by Dana Mentink
His casual dismissal of the rest of the security team stunned Lexie worse than she thought any stun gun could. Josh waved the gun at the doorway, and despite the typical nonlethal nature of stun guns, Lexie knew very well that the tool could be deadly in the wrong hands. She had no illusions about how much it would hurt to be shot, or that she’d walk away from a high-voltage dose of pure electricity unscathed.
In the hallway, Josh gripped her forearm and pointed her in the direction that she and Shaun had come from. Josh used the flashlight to guide their way, but Lexie paid very little attention to where he led them. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of his words. Did he have an accomplice on the security team? Perhaps he and Reed had been operating right under Parsons’s nose. It made sense, except that neither man seemed as if he had the strength or skill to pull off such a complex operation under their boss’s nose. Then again, what did she and Shaun really know about them? All she’d seen from these men was a willingness to follow orders.
“How’d you know where to find me?” Lexie blinked against the rising wave of panic. She needed to stall whatever inevitable fate Josh had planned for her.
“I smelled the smoke from the candles you put out. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see,” he mumbled. “Quiet, please.”
“You’ll never get away with this. You already know the ship is stuck in the ice and the Coast Guard is on the way. Passengers will need to return to their rooms to get their belongings, and someone’s going to see something.”
“This will be long over by then, Reilly. I’m pleased to say that this little operation is in its final throes. It’ll be over soon and you won’t have to worry about a thing.”
Everything he said made less and less sense. “Why? Are you going to kill me and finish off the job?”
“Kill you? Whatever gave you that idea?” They’d come to a stop in front of a familiar-looking metal door with a crash bar in the center. “Outside, please.”
Lexie’s semi-warmed bones grew chilled again. “I just came in from outside. Please, I might have frostbite already.”
“I think frostbite is going to be the least of your worries.” He chuckled. It was a chilling sound, and for the first time since Shaun had left her alone to find help, Lexie wondered whether she’d actually make it out of this alive. Where was Shaun? Had Josh already “taken care” of him upstairs? Was he lying somewhere in the dark, in need of medical assistance?
“I said, outside.” Josh shoved her from behind, forcing Lexie to push on the crash bar and open the door. To Lexie’s surprise, she wasn’t blasted by cold night air but might as well have been stepping into a bowl of pea soup. Thick, early morning fog enveloped them from every side. Lexie could barely see her hands in front of her face, let alone Josh behind her. If only she could get him to release her arm somehow.
“My leg hurts,” she said. “I can’t stand for long. You shot me in the leg earlier, and I think I’ve lost some blood.”
“I didn’t shoot you,” Josh grunted. “Keep quiet if you know what’s good for you.”
“Of course you did. What I don’t understand is how—”
“I said, quiet. I won’t ask again.” The stun gun pressed painfully into her spine. A radio’s alarm broke the silence of the morning air, and Lexie heard Josh slide a walkie-talkie from his belt. “I’ve got her. We’re outside on deck three. South end.”
A garbled response that sounded like “be right there” came over the line. Moments later, the door reopened. Lexie held her breath, praying for Shaun to burst through the fog, gun drawn—
Parsons slipped into view instead. Seeing Josh, he raised his hands in surrender.
“Watch out!” Lexie shrieked at Parsons, hoping the man would turn around and run back inside. “He’s armed and dangerous! And he’s a—”
Behind her, Josh groaned in exasperation. Not the reaction she’d expected. Nor had she expected Parsons to ignore her, cross the short distance to them with a bemused expression on his face and point a lazy finger at Josh. “Him? He’s a what?”
“An internationally wanted criminal mastermind…” Lexie’s voice trailed off as she saw the cruel smirk on Parsons’s face. Also gone was the friendly Newfy accent. “No. Oh, no, no, no.”
Parsons nodded. “I’m afraid so, little lady. Thank you, Bosworth, I’ll take it from here.”
“The CIA agent?” Josh growled.
“He’s been dealt with, but the icebreaker is nearly here. We need to wrap this up if we’re going to move these women when we dock. We’ve had—” he glanced pointedly at Lexie “—a number of unexpected complications on this journey.”
Lexie gasped, drawing Parsons’s attention back to herself. “You’re working for Josh? Don’t you understand? He’s trafficking young women and forcing them into domestic slavery and grueling overseas factory work. Doesn’t that make you sick?”
Parsons shrugged, glanced at Josh and laughed. “No, not really. In fact, it makes me a very, very rich man.”
Deeper understanding dawned on Lexie. Parsons didn’t work for Josh. Josh worked for him. “But…”
“I believe you know me as the Wolf, Alexandra. Now, that’s quite enough exposition for one day. Hand her over, Bosworth.” Parsons gestured at Josh, wiggling his fingers. “I need to pack this one away with the others and dispose of a body. Chop, chop. Work to be done.”
Lexie’s heart sank into her shoes. This truly was the end after all. They’d dispose of her and Shaun, and neither one of them would be seen again. The missing-persons investigator would become a missing person. Then Parsons’s words dawned on her. “Wait, pack me away? What do you mean? Are you going to kill me?”
Parsons raised an eyebrow and clapped his hands. “Kill you? Of course not. I haven’t killed you despite all your nosing around, so why should I do it now?”
Lexie sputtered in disbelief. “The bomb? The shots? You gassed us and one of your men attacked us in the engine room! Of course you’ve been trying to kill us.”
“Uh-uh.” Parsons wagged a finger in her face. “Not true. The man who attacked you paid for his mistake, and the others? Carefully timed and controlled to ensure that you’d be returned to me in one piece. You, that is. Lane, I couldn’t care less about. Collateral damage, really. I’m not a stupid man, Alexandra.”
Lexie’s heart thudded against her ribs. Why was this happening? “But Shaun said you rescued us from the gas in the library. Why do that if you set it up in the first place? Why bother?”
“Why? Use your noggin, girl. I needed to gain your trust to find out what you knew. And to stay in the loop to keep you from getting too close.” He winked, and Lexie felt nauseated. “Besides, it took me off your suspect list from the very beginning. Simple as that.”
A wave of heat washed over Lexie as a ringing in her ears signaled the beginning of a panic attack. She had no one to help calm her down this time, no one to make sure she was safe. If the panic attack took full hold, she’d be vulnerable for at least ten minutes until it passed.
God, help me, please. It was the second sincere prayer she’d offered up since Shaun’s departure for help. And although she still wasn’t sure if God truly cared, Shaun believed that God was in control, that He had a purpose and a plan for all things, even in the darkest hours and the remotest corners of the earth. Isn’t that what she’d been meant to learn in Botswana all those years ago? Isn’t that what God was still trying to teach her, even now?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as Parsons continued his diatribe.
“You should have left well enough alone, and I would have allowed you to return home without incident. Your problem is, you’re too nosy for your own good.”
Lexie struggled against Josh’s grip, but the stun gun jabbed into her spine. “You’re a monster. How can you do this to innocent people? You’re destroying families. Ruining lives. Those girls have a bright future ahead of them.”
Lexie’s blood ran cold. “Break it out of me? Never. Might as well kill me now.” She hoped her effort at false confidence hid the tremor in her voice.
Parsons laughed again, and Lexie’s stomach roiled. “And lose out on a potential sale? Of course not. You may be feisty, but we have methods for dealing with that. You’re young, strong, in good health. You’ll fetch a pretty penny at one of the brick building camps.”
Acid built up in Lexie’s throat and she swallowed it down. The man was insane. Selling women to work in factories? Shaun had been right—cutting off Maria’s braid meant keeping the person intact, so she could be worked harder at a greater profit. It was beyond sickening. “You’ll never get away with this,” she hissed.
“I will, and I do. Have been for many, many years.” Parsons motioned at Josh to hand her over. “I’ll take it from here, Bosworth. Good work, as usual.”
But to Lexie’s utter shock, the stun gun’s pressure against her back eased as Josh turned the gun on Parsons. “I don’t think so. This has gone far enough.”
It was Parsons’s turn to be surprised. “What’s this? You want a bigger cut? We can negotiate that. You haven’t been around as long as Reed and Walter—oh, right, Walter is no longer with us—but normally we do this behind closed doors, much more civilly.”
“Not a raise. Timothy Parsons, turn around and put your hands in the air.”
Lexie stifled a gasp. Who was this guy?
Parsons voiced the exact same sentiment, raising his hands up, palms toward Josh. “You may be overstepping your bounds here a bit, son.”
“Miss Reilly, please step behind me.” Josh didn’t turn to look at Lexie, but she did what he asked, because…why not? Getting out of the line of fire sounded good, unless this was just another ruse to try and goad her into information or stop her from running.
Josh lowered his voice to speak to her. “You need to trust me. I’m a deep cover agent from the RCMP. I’ve been working the same ring as Lane, from the inside. I’ve been feeding information to the CIA for several years now, but when you began your search for Maria, I realized we had the girl en route and there was a possibility you might be able to free her before she got moved overseas. I’d hoped you and Lane would cross paths.”
Lexie could hardly believe her ears—and neither could Parsons, by the looks of it. The man’s cheeks had grown red, his brow dark and furrowed.
“I don’t believe you,” growled Parsons. “You’ve worked for me for almost a year and haven’t done a thing.”
“Wasn’t the right time. I needed solid evidence and the right people to take you down.”
“You’re not that good.”
“I only had to be better than you. And thankfully, Miss Reilly and Agent Lane were the right people.”
Parsons’s scowl deepened. “You got a badge you can show me? I’ll go peacefully, but I need to know you’re not lying. That you’re not part of some rival group looking to scam in on my good thing here.”
Josh chuckled. “Good news, Mr. Parsons. I packed my badge this morning, for a moment just like this.” Josh reached inside his shirt pocket, but that was all the distraction Parsons needed. With Josh’s split focus, Parsons reached behind his back and drew a pistol, firing off a shot before Josh knew what had hit him.
Lexie watched, stunned, as the RCMP officer crumpled face-first to the ground. Almost immediately, a rivulet of blood seeped out from underneath the body, traversing the icy surface of the deck.
“That takes care of that,” said Parsons, turning his gun on Lexie. “Never liked that guy anyway. Didn’t respect the ocean the way I do, you understand? I may have ulterior motives, but I love this boat. It’s like a second home—well, first home, really.”
The man was delusional. Completely deranged. There could be no other explanation. Lexie could barely believe this was the same man they’d worked side-by-side with for the past two days, but then again, hadn’t they had clues? Always knowing where she and Shaun would be and when, and then the tracker inside the walkie-talkie…of course it had been him. He’d probably tracked them on his computer—a computer in the security office that he had access to at all times. How had they not seen this coming? He’d been clever, rescuing them from the gas incident.
She glanced down at Josh. He hadn’t moved. “He needs a doctor,” Lexie cried, the buzzing in her ears growing louder. “He’ll die.”
Parsons shrugged. “That’s the idea. But that’s what I have Reed for. Cleanup duty. He should be here any minute now. I imagine Lane got the surprise of his life, eh? Or should I say, the last surprise of his life.”
Lexie squeezed her eyes shut and willed the tears and panic away. Now was not the time. The man in front of her so clearly viewed people as objects that he’d shot Josh in cold blood. Doubtless he’d do the same to her if she caused too much trouble. Still, he’d intentionally kept her alive this far, so she might have a fighting chance.
But this time, she’d have to face the fight alone.
She found herself longing to see Shaun, just one more time. Had she and Shaun met again after eight years, only to lose each other? Even during their kiss, she hadn’t been fully sure of herself, but now she knew. If she had even one more moment with Shaun, she’d tell him exactly how she felt. Her head, though resistant to the truth he’d shared with her, could be overcome—because her heart, despite it all, had fallen hard for him.
Please, Lord. I don’t know what to do, but I trust You’ve brought me here for a purpose. I do believe that. I trust You.
Parsons crossed the remaining stretch of deck toward her, stepping carefully across the still-icy surface. He pulled Josh’s radio off the immobile man’s belt and opened a channel. “Hey, Reed? You on your way?”
And then she heard it. A soft click of a latch nearby, too quiet to be Parsons’s accomplice heading out onto the deck. Hastily, Lexie cleared her throat, hoping it would cover the sound. “Can’t see much of anything out there today, can we?” She focused her attention out toward the foggy sea, shuffling the short distance to the railing. “How will you know when the icebreaker gets here? What if you run out of time to clean up?”
Parsons kept his gun out, but lazily waved it in the direction of the ocean. “We’ll hear it. I’ll get word from the captain as soon as they’re in striking distance—the captain trusts me, of course.” He winked at Lexie. “I’ll have plenty of time to get this place cleaned—”
Suddenly, out of the mist, Shaun swooped in like a falcon. He targeted Parsons’s gun and struck the man’s arm with an expertly aimed blow, knocking the weapon out of Parsons’s hand. Parsons jumped for it as it flew out of his hand and over the railing, but the deck was far too icy for that kind of sudden movement. Instead of jumping upward as intended, his feet slipped on the ice, pitching him forward across the railing.
The railing’s slick coating of ice proved problematic to hold on to, and though Parsons gripped the bar, his bulky frame tipped over the edge of the rail as Shaun lunged to grab any part of the man. Anything to stop him from falling over the side of the ship. Shaun caught Parsons’s wrist as the man struggled to hold on to the slippery, frozen surface.
“You’re not going down that easily,” Shaun bellowed, face flushed with the effort of trying to keep the big man’s grasp from failing. One of Shaun’s feet slipped, and he stumbled to regain his balance. Another slip like that, and he’d disappear over the side with the man he struggled to save.
“You’ve ruined everything,” Parsons huffed, breaths coming short as his left hand slid, finger by finger, from the railing. “I’ll kill you for this.”
“You were going to kill me anyway,” Shaun said.
They were both going to fail. Lexie’s throat constricted with fear, but if she didn’t act, they’d lose everything. With one final prayer for strength, she reached up to grip Shaun around his legs, giving him leverage on the slippery deck. If she could ground him with even more weight somehow, he might be able to pull Parsons back aboard—
“I’m losing him,” Shaun called. “Lexie, I can’t hold on!”
Lexie released Shaun and leaped to her feet. She reached over the railing, trying to grab Parsons’s left hand, but the man’s loose arm flailed too much, his weight too heavy to reach back up and take the lifeline Lexie offered.
“Come on,” Shaun grunted through gritted teeth. “Reach! You can do it!”
Parsons, to Lexie’s confusion, began to laugh. Shaun’s sudden intake of breath brought her attention to where Shaun still gripped Parsons, and noticed the slide of skin against skin. Shaun was losing his grip, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
“Just let go.” Parsons sneered. “You know you want to. You’re no hero, Lane. It’s over for me.”
“No!” Shaun leaned farther over the railing to adjust his grip, but like a scene played in slow motion, Shaun’s feet slipped again on the deck surface. Lexie launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his torso to keep him solidly on the deck, even as Parsons’s hand slid the final inch from Shaun’s grasp.
With a shout, Parsons plummeted through the air, four stories down the side of the ferry toward the thick ice below.
Lexie stared, watching Parsons fall, until Shaun pulled her into his chest and covered her face. A thud and a crack signified the end.
