Читать книгу Protector S.o.s. - Susan Kearney - Страница 11

“Travis? Travis? Damn it. Answer the phone.” Travis Cantrel listened to his voice mail, but didn’t need to wait for the caller to identify herself to recognize Sandy Vale’s thick, Maine accent. It reminded him of lazy days at sea, erotic nights and stormy arguments. Odd, how they’d been so good in bed together, when the rest of the time all they’d done was fight. Travis hadn’t heard from her in years. In fact, ever since their breakup eight years ago, the few times he’d been back home, Sandy had conveniently disappeared. His sister, Ellie, and Sandy were business partners at the rundown marina they’d bought, but, although he and Sandy had had no contact in close to a decade, her tone of voice told him she was in a panic.

“Travis, Ellie’s in trouble. Get home. Now. And don’t bring in the authorities. Whatever you do, don’t do anything until we talk in person. Got to go.”

Travis didn’t wait to hear more. Although Sandy had called from a phone number he didn’t recognize, he called her cell, his stomach rising up to his throat. Sandy never panicked. Hell, she didn’t worry over the little stuff, or the big stuff. So if she was hysterical, Ellie must be… Had there been a car accident? Was Ellie sick? A million worries rushed through his head. Travis wasn’t just Ellie’s big brother. After their parents’ deaths in a boating accident—he’d been twenty-two, Ellie seventeen—he’d been responsible for her. Sure, she was all grown up now. But as he stuffed clothing and toiletries into a suitcase, his pulse sped like a skidding race car about to slam into a wall.

Why the hell wasn’t Sandy answering her phone? Why hadn’t she told him what was wrong in her message?

Travis kept calling during the taxi ride to the Newark airport, where he could hop a commercial flight to Maine. After finishing a job in Alabama, he’d flown into New York City for some R and R and to visit his friend, Ryker Stevens. So he was free to pick up and go. Not that his boss, Logan Kincaid, would mind. Family came first, and Ellie was Travis’s only family.

Travis called the Shey Group headquarters to let his boss know he was unavailable until further notice, and to ask for a trace on the phone Sandy had used. He found out the call had come from a pay phone in the back of a bar in the early hours of the morning. But why would she do that when she had a perfectly good cell phone?

Impatient for news, he called Sandy again just before his morning flight took off, and as soon as he landed at noon. He tried Ellie at home, at the marina and on her cell. No answer. Frantic, Travis rented a car and sped down the coast, cutting the two-hour drive to an hour and a half.

Normally he would have called the hospital, the police department, Ellie’s other friends. But Sandy’s warning made him wait. However, if Sandy and Ellie weren’t at the Bayside Marina when he arrived, he would ask Kincaid and the Shey Group for help.

Travis slid to a stop in the gravel parking lot of Bayside Marina. The newly painted sign, the trimmed landscaping and the new roof made the old place look more upscale. Ellie had told him about the retail store, but he hadn’t expected the parking lot to be so crowded. But it was Saturday afternoon, and tourists and locals alike would want to enjoy the summer sunshine.

Travis bypassed the impressive new store and headed for the marina’s office. Striding along the dock, he automatically took in the changes. Sandy and Ellie had added two new fuel pumps and several rows of slips. They’d purchased a new forklift, and one of the operators was in the process of moving a boat from dry storage to the water.

On a busy Saturday, Ellie was usually tuning up one of the boat engines. He and his sister shared an aptitude for all things mechanical, and he kept searching for her to pop up from an engine compartment, a smudge of grease on her cheek. But when he didn’t see Ellie anywhere, disappointment and worry slashed him. She wasn’t in the bait house, or directing traffic at the ramp, or at the tool shed.

Travis headed directly to the office. The old mahogany door sported new gold-leaf lettering that read Vale & Cantrel Enterprises, with operating hours posted right next to a plastic sign that said Closed. Travis knocked anyway. The girls often used the Closed sign instead of Do Not Disturb, which everyone ignored. Besides, he could see Sandy through the glass, her head bent as she perused assorted paperwork.

Sandy’s waist-length tresses were gone. Now, bright yellow sunglasses, worn above her forehead, held her shoulder-length blond locks out of her eyes, giving him a clear view of her face. Sandy wasn’t model pretty. Her mouth was a bit too full and her nose had a cute little bump where she’d broken it windsailing. Her flawless skin was sun-kissed and far too tan. Nevertheless, Sandy was the only woman he’d ever met who sizzled. She had this unexplainable electric energy to her that never failed to engage his senses—at full throttle. Long ago, the passion between them had been charged, but their arguments had been long, horrendous and ugly. Once, she’d been like a fancy-free flame that attracted him with her heat and brightness, but when he’d gotten too close, she hadn’t just scorched him, she’d burned him to the bone.

Nothing short of fear for Ellie could have brought him back. Bracing for bad news, stiffening his defenses against Sandy’s magnificent eyes—they changed color like the sea, from sparkling turquoise when she was happy, to kelp-green when her temper raged, he strode into the office.

A sixth sense must have told her he was at the door, because he’d no more than turned the knob before she’d shot out of her seat behind the desk and rushed to him, flung her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his mouth. A kiss that sent his senses spinning. A kiss that made the intervening years disappear with magic. A kiss that overloaded his pleasure centers and stole his breath.

Whoa. After eight years, this was not the reunion he’d imagined. No how. No way. Sandy might be one laid-back woman, but she could bear a grudge for a long time. After their last fight, he expected her to hold his words against him forever.

She tasted of salt and sea air and a citrus fragrance that reminded him of spiced lemons. And she fit against him just the way he remembered. Automatically, he raised his arms around her. Their tongues tangled, and in another moment she was going to find out that she still made all the blood in his brain flow south. But she pulled back, her eyes a tempestuous green, and placed a finger over his lips.

What the hell? She hadn’t spoken to him in years, then left a worrisome message on his voice mail, and now she didn’t want him to speak. Every brain cell cried out for him to ask about Ellie, but, as if reading his mind, Sandy shook her head.

“You still good with engines, Travis?”

Confused, his eyes narrowed. Sandy didn’t play games. She hadn’t placed a worried-crazy message on his voice mail without good reason. And from the tension in her shoulders to the tight grip of her hand on his arm, he knew something was wrong.

“You called me—”

“To fix a motor. Didn’t you say you needed a job?” Her eyes begged him to play along.

Job? They hadn’t even spoken. What the hell was going on here?

He shrugged to release the tension between his shoulder blades. “Yeah. I’m at loose ends right now. I could use some work, but I didn’t bring my tools.”

Relief warmed the chill from her eyes. She grabbed a sweater from a hook by the door. “Tools I can lend you. Can you start today?”

“Do I get time and a half?”

“That depends how good you are.”

“You know how good I am,” he bantered playfully, but if she didn’t explain soon, his teeth might crack from the way he was gnashing them. Accustomed to cloak-and-dagger stuff at work, Travis hadn’t expected to return home to a mystery.

Years ago, when he’d been responsible for Ellie, he’d been in a relationship with Sandy. Many of their arguments had been over Ellie. Sandy had considered him too restrictive and over-the-top protective. She’d once told him that if he could have, he’d never have let Ellie out of the house, never mind on a date. But Ellie had enjoyed pushing him to the wall, dating bikers, surfers and all-around misfits. At first he’d been pleased when Sandy had taken Ellie under her wing, but then he’d realized Sandy had been encouraging his sister’s rebelliousness. After numerous heated arguments, he and Sandy had split up—but the girls had become fast friends.

Travis had been none too pleased when Ellie and Sandy joined forces in business. He didn’t like the idea of his sister gallivanting all over the ocean with only one other woman. They were vulnerable, and obviously something bad had happened or Sandy wouldn’t have called him.

“Come on.” Sandy led him through the office door onto the dock. “I’m in critical need of a top-notch mechanic.”

“What—”

“Give me a second.” She squeezed his hand so tight, the bones creaked. “The boat’s over here. The motor’s on the fritz.”

“You want to clarify?”

Sandy tugged the sunglasses from her forehead down over her eyes. “She’s overheating when kept below two knots. The owner has out-of-town guests and is impatient to take her out tomorrow.” Travis didn’t give a damn. He wanted to know about Ellie. But he held his tongue, grabbed a toolbox from the shed and acted as if he intended to fix the motor as Sandy led him to a day-sailer with an outboard on its transom.

He half expected Sandy to tell him that Ellie had hooked up with some guy with a record. Or some loner who lived on a houseboat, collected disability checks and drank away his benefits. Ellie had always had a soft spot for those who were down and out. And she never thought of the danger she might be placing herself in. Every time Travis had tried to talk with her, she’d told him off.

So he’d taught her to fight dirty. But she’d refused to learn to shoot a weapon or keep one aboard. Sandy hadn’t been any more reasonable. Both of them seemed to believe that they were impervious to trouble. But Travis had always known that two women alone at sea were targets. It was amazing they’d gotten along just fine on their own—although he had no doubts that Ellie filtered what she told him about her adventures. There was no telling how many close calls they’d had, how many scrapes they’d been in that he didn’t know about.

Since the two women listened to nothing he said, perhaps his ignorance was bliss. It had certainly been less stressful—until now.

Travis stepped aboard and headed for the engine. He checked the fuel first. The tank was full. He yanked the power cord once and wasn’t all that surprised when the motor fired right up. There was no extra smoke, no sign of the overheating she’d mentioned. In fact, the only thing close to overheating was his temper.

Travis didn’t want to tell Sandy, “I told you so.” He wanted to know that his sister was safe, that Sandy had brought him here for no reason other than to irritate him. But the knot in his gut told him otherwise. So did the tension in Sandy’s jaw, where a muscle ticked. He’d never seen her wound so tight.

With her laid-back attitude, Sandy usually looked at life through mellow-toned glasses. But her live-and-let-live philosophy seemed to apply to everyone but Travis. According to Sandy, years ago, he could do nothing right. He knew nothing about women, nothing about teenage girls and nothing about parenting.

What made their fights so tempestuous was that Sandy had been partially right. But what twenty-two-year-old dude was ready to take on raising a rebellious teenage sister and have a serious relationship? Travis had done his best. And he couldn’t have screwed up too badly with Ellie because she had turned out just fine. She didn’t do drugs. She didn’t drink too much. And she had good friends. If she went too easily from one man to the next, Travis didn’t see what he could do about it. Ellie was a grown woman, but obviously she’d tangled with something bad enough for Sandy to break her silent treatment of Travis and call him.

He wanted an explanation, but Sandy left him to man the tiller while she cast off the lines. Amid gulls squawking, and other boaters waving as they passed by, they cruised out of the protected harbor. Travis kept one eye on the temperature gauge and saw no sign of a malfunction.

Sandy returned to the cockpit and sat next to him, crossing her long, tanned legs. “Sorry for the dramatics. I’m pretty sure that my office and phones are bugged.”

Travis frowned, pulled the tiller to his body and motored around a channel marker. “Where’s Ellie?”

“Our last client kidnapped her.”

“What?” Travis didn’t hold back several four-letter words. His temper, already on a short fuse, lit up. It worried him that Sandy didn’t even bother to shout back—a sure sign of serious trouble.

“At least pretend to fiddle with the engine, and I’ll tell you everything.” While he removed the engine’s hood, Sandy’s eyes brimmed with tears and she wiped them off her cheeks. He’d never seen her cry, and his gut churned with fear. “We’d been paid by Danzler to deliver a boat to a private island off Nova Scotia owned by a Martin Vanderpelt. When we got there, Vanderpelt examined the boat, discovered it wasn’t the exact one he’d ordered and went ballistic.”

“I don’t understand.”

“His boat had been struck by lightning. Danzler had a duplicate hull on hand and filled his order. But Vanderpelt insisted we return for the original damaged hull and made us take his associate, Alan Lavelle, with us.”

“You took on a passenger?”

“He pulled a gun on us.”

“Go on.” Travis forced himself to appear outwardly calm, but inside he tensed up with fear for Ellie. Taking out a wrench from the toolbox, he pretended to use it, his concerns for Ellie escalating with every word Sandy spoke. The defeat lacing her words scared him as much as her story.

“So the three of us sailed back to Danzler Marine only to learn Vanderpelt’s original boat had been stolen. We decided to return home to wait for Danzler, the insurance company and the police to find the boat, or decide what to do next. That’s when Alan grabbed Ellie and forced her into a motorboat that came alongside us. He told me that when I found Vanderpelt’s boat and brought it to the island, he’d release Ellie.”

“Why didn’t you call the cops?”

“He said I’d be watched. And that if I went to the authorities, Ellie would suffer consequences.” Sandy met his eyes, her own still teary. “I called you from a pay phone, but was afraid to answer your calls. They are watching me. I don’t know who or where or how, but I’ve heard clicks on my phone, and there are people hanging around the marina that I’ve never seen before.”

Travis forced himself into professional mode. He couldn’t allow his fears to overwhelm him if he was going to help his sister. “When did they take Ellie?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“What kind of boat was it?”

“A Grady-White with double Mercury engines. The first five numbers of the serial are 47583.”

“You did good.” He tossed the wrench back into the toolbox. “What can you tell me about Alan Lavelle?”

“Not much. He was medium height, medium build. Nondescript. He didn’t talk much, and said nothing about himself or Vanderpelt. He didn’t seem to know boats, but the closer we got to land, the edgier he became.”

“You think he took Ellie back to Vanderpelt’s island?”

“I don’t know.” Sandy’s voice cracked. “He could have taken her anywhere.”

“What did Danzler Marine say about the missing boat?”

“They filed a police report and are collecting a claim from their insurance company.” She shrugged. “They’ll probably be happier if the boat’s never found. Lightning weakened the hull, and that’s not easy to fix.”

He saw regret in her eyes, and something more. “What else?”

“Alan called me this morning. He told me I had to deliver the boat alone. But I protested, telling him I couldn’t handle it by myself and needed a mechanic. So he okayed one crew member.”

“That was good thinking.” Sandy had done remarkably well under trying circumstances. This kind of pressure often caused people to fall apart, and they failed to think clearly. He made his voice warm, despite the chill in his heart. “I’m glad you called me.”

“I didn’t have much choice.” She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders as if bracing for a blow. He didn’t understand why. They might have fought like dogs over a scrap of meat, but they’d never come to blows. Although during some of their past fights, Sandy had made him angry enough to lose his temper, Travis had never lashed out with violence. But she was steeling herself as if she expected him to go postal.

“What?” he asked.

“Alan said if we didn’t bring him the boat within ten days, he’d…” She swallowed hard.

“He’d what?”

“He’d kill Ellie.”

ELLIE WAS ALTERNATELY terrified, angry and restless. When Alan had forced her from the sailboat, she’d been shaking so hard, she’d barely understood that she was being kidnapped, never mind comprehended all the ramifications.

Right now, pessimism had her hugging her knees and wondering how anyone would find her. The ride in the Grady-White had been short. Once they’d raced out of sight of Sandy, they’d switched to a sturdy cabin cruiser, and Alan had locked Ellie in the forward cabin. She had a bunk, a head and a shower. The portholes didn’t open. He’d locked the hatch from outside. Not even Houdini could have escaped. And even if she smashed open the door—a feat that would take considerable force—she would have to face two armed men, Alan and his cohort.

Twice a day, Alan brought her food. The rest of the time, she was alone in the cabin with her thoughts. She tried, and failed, not to think about Alan’s threat to kill her. She tried not to think about how easily they could shoot her, toss her body overboard, and no one would ever know what had happened to her.

Instead, she attempted to think of a reason for her predicament. Why did Vanderpelt want that original boat so much? A boat with a damaged hull? Nothing made sense. Either he was insane or she was missing too many facts. She hadn’t a clue why he’d gone to such extremes to retrieve a damaged sailboat.

She still couldn’t believe their bad luck that Vanderpelt’s boat had been stolen. And she had no idea how Sandy would find it. Yet, she had every confidence in her best friend and partner. For Ellie’s sake, Sandy would overcome her disinclination to contact Travis. And the Shey Group, the powerful and secret organization of which her brother was a vital part, would hunt down Vanderpelt and rescue her. At least, that’s what Ellie told herself in her optimistic moments.

Ellie slept as much as she could over the next four days. Still, with no one to talk to and nothing to read, the time passed slowly. Contradictorily, she dreaded the end of the voyage.

But late on the fourth day of her captivity, Alan unlocked her cabin door. He tossed a black hood to her. “Put that on.”

His face was cold, his dark eyes, almost dead, like a zombie in those creepy horror movies. And his voice, so lacking in intonation, sent icy stabs of pain into her chest.

There was no point in fighting him. Not when just beyond him, in the main cabin, the other man waited. Mouth dry with fear, Ellie told herself they hadn’t brought her all this way to shoot her. With trembling fingers, she placed the hood over her head.

“Stand up and turn around.”

She forced her rubbery knees to support her. Willed herself not to fight, despite the hood that not only blinded but suffocated.

“Cross your wrists behind your back.”

Oh…God. She hesitated, and Alan roughly grabbed her hands and bound her wrists with tough, rigid plastic. As if all the moisture had been sucked out of her mouth, she couldn’t swallow. “What—”

“Silence.” Alan slapped her cheek and she stumbled, her shoulder slamming into the bulkhead.

Her ears ringing, her nose clogging, her eyes filling with tears, Ellie reeled from the stinging blow to her cheek. But the pain was nothing compared to the terror bleeding through her veins. Unwilling to provoke her captor again, Ellie remained silent. Although Travis had taught her to fight, there was no point in revealing her skills and giving up the advantage of surprise until she stood a real chance of escape.

The deck squeaked, giving her warning that Alan approached again, and despite herself, she cringed. He didn’t strike her, but his hand roughly clasped her upper arm and jerked her to her feet. Then shoved her through the main cabin and outside. She walked a gangplank to a floating dock that rose and fell with the wave action.

Listening carefully for clues as to her whereabouts, she heard seagulls’ caws and the whipping wind rustling leaves. There were no sounds of halyards clanging against masts, or the creak of boats at anchorage. Wherever they’d taken her, it wasn’t a marina. And since they led her about openly with the hood on her head, she could only conclude they weren’t worried about someone spotting her and reporting her predicament to the authorities.

Was she back on Vanderpelt’s island?

The time spent at sea was about right to have made the return. But she had no way of knowing if they’d come due north, south or east or any combination between. Tilting her head downward, she spied slivers of green grass and gravel by her feet. And what little air passed through her hood smelled of the sea.

Ellie had no idea how long they walked in silence, but she counted her steps. Two thousand and ten. Alan jerked her to a stop, and she heard the clink of a key inserting into, then turning, a lock. Alan spun her around, removed the plastic from her wrists, then shoved her forward.

Ellie barely got her hands in front of her in time to break her fall onto what felt like a mattress. The door slammed behind her and the lock slid home. Yanking the hood from her head, she blinked in the dim, gray light, finding herself in a new prison. The walls were stones set in cement, the tiny, high windows revealed only sky. The door was solid metal. Inside her four walls, she had a mattress on the floor, a toilet and sink in the far corner. No shower. No light. No tools.

On hands and knees Ellie examined the walls, but the solid stone gave her no hope of escape. She stood on the toilet, but still could see nothing but sky outside. And the sink’s plumbing fittings were solid, nothing she could loosen with just her bare hands. Ellie wanted to lie on the bed and cry herself to sleep. She didn’t. Instead, she lifted the mattress until it rested flush with one wall. The floor beneath the mattress was stone, like the walls. She couldn’t dig her way out.

Now what?

She needed to think. And nothing got the blood pumping and the mind working like a little exercise. Ellie warmed up with slow stretches, then ran in place until her breath came in gasps. After slowly walking in place to cool down her heart rate a little, she did push-ups. Isometrics. And then a final series of stretches.

And didn’t feel one damn bit better. She was still a prisoner without any hope of escape.

Ellie drank cold water from the sink, then kicked the mattress back onto the floor. She was about to lie down when the voices of two men drifted to her. Hurrying to the wall, she pressed her ear against the stone.

A man spoke gruffly. “You don’t look happy.”

“I’ve never killed a woman,” another man said, his tone somber.

“Hey, man. It’s just like running your blade through a tough piece of steak.”

The peace Ellie had won for herself through her exercise disintegrated. Stumbling away from the wall, she’d barely flopped onto the mattress before the door opened and one of the men shoved a bowl of food in her direction. When she didn’t get up fast enough to take it, he dropped the bowl. The ceramic dish broke, and her soup splashed on the floor, walls and mattress.

Chuckling, he slammed and relocked the door.

Ellie hadn’t been hungry. But at the sight of the spilled soup, she burst into tears.

“Come get me, Sandy,” she sobbed, lying on her side, her knees pulled to her chest. “Travis, please find me. Soon.”