Better Off Dead

by Meryl Sawyer

  But his brain cells had taken a hike south. All he could think about were the nights they’d spent in his bed, making love for hours on end, Devon’s naked body kissed by moonlight. The image caused an immediate, painful erection.

  He wanted to sheath himself inside her again, feel the sweet rhythm of her body moving with his, touch her between her legs. Crowning the firm thrust of her breasts, he felt her nipples tighten beneath the midriff-baring T-shirt she wore. A surge of masculine pride swept through him. He could still get to the little liar.

  And, he had to admit, his body still responded to hers. He was so achingly hard he throbbed with the need to possess her. Oh, yeah, inside her one last time.

  With both hands, Devon pushed against his shoulders, but she couldn’t budge him. His lips plundered hers and his tongue invaded her mouth with alarming intensity. His actions were raw, passionate. A challenge and a threat. As primitive as life or death.

  Her response was the polar opposite. Her body ached for comfort the way a dying man prays for the end. Her mind was almost numb from the rigors of her ordeal. She longed for solace.

  Damn it all to hell, she thought, acutely aware of her body reacting to his, but not in a comforting way. This was primal sex like minks in heat. She tried tensing every muscle. That helped, but her traitorous nipples still tingled.

  A tremor rippled through her, and, despite her best efforts, she arched her hips so the brunt of his erection pressed into her belly. She needed him to make love to her again, but she wanted him to be the gentle, caring man she’d come to love. She had no idea why he was doing this. He was furious with her and somehow saw sex as a way of punishing her.

  Maybe kissing him, reminding him of what they’d had, would soften him.

  Chad had slanted his head to kiss her more fiercely, when he felt her rubbing against his penis. The little liar was using her body again. Even as he reveled in it, he hated her more than he’d hated any woman. Hey, he didn’t hate women. He liked them, loved his sisters, liked their friends, and was still on good terms with his former girlfriends.

  This woman was the exception that proved the rule. She’d taken advantage of the way he’d cared about her. Lied to him. Even said she loved him. And he hated her for it in a way that he’d never imaged he would hate a woman.

  He shoved his hand up under the T-shirt that exposed her sexy midriff. The silky skin lured him upward ever so slowly so he could savor her soft skin while his mouth plundered hers for the last time. He arrived at the lacy cup holding the breast in place. He shoved aside the excuse for a demi-bra and fondled her lush softness.

  His thumb teased the pebbled nipple until Devon purred. His body was humming, too, but he refused to acknowledge it. His erection begged for relief and he rammed it against her.

  He released her breast and slid his hands downward along the bare skin of her midriff, feeling her for the last time—he promised himself. His hands edged beneath the elastic waist of her board shorts. He found the sweet curve of her bottom. He levered her upward until his penis was shoved into the apex of her thighs. He ground against her until she moaned with pleasure.

  Devon wanted him to make love to her to make her forget her sister, Warren’s lies, the death threat hanging over her.

  Even if it meant Chad taking her standing up in a tiny airplane bathroom, Devon needed the closeness, the intimate connection to the man she once believed she loved.

  A soft knock interrupted them and Chad pulled back. Devon slumped against the wall.

  “Are you almost finished?” the flight attendant asked, her voice muffled by the door. “Another passenger needs the facilities.”

  “In a minute,” Chad replied, his voice gruff.

  “You’ve got a few seconds.” His voice broke with huskiness, but the anger was still there—more intense than before. “I want the truth—now.”

  She had everything to lose, but she decided to risk it. “My name is Samantha Robbins. I was assistant to the CFO of PowerTec, a firm that supplies equipment to the military. I discovered they were shortchanging the government, skimming money and sending it offshore. I notified the FBI and they sent in an agent. She was killed and the FBI relocated me in the Witness Protection Program until the trial.

  “What I told you about Oregon is true, but it happened in Santa Fe where I’d been relocated. I was lucky to escape with my life.” She took a deep breath and straightened her clothes. “I’m going to Miami—violating WITSEC rules—because my sister has been in a serious accident.”

  She shoved by him and rammed open the lever on the rest room door. “Stay away from me.”

  Devon stormed through the first-class cabin, aware that most people were staring. She couldn’t have cared less. Already she regretted telling the truth—even if it had been a very short version. She could be walking into a trap, and she’d just increased her chances of being discovered by confiding in a man who now hated her.

  She’d seen loathing in his eyes, felt it in the brutal way his body had taken advantage of hers. She should have kept her mouth shut, but some part of her wanted him to know the truth. Then, no matter what happened, she wouldn’t think of herself as a person who could tell lie after lie to the man she’d thought she loved.

  Devon’s words had detonated on impact. Chad’s thoughts whirled like dervishes. Samantha Robbins. Witness Protection.

  Suddenly it all made sense. The need to hide. Being forced to lie.

  Why hadn’t he thought of Witness Protection? He’d imagined all sorts of things—most of them illegal—when he’d learned she had lied to him. It had never occurred to him that she might have a legitimate reason.

  Or was this just another clever story?

  He stared at Devon’s retreating back, slack-jawed. Many women would have broken under the weight of what had happened to Devon—assuming she was telling the truth. Instead of falling apart, she’d been a scrapper and had learned to protect herself amazingly well.

  Truth or lie?

  Usually Chad saw things clearly and didn’t waver. Not since he’d met Devon. She had him going in circles. Should he believe her?

  From the desk of Samantha Robbins

  The slip of paper was still in his wallet. He didn’t have to look at it. She must be telling the truth. Right?

  He pulled out his shirt to conceal his painful erection. Aw hell, he would have blue balls for a week. What did it matter? he decided. He charged out of the rest room, rushed by the curious flight attendants, and saw Devon swish through the curtain separating first class and coach. He caught up with her in the darkened coach cabin where many passengers were watching a movie.

  He touched the back of her arm. “Wait!”

  “Leave me alone.” She was whispering but there was vehemence in her tone that hadn’t been there until now.

  He pulled her into his arms and told her, “Don’t make me cause a scene. The flight attendants will have to report it to security. If you don’t want anyone to know you’ve left Honolulu, come with me quietly.”

  “You bastard!” Her voice was low, but intense.

  Chad kept his arm around her, his grip tight. He led her back to their seats in first class. He nudged her to the inside seat near the window so she couldn’t get out without going by him.

  He gave her a few minutes to calm down. Now this cabin was also dark, the only light coming from the movie screen up front. He signaled a flight attendant and ordered a gin and tonic for himself and a glass of champagne for Devon. When the drinks came, Devon took hers, gazing at him with suspicion.

  He raised his glass. “To the truth.”

  She stared at him, her eyes wide, and he could see she was still freaked by what had happened in the rest room. She clinked her glass against his. “To the truth.”

  He took a swig of his drink, then set down his glass on the tray in front of him. He raised the armrest that divided their seats into two and scooted as close to her as he could get.

  He kept his voice low, not wa
nting any of the other passengers to overhear him. “If you hadn’t run, I would simply have asked you.”

  “Asked me what?”

  “Why you’d made up the story about NathanAlbert. He has a girlfriend, all right. She’s living in his Lakeshore Drive penthouse while he’s serving time. She visits him every week.”

  “How do you know?”

  He took her glass of champagne and set it on the tray beside his. With one finger, he tilted her head so he could see her eyes in the light from the screen. “I was trying to help you. I have a friend who has…contacts. I asked him to see if Nate Albert was still interested in you.”

  “What were you going to do if you found out he was still after me?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I guess I’m a control freak. I needed to know what we were dealing with, then I would have decided what I was going to do next.”

  He removed his finger from beneath her chin and took her small hand in his. “I was prepared to do whatever it took—even have him killed.”

  Devon closed her eyes. For a single, painful moment the truth assailed her. What had happened to her life? It had spun totally out of control because she’d tried to do the right thing. She’d gotten one man killed, and now, here was another man willing to have someone murdered for her.

  “I would never have wanted you to order someone killed.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I believed your story. I thought Albert had slit one man’s throat and you were in mortal danger.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Her throat tightened, and it took a minute for her words to find their way through the barrier. “I might have gotten someone else killed. And made you do something—”

  “I’ve done things in the past, behind enemy lines, that could only be justified in a time of war. I’m no stranger to death.”

  “Still for someone to die because I fabricated a story is reprehensible.” Her breath drifted out on a quiet sigh. “I should have told you the truth that first night we spent together.”

  “I wish you had.” His voice was more solemn than she’d ever heard it.

  “I thought WITSEC knew best,” she told him. “They’re only interested in keeping me alive to testify.” She explained how they’d concealed Tina’s true condition from her.

  “Oh, babe, that’s awful.” In the dimly lit cabin, she saw him frown, his eyes level beneath drawn brows. “Hit and run, huh? Did they catch the guy?”

  “No, not yet.”

  He studied her face for a moment in the caring way he had when they’d been in Honolulu. Devon asked him, “What are you thinking?”

  “It could be a trap. Tell me more about who’s really after you.”

  She whispered into his ear and told him the story about Rutherford and Ames. She concluded with, “They’re dangerous men who can afford the best of the best. They managed to find me in Santa Fe despite all the precautions the Federal Marshals took.”

  “I would think it would be extremely difficult to find someone who had expert help in reinvention herself.” If she were really in Witness Protection, it would have been next to impossible to find her, he thought, again wondering if she were being honest with him.

  “I suspect someone in WITSEC tipped them—or they managed to track my money from Houston to Santa Fe.” She explained about buying the condo and gallery. “They’ve been sold now, but I won’t let them transfer the money here in case that’s how they found me last time.”

  “Smart move.”

  “I need to be very careful when I visit my sister. They—”

  “We need to be very careful when we visit your sister,” he countered, his voice low. “We’re in this together.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  DEVON STOOD at a pay phone outside The Golden Palms Motel near Miami International Airport. She was trying her brother-in-law’s cell phone for the third time.

  “He still isn’t answering,” she told Chad.

  “At least you know Tina’s been upgraded from critical to stable.”

  They’d called the hospital from the airport and had learned Tina’s condition had improved slightly. With the new privacy laws, that’s all the hospital could tell them.

  “I think I should go over to the hospital now.”

  Chad put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “We agreed to take every precaution. You need to be disguised.”

  “And we should have guns.”

  “I told you. I know where to buy weapons.”

  After they’d landed, they had taken a taxi to Rent-A-Wreck, a car rental agency that offered nothing but ugly, battered cars. Chad had insisted they wouldn’t be easy to spot in a car like their dented white Acura. They’d driven to a pink motel that rented rooms by the hour. Devon wasn’t sure why it was called The Golden Palms. The only palm she’d seen was a fake one not more than two feet high in a pot just outside the registration office.

  “Let’s go,” Chad said. “If we hurry, we can find two guns and buy clothes to disguise you. We should be able to see your sister after dark. That’ll be perfect. If someone’s watching the hospital, we should be able to slip by them.”

  “You really think this is a trap.” Devon didn’t want to believe it was true, yet she was well aware two people had already died. Rutherford and Ames wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Tina to get to her.

  “It pays to be cautious,” Chad replied.

  They piled into the dented Acura and drove to nearby Little Havana. She’d been there once years ago, when she’d visited her sister.

  They parked on Calle Ocho, the main drag. Shops and cafés the size of pigeon holes lined the street where the signs were all in Spanish. The scent of café cubano, the strongest espresso she’d ever tasted, drifted out from the cafés and mingled with the rich smell of illegal Cuban cigars.

  Salsa music pulsed from the shops and boom boxes sitting on the curbs. Nearby old men played dominos and chatted on the sidewalks, still reminiscing about the “good old days” in Cuba though they had been in Miami for almost fifty years.

  “Stay here,” Chad told her. “Lock the doors.”

  “No way. I’m coming with you.”

  He slanted her a look that said he was going to argue, but he didn’t. She still couldn’t tell if he truly believed her story or was merely going along to see what would happen. He was taking precautions, though. His actions told her that he cared, but she wished he would say something.

  “Okay, but put on your shades and let me handle this.”

  She slipped on her sunglasses and stepped out of the car. Blistering heat shimmered off the sidewalk in waves. Hawaii was humid, but the trades made it pleasant. The heat here sapped all of her energy before she’d taken a few steps.

  “How do you know where you’re going?” she asked.

  “I don’t, but drug addicts have to support their habits. You deal or you steal. What you steal you’ve got to sell.”

  “Exactly. That’s how I bought my Sig Saur. I went up a back alley in Chinatown. I could have bought a number of guns, including an AKC.” She couldn’t help being proud of herself. It had taken courage to walk down that dank alley and negotiate for a weapon.

  He put his strong arm around her and pulled Devon flush against his side. “Christ! I hate thinking of you wandering around in a place like that.”

  “Get over it. I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to survive.”

  “I know, babe. I know.”

  They walked down the one-way street until they were on the perimeter of Little Havana. Many of the shops here were boarded up. Others were illuminated by a single bulb at the end of a cord suspended from the ceiling.

  “Land of santeros,” Chad commented, referring to Cuban priests who practiced the same folk religion they had in Havana.

  “I thought you hadn’t spent much time in Miami.”

  “I’ve just passed through. My work was in the field, but we learned about the santeria in Delta Force. The Cubans have become a presence in Florida. It pays to know
their traditions.”

  “My sister says it’s legal for them to sacrifice a chicken.” She wasn’t particularly fond of chickens, but she couldn’t imagine “sacrificing” any animal.

  “Animal rights activists took them to the Supreme Court. They ruled it was part of their religion, like the Native Americans who are allowed to smoke peyote as part of their services.”

  Chad steered her around a corner and down a side street barely wide enough for a compact car. A few young punks clustered together, their dark eyes blazing—attitude with a capital A. Marielitos, she thought, recalling what Tina had told her. The first wave of Cuban refugees had been intellectuals, and many had gone on to great success in Miami.

  The Mariel boat lift had given Castro the opportunity to empty out his prisons. The marielitos hadn’t given up a life of crime just because they were now in the land of opportunity. Too many had honed their skills and passed them on to the next generation.

  One gang member was bopping around in a circle, dancing to a beat only he could hear. The others leaned against the filthy wall, watching them. Chad strode forward, and Devon kept pace with him, thankful she had on the dark-haired wig. This was no place for a blonde.

  Chad reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a wad of twenty-dollar bills. Devon instantly saw the narrowed eyes, the shifting glances. They’re going to jump him, she realized.

  “I need a gun. Make that two guns.”

  “Well, bro.” One punk swaggered forward, his English tinged with a Cuban accent. “Lemme help.” He reached out for the money.

  Chad pulled it back. “Let’s see what you have.”

  A flash of his dark eyes forewarned Devon. He whipped out a switchblade and it flipped open, its razor-sharp blade catching a beam of sunlight. Chad shoved her out of the way, and she stumbled sideward, aware of the other men inching forward.

  The punk lunged and Chad kicked so fast Devon almost didn’t see his foot leave the ground. Chad’s knee shot up between the man’s thighs. The young tough doubled over, his body convulsing as if he’d been zapped with a jolt of electricity. Chad grabbed his wrist and twisted hard. The bone snapped, the sound not so much a crack as a gristly crunch. An agonized moan bounced off the nearby wall.