by Kay Hooper
“There were five of us,” she said, trying to analyze his reaction, fit it into some niche in her mind. “All blondes and—and redheads.” Her hand went briefly to her long, thick auburn hair.
“Did you know any of the other girls?”
The question confused her, which was hardly surprising, she thought, considering the befuddled state of her mind. “Know them?”
“Names,” he said impatiently. “Ages, backgrounds. Did you know anything about the other girls?”
“No. Not when we were first taken aboard. We were strangers. We didn’t have much of a chance to talk; they started the drugs right away. I know the other redhead’s name was Marcy.”
“What about the blondes?”
She looked at him, feeling a stab of uneasiness. There was something wrong with the question, and she didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t read his face. She wondered if anyone could. It was a closed face, giving away nothing. Slowly she said, “One was named Susan, I think. I’m not sure about the other two. They were—well, they looked like models. Mid-twenties, long fair hair, almost white. Sun-bleached, I guess.”
“Both of them?”
“Yes.” She stared at him, increasingly puzzled when she sensed more than saw his reaction to that. She could have sworn he was disappointed. Then he shrugged, as if to himself, a curiously wry twist to his lips.
“Any idea where you were bound?”
“I couldn’t get the route: they didn’t talk that freely in front of us. But from what they said, I gathered our destination was somewhere in the Middle East.”
His expression had grown preoccupied, his gaze distant when he put the empty glass aside and sat on the edge of the bunk again. After an unblinking appraisal of her, he said dryly, “And just how did you manage to get yourself shanghaied?”
Not quite ready to be that trusting, she said, “I went to a nightclub. In Miami.”
He appeared to accept her explanation. Slowly he said, “I suppose you’ll want to notify the police—”
“No!” Realizing how sharp her response had been, she held her voice calm with an effort. “No, I don’t want to report it. Those men … they play rough. If I went to the police, I’d be a loose end, a target. They think I’m dead. I want to leave it that way.”
His eyes had sharpened, and now searched hers intently. “I see. You’re probably right. What’s your name?” he added, abrupt again.
It was, curiously, an out-of-sync question; normally it would have been one of the first asked. She wondered about this man’s priorities. “I’m Robin Stuart.”
“Well, Robin Stuart, my name’s Michael Siran. I fished you out of the water about eight hours ago just off Key West. It’s now six A.M. and we’re approximately five miles off Key Largo, dead in the water.”
“Heading?”
“Miami.”
She nodded, trying to sort through her thoughts. “I wish I knew where …”
“Where the yacht went? It’ll have to stick fairly close to land for a few days; if they planned a water route anywhere, they’ll have to postpone the trip or make other arrangements.” He sounded preoccupied again, as if something disturbed him.
“Why?”
He looked at her, gray eyes shuttered. “Because the Coast Guard and various other law enforcement officials are patrolling very heavily. Rumor has it that an indecently valuable shipment of drugs is coming into the country via water. Everything that floats is being inspected bow to stern, and nobody leaves or enters U.S. territorial waters without due inspection unless they’re very, very lucky.” His expression was unreadable. “I was searched last night a couple of hours before I found you. I’d guess that the slavers are lying low for a while.”
“But that’s just a guess,” she said steadily. “If it’s really that—that hot, they may kill the girls. We were on that boat for at least two days before I got away. They can’t hope to keep the others hidden indefinitely, and if they can’t send them wherever they’re supposed to go …”
For the first time, a flicker of what might have been sympathy showed on his hard face; her sudden guilt was obvious. “You couldn’t have helped them,” he said quietly.
Robin stared down at her cup and chewed her bottom lip. “They’re just ordinary women,” she said softly. “With ordinary lives. In Florida on vacation, most of them. No family, no one to worry or make trouble over their disappearance.” She looked up at him suddenly, surprised by a fleeting look of pain on his face that was instantly gone, as though it had never been.
“There was nothing you could have done,” he maintained flatly. “Your getting away was sheer luck. And since you never saw the yacht—”
“Maybe I did see it,” she interrupted, staring at him, banking a great deal on that brief pain she’d seen. Or thought she had seen. “And maybe with a little help I could find it. Then I could tip the police, and they could search the boat.”
After a moment he said levelly, “Around a thousand miles of coast in Florida alone, and you expect to find one yacht?”
She held his gaze determinedly. “One very large yacht. It’s big, I know that. Manned by a large crew.” She took a deep breath. “Judging by where you found me, it looks as though that boat sailed down along the keys. Their heading—would you guess South America?”
After a slight hesitation he nodded.
“But they can’t get safely out of U.S. waters now. So they’ll probably hole up somewhere near the Ten Thousand Islands south of Cape Romano.”
“You know the coast.” It was neither approval nor question, but simply a statement of fact.
Robin was still pursuing possibilities. “There’s too much traffic near the Keys; they wouldn’t want that. And the southeast coast of Florida is congested. But they’d want to remain far enough south to run for it if necessary. It has to be the islands. If they still have the women, they have to be there.”
Michael Siran shook his head. “It isn’t a case of have to be anything. They could have slipped through the net, gotten away free and clear before they were spotted. Or they could be sailing calmly up the coast, where they’d find a plane somewhere to fly the women out.”
“But there’s a chance the yacht is lying low, waiting,” she insisted softly. “Isn’t there?”
He nodded reluctantly. “A slim chance. But no chance at all of finding it,” he added.
“Help me,” she said simply.
He ran a hand through his thick dark hair, staring at her impatiently. “Didn’t you hear me? You haven’t a chance in hell of finding that yacht! With or without me. It could be anywhere. It would take days to search the western coast, and it wouldn’t be a thorough job even then. And looking for a boat in these waters! Even if you found one you suspected, you don’t have the Coast Guard’s authority to board and search.”
“I’ll recognize at least three of the crew,” she said flatly, repressing a shudder. “I’ll never forget them.”
Michael stared at her for a moment, then said roughly, “Those bruises. Did they—”
“Rape me?” She shook her head. “No, not that. Apparently our buyers wanted their merchandise untouched.” Her tone was bitter. “But they seemed to feel that a few bruises would heal before we were delivered. I fought the drugs, and them, so I was punished a few times.”
“All the more reason—” he began.
Robin felt desperate. She couldn’t leave the girls to the less than tender mercies of those slavers. She just couldn’t. She hadn’t meant this to become personal to her, but after sharing a terrified, drugged haze with young women who had no one else to care about them, the matter had become personal. Very personal. But she needed help in order to help them. And something told her that if she could only sway this man, his help would prove to be invaluable.
“Please,” she said.
He was shaking his head, an impatient frown drawing his flying brows together. “No. Everybody in these waters is jumpy as hell right now, and it’s no time to play dete
ctive. Look, I’m sorry. I’ll take you back to Miami, and that’s all I’ll do.”
She searched his face for a moment, looking for something she didn’t find. No softening, no hesitation. He seemed almost angry, definitely brusque. He was also, she realized, worried about something, and he was tired. Very tired.
Robin looked down at the cup she was still holding. The coffee was cold. “They’re so alone.” She wasn’t trying to convince him, just talking. “We all had that in common, being alone. And being afraid. And there was—” She stopped suddenly, remembering. “There was someone else, I think. At least one other girl. I heard her crying one night, in the next cabin. She sounded awfully young, like a kid …” Her voice trailed off, and she blinked back the hot pressure of tears. When she looked at Michael Siran, his face seemed to waver, to grow indistinct.
Robin blinked harder and felt her heart lurch oddly. He was looking at her, a sudden pallor obvious beneath his tanned face. His gray eyes were chips of steel, and his lips were pressed so tightly together they seemed carved of granite. She almost shrank away from him, conscious of an instinctive fear that was primitive, as if she had stepped into a cage where some savage beast crouched in wait.
It took only that instant for Robin to realize that he wasn’t seeing her at all. It was something else he saw, something dreadful. But before she could begin even to guess what it was, the terrible expression was gone.
“All right,” he said flatly.
Robin wasn’t entirely sure she had done the right thing in asking Michael Siran for help. Something about the man bothered her, made her wary. He neither moved nor spoke quickly, yet there was something almost electric about him, like a force of nature imperfectly contained. And all her senses reacted to that force, even in her dazed state, just as they would have reacted to a storm. She was aware of him on some level deeper than thought, curiously made more aware of her own body, her own beating heart. She didn’t trust the sensation.
She didn’t really trust him.
Still, there wasn’t much she could do alone, so there had been no choice. But she was disturbed by the entire situation. It would have been nerve-racking enough to try fighting her way through this mess alone; being unexpectedly partnered with a strange man who had had a sudden and inexplicable change of mind about helping her was even more unnerving. And he didn’t offer to explain his change of mind. Immediately after agreeing to help her, he told her she could join him on deck if she felt up to it, and that she could find clothing to fit her in one of the built-in drawers beneath the bunk.
Left alone, Robin slid off the bunk and stretched sore muscles. She didn’t know how long she’d been in the water the night before; it had been dark when she’d jumped overboard. The sleep had done her good, but she was still a bit tired and groggy.
In the bunk drawers, she found a pair of cutoff jeans that were close to her size—obviously not Michael Siran’s—and a black T-shirt. The clothes fit her better than the baggy sweatpants and flannel shirt he’d dressed her in the night before, and she changed with relief. The evening gown she had worn had been ruined by the saltwater; she felt no regrets at losing it, but she wished now that she had been wearing a bra.
Still, she acknowledged wryly to herself, it hardly mattered. After all, Michael Siran had stripped her naked. The realization made her a bit self-conscious, and she pushed the feeling away only with effort.
She went slowly up on deck, finding herself on a relatively small cabin cruiser. The sun was still low in the east, and she saw no other ships near them. As far as she could tell, they still headed in the direction of Miami. The inboard motor started as she stood gazing around, and she made her way toward the small bridge. She paused only once, catching sight of an old-style life preserver hanging beside the cabin door. The name of the boat was stenciled on the white doughnut shape, and it made her pause in more ways than one.
Black Angel.
Great. That was just great. Robin wasn’t overly suspicious of omens, but it struck her with a chill that she was involved in a dangerous situation, partnered with a stranger she hardly trusted, and aboard a boat named for the angel of death.
She blamed the chill on her still-groggy state, squared her shoulders, and went on to the bridge. He was at the wheel, gazing ahead with a slight frown. She took the opportunity to study him unobserved, unsettled to discover that she was abruptly aware of her heartbeat again. There was something compelling about this man, something that kept her gaze on him like iron filings on a magnet. Tall, lean, and hard, he reminded her again of a storm, caught in a moment of stillness, like lightning in a photograph. It was hard to breathe suddenly, and she fought off the sensation with determination.
“Are we going to Miami?” she asked.
He glanced at her, the brief look taking in her change of clothing without comment, then looked ahead again. “Yes.”
“Why? The yacht wouldn’t have sailed toward a congested port—”
“There’s someone I have to get in touch with.”
Robin waited, but he didn’t elaborate. She stifled impatience, beginning to realize that this man wasn’t going to be very communicative. “Who?”
For a moment it seemed he wouldn’t answer, but then he said, “Someone who may be able to tell us something.”
At least he had said “us,” she thought. “You mean something about the yacht I was on?”
“Possibly.”
Robin folded her arms beneath her breasts and leaned back against the doorjamb. “For instance?”
He glanced at her again, one eyebrow rising. “You sound annoyed,” he noted dryly.
“I am annoyed. I’m not just along for the ride, you know.”
After a moment he said, “You lost the first bout with these animals; sure you want to try for two out of three?”
Robin kept her voice even with an effort. “No, I don’t want to do that. I want to beat them this time. I don’t want them in jail, I want them under it. I asked for your help, I didn’t ask you to do this alone. I can—”
“What can you do?” he interrupted. “Can you handle a gun?”
“If I had to, I’m sure I could.”
“If you had to? Life or death, you mean?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”
“And when will you make up your mind about that?”
She frowned at him. “About what?”
“About when this becomes a life-or-death situation.” He didn’t wait for her to respond. “You were kidnapped, drugged, beaten, and shot at when you tried to escape. Now you intend to look for those same men and put them away for the duration of their natural lives. Needless to say, they won’t accept that fate meekly. They may decide, given the chance, to shoot at you a bit more. Is that when you plan to shoot back?”
“If it comes to—”
He swore roughly. “Little fool.”
Robin stiffened. Angrily she said, “You have no right to say such a thing! You don’t know anything about me or my abilities.”
He half turned to stare at her, keeping one hand on the wheel. “No, I don’t know you,” he agreed flatly. “But I know them. I know their kind. They don’t give a sweet damn about the sanctity of life, Robin. They solve every problem with guns and violence, and they’ll solve the problem you present the same way.”
She almost flinched from the hardness of his voice—especially with the memory of too many other hard voices still rawly alive in her mind—but made herself remain still. Her chin lifted. “And I know that. I’m not a fool, whatever you think, and I’m not stupid. But whether you like it or not, I’m a part of this. For one thing, I know what that yacht looks like.”
“Do you? One yacht looks pretty much like another.”
“I can identify some of the men.”
“If you get close enough.”
Robin’s frustration grew, and she tried to keep her voice calm and level. She felt cold inside, and afraid and alone, and the thought of facing those men again
terrified her, but she couldn’t let him see that. “Mr. Siran—”
“Michael,” he interrupted, adding sardonically, “since we’re in this together.”
She ignored the tone. “Michael, you weren’t with those girls. I was. I felt the needles, and the cruelty, and the terror of being kidnapped. I felt the horror and anguish of believing I’d be bought and used and sold like a piece of merchandise.” Robin was hardly aware that her voice had gone flat and steely, but it didn’t escape the man beside her.
She took a deep breath. “This is my fight a hell of a lot more than it is yours. I’ll do anything I have to do to stop those men. Anything. That’s something you can count on.”
“I see.”
Robin wondered if he believed her. She wondered if she believed herself. She was so afraid. And this time her fear could endanger others rather than just herself. This time her fear could get someone killed.
“Robin …” He hesitated. “I understand how you feel. You were degraded, even dehumanized, by what happened to you. And now you’re mad, and you want to get even.”
“I want justice.”
“Be honest with yourself.” He turned his head to give her a long, steady look. “You want to get even.”
Reluctantly she admitted, “That’s part of it. But not all. I want to help those other girls, and I want those men stopped.”
Michael turned his gaze forward again. “All right. But this isn’t a game for amateurs.”
Her curiosity about this man had been growing, and she took advantage of the opening. “Which you aren’t?”
He was silent for a moment, and then shrugged. “Which I’m not,” he agreed flatly.
“You’re an—expert at dangerous games?” When he remained silent, she probed determinedly. “You weren’t surprised by white slavers; most people would be. You talk about men of violence as if you know them well. You sail a boat named for the angel of death. Tell me something, Michael. What do you do for a living?”
