by Debra Webb
“I don’t want to be late,” she insisted, a tremor in her voice.
Logan gave her a reassuring smile. “Mrs. Colby, don’t worry. You’re the guest of honor. Leberman’s gone to all this trouble to bring you here. He won’t start his party without you.”
She blinked, then nodded.
Logan and Max left via the kitchen as the others had done. Noah and Blue waited in the entry hall with Victoria and Simon.
“Be careful,” Blue said in warning as they exited next.
Victoria looked back at her. “No matter what happens,” she said, her tone very nearly savage, “don’t let that monster off this island.”
The door closed behind them and Blue locked it securely. She turned around and sagged against it, then closed her eyes and let go a heavy breath.
“What if Lucas is dead already?”
Noah moved toward her, reaching out, then taking her into his arms. The powerful, fulfilling sensation of holding her rushed through him, making his knees weak and his head spin just a little. A dozen flashes of memory—of those moments they’d spent making love—flickered past his mind’s eye.
He could hold her like this forever. Wanted nothing more than to make love to her again…here…now.
He drew back from her and felt an ache deep in his chest.
“You’ve done all you can. Now you have to wait.”
This morning’s events had driven home his reality as nothing else could. He and Blue could never be together in the real sense of the word. Could never have a real relationship or a family. He was a permanent inmate in this brick-and-mortar prison. She was a vital woman who thrived in her work. He could never ask her to give up her life for him. He wouldn’t ask.
She pulled him close again and hugged him tight, as if reading his mind and knowing that the “they” that could be had come up short in his estimations, as it probably already had in her own.
She would be hurt by his selfish need to have her if only for a few moments. He knew he should admit that he’d made a mistake and attempt to set it right, but he simply could not call what they had shared for such a short space in time anything other than what it was…perfect, beautiful.
He inhaled deeply, relishing her sweet scent and remotely noting the lingering odor of smoke.
Everything inside him stilled.
He drew back, the epiphany hitting him with the force of a physical blow. “The entry alarm…”
Blue frowned at the sudden tension she felt in him. “What about the alarm?” She’d no more uttered the question than she realized exactly what he meant. Noah had started arming the security system since Leberman had a key and they now knew he was the enemy. The alarm hadn’t gone off when the intruder placed the smoke bombs…at least not until they’d run out of the house. Maverick’d had to disarm it the old-fashioned way—with a heavy object—to shut it up. The particular system Noah had wasn’t connected to a local police department or even a monitoring service. It was only for making him aware of an intruder.
“I set it when we came inside, remember?”
She did remember. “Maybe he figured out the code.”
Noah shook his head. “Wouldn’t matter, I set it on instant alarm. There was no delay. If anyone had opened a door or window, the alarm would have sounded at least until it was deactivated. With the code.”
“We were preoccupied,” Blue suggested, still certain there must be a rational explanation.
“Trust me,” he insisted, that dark gaze firm on hers, “we’d have heard it. You remember how loud it was when we rushed out of the house without disarming it.”
She did…sort of, but she’d been so worried about Noah that she hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it. Still, he was right. They would have heard it.
She shrugged. “The smoke bombs weren’t set on a timer. He had to have activated each one as he placed it. How’d he get in without tripping the alarm?”
A look of disbelief captured Noah’s expression. “There’s only one way, but no one was supposed to know about it except me.”
“What way? How?” Anticipation spiked inside her.
“Call Logan,” Noah ordered her. “Tell him it’s a setup of some kind. Lucas won’t be at the fishing shack.”
Noah started to pull away from her. She held onto his arm. “Wait a minute. How do you know he isn’t at the fishing shack?”
His gaze collided fully with hers once more. “Because I know where he is. Call the team back.”
Anxiety welling in her, pressing down on her pounding heart, Blue activated her communicator. “Logan, do you copy?”
Noah walked to the wood-paneled area beneath the staircase. The place where most architects designed coat closets or small powder rooms to utilize what would otherwise be wasted space.
“We’re almost in position,” Logan said quietly. “Do you have an emergency?”
Blue hesitated, for one seemingly endless beat considering that what she was about to do might very well cost Lucas his life. Noah looked at her across the dimly lit expanse of wood flooring. And right before her eyes, a wide panel popped open revealing a hidden doorway.
“Logan, the mission is aborted! Do you copy? Be advised, it’s a setup. You have to get Mrs. Colby away from there…back to the house, anywhere, but keep her away from that fishing shack. I repeat, abort your mission.”
A tension-filled nanosecond passed.
“Standing down,” Logan responded. “ETA to your destination, six minutes.”
Noah waited at the open doorway for her to join him. “What is this?”
“I should have told you. At first I was too stubborn to let you in on it, and then…“
Blue looked past him, a winding stone staircase appeared to go down toward what she presumed to be a cellar. “Is it a basement?” Why would Leberman risk keeping Lucas that close by?
“It’s my backup egress route. It leads down to a tunnel that comes out in one of the caves a couple of miles down the beach. Smugglers once used it. There’s even a stolen treasure or two still hidden away down there.”
“But what if Lucas isn’t down there? What if Leberman just used it for access?”
Noah smiled. “He’s down there. I even stored emergency supplies there in case I had to hide out for a few days. That’s where he’s been all this time.”
Complete comprehension dawned on Blue. That’s why the team hadn’t been able to find him anywhere on the island and yet he was close enough to set the smoke bombs. He’d been right under their noses all along.
Evil is very close. The old woman’s words made perfect sense now.
Noah’s gaze turned serious. “I should go alone. Wait for Logan and the others and then you can follow.”
“No way. I’m sticking to you like glue.”
Something flitted through his gaze…something knowing and secretive. “You can try.”
He started down the winding stairs. “Watch your step. It’s dark down here and a lot of the steps are crumbling.”
And then she knew what he had planned. He was going to disappear on her. Blue hurried to catch up with him. She would not let him get far enough ahead of her to lose her.
The stairs were narrow and uneven. The walls rough with time. More than once she lost her balance and had to brace against Noah to regain it. That old familiar fear of the dark edged into her consciousness. She pushed it away, but the panic would not be denied completely. She blinked, tried to force her eyes to adjust, but it was just too dark. The smell was suffocating…the air old, tainted with the wicked deeds of pirates and smugglers. A quiver rippled through her. She’d been listening to Chester too much.
Finally they reached the bottom step. The passage was nearly as narrow as the staircase had been. A musty odor, mingled with the scent of decayed fish and saltwater, hung in the thick air this far down. She ignored the claustrophobic sensation that tried to take root. She would not be afraid. Noah was with her. She had her Glock. And backup was on the way.
; Noah stopped. She bumped into his muscular back.
A sound echoed farther down the passage.
Moving more slowly…not making a single noise, they edged forward in unison.
The tunnel widened. Her fingers encountered dips in the walls, cave-like openings or adjoining passages.
Another of those low groans.
Louder…closer.
Five, maybe six more yards and they were nearly on top of the sound. A dim glow emanated from one of the side passages another six or seven yards ahead. Her heart kicked into a frantic rhythm. They moved more quickly now.
“Who’s there?” a male voice asked gruffly.
Lucas.
Blue pushed past Noah, rushing toward the sound of Lucas’s voice. He was lying on a military-style sleeping bag. Even in the dim light he looked like death warmed over. Pale, hollow-eyed.
Lucas manacled her wrist with surprising strength when she moved to inspect his wounds. “Where’s Victoria?” he growled.
“Don’t worry. She’s with Logan and the others. We know the fishing shack is a setup. They’re on their way back here.”
His hold on Blue tightened. “Get her off this island. Now!” He coughed hard, then groaned with the pain the spasm caused.
“Callahan, do you copy?” echoed in her earpiece. Logan.
“Copy, Logan. We’ve found Lucas.”
“We’re back at the house. What’s your twenty?”
“The door under the staircase. We’re in the tunnel beneath the property. There’s no sign of Leberman, but it isn’t safe to bring Mrs. Colby down here.”
Gunfire erupted at the end of the tunnel. A half dozen lightning-fast flashes of light. Semi-automatic. Nine-millimeter, she estimated. A bullet whizzed past her head. Where was Noah?
Blue hunkered into a crouch, simultaneously pushing Lucas farther into the niche and then shielding him with her own body.
Blue assumed a firing position, but couldn’t locate Noah. How could she fire when he could be anywhere?
More gunshots. Revolver. The .38.
Noah.
She hissed a curse. Dammit. He was going to get himself killed.
The next succession of rapid fire was farther away…the semi-automatic again.
“Douse that light, Callahan,” Maverick’s voice in her ear this time.
Railing at herself for not thinking to do that already, she leaned across Lucas and turned down the flame on the kerosene lantern until it went out. She blinked, forcing her eyes to adjust as quickly as possible. She felt more than heard the team as they moved past her position. Someone knelt beside her.
“Mr. Camp, I’m going to help Specialist Callahan get you out of here.”
Simon Ruhl’s voice.
The time it took to move Lucas was considerable. He was too weak to help in any way. Though Blue was intensely relieved that they’d found Lucas and he was very much alive, she couldn’t help worrying about Noah and the rest of the team out there with Leberman. She told herself repeatedly as they moved up the stairs one agonizing step at a time that the men after Leberman were highly trained and more than capable. But she kept remembering the way he’d fooled her…had fooled everyone. He was not an enemy to take lightly. He was the worst kind.
The kind you didn’t see coming.
CHESTER MADE the necessary calls to have a medflight land right on the beach behind the house to take Lucas to the closest trauma center. Thank God one was available immediately. Victoria Colby, by sheer determination, was permitted to go with him. The allowance was a first in Blue’s experience. But then she’d never met a woman like Victoria.
Simon and Maverick, who’d stayed with Victoria while the others went after Leberman, now waited with Blue. Unlike them, she paced the floor. None of the team members still on the hunt had communicated any information one way or the other. When a team went dark, meaning silent, then that move was respected by those waiting for word. No one dared take any risk of giving away their position.
Blue understood that rule as well as anyone, but she had a hell of a time sticking by it as the minutes and hours dragged by.
The clock in the entry hall struck the witching hour.
“Enough, Blue,” Maverick said. “Sit down and stop that pacing.”
The two men had taken up positions in the living room an hour or so ago, but Blue had continued to wear a path in the entry hall.
“I don’t want to sit,” she argued, annoyed that he didn’t understand that.
His gaze softened. “I know what you’re going through, but you’ve got to be reasonable. Now sit down.” He gestured to the sofa.
She raked her fingers through her hair and expelled an exasperated breath. Lucas was safe. Victoria was safe. Noah wasn’t out there alone. And the dark was certainly his ally. She supposed she should be thankful.
“We’re coming in,” Logan’s voice suddenly echoed in her ear. “We lost him.”
Blue looked from Maverick to Simon and back. They’d all heard the same thing.
Leberman had gotten away.
No team wanted to fail…but to know that kind of sick mind was on the loose made Blue nauseous. Without Leberman they would probably never find out who had helped him learn about Noah and his condition or Rothman’s connection to Lucas. There would be at least one more unknown enemy…unless it was the general. And that was highly improbable.
An abrupt pounding on the front door jerked her attention in that direction.
Maverick and Simon were next to her in a heartbeat, weapons drawn and engaged.
“That could be him,” Simon said from between clenched teeth. The tone he used left no doubt what he’d like to do to the man if he was on the other side of that door.
Blue moved forward, but Maverick held her back. “Take a position to the left of the door,” he instructed quietly. He inclined his head toward Simon. “You step into the parlor there in case we need backup.”
Both obeyed the older man without question or pause.
Maverick walked noiselessly to the door. He peered through the viewfinder, then drew back. He gestured for Blue to take a look.
She closed one eye and squinted through the small peephole, surveying the man who stood on the dimly lit porch. He wore a classic gray suit and wire-rimmed eyeglasses.
Edgar Rothman.
She recognized him from a photo she’d seen in Noah’s profile. She’d completely forgotten that he was on his way. It was about time. It was a good thing Noah hadn’t needed him after all.
“It’s Rothman,” she whispered to Maverick.
“You’re sure it’s him?” he whispered back.
She thought about that for a moment, recalling the group photo in the case file.
Rothman pounded on the door again.
“It’s him. He’s just late.”
“All right.”
Maverick jerked his head toward the left of the door. She resumed her position there. He rolled his head, stretching out his neck, then unlocked and opened the door in one swift, smooth motion.
“Where’s—”
Before Rothman could complete his question, Maverick yanked him inside and shoved him against the door, closing it with the frightened scientist’s body weight. “Turn around and spread ’em, buddy,” he ordered.
Rothman adopted a look of disdain. “I beg your pardon?”
Maverick whirled him around, pressing his jaw against the polished wood, and quickly frisked him. He didn’t care for the scientific type. Especially one that kept him waiting.
“This is an outrage!”
Blue almost laughed. This guy had to be on the up-and-up. No self-respecting bad guy would make that kind of statement.
“Sorry, Mr. Rothman,” Maverick said after checking his ID, and clearly not sorry at all. “Just had to be sure.”
His glasses askew, Rothman turned around slowly and glared from one to the other. He quickly straightened his eyewear. “You don’t know what a time I had getting here. And that truck I rented
from some guy at that BullDog bar, well, let me tell you, the drive over was harrowing. The fellow who owned it claimed he was too far into the bottle to drive. Pitched me the keys for a mere twenty dollars.” He glared at Maverick. “Are there any more indignities I should expect?” Not waiting for an answer, he turned his attention back to Blue. “How is Noah?”
“Much better,” she assured him.
“I’d like to see him now, please.” Rothman adjusted his jacket and shot another irritable look at Maverick. “I apologize for the delay. Flights were backed up for hours in D.C.”
Blue didn’t doubt that. Her own flight here had been delayed in addition to the annoying baggage checks. “He’s not here right now, Mr. Rothman. But he’ll be back any moment. He’s with the rest of my team.”
He looked taken aback, but rebounded swiftly enough. “I was under the impression he needed medical attention.” He shook his head before Blue could answer as if the whole situation was more than he wanted to attempt comprehending. “I also want to try and persuade him to try the new antidote I’ve developed.”
Blue’s gaze riveted to his. “New antidote?”
He nodded. “If my conclusions are correct, as I’m convinced they are, this will reverse all side effects related to the implant.”
Hope burgeoned in Blue’s chest. If he could do that…
Noah would have his life back.
Chapter Fourteen
By four a.m., Logan, Ferrelli and Maverick had headed for the mainland. Max and Simon, her new Colby Agency friends, had said their goodbyes as well. Noah and Rothman were in the parlor going back and forth as to whether or not the antidote was worth the risk.
Chester had made a pot of strong coffee and was hanging out in the kitchen per Blue’s request. She’d need a way to leave when the time came.
And that time was almost upon her.
The threat to Noah, apparently, had never existed. Leberman was nowhere to be found. Though the mouth of the cave where it opened onto the beach had been closed off by steel bars when Noah first discovered its existence, now there was a gate and a key. Leberman had uncovered Noah’s secret and made himself a duplicate key, probably months ago. Mission Recovery and the Colby Agency planned to set up a special joint task force to try and run him down.
