by Dianna Love
The next time Angel stuck her head out of the cabin, a black Land Rover swung inside the marina and parked across the lot near the entrance. She squinted to see if they were just going to observe or come to the boat.
CK climbed out of the sport utility. Oh God, the monster who’d abducted her.
She ducked into the cabin and yanked drawers open until she found the ignition keys, then jumped up on deck. Her heart climbed into her throat when another Land Rover drove up to the first one and Mason emerged.
Her hand shook violently. She stabbed the first key at the ignition, hitting all around the hole until it went in. She got the second one in place and realized she had to untie ropes then flip on the battery and pump the do-ma-hickey down in the deck to prime something.
Mason was talking to CK who pointed toward the boat a couple of times, then CK started striding toward her dock.
She tucked down close to the deck, crab-walking across the weathered teak. At each cleat above her head, she reached up and unwound the ropes, jerking them loose and letting them fall to the water. Thank goodness they were all looped in simple S formations.
Down on the boat deck, she twisted a pitted chrome catch to open a section of the floor covering the engines. When the latch flipped up, she pushed the covering aside, shoved her hand in until she found the rubber balls and squeezed hard several times.
She stayed hunched over and scuttled through the curtains to the cockpit, jumped up and pulled the control handles to the middle like Zane had. When she glanced over her shoulder to check on CK, he was nearing the beginning of the dock to Zane’s boat.
Angel twisted both keys at once. The motors turned over and over, but neither cranked. She glanced back up the dock.
The demon of her future nightmares hesitated then stuck his head forward and started running like he’d just realized she was on the boat.
Somewhere behind him another man shouted something she couldn’t make out.
Twisting the keys again, she begged the churning motors to start. One caught. She kept turning the other one. It caught. She pulled hard on the gears, throwing the boat in reverse, ramming the dock.
Bad idea, bad idea.
She reached over and shoved the gears ahead.
The boat lurched to one side, slamming into the walkway next to her, bouncing hard enough to toss her sideways. Motors whined in protest when the boat hung up on the right side of the slip.
She clawed her way up and watched in horror as the monster closed in to fifteen feet away.
Chapter 56
Zane spun into the marina parking lot past two black sport utilities with gold triangle logos. A man with blonde hair was climbing into one, but Zane couldn’t spend the time to investigate. He’d skidded to a stop near his dock just as he caught sight of the giant who had kidnapped Angel stepping onto the wooden planks.
Jumping from his truck, Zane raced after the kidnapper.
The hulking beast hesitated briefly then started running.
Angel had to be on his boat.
“Hey!” Zane bellowed as he charged ahead with his weapon drawn, glad to see most of the slips empty with boats out for the holiday after the front had passed.
The giant didn’t slow his pace.
Zane’s gaze shot past him to the stern of his boat that hit the dock, rattling the pilings. “Stop or I’ll shoot,” he yelled.
A man came out of the cabin of a boat way down the dock, shouted something then disappeared into his boat.
Never missing a step, the big man threw his arm behind him and fired wildly at Zane. A shot ricocheted off a boat and splintered a wooden rafter.
Chapter 57
Angel ducked when she heard gunshots then lunged for the boat controls.
She wrenched hard on the wheel. The boat bounced left, knocking her sideways, but she held on. She threw a look over her shoulder.
Ten feet out from the boat, CK dove forward, angled for the rear corner.
Released from being hung up, the heavy cabin cruiser lunged forward under full power. The boat wheel slipped from her grip. She turned to fight for control, to spin the boat away from two boats in the next dock over.
Another gunshot and gargled shouts carried over the motor rumble, but she couldn’t let go of the wheel to look. She fought to get the boat to open water. Zane’s ark plowed around the small waterway between the two rows of docks like an out-of-control, wind-up toy. Every turn she made was over-steered, curving the boat around in a hard left, then a hard right.
She missed a sleek yacht sticking out from the next dock over, but bounced a piling on a slip at the end. Comprehension struck as she exited the marina and her panic level lowered. Angel tugged the controls back halfway to neutral. The bow lowered in the water when the motors chugged down to an idle.
With the boat under control, she jerked around to see what had happened to her pursuer, but by now other boats blocked her view.
More gunfire popped.
Chapter 58
“Hey, you!” Zane shouted again, pounding down the dock to where his boat was fighting its way out of the slip.
Heavy soles pounded the wooden boards behind him. A squeeze play was coming with him in the middle.
Another shot blasted at him from up ahead. The bullet skipped against the piling next to his foot. The crazy bastard dove towards his boat.
Zane leveled his Sig and fired at the bulky target stretched out in mid-air. When he reached the slip, his boat was gyrating its way out of the marina and blood spread across the water in the slip.
He was a crack shot and he’d aimed for center of body mass. Anything it took to stop the threat to Angel.
The man’s bald head bobbed along, face down on the surface. He thrashed a hand against the water.
Zane shoved his weapon into the holster he’d tucked into the waistband at the small of his back, and picked up a rope to throw. “Hold on!” he shouted, intending to keep the enormous mass from drowning.
The giant’s shiny head rolled back, baring a heinous smile. He raised his good arm from under water to point a Glock 45 at Zane.
With both hands full of rope and no time to react, Zane flinched and turned sideways to present a smaller target.
A shot fired from close by centered the kidnapper’s forehead. He disappeared beneath the surface, sinking like a lead ball.
Who the hell had...
A baritone yelled, “Drop your weapon and show your hands.”
Ah, shit. Zane’s weapon hit the wooden dock with a clatter. He lifted his hands as he jerked around to see who had killed the kidnapper.
Two African American men in dark gray suits jogged up, both with guns drawn. The taller of the two kept coming and kicked Zane’s gun away.
“Who the hell are you?” Zane demanded, but he could make a pretty good guess.
“FBI. Are you Zane Jackson?”
Well, hell. Just as he thought. This won’t go well. “Yes.”
“Was that Angelina Farentino in the boat?”
Angel. Zane spun away, all concern for his safety gone. His hands shook as he ran to the end of the dock.
Mason had almost gotten her.
One of the two FBI agents close behind Zane yelled, “She can’t go anywhere. We’ve got the entrance to the bay blocked. In another fifteen minutes, we’ll have her.”
Zane’s mind raced. How was he going to protect Angel from the FBI? He couldn’t let them take her. She’d trusted him and he’d turned his back on her. She’d pleaded her innocence. He had to get to her first and tell her he believed her. Then he’d find a way to get her out of this mess.
He reached the end of the dock, barely able to see his boat motoring slowly down the far side of the empty canal.
Drawing in a breath to yell her name, he hoped against the odds of being heard.
The cabin cruiser exploded into a fireball.
Zane’s screams echoed across the calm water.
Chapter 59
Information flew arou
nd Zane’s head like angry, fluttering birds, some of it finding a way into his mind.
Some of it passed by unnoticed with the end of the day. Twilight was overtaking the water. The FBI and local police had cordoned off the marina, but people who’d been on their boats when the shooting started couldn’t leave, and were milling around.
Everyone was talking about the explosion.
No one had been near Zane’s boat when it blew. Angel had been running the boat down the undeveloped side of the canal so the casualties were low.
Just one dead Angel and an emotionally destroyed pilot.
Zane had been numb as he’d gone through the motions of crime scene wrap up as if caught in the world of the walking dead. He’d answered questions over and over.
Yes, he had a permit to carry his weapon.
No, he shouldn’t have been firing it in a public area.
Yes, he knew who had been on his boat. No, he didn’t know the actual identity of the man the FBI had shot.
And all the time he kept waiting for somebody to slap handcuffs on him for taking the first shot at the hulking kidnapper. Carrying a weapon with a permit was fine in Florida.
Using it to shoot another person?
That got a lot more complicated.
Turns out Ben and the DEA had let the FBI know that Zane was one of them. Zane had no clue how they’d pulled that off, or whether that would end his gig as an informant.
Finally Ben had arrived at the scene with Dan MacPherson, the boss they called Mac, and he’d pulled some strings with the local police, not-so-subtly hinting that they, too, should back the hell off. Ben swore they’d done it all without blowing whatever was left of Zane’s informant cover, but Zane had his doubts.
Then Mac did the oddest thing. He hung around and talked to Zane about nothing in particular. As though Mac wanted to console him. Maybe because at that point, FBI agents and emergency personnel had pulled back from him, as though he were a rabid wolf to be avoided.
Understandable. They’d watched him howl like a wounded animal at the end of the dock, after all.
He didn’t care.
His cell phone had chirped one time too many. It had sunk faster than CK. He now knew the street name of the bastard who’d taken Angel from Zane’s apartment.
Useful information. He supposed.
Mac talked quietly. He’d heard about the High Vision shipment and how the bust had fallen apart. Zane needed to come in for a debrief, but that could wait for a couple days.
Zane nodded every so often. He wasn’t processing much, but he owed Mac for pulling the strings to keep him out of one hell of a red tape snarl. Ordinarily he’d have to go in for questioning.
Still, nodding was the best he could do when he teetered so close to losing his mind.
Speaking softly, Mac shared what he knew on Angel that he’d put together between Ben’s information and talking to the FBI. Once Ben had told Zane that Angel was probably innocent, he’d made a judgment call and gone straight to Mac for help. That had paid off, but Ben had clearly been worried that his best friend would take it as betrayal.
No way in hell. Zane had told him so, but Zane sucked at putting words together right now. He’d explain better later.
“The FBI didn’t want Angel caught in the crossfire,” Mac explained.
Zane surfaced from his semi-catatonic state at hearing her name.
Mac continued in that same even cadence. “FBI knew she wasn’t involved with Mason. They’d had her under surveillance for a while, planning to approach her as a possible way into Mason’s illegal activities. They assumed when she disappeared from her job at the warehouse that Mason was likely the reason. They’d had agents watching for her all over the southeast. One of their local men reported seeing her the night she was at De Nikki’s with you.” So that’s why she ran – that time. Zane nodded at Mac. “She spotted the agent even when I didn’t,” he said, drawing on his ingrained discipline to function or they’d drag him off in a straightjacket. “She took off out the bathroom window.”
And Zane had assumed she was being irrational. Oh how the mighty had fallen.
Mac nodded. “Sounds like she was running scared from everybody, including Mason.”
Somehow, that bastard Mason had slipped away from the marina when all the action started, but the FBI believed they could still nail him.
It would have made their lives easier if Angel had lived.
Mine, too.
The FBI had uncovered enough about her one conviction to prove she hadn’t intentionally delivered drugs, Mac had told him. She’d been set up.
Hmm, that was also good to know, Zane mused, not giving a flying damn about any of it.
Someone walked up to ask him if he wanted the paramedics to check him out before they packed up and left. “No,” he answered. He wasn’t injured – physically.
Mac finally realized he was talking to an empty shell and asked Zane to come see him next week then walked away.
Someone else tried to talk to Zane about the coins again. Zane had lost interest and wandered away. He didn’t care about coins.
He wanted Angel.
He had no idea how much time had passed when he noticed dark had settled over the marina, but the divers had gone home, exhausted, without finding a second body.
Only CK’s.
Eventually everyone else had dispersed. The FBI agent who returned Zane’s weapon – yet another string Mac had pulled – mentioned he’d be in touch in a day or two, when Zane was feeling better.
A day or two? Was that all it would take to stop the gut-wrenching pain?
Fog drifted in off the water. Tears trickled down each side of his nose as he strolled along the deserted seawall away from the marina, away from the world.
He didn’t want to leave here.
He wanted Angel.
As if he’d conjured her ghost, Angel floated along the seawall toward him, surrounded by a heavy mist. She wore the jog bra and shorts from earlier. He’d always wondered if ghosts really looked the same as when they’d lived.
Her dark copper hair glowed. She looked every bit an angel.
His angel was talking. Cool. If he were going completely mad, then he wanted to hear her voice, too.
“I’m sorry,” Angel said. She floated closer and closer. “I had to get Mason to leave. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
His throat constricted. He hoped Angel could hear him, from wherever she was now. Wherever angels went when they left this realm. He forced the words out. “It was my fault. I should have believed you. I’m the one who’s sorry.” Seeing her was killing him. He wanted to touch her, but you couldn’t touch a vision. Could you?
She kept coming nearer.
He could see her legs and feet moving.
“Zane, I’m sorry about your boat.”
“I don’t care. I wish you’d come back to me.” Strips of his heart peeled away, one raw section at a time.
“I did come back to you,” she said fervently, almost close enough for him to grab. The mist swirled between them and he blinked quickly so he wouldn’t lose her.
“But I want you alive!” he cried out. “I love you and I should have protected you.”
“I am alive,” she whispered right in front of him. “You did protect me.” She reached up and touched his face.
Dear God. Was she really here? Had he gone off the deep end?
Zane hovered between reality and fantasy for a split second then forced himself to accept the truth. “You’re not real.”
“Yes I am, Zane. Touch me.”
He reached out, hand quivering with the desire to believe she still lived. His fingers touched her face that was solid ... and warm. She was real?
He pulled her into his arms. Joy like he’d never felt in his life filled him. He had Angel back in his arms. He kissed her everywhere. He couldn’t stop touching her.
“You’re alive,” he croaked in a raspy voice. “I don’t understand, but I don’t care.”
“I’m so sorry,” she cried against his throat.
He was afraid she’d disappear, afraid this wasn’t real, but none of that mattered.
Angel was back.
Their lips met. His kiss begged her forgiveness, promised her the world and thanked God for a miracle called Angel.
She pushed back a tiny bit, but Zane wouldn’t relinquish his hold. He’d never let go.
“How can you be here?” he asked in wonder.
“I had to make Mason go away. He wouldn’t as long as I was alive,” she explained. “While the boat was going slow, I dug out some rags and tied them together. Then I stuffed them down the gas tank and found matches in the drawers.”
She kissed him, a gentle wisp across his chin. “You said gas fumes were combustible, worse than fuel. So I lit the end of the rags and slipped overboard on the far side of the boat and swam for all I was worth. I’m sorry I blew up your boat.”
“Honey, I’ll let you blow up a thousand boats if you promise to stay with me forever.”
She smiled, her eyes full of hope. “I will now that I know I can prove my innocence. Just give me some time.”
He hadn’t thought he’d ever laugh again, but a chuckle bubbled up. “You aren’t guilty of anything, just like you said. Nobody wants to arrest you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The FBI had you under surveillance. They knew you weren’t part of Mason’s operation and were hunting you to use as a witness against Mason. They also have information to clear your name from the drug transporting conviction when you were a teen.”
“Really?” That one breathless word conveyed just how much she’d been hurt by the wrongful conviction.
Zane caressed her soft cheek. “I’m so sorry about not accepting what you told me, and for what your father did to you. No one can give you that back, but I’m willing to spend the rest of my life making you happy. I’ll tell the FBI I hid the coins on the boat and they’re gone. They’ll just have to deal with it.”
She graced him with a blazing smile. “The coins aren’t gone.”
