Danger and Desire: Ten Full-Length Steamy Romantic Suspense Novels

by Pamela Clare

  “Till ten.” He hung up.

  “Till ten,” she echoed quietly into the disconnected line.

  Beckett moved close. “It’ll take an hour to get to Canal Point in this weather. And first you have to drive me back to my car, so we don’t have much time.”

  “I’m almost ready. The bastard isn’t stupid, calice,” Amy swore. “He picked a wide open area for the meet. There’s not much around there except beach and road.”

  “He’ll be able to see a vehicle coming from miles away.”

  “Leave the car as far from the beach as you have to. The worst thing is that I don’t remember there being much cover close by.”

  “Don’t worry about cover. I’ve got the NVG’s, and I’ll find somewhere to hunker down. But with the three of you standing close to him, I’d like to get inside a couple of hundred yards. Even closer if I can manage it, given all this rain.”

  Amy grasped his shoulders and met his troubled gaze. “If you have any doubt—I mean any doubt—don’t risk a shot. I’d rather go to Plan B than see my sister or my nephew taken out by friendly fire.”

  Beckett grimaced. “I’m not going to kill M.L. or Cooper. Or you. That’s guaranteed. But what’s Plan B?”

  Amy reached for the rest of her equipment. “I’m still working on that.”

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Saturday, August 7

  9:59 p.m.

  A fleeting twinge of relief passed through Amy as she pulled into the empty parking area near the Canal Point boat ramp. It was deserted. She’d feared some teenagers might be down there getting high and making out on a Friday night. But if that had happened, Gardner would have called off the meet as soon as he spotted another vehicle in the area.

  Canal Point was obviously a sleepy town at this hour, even in the middle of the summer season.

  She’d lost Beckett’s headlights when he doused them around three miles before entering the town. Even though she knew he was out there, and hopefully very close, anxiety spiked through her. She was alone. In the dark. About to meet up with a serial killer. Her earlier bravado seemed even more foolish now than it had then.

  Amy shone her mini-flashlight at her watch. Exactly ten. She got out of the car and scanned the lakeshore road through the blustery night. No headlights in either direction. Nothing moving but the wind and the rain.

  She swore as her cell phone buzzed against her hip. Before answering, she climbed back in the car to get out of the downpour.

  “Robitaille.”

  “There’s been a change of plans.” Gardner’s voice held a hint of amusement.

  How surprising. Of course he wouldn’t meet at the original location. “Having fun with this, Gardner? Does it take scaring the shit out of a woman and a little boy to make you feel like a real man?”

  She’d spoken to him respectfully before, but now it was time to try to shake the arrogance she’d heard in his first two calls. Ratcheting up his hate for her might drive him to make a fatal mistake.

  “You cops are so predictable.” He sounded almost bored now. “Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to head south on Route 98, then branch right onto 15. And don’t hang up the phone. Just stay on the line and wait until you hear my voice again.”

  That way he’d tie up her phone, too. “Fine,” she snapped.

  “So far, so good, Detective. Now, keep it that way, or you know exactly what’s going to happen. Poor little Cooper,” he said in a sucky voice.

  “How many times do I have to say it, Gardner? I told you I won’t screw with their lives. I’m alone. You’re going to get what you want.”

  “You’re a smart bitch, Robitaille. Too bad I hate smart bitches.”

  *

  Luke sighted Robitaille’s car through his night scope. She was talking on her phone. A glance down at his watch told him it was already a couple of minutes after ten.

  He’d managed to find good cover, though he’d had to jog half a mile from where he’d ditched his car. In the bucketing rain, he’d woven his way through a line of trees until he had a clear shot to the ramp. It was less than a hundred yards away. Even with the rain and the cold wind off the lake, he could take Gardner out cleanly from that distance without worry of collateral damage.

  Unless, of course, the killer was smart enough to keep a hostage tucked up tight up against him. If that happened, Luke would have no choice but to hold fire.

  Robitaille’s back-up lights suddenly came on, and Luke cursed softly as he watched the car slowly reverse and then swing around toward the entrance of the recreation area. She was leaving. He didn’t wait to see which direction she took because the GPS would tell him that. Right now, he had to get back to his car. Fast.

  Luke slung the rifle over his shoulder and raised the hood of his rain jacket. He took off at a dead run, slashing through the trees.

  *

  With one hand on the wheel and the other on her phone, Amy drove slowly south, paralleling the lake. The windshield wipers slapped back and forth in a tough battle with the intensifying rain. Unfortunately, the weather was probably going to be Jason Gardner’s friend tonight.

  Two or three minutes later, she cut her speed more as the rural road gradually turned into a residential street. Expensive-looking homes on large lakefront lots lined both sides, though she couldn’t make out much more than their outlines.

  Despite the rain hammering a steady tune on the surface of her car, she could hear Gardner’s heavy breathing and it sent ripples of disgust rolling through her. As the houses became more closely bunched, his voice finally came through the constant din of the storm. “There’s a Chinese restaurant on your right. See it yet?”

  Amy had just noticed a coffee shop. “No.”

  “Just keep watching for it.”

  There it was, maybe sixty yards ahead. “Okay, got it now,” she said.

  “Go another quarter of a mile and then turn right on Lake Avenue.”

  “Calice, Gardner, it’s pretty damn hard to see street signs in this deluge.”

  “Garneau,” he snapped. “Joey Garneau. Jason Gardner is dead, Robitaille. You killed him.”

  Not yet, asshole. But soon. “Right. Joey Garneau from Louisiana. Now, that sounds Cajun to me. Tu parles-tu francais, Garneau?” She used the colloquial form from Quebec, not sure of how they phrased the question in Louisiana French.

  He snarled. “Shut up and don’t miss the fucking turn!”

  “Relax, I see it.” He probably couldn’t speak a word of French, despite his name.

  “The street you’re turning onto dead ends at a parking strip. Stop right there.”

  Amy saw the deserted parking area in front of a line of palm trees and three flagpoles. She drove straight into a space. “I’m parked.”

  “You see the pier ahead? On the other side of the boat slips?”

  Through the trees, Amy could see a marina with a long, L-shaped pier. Maybe a couple of dozen small boats bobbed up and down in their slips. “I see it.”

  “Get out and head toward the pier. You’ll see a Hyundai parked between two buildings. Turn there and go down the pier until you see us.” He cleared his throat. “And don’t forget for one second that my gun is in the kid’s ear as we speak.”

  Amy wasn’t about to forget that, but she couldn’t let the horrifying image cripple her, either. She took the Glock and its holster off her gun belt and laid them down on the passenger seat. Garneau would obviously take the gun if she wore it, and there was no point giving him another weapon. She pulled up the hood of her jacket and got out of the car.

  After a few steps, she could see the walkway between the buildings. The one nearest her was a single-storey wood structure with a metal roof, while the other had two floors. As she took a diagonal path that cut across a wide strip of grass, she noticed an excavator and a cement truck parked near the water.

  The vehicles would make perfect cover for Beckett, she judged, praying that he wasn’t far behind. Though she had faith in
him, she didn’t have nearly as much faith in the irritating little chunk of technology underneath her breast on which her family’s fate might depend.

  Moving slowly to give Beckett more time to catch up, Amy rounded the corner of the first building and spotted the Hyundai. She gazed down the length of the pier. It extended far into the distance, eventually making a ninety-degree turn to the right to form an enclosure for the boats. Along the edge of the lake, a few light standards cast dim, rain-shrouded beams down onto the boards.

  Something like two hundred feet ahead, a figure stepped out of the darkness and rain and waved to her. Garneau. Amy glimpsed M.L.’s outline beside him. A second later, they became invisible again in the near-horizontal downpour.

  She stepped with care, worried she might slip on the slick surface. When she’d moved to within about a hundred feet of them, she could make out Garneau clearly, and M.L. and Cooper, too. The sight of her sister and nephew sent a jolt of adrenaline through her veins.

  Still, in the chill dark of the night, in the middle of an increasingly violent rainstorm, Amy felt utterly cut off from the world. Beckett was her only lifeline and she prayed he really was behind her watching through the night scope, his finger poised on the Dragunov’s trigger.

  She edged closer, her insides roiling. Thirty feet.

  Garneau had what appeared to be a .45 pointed at her chest. She kept moving.

  Beside him, M.L. and Cooper huddled against the low, metal railing. Her sweat suit soaked through, her sister trembled, blinking rapidly as the rain lashed at her eyes. Cooper wriggled as he recognized Amy.

  Garneau had tied M.L. and Cooper to the rail. Strangely enough, Amy felt a tiny glimmer of relief to see that the little guy had on an adult poncho to keep him dry. She could barely make out his face inside the huge hood, but she could see the swaths of duct tape over both their mouths.

  She reached a hand in M.L.’s direction, but Garneau slapped her wrist away.

  “Dammit,” Amy snapped. “I’m here and I’m alone. Now, let my sister and my nephew go. You’ve got what you wanted.”

  “All in good time,” he said, stepping closer to her. “Take off that jacket and put your hands on top of your head.”

  Amy noticed that where Garneau had chosen to stand, M.L. blocked the line of sight to him from the east. He knew that’s where any threat would come from. Obviously, he hadn’t taken her statement about being alone to the bank, but that could hardly be classed as a surprise.

  She unzipped her rain jacket and dropped it. The rain instantly soaked through her shirt as if someone had thrown a bucket of water on her.

  “Good,” Garneau muttered. “No vest.” He stared at her breasts for a moment, and Amy thought she detected a hint of lust in his gaze. But he shifted his eyes quickly and gave her a thorough, one-handed frisk while keeping the .45 trained on her. “No ankle gun, either. No knives.” He tapped the gun against her side. “Ah, then, what tricks have you got up your sleeve for me, Detective?”

  “Screw all, so let’s get on with it, Garneau. It’s not a great night to be hanging around jawing. The kid’s only four years old, for God’s sake.”

  He gave a harsh little laugh. “I suppose you’re right. Kids shouldn’t suffer for the sins of their bitch mothers. Or their aunts.”

  Fury raged through Amy. The fucking hypocrite. He’d happily used Cooper to get to her because he hadn’t trusted that she would sacrifice herself for her sister alone.

  But Garneau had no idea what she was capable of when it came to defending her family.

  Still, she didn’t rise to his taunt.

  He waved his gun at her. “I’m not such a bad guy, Robitaille. You can go ahead and give these two a nice goodbye kiss since you won’t be seeing them again. Not in this life, anyway.” His sick little grin turned her stomach. “Just a quick kiss, and no yapping.”

  Thanks, you bastard. Amy cupped M.L.’s cheeks in her hands, dying inside as she gazed into her sister’s eyes and saw tears pouring down her agonized face, mixing with the rain. She kissed her sister twice—once on each cheek—and hugged her. As she pulled away, she mouthed, “Trust me.”

  Then she crouched and pulled back Cooper’s hood far enough to see his face. The little sweetheart had to be utterly bewildered—he’d only know that a bad man with a gun had taken him and his mommy from their home in the night, and now that man had Aunt Amy, too.

  The terror she saw in Cooper’s round, blue eyes as he squirmed against his restraints almost made Amy lose control. She had to clamp down on her seething hatred, though, because one reckless move now would mean the end of them all. She hugged Cooper for as long as she could, whispering that everything was going to be all right.

  When Garneau poked her in the shoulder with his gun, she rose.

  Beckett had no chance yet of taking a shot. Not with Garneau virtually glued to her sister. Amy’s mind searched for some way to get the killer far enough away from M.L. and Cooper so Beckett might have a chance, but so far the killer had acted as if he knew exactly what she was trying to do.

  “Come here,” he barked at her as he kept his gun aimed at M.L.’s head.

  Amy took a step toward him.

  He reached into a pocket and tossed her a plastic tie, already looped. “Put that over your wrists.”

  She followed his orders and he pulled the loop tight with his free hand.

  “Now, turn around.”

  She pivoted. It sounded like he was fumbling inside his jacket. A few seconds later, she felt and heard him hook something onto her belt. Something heavy enough to make the leather sag a bit.

  “Here’s the thing, Detective,” he said. “I’ve just attached a small explosive device to your belt. Just a little something I whipped up myself. And, yeah, it’s crude, but believe me, it’ll do the trick. The detonator is attached to my belt, and this cord doesn’t stretch.”

  Bastard. He’d planned this down to the tiniest detail.

  “You know what that means, Detective?”

  “It means that if you go down, we both blow up,” she ground out.

  “Sort of. I figure there’s about a ninety-nine per cent chance that the detonator would set it off, and a one per cent chance you’d get lucky. Not great odds, huh?”

  Amy snorted. “You’re going to kill me, anyway. What’s to stop me from blowing us both up as soon as M.L. and Cooper are out of range? That way I’d get to send you to hell myself and save the state of Florida a lot of money.”

  The rain continued to drop the temperature, making her cold to the bone.

  “Brave talk, but I don’t think so, Detective,” he scoffed. “See, I made it a very small charge. It might not even kill you, and it definitely won’t do much damage to me. But I guarantee that it would at the very least leave you a very messed up bitch. You’ve seen pictures of those guys coming home from the war with their bodies blown all to shit?” He spat onto the ground. “Hell, you’d wish this thing had killed you.”

  He was probably right. Garneau was obviously an intelligent and resourceful man, and she didn’t doubt that he’d been able to pick up deadly skills both in prison and on the outside. Amy would never have carried through with the threat, anyway. Not while she still had a chance of taking him alive.

  “Did you really think you could bullshit me?” he said. “You and I both know you’d never come here alone. Your guys are out there, all right, even though I maneuvered you around a bit. If I gave them any kind of clear shot, they might put a bullet in my head, kid or no kid.”

  Amy didn’t bother trying to deny his assessment of the situation.

  He snatched the phone off her belt. “So, you’re going to call your team leader right now and tell him to back everybody off. If I get so much as a sniff of another cop around, I swear to you that I’ll slit the kid’s throat and make you both watch him die before I do the same to you.”

  When it came to her own fate, she should be so lucky. She figured his plan was to inflict a slow, painful death o
n her no matter what she did. In fact, bleeding to death under the stars didn’t sound half bad compared to what his other victims had suffered. And she was under no delusions—making her suffer was what this was all about. Joey Garneau had set up this elaborate scheme to get Amy in his hands so he could do exactly what he wanted with her.

  But whatever atrocities he had in mind, she still had a shot at taking him down as long as she was alive and Beckett was out there.

  “What’s the number?” he growled.

  She gave him Beckett’s cell number and he dialed. He held the phone against her ear as it began to ring. She thanked God he hadn’t turned the speakerphone on instead—he probably thought the rain and wind would make it impossible to hear. In any case, she didn’t think Garneau would be able to recognize Beckett’s voice, even if he might have under normal circumstances. At least she prayed that he wouldn’t, because God only knew what a demented man like Joey Garneau would do if he knew he was being hunted by none other than his baseball hero.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Saturday, August 7

  11:40 p.m.

  Garneau knew what he was doing. His back to the lake, the killer had made sure he kept himself at least partly covered by M.L.’s body. And even when he moved away from her, he had Robitaille right in front of him, so close that Luke couldn’t risk the shot. Especially not in this howling gale. The wind buffeted him and cold rain stung his face as he sighted through the Dragunov’s night scope.

  The cement truck had been a lucky break. Luke had crawled on his belly through the wet grass and muck, then across the slick asphalt of the parking lot until he’d been able to take cover behind the massive red vehicle. From that vantage point, he had a clear line of sight through a smattering of sailboat masts to most of the pier, as clear as any line could be in a miserable storm. Only the near end was blocked by a small building on his left. A hundred thirty yards separated him from Garneau. Under normal circumstances, it would be a dead easy shot for him.