What he needed was someone to meet them on the island and take Audrey to a safe house while he took off and did the job the president had tasked him and Lincoln Frazer to do. Find the person who’d hired an assassin to murder a sitting vice president. So what if the guy had been an asshole? They didn’t get to make that decision, and they certainly didn’t get to murder Dr. Audrey Lockhart just because they wanted to. He’d underestimated his enemy once and they’d caught them unaware. No more assuming they were safe. No more blind trust.
He left Audrey in the inflatable and went back and opened the hatch to the dank hold, inserted an earplug into each ear and picked up an AK-47 by the strap. He fired a full magazine into the bottom of the boat, spent shells flying around like popcorn in a skillet. He switched the cartridge and aimed at the same spot, watching splinters of wood spit and spray around the enclosed space. Impressed by the strength of the hull he changed the magazine a third time and this time was rewarded by a spout of water. He kept firing until the small trickle turned into a steady flow.
Convinced he’d done enough to scuttle the vessel, he tossed the now empty submachine gun to the deck, picked up his beach bag and slung it over his shoulder. He climbed over the side of the trawler and hopped into the inflatable, casting off before settling in beside Audrey on the bench seat.
“You good?” he asked, starting the outboard. She had a canvas hat pulled low over her eyes and wore a pair of crappy men’s black sunglasses that kept slipping down her nose. He didn’t want anyone with a telescopic lens getting a good look at her face when they got closer to shore.
“I’m fine.” She kept her eyes on the horizon, voice clipped, body rigid.
Sure. He blew out a frustrated breath and pushed away from the hull of the trawler, then motored around the old fishing boat. It was a waste, but keeping Gómez and his co-conspirator in the dark was worth it, and should help to keep Audrey safe. Plus, any forensic evidence that they’d been onboard would be at the bottom of the ocean.
The boat was beginning to sit lower in the water. They were about four nautical miles north of Montego Bay. There was no one visible on the horizon, and he’d obliterated the name and number of the vessel where it had been painted on the hull. He just hoped the boat sank before anyone spotted it. He hadn’t wanted to attract attention by setting it on fire.
Using the compass on his watch, he directed the inflatable west. He needed to find a beach quiet enough for them to land without anyone spotting them, but close enough to some small tourist spot that they could easily walk to a hotel.
Audrey was much better than she had been a few days ago, but walking more than a mile was going to tax her strength. Thankfully they’d had a good supply of fresh water and food on the fishing boat, but she hadn’t eaten much, and he was worried about her. It wasn’t an emotion he usually allowed himself to feel, but it had been a constant since he’d stepped in after Hector’s attack.
He lived in a gray world that was multifaceted and obscure. Moral purity was a lie. There was no such thing as good and evil, or right and wrong. He did the best he could do, keeping his oath at the forefront of his mind. A good interrogator—like a good case officer—had to be capable of deep sincere attachments while at the same time maintaining a cynical detachment.
Usually he excelled at cynical detachment, but somewhere between Audrey warning him not to touch Hector Sanchez’s skin because of the poison, and her getting the drop on him with a gun she obviously had no idea how to handle, he’d lost that cynical detachment and started to care. To really care.
She hated him for lying to her—imagine if she knew the full extent of his deception?
As a Company man his commitment was to his oath—to protect integrity and defend the US Constitution without losing sight of human decency. He was often asking people to commit treason against their own countries to get the information he needed, and that required a measure of compassion and understanding. But his country and his mission were always paramount in his mind, which was why he was so successful at what he did. For the first time since he’d joined the Agency, he wasn’t sure he could make an objective decision for the good of the mission. He’d invested too much in Audrey’s survival. She wasn’t an asset. She wasn’t a detainee. She was someone who’d been targeted by the person who’d murdered Ted Burger, and that made her valuable to him. But she meant more to him than that and those were feelings he couldn’t afford if he wanted to do his job properly.
He motored onwards, looking for just the right spot to haul out. There were lights strung across most of the beaches, hotels just in the distance. Couples walking hand-in-hand along the sand.
He carried on past the big resorts. The area became dark and wooded.
He was so attuned to Audrey’s wellbeing that he noticed immediately when she hunched her shoulders and began to shiver. He shrugged out of the fleece he’d picked up on the boat and handed it to her. She shook her head at first.
“Put it on,” he told her sternly.
She took it, pulling it over her shoulders, pinching her lips in annoyance at what she probably considered a show of weakness. Hell. She had no idea how strong she was. Most people would be flailing about complaining bitterly about how unfair life was for treating them this way, but she seemed to have accepted the shitty situation. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t worried about just how fiercely she was holding it all together though. Even a trained operative would struggle after what she’d been through, especially with no end in sight. He wanted to tell her he’d be there for her, but that was a lie. Jed Brennan would find her a safe house and whisk her away.
She’d cease to be his problem.
But what if the safe house wasn’t so safe? Like the place in Minneapolis where the US Marshals had put Vivi Vincent and her son before Christmas? The house had been attacked and two marshals killed. It was a miracle Vivi and Michael had survived.
Audrey had already experienced two miracles, three if you counted the experience on the island. How many more times could she cheat death? But he couldn’t just quit the mission. Until they caught the mastermind behind this, Audrey was always going to be in danger. So far the perp had used smarts and ingenuity to attack her multiple times while remaining incognito.
His fingers tightened on the rudder.
It was almost full dark now, and he was thinking they might end up going around the entire island before he found somewhere suitable. Then he caught sight of a group of hotels about a half a mile down the coast, and spied a curving sandy cove just off to his right. There weren’t any lights, but a pair of car headlights swept along a nearby road, and no way would a spot like that not have a point of access. He angled the inflatable until they were perpendicular to the waves and headed for the pale sand.
“Hold on.” It was high tide, which was good news, but the surf was rough closer to the beach, throwing the boat around. He accelerated through the big waves then lifted the propeller out of the water and jumped over the side, hauling on the rope to move the boat up onto the sand.
Audrey had removed her sunglasses and looked like she was about to jump out and help him.
“Stay put,” he ordered sternly.
She kept forgetting about the newly healed knife wound, just the way he’d forgotten it when he’d been trying to get inside her yesterday. Only her gasp of pain had stopped him from dragging her clothes aside and thrusting deep.
At the time she’d been wild for him, needing a distraction from the horror and fear she’d endured. That moment of madness was over and done with. Now the only thing she wanted to nail to the wall was her student’s killer. Sweat formed on his brow and not just from the exertion of pulling the heavy boat up the beach. She’d been so sexy. So sweet. Another wave broke against him and the cold water doused any sexual fires that might have started to burn.
He kept hauling on the rope, fighting the undertow. When the surf was ankle deep he went to the side of the boat. “Come on.” He waved her over. “Grab the
bags.” He held out his arms.
“I can walk,” she protested.
“Just put your arms around my neck and stop being a pain in my ass.”
Her eyes flashed. Finally. She slid her arms around his neck and he pulled her against his chest, gathering her to him in a way that felt too familiar. He dropped her a few feet beyond the reach of the water and then concentrated on hauling the boat out. It was fricking heavy, but he put his whole body into moving the dead weight past the water line, until the muscles in his arms and shoulders burned. Audrey followed him up the beach, an insubstantial shadow in the darkness, but even so he knew exactly where she was. Finally he was satisfied. He dropped the rope and delved into his bag for a flashlight.
They both wore flip-flops, though Audrey’s were three sizes too big for her and she kept tripping. He took her arm to try to prevent her falling on her face. “Careful.”
He flicked on the light and swept the beam over the vegetation that edged the pale sand, searching for an opening in the greenery.
Audrey grabbed his wrist. “There.” She pointed with the flashlight.
The woman had good eyes. He waved her ahead of him, and they tramped through the sand, which turned into a dusty path that ran through the trees. He kept the beam just in front of Audrey’s feet in case there were any snakes around.
She stopped abruptly, and he put his hand on her shoulder to prevent bumping into her.
“What is it?” he whispered, alert for danger.
“Hear that?”
Killion listened hard for some indication they weren’t alone. “I don’t hear anything.”
“A tree frog. It’s a tree frog singing.” He felt the shudder move through her. “My old life. Did you know ‘amphibian’ means ‘living two lives’ in Latin?”
She went to walk on but he pulled her back against him and turned her around. “You’ll get your old life back. We’ll beat these bastards. In the meantime we just need to keep you safe.”
“You don’t understand.” She swallowed audibly. “All these years, my sister’s addiction, Rebecca dying…” She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go. “My work, my research was the one thing I had control over. Now someone’s taken that away from me and hurt people I care about in the process.” Her voice shook. “I’m angry. I’m so damn angry.”
He got it.
Her head dropped, and she rested her forehead against his chest. He wrapped his arms tight around her, relief smothering him that she was back with him, finally. Maybe he could make it happen on the research front—there were military bases with lab facilities. When he found the person who’d arranged the assassination plot, POTUS would owe him a favor, and getting Audrey’s life back on track would be his number one priority.
Emotion gripped his throat. How had this woman come to mean so much to him in such a short time? The answer was simple—Audrey was good and kind and pure of heart. A living and breathing ideal. Exactly the sort of person he’d joined the CIA to protect. Even as he held her close he knew walking away was going to be a bitch. He released her and turned her around to face the path again.
“Okay, let’s move it. Remember our cover. Newlyweds, but you hate our hotel because you just found a cockroach and freaked the hell out. Be as high-strung about that as you want. I’m the doting husband who just wants to keep you happy so I can get laid ten times a day.”
“Only ten?” He gave her points for trying to get into her role.
“If I was on my honeymoon with you, Lockhart, I’d want to have sex at least ten times a day. If not eleven. Which is probably a few down from when we were living in sin.”
“What if I’d refused to live in sin? Perhaps I said I needed you to put a ring on it before we had sex ten times a day?”
“In that case we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
She laughed the way he’d hoped she would, but the words did something weird to his insides. They made him wonder what having a proper relationship with this woman might be like. His profession was too treacherous to put anyone in danger, but Audrey was already running for her life…
And that was his idea of a proper relationship? With someone on the run?
Jesus. He was too messed up and too cynical for romance. Bad guys were always plotting against the US and people died every day. He had the skills to prevent that and a relationship never measured up when stacked against those opposing factors.
He ignored the inner voice that wanted to argue that maybe it was someone else’s turn to fight. He wasn’t ready to retire yet. What the hell would he do? Sell insurance?
They came out of the forest onto a gravel road. He shone the light first right then left, took her fingers in his and headed left. “Drivers around here are nuts so stick to the side of the road. Keep your hat pulled low in case anyone sees us. I reckon we have a ten minute walk to the nearest tourist trap.”
“Do you have ID?”
“Yep. But I don’t want to use it. Hopefully we can find some mom and pop deal that’ll let us stay a couple of nights for cash. Just let me do the talking—”
“Unless I’m moaning about cockroaches.”
“I knew you were a quick study.”
“They don’t just give Ph.D.’s away you know.”
“I know, darlin’. I know.” He smoothed his hand up and down her back to calm her agitation. He needed to get them somewhere safe before Audrey hit the tears part of the grieving process. Right now she was stuck on anger, but once the floodgates opened the storm would unleash. The last thing he wanted was to be around when it did, and yet, he didn’t want to be anywhere else, either.
* * *
THE WEATHER IN Virginia was the usual lousy January mix of freezing rain and overcast sky. It was early evening and Tracey Williams sat at a table in the mall coffee shop. A pretty blonde with a cappuccino took a seat nearby and pulled out the most recent copy of People Magazine.
Killion and Lockhart had disappeared, as had the idiots Gómez had sent to take care of them. Last night Tracey had gone to dinner again with her Agency contact, Peter. They’d eaten too much, drunk too much, talked for hours, and then fucked like bunnies.
And Peter had been very informative as to agency gossip.
The girl she was following, Crista Zanelli, had a reputation as some kind of brilliant analyst, but like most geeks she had her head up her ass when it came to personal security. Apparently a former girlfriend of Patrick Killion’s, Crista was the person he turned to when he needed information. Crista was Tracey’s best hope of finding out where Killion had gone to ground, unless he or Lockhart surfaced of their own accord.
Crista—bless her heart—had stopped on the way home to pick over the ragged remains of the January sales. Tracey sipped her coffee and avoided staring directly at the girl. Animals knew when they were being hunted, that elusive sixth sense honed for survival.
She broke off a corner of a large chocolate chip cookie and nibbled.
Killion really was the perfect choice to lead a covert mission tracking down Ted Burger’s killer, and one of the few Intelligence Officers to make her nervous.
She’d done the world a favor getting rid of Burger, even if her boss’s reasons were less than altruistic. They’d bugged Burger’s computer and discovered he’d somehow been involved in the terror plot that had recently gone down in Minnesota. They’d already known about the old man’s involvement with the shadowy vigilante organization called The Gateway Project. After Burger’s failed assassination plot against the president, they’d decided it was time to get rid of the old man before he was either caught or became too powerful to touch. She’d removed all trace of the bugs from Burger’s computer and disappeared.
The Secret Service hadn’t been happy, but she’d dealt with those clowns before.
Her boss had come up with the idea of using frog poison after visiting Lockhart in Colombia. It was a stroke of genius. Two birds. One stone. Gaining them a scapegoat if their crimes were detected.
> Patrick Killion had obviously fallen for the bait, and he’d traced that poison all the way back to the Colombian jungle and sweet little Audrey Lockhart just as planned.
Would the biologist be able to convince him of her innocence?
Tracey pouted as she pondered the question, drinking her coffee and nibbling her cookie. Killion was susceptible to a pretty face and went through women the way most men went through razorblades. Of course, they had to be beautiful. She had no doubt he’d seduce Lockhart to get the information he needed. And, unless he’d lost his touch, he’d have figured out the truth by now, which meant he’d be continuing his search for the real assassin.
Crista Zanelli checked her phone and smiled whenever a text came up. Tracey had hoped the girl was meeting Killion here, which was why she’d followed Crista inside the mall rather than just following her car home.
So far, no sign of him or Lockhart.
Tracey sipped her coffee. She’d been here too long. If Killion was around she didn’t want him to spot her, not that he’d recognize her with her sleek figure and long blonde hair. She got up, put her napkins in the garbage and left the coffee shop to browse the window of the jewelry store opposite, checking out the rings. When Crista still didn’t move she went inside and looked at some earrings.
Crista finally finished her coffee and placed her magazine carefully in her Kate Spade tote before clearing away her table.
Such a good little drone.
Crista headed back to her car, and Tracey hung around for another five minutes, lucking out when Crista popped up at the mall entrance at the same time she did—the woman had picked up milk and bread from the supermarket. It was dark outside but the area was well lit. Not many people were around and those that were had their heads down to avoid the light drizzle that had started to fall.
Tracey got in her car and pulled slowly out of the parking lot, turning onto the highway and keeping three or four cars back from the other woman. She was in no hurry and knew where Crista lived. She just wanted to see if she took any side trips or if Killion made contact.
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