Safe Before Dawn

by Linda Castillo

  Spinning the wheel, he made a sharp left into a small marina where fishing boats, a popular Boston dinner cruise ship and a few sailboats bobbed in their slips. Flipping a switch on the control panel, he idled as quietly as possible into the marina.

  All the slips were occupied, the boats tugging restlessly against their moorings. Chase was just about ready to give up on finding a slip when he spotted an empty one next to a good-size tug. Ever watchful for the harbormaster, Chase quickly parked the boat, cut the engine and then jumped onto the dock to tie the moorings to the cleats.

  Once the boat was secured, he opened the hatch and stepped into the below deck cabin. He threw off the jacket and hat. There was no sign of Lily.

  Worry trickled through Chase in the instant before he spotted the forward sleeping quarters. Heart skipping, he strode to the tiny room and ducked inside. Something warm and jumpy ran the length of him when he saw Lily. She lay on her side with a blanket pulled up to her shoulders.

  In the dim light coming from the galley, he could just make out the lines of her body. The soft, pale glow of her face. Her dark eyes and full mouth. Her womanly curves. The round shape of her swollen belly. For several seconds he stood there, staring at her, uncomfortable with the emotions tearing through him. He knew he should turn away. Make some calls. Try to figure out what the hell was going on.

  But his legs refused the command. He couldn’t stop staring at her and thinking about all the intimacies they’d shared. He’d never experienced such passion before in his life. Standing there, he couldn’t deny that he wanted to touch her again.

  He’d never seen Lily as vulnerable. She was opinionated and vocal, one of the most capable women he’d ever known. But lying there, sleeping, carrying his child, she looked incredibly vulnerable.

  Scraping a hand over his jaw, he turned away.

  Her voice stopped him cold. “Chase?”

  He didn’t turn to face her. Gripped by emotions he hadn’t felt for a very long time—emotions he didn’t want to feel—he took a deep breath and told himself they would pass. Damn it, they would.

  “What’s going on?”

  It was a question he couldn’t ignore, even if he didn’t know the answer. She deserved to know what was happening. At least he could tell her as much as he knew.

  Slowly, he turned. She was sitting up with the blanket pressed to her breasts. Most of her hair had come loose from the ponytail and cascaded like curly red strips of silk around her shoulders. In the past, she’d always hated her hair, threatening to color or straighten it. Chase, on the other hand, had always loved it just the way it was, as soft and bright and fragrant as sunshine.

  He studied her, loving the way she looked at this moment, and he wished he could capture this image of her and emblazon it onto his memory. “We’re safe for now,” he said in a thick voice.

  “Who are those men and what do they want?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to make some calls, see if I can get some answers.” He started to turn away. “Go back to sleep.”

  But she was already scooting off the edge of the small bed. “Like I can sleep.”

  He knew it was silly, but he stepped back when she stood. He’d been close to Lily a hundred times in the months they’d been together. But he didn’t want her close to him now. He wasn’t sure what he’d do. Something stupid, more than likely.

  “You were doing just fine a moment ago.”

  Because he didn’t want to make a mistake he’d regret, he left the sleeping quarters and strode to the galley. Pulling the security guard’s cell phone from his belt, he sat at the small table, punched in the number for Ben Parker and waited.

  The FBI agent picked up on the first ring.

  Chase didn’t waste any time. “They found us at South Station.”

  “How did they know you were there?”

  Something uncomfortable pinged in the back of Chase’s brain. How had the men known where to find them? Ben was the only person who’d known where they were.

  “Good question,” Chase said.

  “You sweep yourself for transmitters?”

  “I checked my clothes.”

  “Kind of haphazard, Chase.”

  “Yeah.” He paused, troubled by the suspicions leaching into his brain. “I’ll figure it out.”

  Ben continued. “Look, I got a call from Ethan—”

  “He okay?”

  “He’s worried about you. Said you were talking and the line went dead.”

  “Sons of bitches ambushed me.”

  “You okay?”

  “We’re fine.” Keenly aware that Lily was standing just a few feet away, listening, Chase lowered his voice. “These bastards have pulled out all the stops, Ben. They’re gunning for us big time.”

  “You still going to come in?”

  Chase hesitated, some obscure little voice warning him to trust no one. “Did you check with Fort Leavenworth?” The military prison administrators would have been able to tell Ben if Liam Shea had been released or escaped.

  “He was released last summer.”

  “Damn.” Liam Shea now took front and center on his list of suspects. He’d made an explicit threat. The modus operandi fit his style; he was an expert on anything electrical. Chase couldn’t think of anyone else who might be holding a grudge and held the power to orchestrate these kinds of ambushes.

  “Anyone else come to mind?” Ben asked.

  “I think Liam Shea’s our man.” Chase considered the situation. “Is Vice President Grant still missing?”

  “Last update I received from Quantico, he was. Some reporter got a hold of the story. Most of the radio stations are running on generated power. Now it’s all over the news.”

  “Anyone claim responsibility?”

  “Not yet.” The other man paused. “The police lab put a rush on the blood found at Hancock Tower. It’s been positively identified as the vice president’s.”

  “You think he’s still alive?”

  “No way to tell.” He sighed. “I sure as hell hope so. This is unprecedented.”

  “Any word from Shane?”

  “I talked to him briefly. He was ambushed, but he’s fine. I’m telling you, all hell has broken loose.”

  Remembering the cell phone he’d taken from the gunman, Chase said, “Can you run a number on a cell phone and see if anything pops up?”

  “Whose?”

  “I got it from one of the goons. Chances are it’s a disposable and he didn’t use his real name. But criminals can be incredibly stupid sometimes.”

  “Worth checking.” Ben Parker fell silent while Chase gave him the number. Then he said, “I think you and Lily should try again to come in. Let us set you up in a safe house until this situation stabilizes.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Chase…at least bring her in. For God’s sake, if she’s pregnant and these bastards are trying to—”

  “I’ll keep her safe,” Chase interjected, not wanting to hear the way the other man was going to finish the sentence. “I’ll keep both of them safe.”

  As he disconnected, he prayed to God he could keep his word.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “We lost them.”

  Aidan Shea paced the elegant confines of his hotel room, but he barely noticed the opulent furniture or the sumptuous food, crystal and silver spread out on the linen-draped table before him. Every ounce of his attention was focused on the two men delivering the exact news he didn’t want to hear.

  The men didn’t look too worried about their failure, a fact that didn’t elude Aidan. Over the years, more than one good man had made the mistake of thinking Aidan was nothing more than a computer geek and a loner.

  If only they knew.

  Damn them both. Damn Chase Vickers. And damn his nine lives straight to hell.

  “Where did you lose them?” he asked, the softness of his voice belying the rage boiling just beneath the surface.

  The man wearing the wing-tip shoes shifted his
weight from one foot to the other. “The waterfront.”

  “Big place,” Aidan said. “Lots of hidey-holes for the rats.”

  The other man brushed at a nonexistent speck of lint on his thousand-dollar suit jacket. “Vickers might be good at what he does, but he can’t elude us forever.”

  Seeing an opening to inject good news, the other man came to attention. “He’s got a pregnant woman in tow. They can’t have gotten far.”

  Idiots, Aidan thought, and turned on him. “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Chase Vickers,” he snapped. “As far as you know they could be out of the country by now.”

  The man in the expensive suit looked chagrined. “We’ve got every available man working to contain the area. We’ve got perimeters set up. It’s only a matter of time before we smoke them out.”

  “Time is the one thing we don’t have!” Aidan brought his fist down on the table hard enough to send a crystal tumbler over the edge.

  “I’ll make some calls—”

  “Calls? How the hell is making a phone call going to solve this problem you’ve created?”

  The other man stepped in to take some of the heat off his counterpart. “I thought—”

  “Don’t think!” Aidan shouted. “Act! I want them caught yesterday! You got that? I don’t care what you do or how you do it! Find them.”

  “We’ll find them.” The man in the wing-tip shoes met his gaze and a silent understanding passed between the two men.

  Within the pale blue depths of the other man’s eyes, Aidan thought he saw a smidgen of grit, of cold determination, the icy fortitude of a killer, and he was marginally relieved. He and his brothers and father had paid top dollar to these brutal men. Men who didn’t ask questions and got results no matter how distasteful the task. He hoped they hadn’t wasted their money. Aidan was starting to think he’d be better off finishing this alone.

  But it was too late. Boston was a huge city. He didn’t want to be the one to tell his father Chase Vickers had gotten away.

  “Find Lily Garrett,” he said after a moment. “Bring her to me.”

  “What about Vickers?”

  Aidan Shea smiled. From what he’d seen, big, bad Chase Vickers was like a puppy dog when it came to Lily Garrett. “Bring me the woman, and he will follow.”

  * * *

  LILY FOUND cold ham, some smoked cheese and a bottle of grape juice in the galley. As Chase finished his call, she gathered plates and glasses and set them on the table. In one of the cupboards, she discovered a box of stale crackers. Normalcy in the midst of lunacy, she thought as she arranged crackers on the plate next to the cheese.

  Chase looked at the table as if the concept of eating were foreign.

  Lily motioned toward the food. “I know eating seems mundane in light of everything that’s happened.”

  “No,” Chase said quickly. “You need to eat. You’re…” His words trailed.

  She couldn’t withhold the smile. “Eating for two.”

  Chase smiled back, but it looked tense on his face.

  Taking the bench seat, Lily set a slice of cheese on a cracker and popped it into her mouth. Chase poured grape juice into glasses. For several minutes neither of them spoke; the only sound came from the gentle lapping of waves against the hull.

  “You’re really worried, aren’t you?” Lily asked. It was a profound question, because Chase wasn’t the kind of man to worry.

  “Worry is an understatement.”

  “Do you have any idea who’s behind it?”

  “Maybe.”

  She arched a brow, wondering if he was going to keep her in the dark.

  “There was a mission, eleven years ago,” he began. “Things went wrong and some hostages were killed. A man was court-martialed and went to prison.”

  “And?”

  “He was recently released.”

  “Who is it?”

  He grimaced. “Look, I think the less you know the better off you’ll be.”

  “So you’re going to keep me in the dark?”

  “I just think there are some things we shouldn’t talk about,” he said carefully.

  “If something happens…” Not sure how to finish the sentence, Lily let her words trail. She didn’t want to think about anything catastrophic happening. Not to her. Not to Chase. But she had her unborn child to think about now. She had no choice but to consider every possible scenario no matter how distasteful.

  “If something happens,” she began, “I need to know what to do. I need to know where to go. I need to know who to trust.”

  Rising abruptly, Chase crossed to the small stove and leaned. Lily held her ground, taking in the rigid set of his shoulders and white-knuckled fingers. She could practically feel the tension coming off him. All she could think was that this wasn’t the Chase Vickers she’d once known. That man had been totally unshakable. He’d thrived on danger, gotten off on adrenaline. What had changed?

  “You think if they get their hands on me, they’ll torture me for information about you?” she asked.

  He gave her a dark look, the muscles in his jaws working. “That’s where they’ll start.”

  A powerful shudder ran the length of her, followed by a burst of cold, hard fear. Not so much for herself, but for her unborn child. How was she going to keep her baby safe when she couldn’t even keep herself out of harm’s way?

  “I’m not going to let those bastards get anywhere near you.” Grinding his teeth, he brought his fist down on the counter hard enough to rattle a saucepan. “Damn it.”

  “You’re worried about the baby,” she whispered.

  He spun on her. “I’m worried about both of you!” As if realizing he’d shown her more emotion than he should have, he lowered his head and raked a hand through his hair.

  She used to love running her fingers through those light brown tresses, long and always unruly. Every time they made love she’d—

  Chase’s words cut off her reverie. “This shouldn’t have happened. Damn it, Lily, you shouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “I am. We can’t change that. Now we have to deal with it.”

  He looked up at her and his gaze burned into hers with such intensity that she thought she could feel the heat emanating from its depths.

  “The man I’ve been talking to is Ben Parker,” he spit. “He’s an FBI agent.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know who I can trust anymore.”

  “You don’t trust Ben?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “I see it in your eyes. I hear it in your voice.”

  He scraped a hand over his jaw. Lily couldn’t ignore the scrape of whiskers against his palm. It was such an intimate, masculine sound. One she’d heard a hundred times before. One she’d always liked.

  “I know this sounds crazy,” he said. “Maybe even paranoid. But Ben knew we were at South Station and within minutes of my telling him, we were ambushed.”

  The words made her feel a little sick inside. As if they were up against something that could not be defeated. Setting her hand over her abdomen, Lily went back to the table and sat. “You think he revealed our whereabouts?”

  “I don’t know.” He started to pace, restlessly eating up the width of the boat, like a tiger in a cage. “Ben is a good man. A good agent. He’s tough, loyal as hell. Lily, you know I choose my friends carefully, and he’s one of the best.”

  “Do you trust your instincts?”

  “I used to.” He laughed, but it was a dry, humorless sound. “Now I’m not so sure.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “We stay put. Once I get you to a safe place, I’m going to figure out who’s behind this. I’m going to stop them. Find their weak point. Keep them from getting to anyone else.” Chase picked up the phone he’d set on the table, glanced at the display and laughed. “Phone battery is about shot.”

  “I saw some electrical components in one of the cabinets when I was looking for food. Maybe there’s a charger we can use.” Energized by the prospect
of doing something proactive, Lily rose quickly. The stab of pain low in her belly came so hard and fast she couldn’t withhold the gasp. Bending slightly, she grasped the back of the bench seat and leaned heavily.

  “Lily!”

  Before she could return to the bench, Chase darted to her and set his hand gently against the small of her back. With his free hand, he took her arm and guided her back toward the bench seat.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it the baby? What?”

  “It’s okay,” she said, more embarrassed than concerned. By the time she sat, the pain had already subsided.

  “It’s not okay. You’re in pain. You practically doubled over. I saw your face.”

  “It happens every so often.” Leaning back in the seat, she set her hand against her belly and smiled. “I think she’s trying to tell me something.”

  Chase blinked. “She?”

  She glanced up at him, more moved by his concern than she should have been. “It’s a girl.”

  “A girl?” He gave her a look that made him seem just a little bit lost. “How do you know?”

  “There’s a test. A sonogram. If there’s no…you know…then we know it’s a little girl.”

  “Oh, okay.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Wow. A little girl.”

  Lily couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the stress of the situation, or the lack of sleep, but she laughed. It was the first time she’d seen tough guy Chase Vickers speechless, and she couldn’t help but indulge.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You.”

  The concern etched into his every feature softened. “I’m glad you find me so amusing.” Surprising her, he smiled, and for several seconds they grinned at each other like a couple of fools.

  The moment shifted when Chase lifted his hand and set it against her face. His palm was warm and slightly rough against her cheek. Lily had seen that look in his eyes before. She knew what would happen next. And while the intellectual side of her brain told her to pull away, a treacherous part of her brain refused to let her move.

  “I love your smile,” he said thickly. “I love it even more when you laugh.”