by Rebecca York
The conversation came to a halt again. Telling himself that he wanted anyone watching to think they were just here to have a good time, he moved his chair closer to hers and slung his arm around her shoulder. She gave him a quick look, then leaned into him, and he closed his eyes, bending to brush his lips against her cheek, enjoying the contact, pretending for a moment that they were alone.
“Nice to see you.” The voice came from behind his head. Jerking around, he saw Nicki Armstrong standing beside their table, staring at them with narrowed eyes. The slender, redheaded nightclub owner must have picked the moment carefully. She folded her arms across her chest.
“Nice to see you, too,” he managed to say.
“Where are your manners, Max? Introduce me to your friend.”
“Annie Oakland, this is Nicki Armstrong,” he said. “Nicki, meet Annie.”
“So, you’re Max’s girlfriend,” the standing woman said.
“Yes.”
“From up north.”
“Baltimore,” Annie answered.
“Well, any friend of Max’s is a friend of mine,” she said, her voice making it clear that the statement was patently false. “Enjoy yourselves,” she said, moving off to speak to the couple at the next table.
Beside him, Annie let out a breath.
His arm tightened around her. Lowering his mouth to her ear, he said, “You’re doing good.”
“She doesn’t like me.”
“She doesn’t like me, either.”
Annie gave him a small nod, then took a gulp of her drink. “Maybe I’ll go to the ladies’ room,” she said.
“Sure. I’ll be right here.”
NERVES REALLY WERE affecting her bladder, Annie thought as she made her way through the crowd toward the sign that said phones and rest rooms. Before they had arrived, Max had explained what a nightclub was like. But his description had hardly prepared her for what she would encounter here. The room was dark and crowded and noisy. It was amazing to think that this was what people considered fun. All she got from this place was a headache and claustrophobia.
Most threatening of all was the woman, Nicki Armstrong. She’d said only a few words to them, but hostility had radiated from her like vapor from a toxic-waste dump.
Annie squeezed past a man and woman who were standing against the paneled wall kissing and pressing their lower bodies together. And they weren’t the only ones. All over the nightclub, couples were kissing and touching in ways that made her blush.
In the ladies’ room, she opened one of the stalls and used the toilet. She was about to step out when she heard the rest-room door open and a tense voice say, “I’ll watch the door. Check the room. I saw that bitch come down this way.” It sounded like Nicki.
In the small cubicle, Annie quickly climbed up on the toilet, then angled her body against the metal wall, prepared to defend herself if she had to. A man pushed the door roughly open and glanced in, but he didn’t spot Annie crouching behind the barrier. Still, she didn’t let the air out of her lungs until he had walked back toward the rest-room door.
“She’s not here.”
“Get the cargo put away in the usual place.”
The cargo? Max had told her that drug shipments were coming into Hermosa Harbor. Apparently into this nightclub.
“Okay,” Nicki said. “If Little Orphan Annie isn’t here, she’s got to be somewhere. She wouldn’t leave lover boy in the lurch. So find that bitch.”
The door closed again, and Annie leaned against the stall with her heart pounding. She had to get out of the club. Max had told her there was a rear exit, near the office down the hall. Perhaps she should slip out the back, come around the front and catch Max’s attention from the other side of the room.
Opening the rest-room door, she peeked out. The hall was empty. Knowing anything she did was risky, she turned toward the near exit. She was almost to the office when the rear door opened and a man stepped in. It was Sheriff Trainer. He was here!
Because his head was turned and he was talking to someone—another man—he didn’t spot her. Pulse pounding in her ears, she dashed back to the ladies’ room, squeezing through the door just as a short, dark-haired girl was entering.
Giving Annie a considering look, she asked, “What—are you going to wet your pants?”
“Sorry,” Annie managed, stepping back.
As the other woman strode into a stall, Annie looked out the door again. Trainer was just disappearing into the office. Taking the opportunity to escape, she pounded back toward the main room.
WITH A SICK FEELING, she saw she was too late. Max was standing beside the table where they’d been sitting, and another man, bald and burly, was standing close to him. From the tension in Max’s shoulders, she was pretty sure he was in a situation he didn’t like. But he only looked straight ahead as he let the other guy usher him toward the door.
She strained her eyes in the dim light and saw that the bald man had his hand in the pocket of a light jacket. Did he have a gun in that hand?
As he left the club, he nodded to Nicki, who stood near the door. Her body feigned nonchalance, but her eyes never left the action.
Sure she was trapped, Annie stood indecisively with her heart pounding. But she really had only one option. She dashed back down the hall, expecting at any moment to feel a hand on her shoulder or hear the sheriff ordering her to stop. But she reached the door and breathed out a sigh as she stepped into the humid night air.
Staying close to the side of the building, she moved toward the front of the nightclub in time to see a car pull up. When it stopped, the back door opened, and the man pushed Max inside.
Somehow she knew if Max got in, he was going on a one-way trip.
With no time for making plans, Annie did the only thing she could think of. Flying across the space that separated her from the car, she leveled a two-handed blow to the back of the man’s neck. He grunted and fell to his side, giving her the opportunity to grab Max’s arm and pull him out of the car.
Max gave her a startled look but recovered quickly. As they dashed toward the building and then along the wooden pier, a shot rang out, plowing into the siding inches from her head.
She and Max ducked around a corner, then along the back of the building. She had no idea where they were going, but she was sure that soon a whole squad of people would be looking for them.
The pier was closed off by a gated chain-link fence topped by razor wire. The gate was unlocked, and they dashed inside. But when they turned the corner, there was another fence and nowhere else to go.
“Now what?” Max growled as he rattled the metal and looked up at the wire she knew would slash their flesh.
Chapter Eleven
Annie’s heart was beating so hard she thought it might pound its way through the wall of her chest.
Inside the enclosure, hugging the building, was a storage shed, the entrance illuminated by an overhead bulb.
Telling herself to stay calm, she ran to the shed and tried to open the door. The knob didn’t budge, but she felt some kind of connection to the cold metal that she couldn’t explain. She’d had the same feeling after Max had left her alone, handcuffed to the bed. Then she’d found a pin to stick into the lock. Now she hissed, “Give me your keys.”
“What good is that going to do?”
“Just give them to me!”
Max cut her a sharp look, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring with several keys. Still fighting to stay steady, she selected one and tried to fit it into the lock. When it refused to go in, she found another that would slip into the mechanism. It felt as if there was a line of power between her fingers and the lock as she manipulated the key, jiggling it in a way she didn’t really understand. It just felt right.
Grasping the knob with her other hand, she turned and pushed. The door opened, just as she heard shouting somewhere behind them.
“Come on.” Pulling the key from the knob, she slipped inside the storage shed. Max follow
ed, gently closing and locking the door behind them.
The only light filtered in through cracks in the corners of the walls. As her eyes adjusted, she could see various furnishings from the club, including tables and chairs and several of the large wooden panels like the ones she’d seen covering the walls of the hallway.
Swiftly, Max moved the panels aside. “Back there,” he whispered.
She ducked behind the wood, and Max followed, pulling the screens into place, then turning and folding her into his arms.
She came willingly, leaning against him in the darkness behind the panels. She’d managed to stay calm during the past few frantic moments; now she felt her knees buckle and had to grasp him to stay upright.
He held her in the confined space, running his hands up and down her back and moving his lips against her ear. His breath was warm against her skin, but his voice was barely audible as he said, “Thank you.”
Her throat was too constricted to answer, and she could only nod. Probably he wanted to know how she’d opened the door. Would he believe her when she told him that she had simply sensed she could make a key work if she could fit it into the slot?
There was no point in worrying about what would happen later. They had to live through the here and now. Live through the manhunt outside.
Max did not speak again, which was prudent, considering that Nicki no doubt had a posse of men looking for them. Like when she and her mother and sister had been spotted near a tunnel entrance.
She tried to hang on to that thought. But it flitted away, as so many others had done.
When Max pulled her closer and nuzzled her hair, she melted against him. Probably, he was trying to take her mind off the people searching for them. People who would surely kill them.
She was so tired of questioning everything that happened between them. Closing her eyes, she rested her head on his shoulder.
They were in a dangerous situation, and his embrace was sheltering, comforting. Yet, as always when she was in his arms, it was impossible not to react to this man on a more physical level. On a sexual level.
She leaned into him, reveling in his every touch, every caress. She thought of nothing, letting herself drift, focusing only on the way he made her feel.
Angry voices outside their hiding place jerked her back to reality.
She felt Max go rigid as the sound of running feet stopped directly outside the shed.
“Where the hell are they?” a man asked.
“If they tried to climb over that fence and jumped into the water, they’d get cut up pretty bad. But maybe they’d do it if they were desperate.”
“If they’re cut up, maybe the sharks’ll get them.”
The callous words and the laugh that followed made Annie shudder.
There was a moment of silence when the pursuers were probably searching the area. Finally one of the voices said, “Maybe they’re in the shed.”
Her heart leaped into her throat, then expanded to block her windpipe as somebody rattled the knob.
“It’s locked. They must have gone somewhere else.”
“We’ve already got the whole place covered.”
“Yeah, well, I want a look inside. Who’s got the key?”
“Nicki.”
“I’ll guard the door. Somebody go get the key.”
Annie’s breath had solidified in her lungs. She wanted to ask Max what they were going to do now, but she understood that any noise she made might be fatal. There was no doubt in her mind that the man outside was holding a gun on their hiding place—in case they weren’t already a shark’s dinner. And when the door was opened, he’d search the shed and find them—even behind the flimsy wood panels.
Beside her, Max’s whole body tensed, and she knew he was getting ready to fight. She wanted to turn to face the enemy, but she couldn’t do that now without making a telltale noise.
Of course, it felt as if she had already given herself away. In the darkness of the shed, it sounded as if every breath she and Max took must be audible through the metal walls.
She didn’t know how much time passed, perhaps a minute or perhaps a century.
“What took you so long?” the man who had stayed outside growled.
“I can’t fly. I got back here as fast as I could.”
In the next second, she heard the key slip into the lock.
Her nerves screamed as she waited to hear the door open and braced to put up a fight.
Instead of the lock turning, she heard a low curse.
Another voice said, “Let me try it.”
Thirty endless seconds passed before the other guy muttered in disgust, “The damn lock is broken. If we can’t get in there, they can’t, either.”
“So widen the search. Maybe somehow they made it back to the boat.”
“Yeah.”
The footsteps receded into the distance, and she sagged against Max.
He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Don’t move. It could be a trick.”
She nodded against his shoulder.
They stayed where they were, jammed together for several more minutes. Eyes closed, she pressed her face against his chest. Finally, when everything remained quiet outside, he asked, “What happened?”
“You mean how did I open the lock and why couldn’t they get in?” she whispered.
“Yeah. That.”
“Don’t know.” She swallowed. “I mean, somehow I was pretty sure I could open the door. Like with those handcuffs, I just did it.”
“I was thinking of that when I gave you the keys.”
“But I didn’t know the key would fail for them.”
She heard his answer rumble in his chest. “Okay. Maybe we’d better find out if we can get out of here.”
Despite the warm, close atmosphere in the shed, his words sent a shiver over her skin. She stood with her shoulders against the wall and her palms pressed against her sides as Max quietly moved the panels out of the way, then crept to the door. She couldn’t see what he was doing, and she felt her throat close again as she heard him twist the knob.
To her vast relief, the door opened a crack, letting cooler air into the shed. In moments it closed again.
Max turned back to her, still pitching his voice low. “We’re not locked in, but we have to make a decision. There’s a whole mob of people out there beating the bushes for us. It’s dangerous to leave this shed. But when they don’t find us, they could come back—and they could break the door down if it doesn’t open.”
She nodded into the darkness. They might be in serious trouble either way. After trying to think her way out of the trap, she said, “This nightclub is on a pier.”
“Yeah. I assume that’s why they’re using it as a drug depot. They can bring the stuff in by water, and some of the distribution can be that way, too.”
“They did bring it here. I heard Nicki and a man talking about it.”
“Then maybe we can nail them. But not now. I suggest we go over the side and under the pilings,” Max continued.
She shuddered.
“You can’t swim?”
“I…I don’t know. If I can open locks, I can probably stay afloat. But isn’t the water poisonous?” she asked with a small gulp.
He tipped his head to the side, looking at her consideringly. “We were in the water a couple of days ago. This coastline connects to the channel where I pulled you out.”
He was right, of course. She remembered that now. But the first things that had happened here were all a blur.
“It’s not so clean close to the pier, I’ll grant you, but we’ll survive,” Max was saying.
“Okay,” she agreed, because she had to take his word for it. “When we get close to the shore, I’ll get out of the water and find us a car.”
“Finding the car is my job,” he answered immediately. “I’ll do it.” Cautiously, he opened the door again and stepped out.
She stayed inside with her pulse pounding in her ears. By the time he opened the doo
r and said, “All clear,” she could hardly hear the words.
She ducked low, following his example as they crossed the wooden boards. When they were outside the fence again, he stepped over the edge of the pier, and she saw him climbing down a wooden ladder.
Gritting her teeth, she followed him as quickly as possible. On the bottom rung, she hesitated, but no choking fumes rose to greet her. So she let go and landed in cold water that splashed up around her shoulders.
When she found she couldn’t touch the bottom, she had a moment of panic, then realized she knew what to do and began to tread water.
“You okay?” Max whispered.
“Yes,” she answered, then sputtered as a salty wave slapped her in the face. She looked doubtfully at the pilings. In the moonlight she saw that the understructure of the pier was slick and slimy in some places and covered by barnacles in others. Plastic cups and other debris bobbed in the waves.
She followed Max toward the shore, trying to make as little noise as possible as she swam. After about ten meters, she found she could touch the bottom, and she was beginning to relax when voices from above made her stop.
“You find anything?” one man said.
“Nothing.”
The first speaker cursed. “Nicki’s gonna be pissed if they get away.”
“That’s Gordon’s problem. He was the one who let the woman coldcock him.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t end up in the swamp like that Jamie Jacobson.”
“Yeah, people who get in Nicki’s way have a habit of disappearing.”
Annie looked toward Max. Were they speaking the literal truth? Were they going to kill the guy she’d assaulted?
“What about the shipment? Is she gonna move it out?”
“I think she’ll let things settle down first.”
As they crouched against the side of the pier, Max put a steadying hand on Annie’s arm, and she moved closer to him, once again silently thanking The Protectors that he was with her.
As if to counter the feeling of closeness, a scene flashed into her mind. She was sitting in a bare room with an angry-looking man who asked her rapid-fire questions and screamed at her when she gave the wrong answers.
