Without A Trace

by Sandra Moore

  Had he loved Regina? Her chest tightened. “What happened to her? You gave me the abridged version, but you didn’t tell me everything.”

  “I don’t wish to speak of it.”

  “She was Athena. She was my sister.”

  “You never knew her.”

  “In my world, at Athena, we’re all sisters.”

  Johnny was silent for a long, long moment.

  “Were you lovers?”

  “No.”

  “Then just say it. Tell me what happened.”

  Johnny’s fingers tightened on her shoulders until she thought her collarbone would break. “It’s ugly.”

  “Try me.”

  Anger tinged his voice. “I killed her.”

  Chapter 15

  N ikki bolted off the boulder, heart thudding, and put some distance between them on the narrow ledge. Wind whipped up from far below, swirling her loosened ponytail. “How did you do it?”

  Johnny stepped toward her. “It was simple.”

  She instinctively reached for the missing SW-99. “Gun? Knife? What?”

  He stopped his advance and laughed, a sound dragged through deep sand. “Neglect. Stupidity. Carelessness.” He paused. “Arrogance.”

  Rotting fish, Nikki recognized instantly. Self-derision. Self-hate. Johnny hadn’t killed Regina directly. He’d made a mistake of some kind. She relaxed a fraction.

  The rock beneath her foot gave, her weight shifted. She gasped as the ledge crumbled.

  Suddenly she was crushed to Johnny’s chest. Her feet lost contact with the ground. She spun, caught in his arms. Her wrist jammed between the boulder and Johnny’s back. She yelped.

  “You okay?”

  His hand running through her wind-tangled hair felt nice. So did her legs entwined with his, and his pelvis pinning her to the rock. But other parts of her didn’t. She grunted. “My arm.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry.”

  He released her. She wasn’t quite out of reach before Johnny was running his broad hands over her forearm.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “You scared the shit out of me.” Nikki mentally cursed her unsteady voice.

  “I shouldn’t have said what I did. Not like that.”

  “Damn right, you shouldn’t have. I thought I was your next victim.”

  His hands stilled. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “That’s not what I was hearing.” Nikki pulled her arm from his grasp. “You make me feel sorry about what happened to you and then tell me you killed Regina Woo? That’s bullshit of the worst kind, Johnny.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Then stop being coy and tell me what you’re talking about. How did she die?”

  He thrust his hands in his jeans pockets. Clouds were sailing swiftly overhead. The moon, what there was of it, disappeared. With the light gone, only the winking sparks of Stanley Village pricked the darkness beneath them.

  “We were to meet after she left her work. I usually show up a few minutes early on days we start a mission. As a precaution. With my work, the men I associate with—it’s good to be careful. To protect the mission.”

  Nikki resisted the urge to ask him questions about his missions, whatever they were. He’d paused again, and she didn’t want to stop him.

  After a moment, he said, “I was being followed. I saw her leave the office building and start walking down the street. Sun Yee On, I thought. I recognized the man following me. I lost him a couple of streets over, but by the time I got back to Regina…”

  “You weren’t the target,” Nikki said softly.

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  She stepped close to him and breathed deeply. This time, she didn’t need to see his face. He was telling the truth.

  “She was a good woman,” Johnny said. “Good strategist. What’s the phrase? Grace under fire?”

  “She was Athena. She would be good.”

  “Yes, I see that.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and stared at them, not looking at her. “You both honor this Athena Academy.”

  “And you think you killed her.”

  “I should have recognized the decoy.”

  Part of her thought, Yes, you should have. Another part of her said, “What does your grandfather say about it?”

  Johnny took two long steps that put him at the cliff’s edge. Nikki’s knees went weak with sympathy. Would he jump? Finally he said, “My grandfather says I live too much in the past.”

  “You’re not doing that now, are you? You’re here, right now, with me. You’re telling me about the past, but you’re here.”

  He pivoted then and nodded. “Yes. For now.”

  “Can you stay with me? At least until we get Diviner?” When he didn’t say anything, she added, “I need you to help me.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  Nikki swallowed. “Everything’s…overwhelming. I can’t keep it all straight—”

  “You’re smart, you’ve—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” Tears threatened and she cleared her throat. “In me. It’s overwhelming. Everything I feel. It’s too much.”

  “You are…passionate.”

  “Out of control.”

  “No. Just passionate.”

  “You balance me.” She paused because the next thing was going to be hard to say. Give me strength, she prayed, then said, “I can’t do this on my own. You’re the only one who can help me.”

  The clouds moved on, and Johnny was silhouetted, a black figure against a less black sky. In the silence, Nikki could hear cars purring along the ribbon that separated Stanley Village, refuge of the wealthy few, from downtown. She and Johnny seemed to have all the time in the world. This moment when they were both here, now, could stretch on forever and she was, for the first time in her life, content to let it do that even as part of her ached to have his arms pull her in, where she’d be safe.

  “Yes, I will help you.” Johnny drew close. “I’m sorry. About all of it.”

  “Me, too.”

  They stood together, barely touching. Nikki felt the same spark, the same awareness, that she had earlier in the evening. Still, the only scent she knew was the clean salt from the sea wind.

  “You really can’t tell how I feel,” he said.

  “No. Not right now.”

  He took her hand. She thought he was contemplating it, as if turning something over in his mind. Then he guided her palm to his chest.

  Below the armor of hard muscle and unyielding bone, his heart thundered, fast and sure.

  “Now you do.”

  Her mouth went dry and she remembered that kiss in the club, how he’d lingered and how she’d wished for more. And sometimes, she reflected as he bent his head and grazed her lips with his, the universe grants the wish it hears.

  His hair was softer than she’d guessed, but his arm sliding around her waist was as solid as she remembered. He took his time. She’d been kissed before, plenty of times, but Johnny made her past boyfriends feel like boys, when he was so definitely a man. That feeling unnerved her.

  As if he sensed her hesitancy, he eased off her lips and with his thumb tipped her head slightly to the side, baring her neck. His firm lips nibbled down her jaw to the sensitive skin beneath her ear. She gasped, inhaled deeply, and fell headfirst into a sea of the sandalwood scent that flared from them both.

  Then he was back, angling his mouth over hers. She slipped into the now, feeling his breath on her cheek, tasting his lips and tongue. Her hands burrowed beneath his T-shirt and he groaned when her fingernails raked his back.

  “Nikki,” he growled.

  A single step, and he pinned her against the boulder, his arm cushioning her head. The rock pressed painfully into her spine but she didn’t care. His hot skin was all she wanted under her fingertips, under her body. When he tilted against her, she knew exactly how he felt.

  The high whine of a sport bike razored the stillness.

  Johnny abruptly released her. The w
ind cooled her heated face and neck, and she almost shivered.

  “We have to go,” he said.

  He grabbed her hand and they ran for his Ducati, crashing through low branches and path-encroaching underbrush. The whine was still some way off.

  “Should we wait it out?” Nikki asked.

  “No. It’s the first bike. They’ve doubled back.”

  The whine dropped an octave.

  “They’re looking for us now.”

  Nikki swung behind him on the Ducati’s seat. She jammed her helmet on and held his ready for him. Johnny ignored it to key the bike running. He drove quickly, bouncing over ruts. Nikki felt the back tire fishtail, then they’d popped out of the forest and he’d turned them onto the narrow road, headed north toward downtown.

  He gunned the bike up and over the summit. Nikki prayed the bike wouldn’t leave the ground and one-armed his waist tighter. They curved and swayed quickly—too quickly, she thought—back and forth until they hit a straight stretch. Johnny reached back, snagged the helmet she held and levered it onto his head without losing speed.

  Behind them, a crack broke past the sound of roaring engine.

  They can’t be shooting, Nikki told herself. She caught Johnny’s faint penny scent and corrected herself. They were shooting.

  “Hang on to me!” Johnny shouted.

  Nikki didn’t protest this order. She simply wrapped both arms around his waist and hoped their pursuer’s aim at moving targets was bad.

  The pursuing bike’s whine dropped into more of a rumble.

  “They’re closer!” she shouted into his neck.

  He guided the bike into the right lane—the oncoming traffic lane—and back to the left. Evasive maneuvers. Nikki clutched his waist. Her back itched and its muscles spasmed, anticipating a bullet’s stinging heat. Another crack, and a round sang past her helmet.

  “Get ready!”

  What? To get shot?

  On the other hand, would getting shot when you were doing about a hundred and fifty miles an hour away from the bullet mean you’d survive? Wind stung her eyes and she forced them to stay open. She looked behind. The bike’s headlight glare masked the driver. Then movement. A glint of metal shoulder-high.

  “He’s going to shoot again!” she yelled over the wind and engine.

  “Sit back!”

  Johnny’s body tensed. Nikki jammed her feet onto the pegs and leaned hard. The Ducati’s scream had topped out. Now it abruptly dropped and Nikki slammed forward, into Johnny’s back, as he braked. She rode up his back about a foot, clutched his shoulders to keep from being thrown over his head.

  The other bike swerved, shot past them. One driver, one rider holding a gun. Neither wore a helmet. The rider’s aim went wild. Johnny gunned the Ducati. Nikki dropped back into the saddle. In moments, she’d yanked off her heavy helmet and held it by the strap.

  “Alongside!” she yelled.

  Johnny shifted gears. The driver was twisting his neck, trying to find them. The rider yelled and waved his gun, trying to get a clear shot. Johnny feinted passing on their right, then switched left and sprinted even.

  Nikki leaned far toward the other bike and gave it her best home-run swing.

  Her helmet thudded against the rider’s naked head. Her arm bounced back. The armed rider swayed crazily. His driver slowed.

  The bike careened in the middle of the road. Johnny sped up a hair to get clear. Nikki caught a glimpse of the armed rider falling. The driver shouted something and tires screeched on pavement.

  Johnny shifted gears again and they pulled away. His victory whoop reverberated through his back, where she’d pressed her cheek. She couldn’t get her breath, she realized when she started seeing stars. No breath, no shouting.

  Nikki patted Johnny’s chest with the hand still grabbing his rib cage. He nodded and began to slow, much more gently this time. She kept a grim hold on her helmet. She didn’t look to see if the guy’s brains were splattered on its shiny surface.

  They hit the outskirts of downtown in minutes, and Johnny started his evasive maneuvers through narrow side streets that he’d done on the way to his grandfather’s place the night before. The low-slung buildings that lay like foothills to the mountainous skyscrapers reeked of ginger, jammed grease traps and yesterday’s fish. Nikki didn’t dare hold her breath. She kept seeing the rider falling sideways, imagined him tumbling along the pavement while the motorcyclist slammed to a stop.

  Johnny pulled into an alleyway and finally parked near some garbage cans. Nikki’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She was trying to breathe deeply, into the very bottom of her lungs. The stars had receded a bit, but the rotted fruit and meat brought bile into her throat.

  And damn, her hand stung.

  Then it was all too much—the noxious smells, the garbage, the rider falling into the road, the sound of the helmet smashing into his head. Nikki leaned on the wooden fence lining the alleyway. Her stomach, caught between wanting to retch and trying not to heave, clenched.

  She felt Johnny’s hand, strong and gentle, on her nape, then his other hand braced her forehead.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured. “Be sick if you need to.”

  Great, just what she needed. A guy who ordered her around, was a chauvinistic pig one minute and a gentle lover the next, and who was about to do for her what not even her best friend had ever done. Not that Nikki would have asked…Erping up your guts was sort of a private thing.

  But here he was, unfazed. It was enough to make a girl forget the chauvinistic pig part.

  Nikki swallowed hard. “I’m okay. It’s the odors.”

  “I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry.”

  “Sensory overload.”

  “That ride didn’t help.”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  When she straightened, he stepped back, gave her room. She was sure her face was green in the sickly light cast from the seafood stall he’d parked behind.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Couldn’t get my breath for a while.”

  “Adrenaline rush.”

  “The rush won’t do me much good if I pass out.”

  “Here.” He guided her back to the bike. “Just sit for a minute.”

  She hiked her butt back onto the bike’s seat. “Do you know who those guys were?”

  He shook his head as he laid a comforting hand on her knee. “Nor why they want to kill us now instead of follow us. Unless the Wo Deputy Mountain Master got pissed off by your bluff about the boat last night.”

  “Just what I need.”

  “It will be okay.” He squeezed her leg.

  The bad light slanting across the broad planes of his face made him look dangerous rather than ill. The pine surrounding him told her he’d either rubbed up against some sap on the mountainside, or that he was feeling particularly protective. Her face flamed when she noticed his untucked shirt. She’d done that. With a man she barely knew.

  Except that she did know him. Quite a bit of him, in fact. Enough to know that if she was going to be caught in a mess with two Chinese gangs, miscellaneous evil women and in a country she didn’t know squat about, this was the guy for her.

  She caught herself up. No, the way she’d just characterized him was wrong, dishonest. Sure, it was true in its way, but not the way she meant. When he stood beside her, she felt centered. When he held her close, she felt safe. It was like her body knew in a way her traitorous brain didn’t that he was good and trustworthy. His knowing his way around and being able to fight the good fight was just icing on the cake.

  “There’s another possible reason they were following us,” he said.

  Nikki thought for a moment, then her stomach warmed with dread. “They already know where Diviner’s going. They don’t need us anymore.”

  “It’s the most logical explanation.”

  She stared at him. Nothing resembling fear emanated from him at all. “These jerks are out to kill us and we just nearly got killed at
about a hundred miles an hour and neither of those two things bothers you?”

  Johnny smiled. “It means we know what to expect in Singapore.”

  Chapter 16

  T he flight to Singapore was full up, and Nikki found herself breathing through her mouth. Johnny sat next to her, aisle seat, and said little during takeoff, for which she was grateful. She watched the low, lush mountains fall away as the plane gained altitude.

  It was rare for her to have this kind of trouble with the scents these days. When the “gift” originally developed, back when she was thirteen and going through puberty, she’d had migraines from overload—horrible, gagging, sick-to-the-stomach migraines where everything physical, especially scents, was offensive. It’d been months before she’d learned how to filter out the unnecessary, before she’d discovered how to tell the difference between physical and emotional scent.

  If her tracking of Mingxia and Yanmei was anything to judge by, she was still having trouble with that.

  Johnny might be right. Her gift might be unpredictable.

  She’d never tried to quantify its accuracy in any way—never thought that little exercise was necessary—but he had a point, she thought as she watched clouds slip like gauze across the window glass. How could they count on her extrasensory sense of smell if it went whacko on her or put her down for the count every other day? Heaven knew she had plenty of stress already in her life right now, and topping her days off with a migraine was an event she couldn’t afford.

  Four hours later, they landed at Changi Airport as a light mist began to fall. Johnny negotiated a rental car at the busy terminal, and by the time they had tossed their shared backpack in the Peugeot’s trunk, the mist had strengthened into rain.

  “Where do we get weapons?”

  Johnny pulled out of the rental car lot and joined heavy traffic flowing toward an oasis of skyscrapers. “I have an old friend from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau. He’ll set us up with what we need.”

  He quickly left the highway and maneuvered the car through crowded side streets, dodging crazy drivers and crazier rickshaw cycles, until they reached a ramshackle part of the city. Nikki lost count of the number of times he doubled back, crossed train tracks and crept down alleyways. She couldn’t tell if they were being followed, and she wasn’t sure it mattered anymore.