by Dianna Love
He tried pushing past emergency personnel, but got shoved back. “Trish!”
Nick put his hand on Josh’s arm. “We’ll get–”
Josh roared, “Trish!”
He saw a gap and raced forward, hunting an emergency ladder, any way into that airplane. Ground crews were shouting to get back.
Nick caught up to him and said, “There’s a bit of luck.”
“What?”
“Senator Dixon was on this flight. Everyone thinks it was a terrorist attack to get him.”
“Dixon. Where?”
“The old guy helping those women onto the slide.”
That’s when Josh noticed the dark-haired flight attendant giving a hand to passengers had wild black curls. She looked over at that moment and saw him.
The old guy said something to her and she nodded then stepped out to slide down.
Josh caught her at the bottom, grabbing her into his arms. She was shaking, but dammit she was alive. He clutched her to him, kissing her face, her hair. Anywhere he could touch her.
Tears soaked his shirt. She gripped his back.
People kept coming down the slide.
Josh moved Trish out of the way so no one fell into her.
She lifted her head. “I should help.”
“You’ve done enough. I want you out of here.”
“They’re not going to let me just walk away.”
The hell they won’t. “I’ll tell them you’re in my custody.”
“I’m going to end up with a rap sheet if this keeps up,” she muttered.
Josh turned to Nick, who was watching him with a curious smirk. Nick glanced around then his low voice came through Josh’s ear bud. “Go on and get her out of here before she can’t leave.”
Josh whispered, “Thanks.” He guided Trish away, but she made him stop. “What’s wrong?”
She turned around. “I don’t want to leave Ron.”
The jealousy that slammed Josh came out of nowhere and practically blinded him. “Who the fuck is Ron?”
Cocking her head at him with a surprised look, she said, “Senator Ronald Dixon. Told me I could call him Ron.”
He was losing his freaking mind. “Sorry, sweetheart.”
Her knowing look said she’d figured out what had caused that then she gazed over at the plane. “He looks fine and everyone is fussing around him. I tried to get him to leave, but he wouldn’t. Not until all the others were out.”
“He’ll get a hell of a media event out of it.”
“Yes, he will. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
Josh pulled her up against him. “I want you out of here now. I’ve had all I can take of watching you almost die.”
She reached up and grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling him down. He kissed her, pulling her hard against him.
His phone vibrated with someone trying to reach him.
Chaos raced around them, but nothing mattered except the steady beat of her heart against his chest. He finally slowed down and held her more carefully. She still wore bandages and had been through a plane crash for God’s sake.
When he lifted his head, he brushed his thumb over her damp cheeks. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Trish looked up into his eyes, her beautiful brown ones full of so much love he didn’t deserve. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He put his palm against her cheek and dropped his forehead gently against hers.
His phone was vibrating over and over.
She whispered, “You better answer that. You might need to save the world or something.”
Without letting go of her, he lifted his phone into view. “Your brother sent me a text.”
Her fingers tightened on his shirt. “Does he know about this yet?”
“No, but it’s not going to take long.” Josh stroked her hair as he finished reading. “He wants me to come into the office. Has something important to show me on the mole. Must be on the computer. Wants to know if I’m picking you up from the airport because Heidi sent him a message, too, that you were taking an early flight.”
“Don’t tell him until I get home. I don’t want to deal with my brother upset right now. I just want to go home.”
“I don’t want you alone.” Josh typed a text.
“Heidi will meet us there.”
Josh thumbed a message back to Zane that Josh was at the airport picking up Trish then taking her home and he wanted protection at her house.
Zane sent back that Leanne should be in the area. She had a meeting near the airport. Zane said he’d ask her to take Trish home so Josh could come in now.
Must be extremely important.
Once the phone messages had been handled, Josh walked Trish through the terminal against the tide of hysterical passengers trying to figure out what had happened or why all the flights had been canceled all of a sudden.
When they reached baggage claim, Leanne came rushing up to hug Trish. “Are you all right?”
“Shaky, but I’ll make it, Sug.”
“What about Senator Dixon?”“He’s fine. He’ll be a hero by tonight.”
Leanne nodded and hugged Trish again. “Let’s get you home.”
Josh pulled Trish into a long, hot kiss. He didn’t want to give her up, but she needed to get out of here. If the goal had been to crash an entire airplane and kill all the passengers, plus any others if the airplane had fallen outside of the airport, Trish might be retaliated against as if this was her fault.
Who knew with the Chessmaster?
Trish held his face and kissed his chin. “I’ll wait up for you.”
Leanne said, “I left my car on the curb, but we need to go. They were towing a Porsche that looked a lot like yours, Josh.”
He slapped his forehead.
Ryder walked up in time to hear Leanne’s announcement. “No problem. Nick drove my truck here instead of his rental.”
Josh followed Leanne and Trish, watching until Trish climbed into Leanne’s four-door Lexus and drove away. His phone rang and it was Heidi. When he answered, Heidi started yelling before he got a word in.
“Was Trish on that flight? Zane is going apeshit and so am I.”
Josh tried to calm her down. “Trish was on the flight, but she’s safe. I just sent a text to Zane.”
“You couldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“Zane can’t find his phone. It’s been missing for almost an hour. Angel went into labor. He’s losing his mind over Trish and Angel both.”
“Where is he?”
“The hospital.”
“The hospital?” Josh looked at Ryder and they stared in the direction that Leanne had just driven off.
Ryder pointed. “Truck.”
Josh raced right behind him and told Heidi. “Stay away from home and don’t tell Zane anything, Heidi.”
“Why?”
“Because I think the person who’s been stalking Trish just drove away from the airport with her. I don’t want anyone to spook her kidnapper and cause her to harm Trish.”
Josh stuffed the phone in his pocket and jumped in on the passenger side of Ryder’s truck while it was backing out and taking off. “I have no idea where Leanne is headed.”
“I do.”
“How would you know?”
“While you were following Trish around, I put tracking devices on everyone’s vehicles. Even yours, but we need my laptop from the hotel suite.”
Chapter 51
Chatton enjoyed the breeze that ruffled her hair as it blew past the outdoor café in Milan. She made a point of smiling for the paparazzi that followed an international car racer from Belgium. Today she was Sassone, a French model on the arm of the sexy driver.
The General and Wayan would be watching this live news feed. She’d told them to watch the telly last night and today if they wanted proof she was nowhere near the US.
She’d attended highly publicized events since arriving. Easy to do with a celebrity like the one she’d spent last
night with. She had no doubt that, since she’d arrived, she’d been under surveillance by The General, Wayan, or both.
Neither could blame her for the failed test that ended with a US Senator being hailed a hero.
She hadn’t opened the three boxes. The General’s man who’d constructed the laser unit wouldn’t have noticed the meticulous job she’d done of loosening the two-finger wide corded strapping tape. She’d sliced out tiny strips of cording and replaced each one with a paper-thin, quarter-inch strip of electronics, conformed to fit the ridges of the tape.
Once activated by a cut through the hair-like wires running through the tape, the tiny electronic piece acted as an EPIRB, an emergency tracking beacon. She’d inserted a continuous piece of wire under the edge of the tape that circled each box. It was amazing what a skilled person could do while inside a container at sea.
But the attack on Flight 819 had been only a test. What was Wayan really planning to do with a laser unit like that? And why had The General arranged for the test to be on US soil?
She did love a challenge, and she also loved a good puzzle.
Chapter 52
At Leanne’s insistence that she rest on the drive home, Trish unclipped her seatbelt and laid her head back. Yes, she was breaking the law, but she trusted Leanne to drive her a few miles and after surviving a plane crash she’d take her chances for a moment of comfort. She closed her eyes and felt herself dropping right off to sleep.
She rolled her head to one side and came awake, looking out at the dark night flying past her window. Not her neighborhood, where they should’ve been well before dark.
Trish shook off the groggy feeling and sat up, looking around. Not a light in sight except for a pair of headlights coming from the other direction, then gone as the car passed them. “Where are we?”
“Headed to Naples.”
That meant they were traveling west...through...Alligator Alley? Trish looked to her right. The headlight glow bled over the shoulder of the road where the land dropped off into wide canals. The ditches were on both sides and they were deep. Cars that ran off the highway here sometimes sank into the murky water, and the people were never found. The place was full of snakes, alligators, and scorpions.
She might be tired, but this had “screwed up” written all over it.
She turned to Leanne. Ah,shit. Leanne had a gun in her left hand, resting in her lap and pointed at Trish.
“Just sit back and we’ll be there soon,” Leanne said.
She was awfully perky to be holding another person at gunpoint. “What in the Sam Hill is going on?”
“I’m taking you to trade with a man who will fix the mess you made today.”
That made zero sense. Was Leanne serious? “I didn’t do anything today. I was in a freaking plane crash and your dad’s friend might not be alive if I hadn’t convinced him to go to the back of the plane and visit a group of convention women.”
Leanne’s head should have spun around a few times, because her next words sounded possessed. “He was supposed to die in that crash you interfering idiot. So were you.”
Woops. Trish took a moment to process that. “I thought we were friends.”
Leanne snickered at that. “You’re so far beneath me intellectually, it was a strain to talk to you every time you showed up at the office. If not for you, Colbert would still be alive.”
“Colbert?” Trish backtracked mentally for a few seconds and the truth sank in. “You’re the mole in the task force.”
“Look at yoouuu. You didn’t even have to buy a vowel to figure that out, but what about the chess references?”
The black rook. References to being a pawn. “You’re the stalker?”
“What? Please tell me you never thought that German moron had the ability to mount a stalking campaign like that? I’ll really be insulted.”
“The chess piece and the electronic voice wasn’t Gunter,” Trish marveled out loud. So, Gunter had become Pruneface only to irritate her, but he’d also tried to cut her throat. And now Leanne with a gun. How in blazes had she landed on everyone’s hit list?
“You’re not going to spend the next hour whining are you?” Leanne dimmed her lights for an oncoming car then flicked back to bright. She stalks and kills innocent people but is a considerate driver. Leanne sent a smirk Trish’s way. “You should appreciate all the benefit you got from this.”
“I might need a vowel to understand what you’re talking about by benefit.”
“The television show?” Leanne cocked an eyebrow when she cut her eyes at Trish again, then went back to watching the road. “Who do you think had an Amber Room panel for the show, huh? Think something that rare from the fifteenth century just walks through the door everyday?”
Leanne had told Trish about the show and nudged her to try out. She’d been pulling strings and manipulating Trish from behind the scenes the entire time. “Is that panel even real?”
“Yes, it’s real. It’s not the one the Czarion are searching for, but it’s from the original Amber Room. It’s been in my family for many generations. Cost me a small fortune to get it brought here.”
“What’s Czarion?”
“No one you’ll ever meet.”
Trish glanced around the car, familiarizing herself with the interior for when she had a chance to escape.
Leanne sighed and spoke as if she were instructing Trish. “If you’re going to try to escape, you shouldn’t be obvious about it. Need I remind you that I’m a fully trained DEA agent? I can take down a man twice my size. I wouldn’t even have to muss my hair to deal with you.”
Trish was sick of being insulted, terrorized and reduced to being a victim. “If you’re so smart why did you need me to help you kill Dixon? What’d he ever do to you?”
“See, that’s how simple you think. As if everything revolves around liking and hating or being angry or hurt. I cared about Dixon. He was like an uncle to me.”
Trish would hate to see what Leanne did to people she didn’t like. Her gaze strayed to the gun in Leanne’s lap.
Oh, wait. That’s right. She didn’t like Trish.
Got it.
So much for having good instincts. But Josh had said even the best instincts could be fooled by a trained operative.
“Dixon was genuine, intelligent, and a great chess mentor,” Leanne said as though taking a mental stroll down memory lane. “I have him to thank for my love of the game.” She smiled. And in the next second her face twisted with fury then smoothed out in a chilling calm, the kind often seen on the face of an imprisoned serial killer with no remorse. “But later this year he intends to announce his candidacy for president. With him out of the way in a tragic plane crash, the path would have been open for my father to be the leading candidate in their party.”
Oh. My. God. This was about putting her father in the White House.
“How could your father kill people for a political position?”
“My father has nothing to do with this. He’s the most honorable man in this country.”
If that was true, clearly it didn’t pass through to the next generation.
Leanne’s voice could ice over a fire. “Say another word about him and you’ll make this trip in pain.”
“My mistake.” So Leanne was behind all of this? She could claim she was doing it for her father, but people like Leanne were self-serving. She must imagine herself as the first daughter who would reign like a first lady.
How many would she kill to get what she wanted?
Trish kept her tone non-combative with a touch of worry, hoping to keep Leanne talking. “How was this going to work?”
Evidently appeased for the moment, Leanne returned to lecture drone. “Once Dixon died, my father would have led the memorial for him and the investigation into the plane crash. That would have played well in the media.”
“Weren’t you concerned about getting caught in the investigation?”
Leanne spared her a look that questioned Tris
h’s ability to find her way out of a room with one door. “Not when all the evidence they’ll find on this terrorist attempt will indict your brother, Ben and Vance.”
“What?” Trish leaned toward her.
Leanne shoved the gun across her lap. “I really want to kill you. If not for the value of handing you over to a man far more ruthless than I am, you’d already be dead. Don’t give me a reason to change my mind.”
Trish eased back in her seat. She had to stop Leanne from putting the blame for that crash on Zane, Ben and Vance. “How are you going to blame Zane? He isn’t even a DEA agent.”
Leanne’s sigh sounded as though she indulged a child. “The DEA already has an email from Zane’s computer that had a cryptic reference to Colbert and his drug runner connections. It was beautifully done, if I do say so myself, so that once they start investigating this crash and find evidence of Zane and his cohorts communicating covertly about it, the DEA will start digging deeper and find a few more buried electronic treasures. All it will take is a few clicks once I get home from dropping you off.”
Holy crap. What kind of crazy did it take to do all of this? Trish had no idea, but she did know one thing.
She could not let Leanne get back to a computer.
Trish’s heart beat against her chest as hard and fast as she’d pounded that heavy bag at the hotel. Leanne was trained.
So was Trish.
But Leanne was DEA trained and had a weapon.
Tough shit. Trish was Arnie trained and capable of going for the throat of anyone threatening her family. What would Arnie tell me to do? Use everything at her disposal.
Starting with her brain.
Trish made her left hand tremble.
Leanne’s eyes whipped over at the movement then up at Trish’s face that crumbled, lip quivering. Trish slowly lifted her shaking hand to her lips, moaning, “What am I going to do?”
“Pitiful.” Leanne chuckled, moving her attention back to the highway and shaking her head.
The minute Leanne tilted her head to the left to glance at the side mirror, Trish made her move. She lunged, shoving the weapon toward the dash with her left hand as she used her right hand to wrench the steering wheel and yanked it hard to the right.
