There was a loud crack as a small explosion tore through Dicky’s T-shirt. He flew off the wall, splashed into the Thames, and sank.
Julie screamed as the blond terrorist, hands pinioned behind his back, stared at her and laughed.
Chapter Ten
Seated behind his desk in his office, Inspector McCready motioned the girl and her father to take a seat. He steeled himself and met the young woman’s eyes. “We haven’t found him. Diving teams have turned up nothing. He hasn’t…washed up downstream…yet.” The Inspector took a breath. “The sniper who shot him was only doing his job, Miss Sheridan. He saw the target attack an officer in an apparent attempt to escape. His rifle was sighted on the target’s chest, so the shot wouldn’t have killed him, not with that bulletproof on. But it would have been a bruising impact, enough to take his breath away. And the vest was heavy. He’d have to have gotten it off right away.”
McCready tracked a tear down the girl’s face and gritted his teeth.
“But you haven’t found a body,” the girl’s father pointed out.
“No.” Ian shook his head at the man’s stubborn display of hope. “But it’s been three days and he hasn’t turned up anywhere else, either.
“The only places we know to look for him are the places you’ve told us. The Swan in Liverpool, the old lady’s house. I’m sorry.” Ian stood and paced to the window. “I’ve left messages with his friends asking them to contact us if he turns up.”
Julie shook her head. “They won’t do that. He won’t let them.” She slid a cautious glance at her father. “Because of Michael O’Rourke.”
Arms folded across his chest, Ian turned to rest against the windowsill. “I left my message for the young man you told me about. The one who saved your life, Dicky Evans. Michael O’Rourke is dead. He was shot by one of my snipers. If the bullet didn’t kill him, he drowned in the Thames.”
Tears spilled down Julie’s face as she nodded. “He’d be glad to know it,” she whispered. “It was probably the one thing he wanted more than anything else.”
McCready stared at the girl, knowing she was wrong. Knowing that Michael O’Rourke’s death could only have been the second thing Dicky Evans would have wanted—at best. The first was sitting in a chair in his office. Despite this knowledge, Ian sighed and nodded his concurrence. “You’re heading back to California tomorrow?” he put to the girl’s father.
James Sheridan nodded as he stood to shake the inspector’s hand. “Thanks for all your help,” he told the officer. “Please contact us if you learn anything more.”
* * * * *
Out on the curb at LAX, James Sheridan gave his daughter a look of concern. She’d lost a lot in the last few weeks. She’d always been small and slender but her experiences in England had reduced his daughter to nothing more than a pale shadow of the girl he’d put on a plane three weeks ago. It looked as though the life had gone out of her, as well as the light. The UK trip, meant to be an adventure, had been one harrowing trial after another. Somehow, she had survived it all. But only through the intercessions of a young man—a man she might not be able to live without.
He shook his head. How had she done it? How could one young woman have survived everything she’d been through?
First, losing the thirty-odd members of her tour group in a terrifying act of violence. Then discovering her own life was threatened by a vicious menace the police couldn’t shield her from. He shook his head again. It was amazing she wasn’t a basket case, considering what she’d been through—witnessing the policewoman’s shooting death at point blank range, facing the knowledge that she was the murderer’s next target, somehow fighting her way out of the car, away from the assassin, and escaping to wander Liverpool’s streets alone.
Only to find herself in the hands of some soul-strafed hoodlum dragging a cartload of demons in his wake. Forced to take refuge in the arms of a man who was a dangerous threat unto himself. A man who might easily have proved to be just as vicious and violent as the danger that stalked her.
He wasn’t though.
He wasn’t just as bad.
Dicky Evans was worse. And that fact was the only thing that had kept his daughter alive. Only a man accustomed to brutality would have reacted quickly enough to save her. Only a man comfortable with breaking rules would have been able to protect her.
Except for the grief marring his daughter’s lovely face, James might have been glad the guy was out of her life.
Except for the grief…and the drawing.
James sighed as his eyes settled on the large, flat envelope she clutched in her hand. Inside was the drawing they’d found when they’d gone to visit the old lady. Julie had insisted on filling the old woman’s cupboards before they left the country. When Julie had reached up to put a large tin of biscuits on top of the small fridge, the portrait had floated to the floor. She’d stood there, rooted in place, her hands upraised as she stared down at her portrait—Dicky’s last gift to her.
James nodded. The man who had drawn that portrait was a man in love. In love with his daughter. And a man capable of that kind of love couldn’t be all bad, he was certain.
So it wasn’t surprising that, despite the nightmare she’d experienced in that country, his daughter hadn’t wanted to leave England for home and a return to security. She had begged for another week to wait for news of the troubled young man who had been the only salvation that England’s streets could offer her.
She looked so tired. Exhausted. “Will you be all right, here?” he questioned her with a frown of regret, not wanting to leave her but unwilling to subject her to the long walk out to the remote lot where his van was parked.
Without answering, she nodded, sinking to sit on the stacked duffel bags—her luggage.
Glancing around the busy arrival area, he decided she’d be safe enough. “I’ll be twenty minutes or so,” he told her.
Julie nodded at the ground as he started away. About two minutes afterward, a pair of unlaced sneakers sauntered to fill the sidewalk where her eyes were fixed. A burning cigarette butt dropped to the ground and one shoe moved to cover it.
“Romeo and Juliet,” Dicky said. “But only because I liked the illustrations.”
“Wh-what?” What was left of Julie’s blood drained to her feet and her body began to slump as she lifted her gaze to Dicky’s face—her vision fading at the edges as she fought to retain consciousness.
His hand was under her elbow, firm and strong, supporting her, pulling her to her feet before she could properly faint. “You asked me what books I nicked from the school library the day I was expelled,” he reminded her. “How Green was My Valley. Tale of Two Cities. Horatio Hornblower. And Romeo and Juliet.” He gave her a small sideways grin. “I always fancied Juliet.”
She stared into his face, stunned.
By now, he was supporting her full weight as she lagged limply in his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked, suddenly alarmed. “Julie! Are you all right?”
She collapsed within his arms, her legs too watery to hold her upright, her arms too weak to grasp and hold the man she longed to cling too if only to assure herself he was hard and real, here and now. “I thought you were dead,” she whispered then started to cry.
Rocking her in his arms, he held her tightly against his lean frame. He laughed but she felt damp tears on her skin as he buried her face in his neck. “I might have told you,” he admitted, “but the topic never came up. I’m a strong swimmer. Most people who live on islands are,” he declared reasonably. “Still, I was flagging when I finally reached that floating restaurant downstream. By then, all I had on was my denims, and they were wet. The passport was wet too but it dried out eventually. I pulled myself onboard and found the waiters’ lockers. The trousers are a bit loose, but the trainers fit perfectly.”
His fist was under her chin, raising her face as he anxiously checked her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to happen that way, but when I found myself in the water,
it seemed like the best way to put my past behind me…once and for all.”
“But, everyone was looking for you! How did you get out of England without anyone knowing of it?”
“Took the ferry to France and flew from there. I’ve been hanging around here, watching the London flights come in ever since.” Carefully, he set her on her feet, supporting her until he was sure she could carry her own weight. “I figured the English police would be watching the British airports for Dicky Evans.”
Shaking her head, still trying to take it all in, she told him, “They weren’t. Well, they were, but not because they wanted to capture you. Dicky Evans has been given a clean slate. The news about the opposition party plot arrived just in time for the elections. Dicky Evans is even a bit of a…hero.”
At this little irony, Dicky threw back his head and laughed. “Dicky Evans, the hero,” he gave her a smile that was a bit proud. The look in his eyes turned distant before his smile hooked downward at the edges. “And what about Michael O’Rourke?” he said in a very soft, very Irish accent.
“Michael O’Rourke isn’t a problem anymore. To anyone but you. You need to forgive him, Dicky. He was a kid, and as much a victim as the people who died that Sunday. It wasn’t his fault. It was never his fault.”
“Oh, Jesus,” he rasped, dragging her closer and crushing her to the point that she feared her tiny breasts might never reinflate. “Jesus, you’re perfect, lass. Absolutely, fucking perfect. You always…” he choked on the words, his voice rough with emotion.
“You’re a good person, Dicky. You were always a good person. What happened at that church, that Sunday, never changed that fact.”
He nodded without speaking, holding her for several more quiet moments. Finally he pulled her face out of his chest so he could hold it in his hands. “What’s next, then, Julie?”
“You still have the ten thousand pounds?”
“Give or take a few hundred.”
“USC has a good art department.”
He shook his head. “USC?”
“College,” she said. “University.”
“They’d…they’d never accept me!” he sputtered.
“That’s where I go to school,” she teased with a lifting lilt.
“I’ll get in,” he told her quickly. “You think I can get a student visa, then?”
“If there’s any trouble we’ll just have my father adopt you.”
“Adopt me! That’s never going to work,” he argued swiftly.
“Why not,” she laughed.
“You know damn well why not. I refuse to be your brother. The least you could do is offer to marry me,” he grumbled.
“Well if you ask me nicely, I’ll consider making you an offer.”
“Good,” he told her.
“Good,” she sighed. “And after that, we can see about that proper fuck you still owe me,” she suggested.
He pulled away from her, looking down on her face, his expression stunned and more than a little hurt. “You artless little tart! I gave you that—and more!”
“You’re right about that,” she relented with a smile full of life. “You gave me that—and I want more.”
About the Author
I slung the heavy battery pack around my hips and cinched it tight—or tried to.
“Damn.” Brian grabbed an awl. Leaning over me, he forged a new hole in the too-big belt.
“Any advice?” I asked him as I pulled the belt tight.
“Yeah. Don’t reach for the ore cart until it starts moving, then jump on the back and immediately duck your head. The voltage in the overhead cable won’t just kill you. It’ll blow you apart.”
That was my first day on my first job. Employed as an engineer, I’ve worked in an underground mine that went up—inside a mountain. I’ve swung over the Ohio River in a tiny cage suspended from a crane in the middle of an electrical storm. I’ve hung over the Hudson River at midnight in an aluminum boat—30 foot in the air—suspended from a floating barge at the height of a blizzard, while snowplows on the bridge overhead rained slush and salt down on my shoulders. You can’t do this sort of work without developing a sense of humor, and a sense of adventure.
New to publishing, I read my first romance two years ago and started writing. Both my reading and writing habits are subject to mood and I usually have several stories going at once. When I need a really good idea for a story, I clean toilets. Now there’s an activity that engenders escapism.
I was surveying when I met my husband. He was my ‘rod man’. While I was trying to get my crosshairs on his stadia rod, he dropped his pants and mooned me. Next thing I know, I’ve got the backside of paradise in my viewfinder. So I grabbed the walkie-talkie. “That’s real nice,” I told him, “but would you please turn around? I’d rather see the other side.”
…it was love at first sight.
Madison welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
Also by Madison Hayes
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Kingdom of Yute: Tor’s Betrayal
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Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.
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In the Arms of Danger Page 9
