Uncover Me

by Linda Barlow

  I was poised for flight, but he was close now, running with such grace and speed I knew I'd never get away. Anyway, flight would proclaim my guilt. Perhaps I could convince him I had no idea he was up to anything illicit. That I was a simple American tourist who wouldn't know a smuggler from a fisherman. That the pictures I'd been taking were innocent landscapes whose ultimate destination was a website labeled "My Trip to Turkey."

  If he believed that, the golden-haired man was a fool.

  Twenty yards away, he stopped and said something in Turkish. The phrase was idiomatic, but the gist was clear. "Come out with your hands up." It was then that I saw he was cradling something dark and metallic in both hands. I thought it was the crowbar. Then he aimed it, and I knew it was a gun.

  Chapter 2

  ELLIE

  "Don't shoot!" Putting down my camera and raising my arms over my head, I stepped out from the olive grove into the sun. "Lutfen," I added, the Turkish word for please. "I'm a tourist. Do you speak English? I'm sorry if I'm trespassing, but I thought this was public land."

  It sounded ludicrous, but with my heart thudding and my stomach so cramped I thought I might double over and collapse before he could bother to shoot me, it was the best I could come up with. He was advancing again, his hard face expressionless, his eyes narrowed to slits as they flicked over me, taking in my appearance from my long, ill-kempt hair to my new leather boots.

  His gaze lingered for an instant on my breasts and hips. As he closed in on me, I could see that his eyes were light green, the color of tropical seawater. Beautiful eyes, thickly fringed with gold-tipped lashes. Yet for all their beauty, they were mercilessly cold.

  He was five yards away, then two, then one. He stopped. The gun, a large ugly pistol, was pointed dead at the center of my body. If he shot at this range, he couldn't miss, nor would I survive. "Please," I said again, lips trembling. "No English? French, then?" My French was not terrific. "Je suis americaine." Instinct warned me not to try Turkish—an American tourist wouldn't speak more than a polite word or two of that language. "Je suis une touriste. Comprenez-vous?"

  "Who are you and what the fuck are you doing here?" he said in English.

  "Thank god, you do understand me. It would be stupid for you to shoot me just because we couldn't communicate."

  He must have found this answer flip, since he reached out, caught my wrist and jerked me against his body. My yelp of surprise died in my throat as one hand captured my arms behind my back while the other held the barrel of the gun to a point just below my left breast. His touch was both impersonal and professional. It didn't hurt, but this wasn't reassuring. If he had to kill me, he would do so swiftly, with a minimum of fuss.

  "You have five seconds to explain yourself."

  "I was camped here." I nodded in the direction of my pack. His English was more than excellent; it was perfect. He sounded as if he might be British, although there were American inflections, too. "I had trouble with my bike. I couldn't make it to the official campgrounds."

  "You were photographing us."

  "I was photographing the coastline. Not you."

  "You expect me to believe that?" He kicked at my camera, which rolled over in the dirt. Inwardly I winced, and would have cried out "Don't hurt my camera," if it hadn't seemed a frivolous concern, given that he was probably about to end my life.

  "That's a telephoto lens, so cut the lies."

  His young sidekick had run after him and was now within hearing distance. The other man, the fat one, was following more slowly, toiling up the hill and muttering obscenities as he came.

  My captor twisted my arm, and for the first time I felt a shiver of pain. "Who are you working for? The Turks? The Americans? Interpol?"

  "I'm just a tourist."

  His hold on my arms grew rougher. He was twisting, putting pressure on ligaments and bone. It hurt and I think I whimpered. "Where's your partner? Nobody sends a woman out on an assignment like this alone."

  "Please. I'm not a cop." I could feel tears spring up behind my lashes. I squeezed them back. Courage was important to me. I knew about fear; I had suffered from occasional anxiety attacks for years. Numbing panic could grab me anytime, reducing me to a shaking, sweating wreck. But it hadn't come yet, and until it did, I would try to hang on to whatever shreds of dignity I possessed. "My name is Ellie Heath, and I'm in Turkey on vacation. I arrived in Istanbul last week—my passport's in my pack along with my camping guide, my first aid kit and my extra roll of toilet paper. I thought you were fishermen."

  He barked a command in Turkish at the young man, who was regarding me with the outright masculine appraisal that had been so conspicuously absent in the cold assessing gaze of the man who held me. The kid, who looked to be in his early twenties, was good-looking. He had curly dark hair cut close around his head and a profile that wouldn't have looked out of place on an ancient fresco. His eyes were dark and liquid, full of the easy arrogance of youth.

  He sauntered over to my pack and began going through it. "Here's the passport." He began reading out the information. His accent, unlike the blond man's, was atrocious, although it was clear that he must have studied some English in school. "The name written here is Helen Heath."

  "Helen?" My left arm received a new wrench, and I bit back a cry of pain. "You said Ellie."

  "That's what everyone calls me. My mother named me Helen. She's an archaeologist. She has a keen interest in the legend of Troy."

  "Well, Helen of Troy, you're only a few miles from the site where your namesake spent her captivity. Menelaus's army could have come ashore anywhere along this part of the coast. Maybe right here in this inlet. It matches Homer's description."

  I was impressed with his knowledge of Homer. I guess smuggling antiquities required some expertise in classical lit. I was also surprised by the educated quality of his voice and, once again, the accent. He sounded less British now and more East Coast American.

  "Check the date and port of entry, Metin," he ordered in English.

  "Atatürk Havaalani, Istanbul. Third of April."

  "When's your birthday, Ellie Heath?"

  "February 24."

  "Year?"

  I told him.

  He looked at Metin, who nodded.

  "The nickname is a nice touch. Along with the bit about your archaeologist mother. What's her name? Is she someone I've heard of?"

  "Sybil Matheson-Heath." I didn't add that anyone who knew anything about scholarly archaeology would recognize it.

  There was a low whistle from behind my right ear. So he'd heard of my mother. Maybe I shouldn't have revealed it. What if he decided to hold me for ransom? My mother was well known, but by no means rich.

  "She is cok guzel, Nicholas, very beautiful," Metin said. He had switched to rapid Turkish, but I had no trouble understanding. "I hope you're not going to shoot her before we have the chance to fuck her."

  "Stop fantasizing and examine the rest of her things," was the cold reply.

  Nicholas. I concentrated on his name rather than the younger man's words, which I was not supposed to understand. Nicholas. An American who spoke fluent Turkish, as I also did. He must have lived in Turkey, too. Yet he had no qualms about stealing its archeological treasures.

  The fat man had lumbered up to us now. He was demanding, in harsh, expletive-laden Turkish, that I be put to death. He picked up my camera and began punching the delete button on the recent pictures. Then he dashed the camera to the ground and battered it, provoking an involuntary protest from me. Besides the fact that I loved the damned thing, I had several thousand dollars invested in my photography equipment. I expected to be in debt to Visa for the next twenty years.

  If I lived so long.

  "Be quiet," ordered my captor as I protested the fat man's assault on my equipment. "Better your camera than your life."

  Did that mean he didn't intend to kill me?

  "She is a journalist," said Metin, holding up my press credentials. "Look."

&nb
sp; "A journalist?" Nicholas wrenched my arms so that I stumbled and nearly fell. He caught me and pulled me around to face him. "You're a fucking reporter? Who do you work for?"

  "I'm freelance," I mumbled.

  The fat man was quaking in outrage as Metin translated the words on the press card. He pulled out a gun and said in Turkish, "If you don't shoot her, I will."

  "Put the weapon away," Nicholas said in the same language. "She's an American. For all we know, there's a drone hovering nearby."

  The thug didn't stash the weapon, but he stopped waving it and peered around suspiciously, shading his eyes to look up at the sky. Heavy clouds were moving in. The day that had started so brightly was turning dark.

  The blond man returned his attention to me. "You're a journalist snapping pictures with a telephoto lens of a criminal wanted in nine countries while he's smack in the middle of his latest crime."

  Nine countries? "Actually, I'm a photographer doing a fluff piece on historical sites in Turkey. I have no interest in you, no matter how infamous you are."

  "I'm going to have to make certain of that." He pocketed his gun and placed his hands on my throat. It happened too fast for me to panic. I'm going to die, I thought as his strong fingers slipped around to the back of my neck, slid between two vertebrae and pressed. It didn't hurt, but I felt an odd numbness. The last thing I saw was his starkly beautiful, almost angelic, face bending over me, his gilt hair tousled by the wind. Then darkness took me.

  Chapter 3

  ELLIE

  My return to consciousness was slow, with my brain suggesting that it might be preferable to remain blissfully blank. But I didn't. I remembered what had happened moment by moment, event by event, the images sliding in and out of my consciousness.

  Even before opening my eyes, I knew where I must be. I was lying on a hard mattress, and it wasn't my dizziness that was making it pitch up and down. Something was creaking with loud, monotonous regularity; the air smelled of the sea. I was aboard the smugglers' yacht.

  For several moments, I lay still, listening, feeling, sniffing the air. My wrists and ankles were bound, and I was afraid to open my eyes. I imagined myself stuffed in some dark tiny corner, locked in, unable to move, trapped. A film of sweat broke out over my body. Oh, God. I hadn't had an attack for a couple of months—not since I'd broken up with Mark, in fact—but now it was happening again, my mysterious, much-dreaded claustrophobia.

  It was dark and I was alone. I smelled the dusty earth; it crumbled beneath my fingers as I clawed at it. I screamed, but no one answered. I gasped for breath, the air burning my lungs. I screamed again, knowing I was trapped here, knowing I would never, ever get out.

  Stop it! I ordered myself, forcing the nightmare images from my brain. My body was humming with panic. Fear was such a physical thing. How well I recognized the knifing cramps in my belly, the electric static of my heartbeat, the unspeakable feeling of impending doom. If this was a small, dark room I was locked in, I would die here. The absence of light was what freaked me out the most. That and the thought of suffocating in an airless place.

  Eyes squeezed shut, I continued to fight the feelings. But fighting only made them worse. I wasn't supposed to fight, dammit. Why did I always forget that? The fight or flight instinct was so powerful, so immediate. By the time I noticed I was fighting, adrenaline had flooded all my cells.

  Float through it, I whispered to myself. Release the fear. Just...let it go.

  Relief came in the form of a shout from somewhere outside. My eyes popped open in automatic response, forcing me to face my surroundings. My panic tapered off. The room I was in was neither dark nor, by boating standards, small.

  I was lying on a berth in what was probably the yacht's master cabin. There were two large rectangular portholes on the opposite wall, curtained to keep out the sun. I blinked as I looked around. The room looked Turkish. An Oriental carpet covered the tiny floor space. Copper fittings were used for light fixtures and trimming. Cabinets and bookshelves lined two of the walls. The bed where I was lying took up most of the space in the stateroom. It was large enough—barely—for two and was covered with a soft black quilt.

  I sat up. My hands, bound with rope in front of me, were useless. My feet were trussed in similar fashion. My boots had been removed and were nowhere to be seen; my socks, too, had vanished. I tugged a little on my bonds, but they did not give. They were tight enough to feel uncomfortable. I moved my fingers experimentally. They felt a little stiff, but I didn't think my circulation was impaired.

  "Efficient," I said aloud. I took a deep breath to calm myself. He had tied me, of course.

  How long had I been out? What had he done to me to cause the unconsciousness? There had been no blow, no pain. Just his fingers on my neck, almost a caress, and then oblivion.

  I shivered. My captor was an American who spoke Turkish. He was young, attractive and wanted in nine countries. He was so skillful in the martial arts that he could render a victim unconscious with a touch. A little more pressure would probably have killed me.

  But I was still alive. Why? I saw myself as he must have seen me when he'd brought me in here—my slender body, bound and vulnerable, stretched out in the middle of his bed, my hair wildly strewn across his pillow. Oh, shit. I recalled Metin's comment about what they should do to me before killing me. Fuck me. Rape me. Maybe a small, dark corner would have been preferable, after all.

  Stop it, I ordered myself. Don't jump to conclusions. Except for my socks and boots, my clothes were still intact. Maybe he meant me no harm.

  I was trying to cling to this optimistic hope despite a persistent string of worst-case scenarios, when I heard footsteps outside the door to the cabin. I slid to the edge of the bed, my bare toes brushing the floor. A key turned, the door opened, and my captor strode into the room, shutting the door behind him with a thump.

  His bright hair created a halo effect around his head, but he was no freaking angel. There was no innocence in his crystalline green eyes. Rather they were jaded, as if there were no vice he hadn't tried. His nose was straight, almost too perfect, but his mouth was expressive, mobile. His upper lip was thin and severe, while his lower lip was full and sulky. The combination lent a curious tension to his face—the Puritan and the libertine mixed.

  "It's about time you woke up," he said.

  "What did you do to me?"

  He just looked at me as if this were a stupid question. Okay. I held up my cord-wrapped wrists. "Was this necessary?"

  He eyed my bonds and shrugged.

  "Why didn't you just shoot me?"

  For the first time his gaze passed over me with some degree of masculine interest. Slowly. Thoroughly. He was smiling nastily when his eyes returned to meet mine. "Why do you think?"

  I swallowed. I sought a cutting reply. None occurred to me.

  He strolled over to the corner where there was a washbasin and an assortment of cupboards and drawers. He looked in the mirror, frowned at himself, turned on the taps and splashed water on his face. He proceeded to stretch and pull the T-shirt over his head, revealing a lean but muscular torso covered with golden-bronze skin. The muscles, which were well-defined without being brawny, rippled as he stretched. The spectacle made my mouth go dry.

  He was already stripping. Not wasting any time. My stomach churned. From the way the boat was dancing on the waves, I guessed that we must be some distance out to sea. How many others were aboard? Would anyone help me if I screamed?

  Of course not. Screams would probably amuse them.

  The sound of the water splashing in the tiny sink made me aware of my parched throat. I was about to ask for a glass of water, when he caught my eye in the mirror. I fancied I saw some glimmer of emotion cross his features, but it was gone before I could analyze it.

  "Thirsty?"

  I nodded.

  Lifting a glass from a metal ring above the sink, he filled it from a large plastic water bottle, and stepped over to the bed. I was confronted with all tha
t lovely naked flesh. His hard belly, lightly dusted with blond hairs, was at the same level as my eyes. "Drink." He held the glass to my lips. He smelled nice—male-musky, and salty like the sea.

  I sipped, and then gulped. It was warm in the cabin and my fear had made me sweat away more fluids than usual. The water caressed my throat as it went down.

  "Enough." He took the glass away and sat down on the bed beside me. "You can have some more in a few minutes."

  Was he being kind? Probably not. Maybe he preferred to fuck a woman who wasn't completely dried out.

  Once again, I saw him as if in the viewer of my camera—still, harsh and beautiful. I wanted to photograph him. To capture, from close up, the angular set of his shoulders, not too wide, but lithe and graceful. His mobile, capable hands. Those thick eyelashes, much denser than my own, sparkling now with droplets of water. Like his hair, they curled ever so slightly. What would that rough-cut hair feel like under my fingers, those eyelashes against my cheek?

  Shit. I realized the errant direction of my thoughts. Was I brain-damaged? The dude was a criminal. He'd just made it clear that the only reason I was still alive was that I'd been saved for the proverbial fate worse than death.

  "Why were you there?" he asked. "Did you get a tip-off from someone?"

  I realized he still thought I'd had prior knowledge of his rendezvous. "I told you. I'm just a tourist. I had no idea when I started photographing this morning that I'd be shooting anything more than sky, hills, wildflowers, and the sea."

  "But when the seascape shifted to real people, you kept shooting?"

  I didn't see any point in lying. "When I realized what you were doing, I decided to record it. I think it's reprehensible. If you hadn't caught me, I'd have done something to stop you."

  Now he looked amused. "Like what?"