Last Chance To Run

by Dianna Love

  The other seven coins hidden on his boat confirmed Angel had been transporting stolen property. Had that been why she was hiding them? To buy time to find someone who could move them?

  “I’ll get back with you, Ben.” Zane dropped his phone on the nightstand at his right. He was at a loss for words. Did he start with “Why did you do it?” or go straight to “I have to call the police.”

  Like he could just make that decision on the spot?

  He’d made thousands of quick decisions, but his black and white world had turned gray with Angel. He’d rather take a bullet to the gut than see her arrested.

  Angel moved inside the glass doors. “Who are you, Zane Jackson?”

  He must have looked surprised, because she said, “I just learned that yesterday while you were gone.”

  Hell and damnation. Trish must have said something. He’d never considered the danger of leaving Trish and Angel alone.

  There was no point in continuing the pretense. He’d have to blow his cover to take her in to the authorities.

  “You’re right. My real name is Zane Jackson. I work with a special task force under the DEA.”

  She nodded slowly. “And that man, your friend Ben, he does, too?”

  Zane nodded, his throat getting thicker by the moment.

  Tears pooled at the corners of Angel’s eyes, killing him. The muscles in her throat moved when she swallowed. Her voice came out raspy with emotion. “So you know who I am and what my background is, or at least you think you know.”

  “I don’t know anything anymore,” he said, despair wrapping his words. “So, maybe the question is, just who are you?”

  Her chin lifted. “I’m not a thief and I never dealt drugs. No matter what that person just told you, I’m not lying to you. I got screwed by my father and the legal system when I was eighteen. The gold coins you found were stolen from a gallery in Boston by someone working for Mason Lorde.”

  But she was an employee of Mason Lorde, he reasoned. Or she had been until she stole the coins from the head of Lorde Industries, a prominent businessman probably seen on the covers of a half-dozen business magazines in any given month.

  She continued, “I worked for Mason, in his warehouse as a legitimate employee, and found some stolen paintings, small ones hidden inside the lining of a shipping crate. They had been all over the news the week before. I recognized one of them and thought someone in the company was the thief, so I brought the paintings to Mason’s attention.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?” Zane asked. Now his throat sounded as if he’d swallowed rusty nails.

  She held up her finger for him to wait. “He’d given me a position in his organization in spite of my record. At least that’s what I thought. What I didn’t know was he’d hired me because I had a record. One I didn’t deserve. Silly me, I thought I’d gotten a break, no more cleaning toilets or shoveling crap at the dump. Decent companies don’t hire people with a record, but you probably know that. I was so excited. I finally had a real job.” One tear leaked down her cheek.

  Zane started to move around the bed. He wanted to hold her and make all the pain go away.

  She halted him again with a raised finger and continued.

  “So, when Mason realized I wasn’t going to cooperate he locked me away in his private compound in Raleigh near the airport where I met you. Mason had a second ... more personal interest in me. The night I stowed away on your airplane was my second attempt at escape. The first – ” Her voice broke, but she swallowed and kept talking.

  “The first time I tried to run, I only made it to the house garage. The man who guarded me, Jeff, took too long on his smoke break. That allowed me the couple of minutes I needed to get through the house undetected.”

  She sniffled and whispered, “Mason made me watch when he shot Jeff for his lapse in duty. I have to live with that.” Fire flashed in her eyes when she glared at him. “But I didn’t commit any of the other sins. I’ve had to live with the ones that have been forced on me.”

  Muscles tightened across Zane’s chest like a vise.

  Did he go with the evidence that Ben gave him or what his gut was telling him? Had an obscenely wealthy man stolen art?

  And rare coins?

  Had she been forced to mule drugs? Had her father forced her? She’d been eighteen.

  Some teens were hardened adults at that age and others were still naïve. Which had Angel been?

  His heart screamed at him that she’d been naïve and that she was telling the truth. But he’d been taught to never let emotion overrule logic and evidence.

  There was only one way he could find out. One way to solve this. Only one way to really help Angel, and he’d be there for her every step of the way.

  His throat constricted, but he managed to get the words out. “Turn yourself in and I’ll help you any way I can. I’ll do this with you.” If it cost him the deal with the DEA, so be it.

  The disappointment in her face rocked him to the core.

  “You don’t believe me,” she whispered. She clutched her throat and laughed, a pained sound full of hurt and anger.

  “Baby, you have to understand – ”

  “Oh, God, how could I have been such a fool?” she raged. “I can see it written on your face. You, the one person I trusted to know the real me, believes I’m guilty of everything.”

  He took that one to the midsection. Six feet of bed stood between them, but she might as well be on the other side of an ocean.

  Zane made another step.

  “Stop. Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me,” she warned. Her voice vibrated with unrestrained anger.

  “Angel, please. I’m trying to help you.”

  His damned cell phone rang again.

  Neither moved.

  The insistent chirping pierced the chasm between them.

  Zane finally twisted to his right for the phone, but Angel’s movement in his peripheral vision spun him back around.

  She’d climbed up on the railing, facing out to nothing.

  “Angel, nooooo...” he yelled, leaping on the bed and over it to reach the balcony.

  She dove off the edge before he got to the glass doors.

  He slammed into the rail and stared in horror as she fell to the canal. Blood rushed through his head, he couldn’t hear past the roaring in his ears, couldn’t think.

  Her slender frame disappeared into the water.

  A lifetime dragged by until she popped up, yards out from where she’d entered the canal clean as a knife.

  Zane clutched his chest. His heart pounded against his breastbone like it wanted out. His breathing slowed as he watched her stroke across the canal.

  Angel climbed out on the other side, kneeled on the grass, her body heaving.

  She stared up at him and shook her head “no.”

  He understood. She still contended he was wrong. As she stood up and jogged away, Zane wondered if he might be.

  All the bones in his body had turned to rubber. He staggered back into the room trying to absorb what had happened.

  Then it dawned on him where she was headed.

  The boat.

  He snatched up his bag and phone, running to the door.

  Mason was out there. The beast who had kidnapped her was out there. And the Feds had a bead on her.

  He had to get to her first.

  Chapter 54

  Zane ran down the block like he was on fire and hopped into his truck, gunned the engine, and slid a corner leaving the apartment complex where he’d parked the night before. An old couple, literally on a Sunday drive, in a powder blue mid-1980’s land yacht got in his way.

  Unable to pass against the steady traffic coming toward him, he ground his teeth.

  He made the turn onto Sunrise Boulevard and drove toward the bridge he had to cross to reach the beach highway. Heedless of getting pulled over this time, he whipped through traffic.

  Any law enforcement would just have to chase him to the marina.


  Cars slowed to a stop just as he started up the bridge incline. Sirens screamed in the distance.

  Ah, hell, a wreck.

  “Dammit,” he swore in disbelief.

  This would take forever.

  On the seat beside his leg, the cell phone began chirping. He cast a furious glance at the evil messenger then snapped it open and roared, “What?"

  “Whoa, bud. Just thought I’d give you, as an old radio announcer used to say, the rest of the story,” Ben answered.

  “You’ve told me enough to hang her. What else is there?”

  “I’ve actually got something good to tell you.”

  “Oh?” Good news would be a welcome change.

  “Here’s the rundown. She was a high school champion track star and long distance runner, Olympic material. Fifteen or twenty top universities offered her a scholarship, but Stanford won out, then reneged after she was arrested.”

  “I’d figured something along those lines,” Zane interjected.

  “She spent her summers working as a bicycle courier in New York,” Ben continued. “Her mother died of alcoholism. Doesn’t look like she knew her father dealt drugs. Her arrest was the only instance when she’d ever been involved in anything illegal. There’s speculation that she got railroaded by the DA and the detective, some questionable circumstances. Something about the whole case was predicated on one fingerprint.”

  No wonder she meticulously wipes her prints away.

  Red taillights glared at Zane all the way up to the span of the bridge. Throwing himself from the pinnacle of the steel structure was a consideration, but too kind for what he deserved. He’d never really listened to Angel’s side once he’d gotten Ben’s first report, just assumed the worst.

  She must hate him.

  Join the club. He hated himself.

  “One more thing.” Ben interrupted Zane’s self-abasement.

  Zane cut him off. “I don’t know which is irritating me more right now, your voice or this damn phone that brings it to me.”

  “Hey, bud, you’ve got to hear this. That 1933 Saint-Gauden’s Double Eagle gold piece is from the Boston heist.”

  “She claims she wasn’t involved in the heist.” But he hadn’t believed her. Not hands down the way she’d expected. She’d still believed in him even though she’d known since yesterday that he hadn’t given her his real name. The belief humbled him to his toes.

  He hadn’t deserved it. Still didn’t.

  “She might be telling the truth,” Ben said, moving on with his damned report. “She doesn’t sound sophisticated enough to be the original thief, because we’re talking only a handful of people in the world who could have gotten past that security. Whoever she took it from is probably very unhappy. Add that to the FBI and she has some major players gunning for her.”

  Sweat broke out on Zane’s forehead. Everything was so convoluted at this point. He needed backup, but that would mean bringing Vance in on this, which put Ben on the spot because of doing these favors for Zane off the record. There was protocol for everything. The last thing he wanted to do was tarnish Ben’s reputation. And he sure as hell wasn’t asking Ben to back him up in the field when Ben hadn’t even taken his wife and baby home from the hospital yet.

  The best he could do right now was call in a tip to local authorities or the FBI. And with Mason Lorde’s resources, that could well get Angel killed.

  Shit.

  Zane had no one to call.

  Traffic turned into a parking lot on the bridge.

  That left Angel running solo until he found her.

  Chapter 55

  The tropical depression had definitely disintegrated by mid-morning, turning Ft. Lauderdale into a sauna. Angel climbed out of the parts delivery truck in which she’d hitched a ride and thanked the young guy for the lift. He’d been kind enough to drop her close to the marina.

  She watched her back, jogging toward the far end. To enter through the front gates didn’t seem at all prudent with everybody and their brother after her. At the property line, she skirted the outside of the fence until she located an opening in the ragged box-wire.

  Not much of a deterrent.

  A few boats traveled from the direction of the bay down the wide canal toward the marina. More cars and trucks filled the lot than had the day she’d stopped by with Zane. People were still out celebrating the holiday.

  Easing over to the closest dock, she slipped into the bathtub temperature saltwater and found it refreshing compared to the humidity she’d endured since diving off the balcony.

  Training for triathlons meant swimming miles of rough currents, but little diving practice. Zane’s frantic scream had trailed behind her until she’d hit the water, jarring her teeth.

  She’d made a few dives over the years and would like to say she’d calculated the jump, but the truth was that luck had smiled on her.

  She just as easily could have broken her neck. The dive had been her last resort. From the look on Zane’s face after he’d heard her record, she’d known he was going to turn her over to the police. His suggestion that she turn herself in had pushed her onto the rail and over the balcony edge.

  Turning herself in would have been suicidal with Mason still loose.

  Her choices seemed destined to go from bad to unbelievably worse. Zane hated drugs. Worked for the blasted DEA. He had to be sickened once he heard she’d been convicted of transporting drugs, especially after spending the night making love.

  She’d been prepared for the hurt of walking away from him.

  That he immediately assumed the worst of her was a crushing blow, worse than anything she’d faced before. She tried not to fault him, but it broke her heart to find out, too late, that he was no different than any of the other people who’d turned their backs on her and believed what was easy.

  When would one person give her a break?

  She should be upset with him for deceiving her, for sneaking around behind her back to dig into her business. However, she hadn’t told him anything about her situation. In Zane’s shoes, would she have reacted the same way?

  Maybe, maybe not. She’d never been in love until now, but cared enough for Zane to give him the benefit of the doubt. And she’d prove her innocence to him before she left.

  First, she had to drive Mason away.

  A few marina inhabitants reclined lazily on the rear decks of their boats backed up to the dock walkway. They were clueless that a woman stroked silently through the water beyond their bows.

  Angel made the turn at the end of the dock so she could swim past each row until reaching the one for Zane’s boat. She dove under water, paddling hard, and surfaced at the next dock, then continued the same process.

  When she reached Zane’s boat, she floated to the rear and climbed up a short metal ladder. The first thing she noticed were the boat curtains, which meant he’d put the coins somewhere else, and finding them would be even more difficult.

  If they were even on the boat.

  With a fast check of the parking lot and dock, she scurried down into the cabin to search for the coins.

  She dug through cabinets and felt along cubbyholes, then stuck her head out carefully to see if anyone approached. Mason had men everywhere. If they’d found her at Zane’s apartment, wouldn’t they know about the boat? If so, why hadn’t they searched it?

  Nothing had been disturbed. The only alteration was the elusive canvas curtain now surrounding the cockpit.

  Where would Zane hide the coins if he’d left them here?

  She didn’t think he’d found them until yesterday morning when he came by to check on the boat without her. They could be here or in his truck. Or in his airplane.

  But when she’d nailed him about the boat, he hadn’t denied it.

  She was wasting time wondering. She’d search the boat and pray for a miracle.

  Shoving aside the cushions covering the bed in the cabin, she began methodically going through compartments that stored life j
ackets and stopped again to scan outside for anyone within close proximity. She went back to hunting through watertight bags and tackle boxes she found, almost forgetting to keep watch.

  The next time Angel stuck her head out of the cabin, a black Land Rover swung inside the marina and parked across the lot near the entrance. She squinted to see if they were just going to observe or come to the boat.

  CK climbed out of the sport utility. Oh God, the monster who’d abducted her.

  She ducked into the cabin and yanked drawers open until she found the ignition keys, then jumped up on deck. Her heart climbed into her throat when another Land Rover drove up to the first one and Mason emerged.

  Her hand shook violently. She stabbed the first key at the ignition, hitting all around the hole until it went in. She got the second one in place and realized she had to untie ropes then flip on the battery and pump the do-ma-hickey down in the deck to prime something.

  Mason was talking to CK who pointed toward the boat a couple of times, then CK started striding toward her dock.

  She tucked down close to the deck, crab-walking across the weathered teak. At each cleat above her head, she reached up and unwound the ropes, jerking them loose and letting them fall to the water. Thank goodness they were all looped in simple S formations.

  Down on the boat deck, she twisted a pitted chrome catch to open a section of the floor covering the engines. When the latch flipped up, she pushed the covering aside, shoved her hand in until she found the rubber balls and squeezed hard several times.

  She stayed hunched over and scuttled through the curtains to the cockpit, jumped up and pulled the control handles to the middle like Zane had. When she glanced over her shoulder to check on CK, he was nearing the beginning of the dock to Zane’s boat.

  Angel twisted both keys at once. The motors turned over and over, but neither cranked. She glanced back up the dock.