by LENA DIAZ,
“What are you saying?” she asked Gonzalez.
The chains attached to his wrists rattled on top of the table as he tried to reach his right hand across to Heather. When the links pulled him up short, he grunted and clasped his hands together.
“Miss Bannon, allow me to explain. Do you recall when Lily visited you about six months ago and asked you to go to a convention with her?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant, Mr. Gonzalez,” she replied. “How is my sister? Have you hurt her?”
He shook his head. “I assure you, I’ve done nothing to harm your sister. As far as I know, she is alive and well.”
Heather’s breath caught. “As far as you know?”
“Please, let me explain,” he said. “The convention? Do you remember?”
“Yes, yes, I remember. It was one of those identical twin things, where they bring twins from all over the world to meet up and make friends. She begged me to go with her and I couldn’t take the time off from work, but she was insistent. So I went with her to registration so she could get in—they only let pairs of twins register. But then I went back home. Why are you asking me about the convention?”
“Because that’s where I met Lily.”
Her brows drew down in obvious confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I was one of the attendees.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. The only people who are attendees are...”
He nodded. “You’ve figured it out, I see. I’m not Jose Gonzalez, the man holding your sister. I’m Luis Gonzalez, Jose’s identical twin brother.”
* * *
HEATHER FRANTICALLY SHOOK her head, certain she couldn’t have heard him right. “You’re not Jose Gonzalez?”
“No. I’m not.”
She looked to Nick for confirmation.
“We’ve fingerprinted him,” Nick said. “He’s definitely not Jose. The DEA never realized Jose had a twin, but that’s the only explanation.”
“But...you know my sister?” she asked Luis, her voice hesitant.
“Yes. As I said, we met at the conference. Like you, I did not want to go. But my brother wanted to go.” His mouth twisted with disdain. “Not because he wished to socialize, but because he wanted to use it as a front for some deal he was planning. Then he met Lily, and they hit it off.”
Heather tried to make sense of what he was telling her. “You sound bitter about that.”
“I am. We both liked Lily when we met her. But my brother...he takes what he wants. And he wanted her.”
Heather studied his facial expressions, his eyes, trying to decide if she believed him. “Are you a drug dealer like your brother, Mr. Gonzalez?”
“No, Miss Bannon, I am not. I am a businessman. My brother’s activities grieve me deeply, but no matter what I do I can’t seem to dissuade him. However, when I realized what had happened to Lily, I couldn’t sit back and ignore it. I had to do something. That’s why I’m here.”
His thick Spanish accent made it difficult for Heather to understand him. She had to think for a moment about what he’d just said for it to make sense. “Then you know what happened to my sister and where she is?”
“I know she was taken against her will several days ago from your apartment in north Florida. And I know she’s with my brother right now—again, being held against her will—in one of his compounds, but I don’t know which one. I’ve been trying to find out. I want Lily away from my brother as much as you do. I don’t want her hurt.”
Heather rubbed her temple, trying to relieve the dull ache that had started. “If you don’t know where she is, why did you want to talk to me? What were you doing at that dock last night?”
“My men have been on the lookout for information to help me find Lily. As soon as I heard she was in that bar, I headed over, hoping she’d somehow gotten away from my brother. But when I got there I found out one of my brother’s men was talking to you inside the bar. I knew he was trying to lure you outside to kill you. I figured out which boat was his and waited.”
“You were there to...protect me?”
“Yes.”
She gave a harsh laugh. “You didn’t protect me, Mr. Gonzalez. You destroyed my best chance to find my sister. That man was going to take me to see her.”
“Heather,” Nick said, “it’s possible he may be telling the truth. We had a team of agents looking into Luis’s background last night, proving his identity. Everything is checking out. And what he says about the man who took you to the boat is valid. That man was one of Jose Gonzalez’s most trusted men, known for doing his dirty work. It’s highly unlikely he would have thought you were really Lily. We believe he knew exactly where Lily was, and that you were her sister, and he was going to take you out into the ocean to kill you.”
Heather shivered and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Then I guess I owe you both for saving my life last night.” She dropped her face in her hands. “It’s hopeless. There’s nothing else I can do. All of this was for nothing. No one is going to lead me to my sister.”
She straightened and put her hand beneath the table to clasp Nick’s hand again. She hated that she was leaning on him right now, after last night, but she needed his strength, his reassurance. He owed her that much, at least, for making love to her then rejecting her. She squared her shoulders.
“What is Jose Gonzalez planning?” she asked Luis. “Is he keeping my sister alive just long enough so he can tell her that he killed me? Is that what he’s doing? Or is she even alive at this point?” She thumped her fist on the table. “All these silly fake tattoos were a waste. No one ever believed I was Lily.”
“If I may disagree, Miss Bannon,” Luis said, “I don’t think it’s a waste at all. If I didn’t know Lily so well, I would have completely fallen for your trick. I believe most people in my brother’s employ would think you were Lily as well. The only ones who wouldn’t are his bodyguards and the men he trusts the most, men who have been around Lily long enough to be able to tell you two apart.”
Heather studied him for a moment. “You’re saying pretending to be Lily can actually work then?”
“In the right circumstances, yes.”
“And yet, you were able to tell I wasn’t Lily. How could you tell?”
“It’s not your looks that give you away. It’s how you hold yourself, how you walk. Lily is a bit more, ah, more of a free spirit. She has attitude. You’re more like a librarian playing dress-up.”
Nick let out a snort of laughter beside her.
She glared at him and he sobered.
“What do you mean by ‘right circumstances’?” she asked.
Nick squeezed her hand beneath the table, capturing her attention. “While you and I have been trying to use your likeness to Lily as our angle to find her, Dante’s men have been canvassing the Keys and following up on leads. They believe they may be able to determine exactly where Jose is holding her within a few days. The problem is that, even once they figure out where his compound is located, there isn’t much they can do through legal channels. Unless someone actually sees Lily and swears out an affidavit that she’s being held against her will, we have no justification for a warrant.”
“How about the fact that someone tried to kill us, twice? Isn’t that enough for a warrant?”
“No. It isn’t. We don’t have a firm link between what happened and Jose Gonzalez. We don’t have anything with which to make a case. That’s where the ‘right circumstances’ come in. Once we determine where Jose is holding Lily, we’ll have to do something, cause a diversion, to get Jose to leave the island. Then we’ll use Luis and you, pretending to be Jose and Lily, to gain access. We’ll go in with enough force to take over and, hopefully, rescue Lily.”
“Hopefully?”
“Hostage situations are always tricky. No
guarantees. We have a lot of details to work out. You won’t be bait again. I won’t allow that. And you aren’t physically going to the island. If we use you at all, we’ll do it through a video hookup, to speak to some of Jose’s men. I’m not putting you in harm’s way again.”
“But—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “I mean it. There is absolutely no circumstance under which I will foolishly allow you to be put in danger again. I won’t shut you out. You can stay here and listen or even help us plan. But that’s it. Once everything is set, I’m taking you back to the hotel. And tomorrow morning you’ll go back to Saint Augustine. You can do the video hookup remotely, without being anywhere near Gonzalez.”
Heather glared at him and crossed her arms.
Nick rapped on the table.
The door immediately opened and Tanner leaned in and looked at Nick. “You’re ready?”
“Yes. Tell Dante to get everyone in here. It’s time to come up with a plan that will end this once and for all.”
Chapter Thirteen
Nick shoved the car into Park in front of the hotel.
Heather reached for the door handle, but Nick grabbed her arm.
“Wait in the car. I’ll come around and open your door.”
“I assure you that’s not necessary. I don’t need a man to open my door for me.”
Nick’s mouth hardened into a thin line. Heather could tell he was irritated with her. That was her fault. She’d been sarcastic and argumentative all day. Then again, that was his fault for giving her false hopes last night about the two of them, then rejecting her and then insisting she had to go back to Saint Augustine in the morning while the rescue plan went forward without her.
“Good to know,” Nick said, his tone short and clipped. “But we aren’t on a date and I’m not playing the gentleman. I’m your bodyguard tonight, which means you sit in the car until I come around and get you out.”
He didn’t wait for her response.
She grabbed her purse, fuming that she had to wait like a child for him to open her door, but she followed his ridiculous order anyway. He scanned the area several times as he made his way around the hood of the car to her side.
His gun was in his right hand, pointing down to the ground as he opened her door.
Seeing that gun squelched Heather’s irritation. It reminded her just how serious everything was, and that she was still in danger. Nick was determined to protect her, no matter how she treated him.
Her shoulders slumped. She’d acted like a spoiled brat all day. She resolved to be polite the rest of the short time they had together. The man was going to risk his life for her tomorrow. The least she could do was to treat him with respect.
She got out of the car and Nick shut the door behind her. He waved for her to precede him up the walkway.
She started up the path.
A small pop sounded, followed by a buzzing noise as something flew through the air from the shrubs beside the hotel.
Nick raised his gun.
Too late.
He grunted, his face contorting with pain as his gun dropped out of his hand. He fell onto the pavement, convulsing.
Twin darts stuck out of his thighs, attached to a long, curly wire. He’d been hit with a Taser.
Heather drew a breath to scream, but her throat closed in shock as a slim figure stepped out from behind the shrubs, holding the Taser. Heather would have known that face anywhere. She saw it every morning when she looked in the mirror.
Lily.
* * *
THE SPEEDBOAT SLAPPED against the water as it accelerated away from the dock. Heather held on to the railing to her left as she sat on the rear bench seat beside Nick. They were handcuffed together, and Nick’s right arm was cuffed to the railing to his right. Her sister sat about six feet in front of them with her back facing them, beside the man driving the boat—the same man who’d dumped Nick into the trunk of Lily’s car, and had then forced him and Heather into the boat at gunpoint. The man might be the muscle behind this abduction, but Lily was definitely the one calling all the shots.
As their speed increased, the ride leveled out. The nose of the boat rose out of the water and the boat practically flew out into the ocean. They weren’t running with lights on, but it wasn’t like they were going to hit anything. There was nothing and no one else out here this late at night. No one to report a suspicious, unlit boat flying across the ocean. No one to call the police and send help.
Heather clutched Nick’s hand. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
His fingers squeezed hers and he leaned down toward her. “We’re going to survive. We’ll worry about escape later. Do whatever your sister tells you to do. Don’t give her a reason to pull the trigger.”
Grief welled up inside Heather, nearly choking her. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. You were right all along. It was too dangerous. I put you in danger by being here. And all along my sister was only pretending to be abducted. She played me. And I don’t even know why. But you’re going to pay the price. They’re going to kill us. They’re going to take us out in the middle of the ocean and dump us.”
She eyed the dark water passing by them so fast. “There are sharks, lots of sharks, way out here. I read that somewhere.”
Nick squeezed her fingers again. “Take a breath, sweetheart. Try to calm down. I don’t think they’re going to dump us in the ocean. If they wanted us dead they could have shot us in the parking lot. Instead, they went to a lot of trouble getting us in the car, driving us to the dock and getting us in the boat. They have plans for us.”
She shivered. “What plans? Why is Lily doing this?”
“I have no idea. We’ll have to keep our wits about us and take advantage of any opportunities we get to escape. Just try to stay calm and pay attention to everything. You never know what detail could save our lives. Take slow, deep breaths before you hyperventilate and pass out.”
She took slow, deep breaths, but it wasn’t helping. Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt to even breathe. Her sweaty palm kept slipping off the railing.
“Lily is blocking my view of the instrument panel,” Nick whispered. “Can you see it?”
Heather leaned to the left. “I see some big, digital numbers. Why?”
“I need to know how fast we’re going so I can calculate our distance. What numbers do you see?”
She rattled off everything she could see, which wasn’t much. Most of the instrument panel was a blur from this distance.
“Good. That second number is the speed. Let me know if it changes.” He studied his watch and mumbled something under his breath, as if he was doing calculations. He looked up in the sky.
“What are you doing now?” Heather whispered.
“Figuring out which direction we’re going.” He leaned down close to her. “Find the Big Dipper. You know what that is?”
“Of course.” She looked up and found the collection of stars above them that looked like a cooking ladle. “There it is.”
Nick nodded. “If you mentally connect the two stars at the end of the ladle it forms a line that points to the North Star.”
“Oh, I see. Cool. So...we’re going south.”
“More or less. Now look for Orion’s Belt.” He watched Lily and the driver for a moment. Then he pointed up to the sky. “There, see those three stars?”
It took longer this time, but Heather finally saw what he was pointing at. “Yes. What does that tell us?”
He lowered his hand. “They form a line that’s roughly east-west. So we’re going—”
“Southwest, right?”
Nick smiled. “Right.” He looked at his watch again. “And if we’re maintaining a steady speed, we’re about thirty miles southwest of the dock where we boarded the boat. Keep an
eye on that speed gauge.”
Heather leaned to the left. The numbers were the same. “How is this going to help us?”
He let out a deep sigh. “It won’t, unless we can get to a phone wherever we’re going, and unless Dante can do some detective work back in Key West and figure out which dock we took off from. I didn’t see any landmarks when they opened the trunk and pulled us out. But we were only in that trunk for about thirty minutes, so that limits the possibilities.” He shrugged. “It’s a long shot, but it might help.”
Heather tightened her fingers on his. “You’re kind of amazing. If anyone can get us out of this, you can.”
He shook his head, his mouth flattening. “I don’t know about that. But we’re about to put that to the test.”
“What do you mean?”
He pointed to a dark shadow on the horizon. “Because it looks like we’re about to reach our destination.”
The dark shape came closer and closer, revealing itself as an island, perhaps no more than a mile across from one end to the other. Of course, there was no way to know how deep it might be.
Nick’s hand tensed beneath Heather’s. She looked up at him in question, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring straight ahead, clenching his jaw, as the boat slowed and gently bumped against the dock.
The driver of the boat turned around and pointed his gun at them.
Lily dangled a small ring of keys in front of her before tossing them onto the bench between Nick and Heather. “Unlock your hand from the railing and toss me back the keys,” she told Nick.
“Lily,” Heather said. “Why are you doing this? I was worried sick about you, thinking you were being held against your will. I—”
Lily laughed, cutting her off. “Your concern for me was exactly what I was counting on. That’s why I drove up to Saint Augustine in that rattletrap car and acted like I was down on my luck. I wanted you to feel sorry for me and follow me down here to the Keys. But you were too worried about your precious job and your precious clients. I had to change my plan. It worked. I got you down here. But I’ll admit that my first attempt to grab you at Skeleton’s Misery was a bit pathetic.” She laughed. “I’ve got you now though. And thanks to your DEA boyfriend, I’m about to get everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I deserve.”
