would make them pay out the ass if they wanted the good stuff.

She felt sick. This couldn’t be happening. The last comment she heard was the one that sealed their fate.

“You know,” Jacob said, “U.S. Customs might start getting wise. There are only so many plows and tractors that one company can import.”

Her father snorted. “I pay enough money under the table to smuggle any damn thing I choose.”

Alicia had no memory of how she’d gotten out of the hall and back up the stairs to her room. The next thing she remembered was being on her hands and knees in her bathroom, throwing up in the toilet. She threw up until her belly hurt and her jaws ached. By the time she managed to drag herself to bed, she was in a cold sweat. The maid had come in to clean, but Alicia had sent her away, claiming she was coming down with the flu.

By the time the maid made it back downstairs, Jacob Carruthers was gone and Richard was on to the next big thing. The maid hesitated in the hallway, then knocked at Richard’s office door.

“Yes,” he muttered, irked at being disturbed.

The maid opened the door just enough to pass on her message.

“Sir…Miss Ponte has taken ill…the flu, she thinks, and said to pass on her excuses because she’s going to skip lunch.”

“Yes, thank you,” Richard said.

Her father had too many irons in the fire to worry about a flu bug unless he was the one getting ill, Alicia knew, so for now she had some time to regroup. She’d never been able to lie and get away with it, and she’d never been able to hide her feelings. One look at her face and her father would have known something was wrong. It wouldn’t have taken him long to get it out of her, so she’d done the only thing she could think of to do: she’d packed a bag and run.

And she was still running. She needed to tell someone what she knew, but her father’s power was great and his reach was long. He had strong ties to almost every arm of the government. She didn’t yet know who to tell or who to trust. Maybe he could live with the blood of innocent soldiers on his conscience, but she couldn’t—wouldn’t. And she wasn’t going to let him get away with it, either. The next day, after he’d left for the office, she left him a note that she was feeling better and was going to take off for a few days at a spa. Then she’d emptied one of her sizeable bank accounts and left Miami in the middle of a thunderstorm—perfect weather to match her mood.

The spa excuse had worked for only one day. When she’d failed to check in, Richard began making calls. When she didn’t return the first call within the hour, he’d called a second time, then a third. By noon, Alicia had a half-dozen unanswered messages on her cell, including a text message from him hinting at concern. After that, she’d stopped keeping track. It was inevitable that she would have to answer, but she wasn’t ready. She was so angry with him that she could hardly think, and at the same time she was afraid. She knew her father’s reputation. He was ruthless when it came to getting his way. He wouldn’t take kindly to having someone mess in his nest, which was exactly what she planned to do. She had to be far enough away—and safely concealed—before she trusted herself enough to call back. And most of all, she had to be certain of her own ability to avoid giving herself away and figure out a way to keep him from tracking her via her phone. There was a part of her that felt like a traitor to him, but she kept reminding herself that at least she wouldn’t be a traitor to her own country. The fact that her father was in bed with the terrorists responsible for the tragic events of September 11, 2001, was chilling.

Unbeknownst to his daughter, Richard Ponte had installed GPS locator systems on every vehicle in his empire, and he already knew her whereabouts. In fact, he had sent Dieter Bahn, his right-hand man, to bring her back. Ponte had no idea what was going on with her, but he was beginning to realize it was serious. He knew she’d emptied one of her bank accounts and that she was running. He just didn’t know why. But he was determined to find out. And when Richard Ponte was determined to make something happen, it happened.

Alicia was focused on the needs at hand, which were food and fuel, both of them less than a quarter mile ahead. She was debating between something sweet or salty for a snack when her cell phone began to ring. She glanced down at caller ID, and her heart skipped a beat. It was her father. Again.

She’d lost count of how many times he’d called. As nervous as she was about it, she knew that communicating would help keep him off her back. She just didn’t know if she could trust herself to stay calm. As the phone continued to ring, she finally made a decision. She pulled over to the side of the road, put the car in Park, then answered. Her heart was pounding. All she could think was, God help me.

“Hello?”

“Thank God!” Richard bellowed. “Alicia! What the hell are you up to? Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

“I’m not up to anything,” Alicia said, hating herself for the quaver she heard in her voice. “I left you a note telling you where I was going. I just wanted a little getaway. I certainly didn’t expect a constant barrage of phone calls, trying to check up on me as if I’m some teenager. For pity’s sake, Dad, get a grip.”

“Don’t start that crap with me!” Richard yelled. “You emptied your bank account and you’re not returning my calls. What am I supposed to think?”

Alicia swallowed past the knot in her throat. “That I’m twenty-seven years old and that it’s my money?”

Richard was so angry he was shaking. He didn’t like to be thwarted, and he didn’t like to be reminded that it was his deceased wife’s money that had set him up for life and left their daughter independently wealthy.

“Is it some man? If it is, I can tell you right now, he doesn’t love you. He’s just after your money.”

Alicia felt as if she’d been slapped. That her own father would deem her unworthy of a man’s love without the money that came with her was, at the least, humiliating. Her voice was shaking when she asked, “Why, Daddy? Why wouldn’t some man love me? Why would you say something like that?”

Richard couldn’t have cared less that he’d hurt her feelings. “I was right,” he crowed. “It is a man. Now listen to me. Quit acting like a child and get yourself back to Miami before you get into something you can’t get out of. You’re too trusting. You’re too naive. Is he there with you now?”

“There is no man,” she muttered, suddenly wishing there was. It would be a far simpler dilemma than the one she was in.

“I don’t believe you,” he said. “You went sneaking out of this house like some bitch in heat. You must have had a reason.”

It was the “bitch in heat” reference that did it. Suddenly the past few days of being sick at heart and scared half out of her mind bubbled up and over. She started talking, and the more she talked, the louder she got, until she was screaming at him just as he’d screamed at her moments earlier.

“The only man in my life that made me leave home was you!”

Taken aback by her sudden rage, Richard had to struggle to answer. “Me? You’re not making sense.”

It was as if someone had opened a festering wound, and now that the pressure was gone, the poison was spilling out of Alicia without a thought for caution.

“I know what you’ve been doing…you and Uncle Jacob. I heard you two talking. You’re selling weapons to the enemy.”

Richard felt the floor tilt beneath his feet. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. “You’re wrong,” he insisted. “I don’t know what you think you heard, but you’re wrong.”

“No. I’m not wrong. You’re the one who’s doing something wrong…horribly wrong. What I don’t get is why, Daddy? Why? We have more money than we could spend in two lifetimes. Why would you betray your country for more?”

Richard felt as if someone had just punched him in the gut. He sat down on the side of his desk before he fell. Son of a bitch…she knew!

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “You misunderstood what was being said. You need to come back now and I’ll explain…I’ll—”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t want to ever see your face again.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

Alicia didn’t know she was crying until she tasted the salt of her own tears. Angrily, she swiped at them with the back of her hand. “What I do is no longer any of your concern.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, then one last question. “Alicia.”

“What?”

“Are you going to tell?”

Alicia disconnected, threw the phone down in the seat and pulled back out onto the highway, still heading for Justice.

Richard’s heart was hammering so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. How had this happened? They’d always been so careful. He shoved a hand through his hair and then covered his face with both hands as his mind began to race through the possibilities of what might happen next.

She wouldn’t tell. She was his daughter—his own flesh and blood. Surely she wouldn’t turn in her own father? But he couldn’t be sure. She’d sounded so angry. He’d never heard her like that before. So…what next? Sit here and wait for the hammer to fall on his carefully balanced empire—or take back control?

Shock was soon replaced with anger. There had been dozens of times throughout his life when he’d felt as if he’d been here before, in another time and place. faced with ruin through the behavior of others. The longer he thought about it, the more he realized he wasn’t going to sit back and let her destroy everything he’d built. He would get her back first, then figure out what came next.

He reached for the phone and quickly dialed Dieter Bahn’s number. By the time the other man answered, Richard was completely calm.

“It’s me,” Richard said. “How close are you to Alicia’s location?”

“Less than five miles, I think,” Dieter said.

“When you find her, bring her back…even if you have to tie her up to do it. Do you understand?”

Dieter was the kind of man whose loyalty to the man who paid his salary ran bone-deep.

“Yes, sir,” he answered.

“And, Dieter…”

“Yes, sir?”

“Let me know when you have her in the car.”

“Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

Without even bothering to say goodbye, Richard ended the call. Then he stood up and moved to the windows overlooking his estate, the seat of his empire. If things went wrong, he could lose all of this tomorrow. But that wasn’t going to happen. Things wouldn’t go wrong. Dieter would get Alicia, and then…

He paused, jangling the change in his pocket without thinking. What was he going to do with his daughter when he got her back? How could he keep her quiet? What assurance did he have that she would keep his secret? He sighed.

He had no assurance. None.

He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the window, then yanked his hands out of his pockets and quickly looked away. He’d worked too hard and too long to be brought down by anyone—even his own daughter. If she didn’t comply…

A muscle suddenly jerked at his temple as the thought slid through his mind. Then it would be too damned bad for her. Accidents happen.

John Nightwalker was in his Jeep and heading out of Justice. The sun was warm on his face, even though his eyes were well-hidden behind dark aviator sunglasses as he drove down Main Street. Someone yelled out his name, and he waved before he looked.

It was Mildred, the pharmacy clerk. She’d tried to hook him up with her daughter for the last two years until, thankfully, her daughter had eloped with one of the Samson brothers, who had a roofing business in a nearby town. When Mildred figured out that having a son-in-law who owned his own business was better than a man with secrets, she’d let him be.

He braked for a red light while the wind whipping through the open windows tugged at his hair like the fingers of a jealous lover. His hands, brown and strong, curled around the steering wheel as they’d once curled around the shaft of a spear. Time had not taken the warrior out of the man—only increased it. As he neared the city limits, he glanced down at the gas gauge. Better fuel up now and get it over with, even though the day was hot. He had milk and eggs in the backseat, as well as some fresh vegetables, but a quick fuel stop shouldn’t hurt anything.

He pulled up to an empty pump at Marv’s Gas and Guzzle, waved at a local who was pulling away and got out. He swiped his credit card at the pump just as he’d done countless times before, then began to refuel. It was a slow time of day. There was only one other vehicle in sight, and it had two flats, which told John it had been there for a while.

A flock of gulls circled overhead, probably checking out the fish heads behind the bait-and-tackle area of Marv’s store. He thought about the ocean and decided that when he got home, he would go for a swim. Water was always a source of renewal for him.

The pump kicked off, breaking into his musing. He was replacing the hose when a white BMW wheeled off the highway, coming toward the pumps at a high rate of speed. He stepped back in reflex, even though the car was going to be stopping on the opposite side from where he’d parked.

All of a sudden his heart started beating erratically and his stomach knotted in pain. The air around him felt charged with an electricity that, in the last five hundred years, he’d experienced only a handful of times before.

Whoever was in that car was either the reincarnated soul of the pirate he’d learned was named Antonio Vargas or someone close to him. His fingers curled into fists as a dark, bloody rage swept through his mind. Suddenly he was seeing the village all over again—puddles of blood beneath rain-soaked bodies, children’s bodies burned and broken, clothing ripped and ornaments cut from the corpses of his people.

The need for revenge swept through his mind so fast that he staggered. Then he caught a glimpse of a tall, shapely body, the silhouette of a beautiful face, hair as black as midnight, and knew a moment of regret. What an irony, that the soul he sought had come back in such a form.

Then their gazes met, and within the space of a heartbeat, all the warning signs John had come to recognize were gone and he knew this wasn’t the person he sought, although there had to be a connection.

Her face was heart-shaped, her features strong but perfectly proportioned. Full lips marked a wide, expressive mouth that was, at the moment, twisted in some sort of grief. When his gaze moved back to her eyes, he felt himself drowning in the tears blurring her vision.

Pain shot through his gut so fast it left him momentarily breathless. He hated to see a woman cry. They stared at each other, eye to eye, separated by less than a yard. Finally John found his voice.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

Alicia shuddered. His voice sifted through her wounded spirit like cold water on a burn, easing the shock and pain of what she was feeling, if only for a moment.

“No…I, uh…” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks and then threw back her head, unaware that the simple lift of her chin had given her the look of an able opponent, not a victim. “Crap,” she mumbled, her fingers shaking as she tried to pull the nozzle away from the pump. “I need gas.”

Not wanting to lose the connection with her, John moved a step closer.

“Swipe your card. I’ll pump it for you,” he offered.

But Alicia knew that credit card transactions could be traced, and since the last thing she wanted was to let her father know where she was, she hadn’t even brought a card with her.

“Uh…I’m going to pay cash.”

John pointed toward the sign at the pumps. “Then thank the economy for the problem, but they won’t turn on the pump until you’ve prepaid.”

“Yes…of course,” Alicia said, and tried to put the nozzle back on the pump. But her vision was still blurred from tears, and she kept missing the slot.

“Here, let me,” he said softly, then swiped his own card, waited for the approval to come up, then stuck the nozzle in her gas tank.

Alicia took a deep breath. When the stranger moved between her and her car, she suddenly shuddered. In spite of the mess she was in, she didn’t understand the urge she felt to put her hand on the back of his neck. Instead, she began digging through her purse, pulled out a handful of bills and then found herself fixated by a single bead of sweat that had escaped his hairline and was sliding down the jut of his jaw.

Her nostrils flared as the thought of being naked under this man flashed through her mind.

God. Where had that come from?

When the man turned around, Alicia thought that from the look in his eyes, he was on the same page.

“Thank you for your help,” she said, and thrust the handful of bills into his hand.

Before John could respond, another car pulled off the highway and up to the pumps, coming to a stop right behind the woman. He saw her eyes widen and her pupils dilated in shock.

“Oh no. Oh God…He found me.”