Three Times as Deadly

by Erin Wade

  “Oh, I do.” She giggled as she fisted my hair and pulled me tighter against her.

  ##

  “I need to know two things,” I said as I watched Alex make pancakes. “I need to know who my handler is and where I sent the videos.

  “Do I maintain a storage facility somewhere?” I queried Alex.

  “Not that I know of, baby.” She leaned over and kissed me as she placed the plate in front of me.

  “You’ve never told me anything about your agency work, because you didn’t want criminals to go after me to get to you. You had an awful time with politicians after you broke the sex trade story.”

  “I remember that,” I said. “I remember almost everything except the two things that will keep us alive.”

  She refilled our coffee cups and joined me at the counter. “Eat your breakfast and let’s go for a walk. It’s lovely outside.”

  “Do you know who those two thugs were that tied us to the chairs?” I rinsed our plates and put them in the dishwasher.

  “They spoke English when they conversed with one another, but the guy with the beard spoke a foreign language when he was on the phone. It wasn’t Spanish or French, but I don’t know what it was.”

  “Probably Afrikaans,” I surmised. I rattled off several sentences in the language. “Did it sound like that?”

  “Yes,” Alex said.

  “That means we have thugs from Africa, the US, and Asia after us,” I informed her. “The sooner I get my evidence to the agency the better off we’ll be.”

  ##

  “Does your dad know we’re okay?” Alex asked as we explored a path in the woods outside our cottage.

  “No. I’m sure my parents are worried to death about us. When we return to the cabin, I’ll call him.

  “I’m sure your corporate people are going crazy without you,” I added. I thought about how much everyone depended on Alex. She had strong, smart women in high positions in A&S Cosmetics, but they all turned to her for guidance.

  “This will be a good test of their strength and decision-making capabilities,” Alex said as she squeezed my hand tighter.

  “Honestly, I’ve been scared to death since Ross called and said you were in the hospital,” Alex admitted, “but I have never felt more alive. When we get out of this, I want to travel more with you.”

  “I was thinking about settling down behind a desk with you,” I said. “I believe the excitement comes from us being together—wherever we are.”

  “You may be right.” Alex brushed my lips with hers.

  ##

  Chapter 29

  It was dusk when Alex whirled me around and pressed my back against an ancient oak tree. “Sloan, kiss me and then look over my shoulder. I saw a movement at the corner of the cabin.”

  I buried my face in her hair, surveying the cabin and the woods around it. “Yes,” I whispered in her ear. “Someone is watching us. I can’t get a good look at them. Damn, you smell good.”

  She giggled like a teenager, pushed me away and slapped me on the shoulder. “Would you do that to me right now?” she said loud enough for anyone close by to hear.

  “If you’ll let me,” I answered just as loudly as she broke free from my arms and ran toward the cabin. I chased her, and we both made it into the cabin without any interference from whoever was skulking around our cottage.

  “Perverts,” Alex whispered. “They didn’t interfere because they want to watch us. Follow me into the bedroom. Don’t turn on any lights.”

  “How many did you see?” I asked as I coiled my whip.

  “I counted three.”

  “That was my count too. Two at the front and one at the back door. Let’s see if we can draw them to the side window of our bedroom.”

  “Time to give the performance of your life,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows at her. “Make those sounds that always make me salivate. Feel free to scream my name while you’re at it.”

  I pulled the Glock and silencer from my duffle bag and walked to the front door.

  “Oh my God, Sloan!” she yelled with an appropriate mix of passion and moaning. “Do you have any idea what that does to me?” She began a rhythmic chanting of my name. “Sloan, Sloan, Sloan. Oh God, Sloan.

  It took all the strength I had to walk away from her. As she continued the audio performance, I slipped out the back door and screwed the silencer onto the barrel of my gun. As I did so, the agency’s training motto jumped into my mind: Never give anyone a second chance to kill you. I knew the three men surveilling us were now at the bedroom window on the side of the cabin, trying to see what we were doing.

  Alex got louder, heading toward a crescendo by the time I reached the corner of the cabin. I stepped into the open and fired three perfectly placed shots. The voyeurs never knew what hit them. They wouldn’t get a second opportunity to kill me.

  I kicked the bodies to make certain all three were dead. The man with the gravelly voice was still moving. His eyes opened wide as he realized who held a pistol pointed at his head.

  “Remember me?” Without mercy I stared into his eyes. “You slapped my wife.”

  The fear in his eyes was palpable. “Who sent you?” I placed the cold gun barrel against his forehead.

  “The Consortium,” he mumbled.

  “Which one?” I snarled.

  “Save the Rhino Consortium.”.

  “The same group that hired me to do the documentary?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” A coughing spasm shook his body as blood oozed from his lips. He knew he was dying and took his parting crack at me.

  “I raped your woman.” His grin was evil.

  “No, you didn’t.” My smile was just as evil as I pulled the trigger one more time to put him out of his misery.

  I tapped the windowpane with the barrel of my gun and Alex raised the window.

  “Everything’s okay now.” I leaned in and kissed her. “I’m going to look around. I’ll be inside shortly.”

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  I stuck the pistol into my waistband and dragged the dead men to the well about twenty feet away. I removed their identification, guns, and cell phones and then dropped the bodies down the well shaft.

  ##

  Inside the cabin, I removed the cell phone batteries and bagged the items I’d removed from the dead men’s bodies. I wanted to be able to identify them when I filed my report.

  “Do we need to leave?” Alex asked. “I like it here.”

  “No,” I said. “We’re safe here.”

  Alex walked over and wrapped her arms around me from behind. “Oh my God, Sloan,” she said. “Do you have any idea how much I want you?”

  I turned around and pulled her close. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to hear you chanting my name again?”

  “That all depends on how good you are.” She nipped at my neck. “The better you are, the louder I scream your name.”

  ##

  Chapter 30

  “Did you know who Leigh was when you arrived at the hospital?” I asked as I rubbed Alex’s shoulder with something called Olbas Oil.

  “Yes, you had introduced me to Leigh and Ross. I figured the agency had sent her to get you. I wasn’t certain what was going on, so I seduced you to run away with me.”

  “Seduced me, huh?” I pulled her into my arms. “It’s not like you had to try very hard. I was eating out of your hand the minute you whirled into my room.”

  “Uh-huh.” She hummed as she kissed me and pulled back from me. “A little more oil here, please.”

  “Who is Amarosia?” I asked, continuing to rub the soothing oil into her sore shoulder.

  “I have no idea,” Alex said, her brow furrowed. “She was a surprise to me too. I do know she was also after the videos.

  “She and Makin were working together. I overheard them talking in the hospital lobby. I think you must have some incriminating evidence against him. He told her she must get the videos or he would go to prison.

  �
��So Amy, Leigh, Ross, and you were the only ones who knew about the evidence you’d collected. How did the men who tried to kill you find out about it?”

  “That is the question that’s driving me crazy,” I said as I poured more oil into my palm. “My handler also knew. I wouldn’t be on an assignment without his approval.”

  “Your handler is a man?” Alex said. “Do you remember who he is?”

  “No.” I wrinkled my brow trying to recall my handler’s name. “I’m not certain it’s a man, but that just seems right.

  “You said Ross had my cell phone,” I recalled. “Let’s try calling him on it.”

  Alex kissed me. “Why didn’t I think of that? That’s why you are an undercover agent, and I simply keep the women of the world beautiful.” The twinkle in her eyes sent a rush of fire through me.

  I reached out for her, but she eluded my grasp.

  “Call Ross first,” she said, winking at me.

  ##

  “Hello?” a voice answered on the second ring.

  “Ross?” I said, punching the speakerphone button so Alex could hear.

  “Sloan? Damn, girl, is that you? Jesus, I thought you were dead! Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “Hey, slow down,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m in Texas. Where are you?”

  “I’m hiding out too,” he whispered, as if he feared being overheard. “The agency is keeping me in a safe house until this is settled.”

  “Ross, do you have any idea what we uncovered?”

  “Not we, Great White Hunter. You! You’re the one who met those people in secret and recorded every meeting with that concealed camera. You didn’t share with me. You said it was too dangerous.”

  “Obviously I was right,” I grumbled. “Someone is trying to kill me.”

  “Yeah, the agency sent Leigh after you, Sloan. Why didn’t you come in with her?”

  “I . . . well, I—”

  “Don’t tell me you let Alex get her claws into you again?” Ross said, disgust dripping from every word. “After the Dear John letter she sent you and serving divorce papers on you while you were up to your ass in African crocodiles?”

  I didn’t say a word, so he continued.

  “She is something,” Ross said.

  “Yeah, she is.” I grinned as Alex settled herself on my lap.

  “Are you in our usual safe house?” I asked.

  “Yes. Sloan, you must come in. You need the agency’s protection. Leigh came in today, and all hell is breaking loose.”

  “Ross, I appreciate your loyalty,” I said, “but things are not what they seem between Alex and me. She’s my wife. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  “So, you’re coming in?”

  “Yeah, but not until I have my hands on those videos. I’m hanging up now.”

  ##

  I lay on my back with Alex’s head resting on my shoulder. I looked at my arm where she had dug her nails into it to make me know what she wanted from me.

  “You really do have your claws in me,” I said with a snicker.

  She raised on her elbow. “You’d think that after all this time you would know what I want without so much direction.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. She laid her cheek on my breast, and I stroked her hair.

  We lay like that for a long time. I was searching my mind for any clue about the evidence I had accumulated. My mind drifted to the incredible animals that were being hunted to extinction.

  “Care to let me into that beautiful mind of yours?” Alex murmured.

  “I was just thinking about the atrocities being committed in Africa for the sake of the almighty dollar,” I said.

  “Share with me,” she whispered.

  “Honey, some of the situations I encountered in Africa are too ghastly to repeat.”.

  “Maybe, just maybe,”—she raised her head and brushed her lips against mine—“it might help to share the things that haunt you with someone who loves you.”

  “I . . . I have video.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to recall where that video was. Again, I failed.

  “Poachers will stop at nothing to obtain rhino horns,” I said. “They slaughtered the last female rhino in the Krugersdorp Game Reserve. She had a nine-month-old calf by her side.

  “In the KwaZulu-Natal province, poachers cut off the entire nose of a white female rhino to get the horn. Miraculously, she survived, but her one-month-old calf was so frightened by the attack on his mother that he ran into the bush and couldn’t be found. By the time he was located, he had died from dehydration.”

  Alex groaned. “Oh, no! I understand why you’re haunted and why you want to help.”

  “The tragic thing is that in most of the cases, the people who were supposed to be protecting the animals actually aided the poachers for a few dollars.” I paused, choking back the lump in my throat.

  “The poachers are brazen because in most cases, they are working with someone on the inside who is willing to look the other way.

  “They broke into a French zoo and shot the four-year-old rhino who was just a big pet. They cut off his horn with a chainsaw.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Alex mumbled as she jumped from our bed and ran to the bathroom. I heard her brushing her teeth a few minutes later and knew she had thrown up.

  She sat on the bed beside me. “I will never again complain about you leaving me to work on your African documentaries.” She leaned down and kissed me between the eyes as if trying to drive away any thoughts that might be hurting me.

  I tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear and pulled her on top of me. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met,” I whispered in her ear, “inside and out.”

  She rolled off me, into her prior spot, and nestled against my side. “What is so special about rhino horns?”

  “Honestly? Nothing. The Vietnamese, Asians, and Chinese believe that rhino-horn dust has curative and aphrodisiac powers.

  “The horns are made of keratin, the same thing as our fingernails. Consuming rhino dust is the equivalent of consuming fingernails.”

  “That is just disgusting,” Alex said as she crinkled up her nose.

  “Even so,” I pointed out, “an ounce of rhino dust sells for the same amount of money as an ounce of gold.”

  She nuzzled further into my arms, and I held her tightly. Alex had a way of making the world go away.

  One should never marry someone they can’t talk to. It is important to have that one person who will share your deepest thoughts and return them to you with their own perspective.

  Sometimes Alex and I talk a problem to death, but together, we always find a solution.

  ##

  Dawn was breaking when soft lips began kissing their way up my shoulder and into the crook of my neck. I lay still, trying to suppress the smile that wanted to cover my face. “Sloan?” Alex’s velvet voice purred my name. “Wake up and play with me.”

  “Are you going to play nice?” I murmured.

  “No-o-o-o,” she said in that sexy drawl I loved.

  “Okay, then I’d love to play.” Already breathless, I pulled her on top of me.

  ##

  Chapter 31

  We spent a week at the cabin, giving Alex’s shoulder time to heal and enjoying each other’s company. We finished proofing the manuscript I had written about our African adventure and emailed it to my publisher.

  An instant email shot back. “I thought you were dead!” Dee always jumped straight to the point.

  “I may be after you read my newest novel,” I emailed back. “Let me know what you think. Right now I’m hiding out from everyone, so please don’t let anyone know you’ve heard from me.”

  She replied a few minutes later. “My lips are sealed, my little moneymaker. LOL. I can’t wait to read this. Contact me when you can.”

  “She’ll love it,” Alex said with a confidence I didn’t quite feel. “I do.”

  “Umm, but you’re prejudiced.” I turned off my laptop and wr
apped her in my arms, savoring the thrill that was Alex.

  ##

  A feeling of déjà vu swept over me as I did a quick walk through the cabin to make certain we had everything. Memories filled my mind: Ross yelling at me to hurry; driving my jeep alongside a running rhino; bullets hitting the jeep and falling, falling into nothingness.

  “Sloan?” Alex shook my arm, “Sloan, are you okay?”

  I gave her my best smile—one I hoped would cover my troubled thoughts, though I have never been able to fool Alex.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, studying me.

  “I think I should leave you with Mom and Dad until I get this mess settled,” I informed her. “I’m concerned for your safety.”

  “No way am I leaving your side.” She glared at me. “I only feel safe when I’m with you. I know you can handle anything that arises.”

  “You’re right,” I said, “and I don’t trust anyone else to protect you.” I grabbed my bullwhip and duffle bag and headed for the car. “New York, here we come.”

  We drove for hours, stopping at fast-food places along the way.

  “I need to get out and walk,” Alex said as the day grew long. “Let’s eat dinner at a restaurant. I’m sick of fast-food.”

  I agreed with her. “Watch for anything that looks decent,” I said.

  “I keep seeing signs for Mama’s Place.” Alex pointed out a billboard that guaranteed Mama served good home cooking at exit 98B.

  “Mama’s Place it is.” Alex rested her hand on my thigh, and I could feel her studying my profile. A warm blush spread from my chest up to my face.

  She giggled. “I love the way you blush.”

  “You’re staring at me,” I ducked my head but kept my eyes on the road.

  “You truly have no idea how gorgeous you are,” Alex whispered as she stroked my cheek. “Just gorgeous.”

  “There’s Mama’s Place,” I said, still amazed at how Alex could turn me into a burning inferno with a simple touch.

  “After dinner, let’s go to that Penney’s store across the street and see if we can find something to wear that isn’t a walking advertisement for Buc-ee's,” Alex suggested. “These T-shirts are fine in Texas, but I’m not sure how they’ll play in New York.”