Hot on the Hunt

by Melissa Cutler

  John peered over her shoulder. “He’s long gone.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

  John’s attention swung to the trees and the jungle beyond. “There are a lot of places to get lost on this island. Even if he patched himself up on St. Croix with the medical supplies he stole, he needs to get off his feet and recuperate. He can’t keep running like he has been.”

  “We need a base. Private enough that we don’t have to look over our shoulders every two seconds, but with access to Wi-Fi. Somewhere I can start to dig for information online.” Like a hotel room.

  Tactically, that was the most logical choice, but she didn’t seem to be capable of suggesting aloud to her former lover, who’d already curled her toes with a ravishing kiss that day and who’d almost done so again in Harry’s plane, that they seclude themselves together in a hotel room indefinitely.

  “Agreed. But first we need to help Harry secure this plane. I’m not comfortable leaving him alone to handle it in case Rory returns.”

  Yeah, leaving Harry to face the possibility of going up against Rory without their help would be a terrible way to repay the man for locating Rory and transporting them, even if helping him took them off Rory’s trail and was bound to be a slow, tedious process. Though hitting the pause button on their mission made her feel tense and panicky, she knew this was the right thing to do.

  John motioned his head back the way they’d come, then started up the beach. “I’m sure Harry’s on his way here. Let’s intercept him before he gets to the beach, in case Rory’s nearby. For all we know, he’s watching us right now.”

  Alicia hadn’t considered that possibility. She scanned the surrounding beach and trees, not expecting to see anything. Still, a shiver crawled up her spine. She set her hand on her Glock, then jogged through the sand to catch up with John.

  * * *

  More than an hour later, Alicia stood next to John and waved goodbye to Harry as his plane skimmed the water, then took off into the cloudy, misting sky.

  It hadn’t been easy convincing him that they’d personally make sure his plane made it into the private airport they’d contacted for a tow, but it was a favor they’d insisted upon performing as soon as the weather began to deteriorate more rapidly. Harry had realized that if he didn’t get in the air soon, he’d lose the window of opportunity to get home to his wife in St. Croix before Hurricane Hannah hit.

  It was the way Harry had talked about his wife, the worry and love in his voice, that convinced Alicia that they needed to put their hunt on hold to help him, despite everything she stood to lose if Rory disappeared. That part of her—the part that could love, that was capable of giving herself up to another person body and soul—had died inside her when she was shot. In dark moments, she still grieved over that loss, and somehow, helping Harry get home to his love made her feel a little better.

  John must have had his own reasons for going along with her plan to take care of Harry’s plane, because he didn’t put up a fight about it or suggest they split up so he could continue the hunt.

  The tow was slow in coming and even slower in getting the plane to the airport, a private runway ten miles outside Fort-de-France. But reach it, they did. After two hours that felt more like ten, they sat in the tow truck, with Alicia itching to crack open her computer and get busy on her search for Rory.

  Maybe the airport had Wi-Fi and a quiet room she could use.

  The island of Martinique proved a colorful, fascinating distraction from her impatience as they drove along a two-lane highway past poor neighborhoods, luxury resorts and clusters of ultra-pricey vacation estates. There was a distinctly European influence obvious in the details of the island culture, from the French that the tow truck drivers spoke to the whitewashed houses and the haphazard layout of the cobblestone streets, but the heart and vibrancy of the island seemed to have risen from the immigrants from all over the world and the descendants of slaves who—John explained—had been brought over to work the sugarcane fields centuries ago.

  Alicia was enthralled and, for a few minutes, set aside the pressure she was under and danger she was in, and simply took it all in—from the lush greenery of the land; the three women wearing colorful wraps and walking on the side of the road, baskets of fruit and other foods balanced on their heads; a father and young son on a moped pulling a makeshift trailer holding a bucket of fish; to the occasional luxury cars racing by and pricey, monogrammed wrought-iron entrance gates that led into what looked like private jungle oases.

  At the airport, while John was making arrangements to store the plane, Alicia interrupted as politely as possible given her impatience. “Is there a lounge or sitting room at this airport? I’m looking for a place to charge my computer.”

  “We have a lounge for our members,” said the man wearing a name tag that read Luc. “If you’re looking for a powder room, there’s one behind you.”

  “This lounge. Would you mind if I...?”

  Luc wrung his hands, looking uncomfortable. “It’s usually only reserved for those who pay for use of the airport.”

  John was on the job, though. Before Luc could say any more, John pulled his hand from inside his bag and slipped him a folded fifty-dollar bill. Once again, Alicia was grateful for John’s understanding of how the islands operated.

  “But with the incoming storm, no one’s been in or out all day,” Luc said, a smile suddenly brightening his face. “Please be my guest. It’s the door to the right of the powder room.”

  She nodded her thanks to Luc, then John, but she was already busy thinking about what to look up first once she’d tapped into the airport’s internet connection. Looking for Rory was going to take a lot more ingenuity and patience than she’d have time for here, so she decided that a better use of her time would be to figure out what Logan McCaffrey’s vendetta against her was all about and what intel was floating around ICE about her and John.

  She was still having trouble wrapping her brain around the truth that ICE had known she’d disappeared and where she’d gone when she left. She just couldn’t see how that was possible. She’d been so careful with her plans, so careful to make sure she seemed at home in Arizona, from credit card usage to phone calls made on her land line at home, which indicated, on paper, that she hadn’t left her house in days.

  That was a puzzle for another day, though. After Rory was dead and she was halfway around the world, safe under a new identity. She’d flirted seriously with the idea of faking her own death, and a small part of her still wished she’d gone through with the plan—or at least a different, comparable plan after her conscience had persuaded her against following through with her grand scheme.

  It only took her a few minutes to sneak into ICE’s secure network through the virtual window she’d left open for herself before she’d left the agency and discover that her and John’s names were listed along with Rory’s on their posting of the ten most wanted criminals. Right up there with cartel leaders and terrorists. Armed and dangerous, the descriptions read. Neutralize using whatever means necessary.

  That caught her off guard. She stared at the words, not quite believing them. If Logan’s crew found them again, their instructions were no longer to arrest them, but kill them. As she’d decided during her first run-in with Logan at the Ammaly Resort, she ought to get used to that. Given the career she was trying to break into, having a price tag on her head was going to be her new reality.

  But now that it was happening, now that John had been dragged into the fray, it didn’t seem as acceptable as when she’d imagined it during the innumerable hours of physical therapy and training. What had she gotten herself into? What had she done to John?

  Refusing herself the luxury of dwelling on her trepidation, she tiptoed to Interpol.

  A couple minutes later, she looked up when the door opened to find John slipping in. He closed
the door behind him. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself,” she answered.

  “What have you found so far?”

  “I haven’t started searching for Rory. That’s going to take a more secure location given the ideas I have, but this storm is going to buy us some time. Weather forecasters are predicting that the hurricane will hit with full force by late tonight or early tomorrow. The airport and ferry companies are closed. Unless Rory has a death wish and braves the open ocean in a stolen boat or plane, he isn’t leaving this island anytime soon.”

  “Good. I take it the authorities haven’t figured out which island we and Rory are on?”

  “Not that I could tell, but get this. ICE has us on their Most Wanted criminal list. They still think we’re on St. Croix, so there’s that. But they’ve sent notice of the situation and our profiles to Interpol and all branches of the military, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the White House. According to them, we’re armed, extremely dangerous, harboring national secrets, and all agencies have been given the go-ahead to neutralize us using whatever means necessary.”

  She scrubbed her hand over her face. “It’s not easy to read that about myself.” And about you.

  “What did you think was going to happen after this stunt of yours, busting Rory out of prison so you could kill him?”

  She erased her trail on the internet, royally irked at John’s choice of words and the venom in his tone. “It’s wasn’t a stunt. This is my life we’re talking about. I thought this particular part of my operation would be over by now. I was supposed to be in Europe by the time the Feds figured out Rory was missing. Instead, the attempted murderer and traitor I sprang from prison is running amok. He’s already killed that nurse. Who knows how many more in his desperation to flee? It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

  He walked to the cola vending machine on the side wall and fed coins into it. “Didn’t you have a backup plan?”

  The accusation in his tone got her back up even more. She snapped the laptop lid closed and stood. “I had a few. None of them involved you messing everything up.”

  He set his hands on his hips and leveled an unflinching gaze at her. He didn’t look angry, but intensely serious. Like he was looking right into her heart. “You’re scared.”

  Without answering, she turned and faced the decorative mirror above the sofa. Her hair was tangled and her clothes soiled. She reapplied her lucky lipstick that she always carried in her jacket, then raked fingers through her hair to smooth it back into place. There was nothing she could do about the scuffs on her clothes, but there was nothing like red lipstick to make her feel put together again and back in control.

  Her gut reaction was to deny John’s assessment. Opening up about her weaknesses wasn’t exactly natural for her. Most of the time, she gave herself a break about that. Unwavering composure and a focus on strengths was a good thing in her line of work—lifesaving, even. Besides, joining the CIA as a teenager and hacking into the computer infrastructure of foreign countries on behalf of the U.S. government by the time she was of legal drinking age hadn’t remotely resembled a normal coming of age.

  Not that she regretted the choice. If she had it all to do over, she’d join the CIA again in a heartbeat, but every now and then, her inability to connect with people on an intimate soul-to-soul level made her feel like a prisoner in her own skin. It wouldn’t kill her to open up to John; perhaps it would make her feel less alone.

  “Yes,” she answered softly. “I’m scared.”

  He had the good graces not to look surprised by the admission. “Me, too.”

  He collected his cola from the vending machine, then stood next to her and cracked it open. He offered her the first sip, but she shook her head. He set it on the coffee table, then performed his own cursory sprucing up of his appearance in the mirror. “But the way I see it, scared is good. It means we understand the stakes.”

  Scared didn’t feel good to her. “No, it means we understand the stakes and they’re too much. We have to find a dangerous criminal who’s on the loose before U.S. authorities do. Meanwhile, we have the air force, the navy, Interpol and an ICE black ops team hot on our tail like we’re the dangerous criminals—and those are just the groups gunning for us that we know about. We can’t let them catch us, and we can’t let them catch Rory.”

  “We are dangerous criminals. We’re dangerous because of our skills and the national secrets we know from our years working for the government. And any way you slice or dice it, we’re criminals because you broke a national traitor out of prison. As for me, when I saved you from Logan, I attacked federal agents and released the person they’d taken into custody, not to mention aiding in your escape right now. And, even though it was to save our lives, I still blew up a rum distillery. I’m culpable now, same as you. Knowing I’m right morally doesn’t make me any less of a criminal.”

  At least they had morality on their side. She might be a dangerous criminal, but she would never hurt a civilian or use her skills for anything except to make the world a better place. Then it hit her. That was a lie. She’d released Rory back into the world and he’d already killed one civilian that they knew of.

  She picked up her laptop. “We should go. Find a more secure location to regroup and track Rory down.”

  He didn’t move toward the door, but instead teased at a spot of dirt on his pants with his fingernail. “Why were you planning to go to Europe?” He speared the finger in her direction. “Don’t say sightseeing.”

  She shoved her laptop in its case, not willing to run her plans by him and impatient to immerse herself in tracking Rory. “We need to get out of here.”

  She walked to the door and had it open an inch when his hand appeared near her ear and pushed it closed again. “Why Europe? What’s there?”

  Fine. If he really wanted to know, she could tell him a harmless piece of her plan. She turned to look at him. “Not a what, but a who. Ryan.”

  His jaw stretched tight behind the thin, flat line of his lips. He gripped the can of cola until the aluminum buckled slightly, a move that flexed his forearm in a way that rippled up through his shoulder and made his pectoral muscle jump. “You and Ryan, then. That’s how it is?”

  Ah. Jealousy. It shouldn’t have given her a thrill, but it did. A dizzying, knee-weakening thrill. Jealousy meant he wanted her for his own, which she should have already figured out from that kiss behind The Salty Parrot. She could practically smell the testosterone oozing from him, the primal roar building in his chest. Maybe he’d flex again—or maybe kiss her—if she let him keep believing she and Ryan were an item. Maybe he’d prove to her who she really belonged with.

  A knot of desire tightened low inside her. It was ridiculous. They’d been business associates for only a matter of hours and she was already considering letting lust dictate her actions, letting John control her. It simply wouldn’t do.

  She gave herself a mental smack, then tossed her hair and forced a smile to her lips. “Simmer down. Ryan’s engaged. He and his fiancée are operatives-for-hire in the south of France. I thought I’d start there, contract with them for a few jobs to get my feet wet and get my reputation up and running.”

  “And what is it you’re going to do—intel?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And the other times?”

  She shrugged. “Whatever needs doing, if the price is right.”

  He nodded like he’d figured her all out. “That’s what this is about—you killing Rory. It’s not just revenge. It’s your way of introducing yourself to the underworld you want to be a part of.”

  “Precisely.”

  “And you think you have it in you to be a black market operative?”

  She huffed and turned back toward the door. “Go to hell.”

  His hand held it closed again. “No, I’m serious. You do
n’t think it’s going to kill your soul to do that?”

  “Don’t you dare take a moral high road with me.”

  “Why not? I’m allowed to be worried about you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Behind her, he was silent for a beat, then he said, “I always liked Ryan, but if he doesn’t give you the same warning I just did, then he’s not a very good friend.”

  She propped a shoulder on the door and sent him a sidelong look. “And you, who wanted to kill me, are?” It felt odd saying the words because she was almost certain she didn’t believe him guilty anymore, but it was the only weapon in her arsenal at the moment.

  His tongue poked against the inside of his cheek and he looked away, nodding. Then he downed the rest of the cola and tossed it in the wastebasket near the door. “You were right. Let’s get out of here.”

  Then he bullied her out of the way, opened the door and strode out.

  It pissed her off, him ending the fight. It pissed her off because how was he ever going to prove to the U.S. government that he was innocent when he couldn’t even be bothered to prove it to her?

  She raised her face to the ceiling and willed her frustration aside, then followed him through the door. He was leaning against the reception desk, cool as could be, chatting in perfect French with Luc. She understood the language much better than she could speak it, and she caught the gist of their conversation.

  John asked him for a restaurant and hotel recommendation and for a taxi to be called. It was a savvy move of misdirection, because they’d never actually take the man’s advice as it would leave a blatant trail to their whereabouts, but it didn’t make her any less aggravated at his evasion of her demand to explain himself.

  “Un restaurant romantique?” Luc said, offering a broad grin to Alicia.

  “Oui,” John answered dryly without sparing Alicia a glance.

  She grabbed a brochure on snorkeling from the counter and walked out the main door, leaving him to his charade. It wasn’t raining, precisely, but misting enough to keep her under the eave. Not that the shelter helped. With every gust of wind, a fresh flurry of mist enveloped her.