Silent Warrior: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Donna Kauffman

  “Nothing is foolproof, Cali. You shouldn’t have left any connection to Martinique. And you better than anyone know that if human weakness can’t be exploited, there is always someone who can exploit a technological one.”

  “I doubt anyone hacked their way into the bank’s computer. And even so, that would show account activity, but not forwarding addresses.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

  “Well, it’s a moot point because I had it mailed to Aleria under a different name.” She flipped the box flap and pointed to the label on the box. “MWJ, Inc. It’s phony. It’s my mom’s maiden initials. I opened a post office box here and I’ve checked it every day. The return address is also a phony. It’s an off-island secured holding facility the bank uses for unclaimed property. I guess someone could trace that if they worked hard enough, but really, I don’t—”

  “How did Eudora know this was yours, then?”

  His quietly spoken question cut through the steamy afternoon air like a sharp gust of cold air. Even Cali’s sun-flushed cheeks paled.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “I didn’t even think—I mean, you had just shown up and I was so surprised and so relieved. And then Eudora was there with the box and it didn’t occur to me to that she shouldn’t know—”

  “By accepting the package, you acknowledged you are MWJ, Inc.”

  Her eyes widened. “You don’t think this means she’s in on the whole mess somehow, do you?”

  John’s expression betrayed none of the turmoil going on inside his head. He had a very bad feeling about all of this. “In your talks with her, did you ever mention that you were waiting for a package?”

  She shook her head. “I’m certain of that. I stuck to my story that I was here on a sort of sentimental journey on the tenth anniversary of my husband’s death. She’d probably have heard I got mail after the fact, but what difference would that have made?” She looked down at the envelope and then toward the door Eudora had left through. “I guess there’s no point in going after her now.”

  “It won’t do us any good anyway.” John turned and paced to the counter and back, raking his hand through his damp hair. “Whatever she might know she won’t give up to us.” He turned back to face her.

  She began to peel open the sealed flap. She glanced up at him, her eyes filled with both excitement and a healthy dose of trepidation.

  John crossed the room and slid the opened package from her hands. She grabbed for them, but he was too fast.

  “Hey!”

  “I don’t know where the hell my head is.” He knew exactly where it was. On Cali instead of on the job. “I shouldn’t have let you open the box without me checking it first. That Eudora knew it was for you alerted me, but I thought you’d slipped and given out your address. Dammit, Cali, this whole thing could have been rigged.”

  Understanding dawned on her face. “Makes sense. Why else deliver it to me in the first place? If Eudora is somehow working for the black hats, she’d have just taken the box and delivered it to her boss. I’d never have known it arrived. But she did deliver it, so that either means …”

  He studied the thick envelope. “That it’s a trap of some kind. That someone on the island suspected you’re MWJ, Incorporated and passed that information on innocently to Eudora or—”

  “No, she’d have said something. She wouldn’t let something unusual like that pass without a question.” She stared pointedly at John. “Of course, she was a bit distracted.”

  John didn’t react. He’d just been doing his job. Something he managed to do easily with everyone on the planet but Cali Ellis. Ellis. She’d signed her note that way. Meaning she hadn’t remarried. He found his gaze straying to her ring finger and purposely pulled it back in, forcing his mind back to the matter at hand.

  “Then there is the curious coincidence of her son leaving the island just when this whole fiasco began. We don’t rule her out.”

  “Okay, then,” she said. “Why deliver it to me? Why not keep it?”

  “For all we know they’ve been through it already.”

  “The men who are after me are here?”

  John shook his head. “My instincts say no. They might have traced your faxes to Cayman and intercepted the package before it left.”

  “If that’s true, that still doesn’t explain Eudora or why it was sent on to me.”

  “They could pass it on to you, then follow you. I’m not sure about Eudora’s role at this point.”

  Cali shivered despite the hotter-than-average weather. She rubbed the sudden gooseflesh on her arms. “This is almost too paranoid even for me to believe.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Cali. We’re talking about people who made the contents of your condo disappear in the space of a day. Whatever Nathan was into must have been mighty powerful for them to launch a campaign like this. Rule number one: Never underestimate your opponent.” He held her gaze until she lowered her hands and squared her shoulders.

  “I was only trying to do the right thing, John. I didn’t ask for this. Any of it. But I can’t just hand over whatever is in that envelope or whatever information it might lead us to uncover without first figuring out just what it is I have stumbled into.”

  “Even at the risk of your life?”

  She paled again, but her eyes flashed. The contrast made him want to yank her behind him, to protect her from risking herself and doing anything foolish. And at the same time he wanted to pull her into his arms, soothe her fears, promise her he’d fight this battle for her if she’d just promise to keep herself safe in return.

  He could do neither. Nor could he extract that sort of promise from her. She wouldn’t give it. And he couldn’t allow her, or anyone, to matter that much to him.

  Or rather, he could never let anyone know how much she already mattered. Least of all Cali herself.

  “I don’t see where I really have a choice on risk, McShane. The bullets are already flying.”

  He’d liked it better when she called him John. “You could let me put you somewhere safe while I figure this out.”

  “No way. We already covered this ground. This is my fight. Whoever it is was responsible for Nathan’s death. I feel it in my bones. And if that’s not enough, now they’ve come after me too.” She crossed the room and snatched the envelope from his hands, turned, and emptied the contents onto the table. A three-ring binder stuffed thick with well-worn paper fell out.

  But it was the stack of diskettes that drew their undivided attention. Cali pinned him with her gaze. “Will you help me find Nathan’s killers, John?”

  FOUR

  Say yes.

  Cali repeated the words silently over and over as she stared him down. She had no idea what he was thinking. She hoped McShane couldn’t see how badly she was shaking inside. Bullets really were flying. She meant every word she’d said, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared out of her mind.

  “Well,” she said with far more bravery than she felt. “What’s it going to be?”

  He was silent for several more nerve-stretching seconds, then finally shifted his gaze back to the diskettes. “These are five-and-a-quarter floppies. We’ll have to find an older CPU.”

  It wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic avowal of support, but it was all she could do not to slump forward in abject relief. She desperately wanted to take five and regroup. She’d barely adapted to island time, and now things were popping too fast. But she didn’t have that luxury.

  “Did you bring a PC with you?” he asked.

  “I had an entire room filled with state-of-the-art equipment and enough software to make even Bill Gates drool.” She snapped her fingers. “All gone.”

  He glanced at her. “I take it that’s a no.”

  Cali fought an unexpected smile. Watching John flirt with Eudora had bothered her in ways it shouldn’t have. But now, with his newly revealed charm directed at her, she wondered if she’d been too hasty with her silent wishes.

  He was intimidating enough.
A charming John McShane was the last thing she wanted. Correction, her mind intruded. A charming John McShane was the last thing she needed. But be honest, Cali. You want it. You want him.

  John McShane? She shoved the whole absurd idea out of her mind. “That would be a no.”

  He sighed in obvious exasperation. The McShane she knew—irascible, impatient, and never satisfied—returned. She relaxed a notch. This was familiar territory.

  “How did you expect to analyze whatever it is you found down here?” he demanded.

  “With ancient hieroglyphics,” she shot back. “Come on, I had no idea what, if anything, I would find. I more or less fled the country. I didn’t have a master plan here, McShane.”

  “That’s obvious.”

  His criticism stung more than it should have. “Come on, it’s not as if I went to super-spy school like some of us in this room. You have to admit I’ve done pretty well, all things considered.” She broke off. The last thing she would ever do was seek his approval. She’d lost that battle with him before, during the lowest time of her life. A time when one kind word from him would have meant everything.

  She lifted the binder. “Let’s start with this. Maybe it will tell us what is on the diskettes. Then we’ll worry about tracking down a PC.” She pulled out a chair and sat down.

  She flipped open the cover, but John was still standing on the other side of the table. She could feel his attention focused on her. It wasn’t unpleasant.

  She looked up, and her heart jumped. Maybe it was the heat. It most definitely could have been the stress. But for a split second, she could have sworn she’d seen— No. No, she was mistaken. There was no way John McShane would ever look at her with what might—in a man who had feelings—be mistaken for tenderness.

  The very idea that he could feel such an emotion at all shook her up more than she cared to admit. Because if she cared to admit it, which until an hour ago she’d have sworn she didn’t, the idea of an emotional John McShane, whether it be charm or tenderness, was fast becoming an all-too-appealing proposition.

  “John?” His name came out much too huskily. She cleared her throat.

  His expression was fathomless once again. Yet as the silence grew and he continued to look at her, Cali felt a very specific heat begin to curl inside of her. It had been quite some time since she’d felt that particular warmth, but she knew exactly what it was—want.

  Want, which was not to be confused with need. There was no doubt she needed John McShane. Her very life probably depended on him.

  But want … That was another thing entirely.

  She’d lost too much. In the last ten years she’d allowed herself to want very few things, even less when it came to men. The risk of combining need with want was one she couldn’t take. Not yet. Maybe never again. Certainly not with John McShane.

  The scraping of chair legs broke her thoughts. Feeling her cheeks heat, somehow knowing he wouldn’t miss the telltale sign, she turned her attention back to the binder.

  She stilled for a split second when, instead of sitting in the chair, he dragged it around the table to a spot right next to her elbow. She’d never felt the heat of close proximity quite this way. She gathered the loose blank pages and fitted them back on the rings, then flipped quickly past the next few blank pages.

  He turned the chair and straddled it, then reached for the diskettes. There were four of them. She watched as he slid each one from its protective sleeve and examined both sides.

  “No labels?” she said.

  He shook his head and dropped the stack on the empty envelope. He turned to her. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  His eyes were so clear. She didn’t remember that quality, but she did remember the coldness.

  They weren’t cold now.

  She cleared her suddenly tight throat and looked back at the binder. “Nothing but blank pages so far.” She flipped past another half dozen. “Why would he have gone to the trouble to set up a safety-deposit box just to keep an empty notebook in it?” She glanced at John. “Makes me wonder if the disks are blank too.” She shook her head and thumbed slowly through another couple of pages, careful not to tear them from the metal rings.

  Suddenly John slid the notebook from her. “Wait a minute.”

  Cali’s mouth dropped open in protest. He wasn’t paying any attention to her. “I was trying not to tear anything. They’re blank, but the edges are worn, as if he’s been through this binder a hundred times.”

  “Exactly,” John said, positioning the book in front of him. He slid his fingers about halfway into the book and carefully flipped the pages over. “Still blank.”

  She frowned. “Well, other than invisible ink, I don’t—”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have an ultraviolet light around, would you?”

  “I was kidding about invisible ink.” She paused, but when he didn’t respond, she added, “But you’re not, are you?”

  “Is there a greenhouse around here somewhere?”

  “The whole island is one giant greenhouse. Even I could grow things here. But no,” she added when he sighed with impatience, “I don’t think there is a commercial one close by.” She looked at the supposed empty pages again, tilting her head and squinting. “Is there any other way to determine if there really is something on this page?”

  “Not without ruining the paper in the process.”

  “Why would he do this? Even ten years ago, the bad guys could figure out how to use ultraviolet light.”

  “But would anyone have given a blank book a second glance?”

  “One put in a safety-deposit box? It’s likely we aren’t the only ones who would figure it out.”

  “More than likely he did it as a safety measure while he was actively working on the journal. I doubt he intended to stash it away at the time. And once he did, there was certainly no reason to alter its form.”

  Cali snapped her fingers. “You know anything about processing film?”

  “What’s your angle?”

  “I was thinking about the red light they use in a darkroom.”

  “That’s just a safelight to keep the film from overprocessing while it’s developed.”

  “I know, but what about the chemicals used to develop the film? I took photography eons ago in high school. I don’t remember all the technical stuff, but I do know the basic principle. Prints are made on light-sensitive paper.”

  “You think the chemicals used in the process might bring up the print?”

  “Would that work?”

  Something that might have been respect lurked in his expression. She didn’t look too closely. It was easier to pretend she was right than chance being proven wrong.

  “That might do it. It’s a place to start.” He glanced around. “If we’re right, then whatever is on this paper is ten years old. It could ruin the notes altogether.”

  “We have to try. We’ll only have to lose one page to find out. There is a photo shop in the village.” She smiled dryly. “Their one concession to tourism, and a reluctant one at that.”

  “Charming place.”

  “Paradise can be hell.”

  His mouth softened into a brief smile. “I don’t suppose they’d let us borrow the darkroom for a couple of hours.”

  “I would imagine that will depend on how much money you’re willing to spend. They’re bigger on renting than lending around here.”

  “Ah yes, the heart of a generous host, but the soul of a slumlord.”

  “Why should paradise be any different than the rest of the world?”

  “You’ve grown cynical, Cali.”

  She eyed him. “Yeah, well, some of us are just slower on the uptake.”

  He didn’t say anything, and she thought she saw the respect in his expression change to disappointment. Her already-strung-too-tight nerves twanged a little. “I’m sorry, did you think you’d cornered that market? Or is cynicism permitted only to jaded, world-weary super-spies?”

  “Will you
cut it out with the super-spy thing?” He shoved a hand through his hair, looking peeved.

  Another emotion surfaces. McShane, sensitive? She’d thought him impervious to the opinion of others. But like it or not, his sensitivity to the subject caught at her. As did everything about him.

  She scowled. “Only if you cut it out with the ‘let’s rescue the poor blonde from herself’ attitude.”

  “I never said anything like that.”

  “With you, words generally aren’t necessary.” His frown deepened. She lifted a hand before he could respond. “Truce. I’m sorry. Really. It’s tension and stress on my part. No excuse, I know, since I asked you to join this little party.”

  He folded his arms on the back of the chair and regarded her silently. She wasn’t aware she was grinding her teeth until her jaw began to ache. “It’s just that, as you know, I have a little trouble with authority types.” His sudden smile did next to nothing to slow the rollercoaster of her emotions. How could she be angry and incredibly turned on at the same time?

  “You sit there and stare at me with that damned inscrutable ‘I know more about life than you could ever hope to, girly-girl’ look, and it drives me insane.”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “Girly-girl? I don’t believe I would ever say that, nor would I ever mean to insinuate it.” He straightened his back and his arms at the same time.

  It was not a great time to notice the wire-hard veins under his tan skin or how sculpted his forearms were.

  “As to you having blond moments …” He shrugged.

  She smacked him hard on the shoulder. He didn’t so much as flinch, but she could tell she’d surprised him.

  They both stared at each other. John cracked first. His chuckle modulated into an honest-to-goodness laugh. It was rich and deep-timbred. It totally transformed him.