I hope that is the same with Garret Elgin, Dylan had thought.
Staring at the shocked man on the pier of Urchin Caye, Dylan had a feeling that she was up for a bigger challenge than usual.
“Is this a joke?” Elgin asked, his mouth agape. He looked accusingly at Hunter Burnwich.
“Obviously this is a mistake,” he told his assistant. “Take this woman out of here.”
“Garret, I don’t think it’s a mistake,” Hunter murmured nervously, seeming embarrassed. “This is Dylan McMaster. I picked her up from Mr. Clint – “
“Don’t say his name!” Garret hissed, glancing about furtively. She swallowed a smile.
“Ah, yes well, I picked her up where you told me to meet her. I watched her disembark, and I checked her identification,” Hunter mumbled.
Dylan’s eyes darted over the others on the dock. The young man seemed tickled by the situation, and the young girl did not know what to make of it, her eyes fixated on Garret as if seeking out a cue.
“Who are you?” Garret demanded, his face turning red with fury. Dylan eyed him coolly.
“Once again, Mr. Elgin, my name is Dylan McMaster. Our mutual friend arranged for this meeting. Feel free to give him a call if you have any concerns. I will happily wait right here.”
Garret glanced between her and Hunter, his indecision clear.
“Go ahead, Mr. Elgin,” Dylan sighed, folding her arms. “You are paying me hourly.”
Elgin’s face turned scarlet, apparently furious at being told what to do.
“I ordered a security officer,” he snarled. “Not an escort.”
Dylan regarded him through her tinted glasses, her smirk tightening on her lips.
He is expecting me to react, to storm out of here so he can call Mr. X and claim I was a hysterical female. Nice try, Elgin. You’re gonna have to do better than that.
“Either way, sir, you are paying me by the hour,” she replied sweetly.
He was not expecting her glib answer, and he stared at her murderously.
“Hunter, stay here with her. Don’t let her anywhere near the house until I get back!” he demanded.
Dylan laughed, and Elgin whirled to face her.
“Is something amusing?” he demanded. Dylan shrugged her slender but toned shoulders.
“I’m laughing because if I am the person you asked for, which I am, and I wanted to go into your house, which I really don’t as you lack a certain hospitable quality, there is nothing in the world that Mr. Burnwich or anyone else on this island could do to stop me.”
Garret weighed her words carefully, and Dylan slipped her glasses clean off her face. She watched as his face changed as if suddenly recognizing that his hired security officer was a tall, beautiful redhead who could kill him in seconds.
She extended her hand.
“Let’s try this again, shall we? Hi, I’m Dylan McMaster. Now why don’t you tell me what we’re doing here.”
Chapter Three
“Garret, you must settle down,” Hunter murmured as his employer talked about the study. “She comes highly recommended after all.”
Garret turned to scowl furiously at his assistant.
“Do you not hear everything wrong with that statement?” he yelled, throwing his large hands up in frustration. “She?”
Hunter sighed and shrugged. He seemed to struggle with giving his employer a civics lesson but decided against it.
“Well the least you can do is hear her out, Garret. I mean, she is here now, and I get the impression she’s mocking you. If you don’t like what she has to say, I’ll take her back.”
Hunter knew that the woman jeering at the billionaire would be reason enough for Garret to keep her in his line of sight. He would not be able to resist putting her in her place.
Garret flopped onto his desk chair, the furniture groaning in protest.
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
He recognized the danger of sending Dylan McMaster back to the States on several levels. Primarily, he would offend their mutual friend, and that was not an enemy Garret wanted.
Why didn’t he warn me about her? Is he having a laugh at my expense?
He would deal with his associate later.
“Send her in,” Garret said finally. “And have Gaspar make me another drink.”
Hunter offered him a wry smile and hurried to retrieve the girl.
Garret stared up at the ceiling, his mind a tornado of fury.
This is why I could not find anything about Dylan McMaster; I was looking for a man. Instead, I am entrusting myself to a five-foot-nine-inch waif. I have to call –
“Mr. Elgin.” Dylan strolled in, her dark sunglasses back shielding her eyes despite being inside. “You’ve changed your mind.”
That wench was waiting in the foyer after I told her to wait outside! He realized.
“No,” Garret snapped back. “I am trying to figure out what to do with you.”
She laughed, and he found the musical timbre of her voice infuriating.
“I am happy to leave,” she told him. “And I will only charge you for travel.”
“You seem very money oriented,” Garret jeered. “That doesn’t fill me with confidence.”
Dylan strolled into the room, tossing her duffle bag off to the side carelessly and Garret heard a clatter of metal. He cringed slightly, wondering what she was carrying.
Stupid girl. Something could discharge the way she is tossing that around. This must be a joke or a slap in the face.
“I would think my focus on money would inspire the greatest confidence in you,” she replied, dropping unceremoniously onto a chair. “You are, after all, driven by the almighty dollar, aren’t you?”
Garret snorted derisively.
“I don’t know what you think you know about me, girl, but I assure you, there is more to me than a mere Google search.”
Dylan chuckled, and Garret found his hands tightening into fists.
“Garret James Elgin, born August 20th, 1971, only surviving child of Charles and Wilma and heir to Elgin Inc. All three siblings lost to suspicious circumstances.”
Garret felt a sea of indignation and denial drowning him, and he stared at the smug redhead.
What the hell does she know about my brothers’ deaths? How did she find that information?
“You can’t even use a search engine properly,” he bit at her, but to his annoyance, Dylan’s smile widened.
“Oh, I know what you managed to have hidden from the general public,” she replied flippantly. “But the real story and what you’ve paid people to hide from you are quite different, aren’t they, Mr. Elgin?”
Garret studied the woman, weighing his next words carefully.
How much does she know and what does she know? He wondered. He opted for the lesser traveled route of nonchalance. It was obvious that the intimidation which worked for others would not affect this woman at all. In fact, it seemed to fuel her.
Why does that impress me? Garret wondered. He tried to focus on her full lips.
“Why don’t we try to work together, Mr. Elgin,” Dylan suggested unexpectedly. “Clearly you need my services for something important. Instead of getting into a pissing match, why don’t you just tell me what I’m doing here? If you insist on making this difficult, you will find out why I was voted Furthest Pisser in High School.”
Garret bit on his lower lip, resisting the urge to give a scathing reply.
She’s right. She’s not what I expected, but with her credentials, I should at least hear what she has to say. Having her here is not going to endanger my life any more than it already has been.
“Someone is trying to kill me,” he announced without emotion. To his surprise, Dylan lifted her shoulders skyward in an indifferent shrug.
“So, what?”
He stared at her, his mouth agape.
“So, what?” he echoed. “I rather like my life, that’s what.”
So much for giving this bimbo
a chance, he thought. He was going to be on the phone with their mutual contact, giving him an earful as soon as he put her back on the boat.
Obviously, this retribution for something. Maybe he’s angry about what happened with Paul? That would make sense. They are close friends.
“Yes, I imagine you do. It’s a nice life – at least what I read of it on paper,” Dylan agreed. “I mean what makes this so different? You have had at least half a dozen assassination attempts on your life.”
Garret sat back in his chair and eyed her speculatively. The previous attempts had not been made public either. She had done her research; research which would require a lot of digging.
She was also right; a figure with his power was not without enemies. Why was this so different?
“It’s someone close to me,” he finally, begrudgingly. Dylan made a steeple with her fingers and seemed to watch him, but he could not read her eyes from behind the sunglasses. He suddenly wanted her to remove them, but his pride stopped him from asking. Garret recognized a power struggle when he was in one, and he refused to give the woman the upper hand by expressing his displeasure at being unable to read her eyes.
“What makes you think so?” she asked, and for the first time since she had arrived, Garret heard a humility in her voice.
So, she is taking this seriously. I guess that’s something, he thought, but he was not willing to let his guard down. Not yet.
He rose and walked around the desk.
“It must be someone close to me,” he told her. “This is the first time anyone has tried to kill me here on Urchin Caye. There are only a handful of people with access to the island.”
“Walk me through what happened,” Dylan encouraged. Garret’s mouth tightened.
“Aren’t you going to take notes?” he asked as she maintained her pose, spread unladylike in the chair, her combat boots spaced evenly apart. It was at that moment he realized she was wearing yoga pants and that annoyed him further.
Just send her home. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She can’t even dress appropriately for a business meeting.
As if reading his thoughts, Dylan piped up.
“Mr. Elgin, you can waste your time being offended by my posture, or you can work with me here. The choice is ultimately yours of course but let’s face it; it’s your life that’s on the line here, not mine.”
She can read faces too. How interesting. Too bad I need someone powerful, not a therapist.
Garret steeled himself again from retorting harshly.
“Fine,” he said shortly. “What would you like to know?”
“Firstly, has anyone tried to kill you? Have there been bullets, knives, poison or are we dealing with threats?”
“There have been two attempts; one was staged as a boating accident, the other was a poisoning.”
Dylan was silent as if waiting for more detail but Garret suddenly found himself unable to speak. The gravity of the situation hit him. Vocalizing what had happened seemed to shock his system. After a moment, he opened his mouth, ready to revisit the sordid tale.
It had begun with a dead cat.
There were two things which kept Garret Elgin motivated; hate and jogging and they were mutually exclusive.
Every morning, he would wake up at four thirty, provided he had slept the previous night, take an espresso on his bedroom balcony and start jogging through the large jungle surrounding his forty-four thousand square foot home.
On those jogs, he would think. He would count his enemies as if basking in the glory of those he had undermined and cheated in his life. The list was long, and there was not an ounce of regret as his feet pounded against the mulch of the woods.
His heavy tread would startle the birds from the trees and send snakes scurrying from beneath their rocks, and each step he took made him feel more powerful.
That particular day, rain had begun to fall, drenching Garret to his core and he had reluctantly headed back to the estate even though he had barely started his trek around the island.
As he made his way back up the front of the hill, toward the front door, he saw Yvette, even before he heard her screams.
It was a fluffy white kitten, mangled and stained in blood laying limp on the doorstep. What had bothered Garret the most was that there were no cats on the island, not a single feral tabby, or a Tom. He had never seen a feline body since purchasing Urchin Caye fifteen years prior.
He hated cats and someone had murdered a kitten and left it for a present on his doorstep.
He had tried to reason that a wild animal had found it and left it but there was no mistaking the marks around its snow-white throat. It had been strangled.
The boating accident had come two weeks later and been precisely that; an accident.
Garret had gone into the reef and to nap and drink after Yvette had blown him off for a date in Los Angeles. He had considered asking Zave to join him but the thought of spending the afternoon with his fragile son did not inspire him.
It was there that a ski doo smashed into his boat, sending Garret headlong into the water without a preserver.
He had managed to find a piece of his severely mangled boat, clinging to it until his naval security had meandered along the coast and picked him up. There was no sign of another body and search uncovered a sunken ski doo but the question of who had made it around the heavily armed guards and why had weighed heavy on Garret’s mind.
And what had become of the driver?
Still, Garret told himself that it could have been a fluke. Urchin Caye was untouchable after all…wasn’t it?
The poisoning had been the final straw literally.
Nicotine in his smoothie detected only after a helicopter trip to the emergency room in Belmopan.
His organs had begun to shut down, and the had informed him that the nicotine levels in his body were so high, it was a miracle he was alive.
It could only mean one thing; someone wanted him dead, and it was someone who knew him well enough to do it.
Someone close to home. Someone in my home.
“Have you any suspicions as to whom may be doing this?” Dylan asked, shaking him from his reverie.
Garret whipped his head up and stared at her pensively.
“I have my ideas,” he told her. Again, she seemed to be waiting for him to elaborate but he did not.
“Mr. Elgin, you will make my job much easier if you simply spell it out for me,” Dylan sighed, finally removing her glasses and staring at him. Garret could read the animus in her eyes, but she still held no respect or fear. That made him angry.
Why doesn’t she show an ounce of admiration toward me?
He frowned.
“Isn’t it your job to figure it out?” he asked condescendingly. “Or do you need help?”
Dylan smirked and rose from her chair.
“As you wish,” she replied easily. “In the time I spend unraveling the mess of enemies you have made over twenty-five years of business in the largest conglomerate in the world, then looking into your father’s enemies and possibly the deaths of your brothers, I hope someone in the room down the hall from yours doesn’t succeed in bludgeoning you in your sleep.”
Garret was appalled by her flip delivery of such a gruesome end, and moreover, he was stunned to realize that her words sent a jolt of alarm through his body.
She was reaching for her bag and striding toward the door.
“Who should I see about my accommodations?” she asked, her hand on the knob of the door. “Or am I to set up camp in the jungle?”
Oh, I would love to put you in the jungle, he thought, seething. Again, he checked his temper and opened his mouth to let out the list.
“Sonia, Paul, Hunter, Lisbeth, Zave, Yvette.”
Dylan turned back to him, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“Okay, can you be more specific? Or should I simply look to anyone of them?”
“That is the list of people who would be trying to kill me.”
&n
bsp; Chapter Four
Dylan was on the small balcony off her bedroom on Urchin Cay, wondering why memories of Oliver were almost suffocating to her.
This reminds you of being stationed in Grenada, she realized. The first time you were together.
A bitterness rose in Dylan’s throat, and she swallowed quickly as if to force down the bile. She could not think of Ollie, not then.
Not ever. Stop. Focus on Garret Elgin and who is trying to kill him.
Dusk had settled on the horizon, and the view was almost surreal as the sky exploded in pinks, reds, and oranges as if it was at war with the night and bleeding colors in battle.
How is it that you can see combat everywhere you look? She asked herself. Will you ever just see a beautiful sunset without seeing slaughtered clouds?
It had been three years, and it did not seem like her wartime memories were fading, but she had been told that time would do its part if she did hers and kept going.
I’m trying, she thought miserably. I am trying to go on without Ollie.
Dylan heard a faint knock, and she turned toward her spacious room, into the exterior sitting room and opened the door to her suite.
Hunter Burnwich stood apologetically in the hallway.
“Sorry to interrupt you, Miss McMaster but Mr. Elgin has called a household meeting so you can get acquainted with everyone.”
“No problem,” she replied easily. She had been expecting some kind of introduction, but she and Elgin had left on such awkward terms, nothing had been openly discussed. Dylan was glad he had come around so quickly.
He is finally accepting the fact that I am a woman. Good for him. Next step, I will introduce him to that I am a trained sniper. One thing at a time.
As they started from her suite, she turned to Hunter inquisitively.
“How many people live on the island?” she asked as the made their way down one side of the dual stairwell, into the open concept foyer.
“In the main house, Mr. Elgin, myself, Yvette, Zave, Gaspar and Priscilla. In the staff quarters, there are between fifteen and twenty-five people, depending on who is in the main house. I will get you a proper list of course.”
The Lost Seal: A Seal Romance Page 13
