by Desiree Holt
“So, I was right about them.” Cold dread knotted itself in Marissa’s stomach. This was no time to fall apart. Besides, she was better than that. Now she needed her training to kick in.
“Yes, you were. The people they were lunching with had to be part of a team in the area in order for them all to connect so quickly.”
She did her best to swallow back the sick feeling gripping her. “But how did they know to come here?”
“Sometimes it just happens by accident,” Justin told her. “No matter how careful you are. Someone who knew you as Lauren might have come through here and spotted you. You’ve probably changed your appearance a lot, but it’s not impossible. It could be any number of things. Bad luck is a constant companion in this business.”
“Adrian McCormack could have spotted you, too,” Avery pointed out. “Brian and I thought this would be a great place for you to create a new life, because Vigilance is here, and we can protect you, and Sheri does a great job as police chief. The down side is so many people come through here on their boats it’s not as controlled as we’d like.”
“Please tell me exactly what Brian said.” Marissa was doing her best not to panic. That never helped the situation.
“Word is out now that Stefan Maes is gathering a crew again.” Avery shook her head. “He’s been doing it so far under the radar that none of Brian’s sources got a sniff of it. He learned about that in the same phone call that said you’d been made. He called me right away.”
“Maes has enough connections he could put an army together if he works it right.” Marissa twisted her hands together to still the sudden tremors. Her trail had been wiped clean. The CIA had wiped her identity from every electronic file. Nothing to do with her current existence was written anywhere and Brian Gould was the only person who knew where she was, or so he’d assured her. But three years in the game had taught her nothing was absolute.
The one thing she couldn’t control was chance.
Someone with a sharp eye could see through her current appearance, if they were looking for her. Or maybe Maes had gone to the trouble of having her photo manipulated so, despite any changes, people could spot her.
Just then the message app on Avery’s tablet pinged. She read the screen and frowned.
Marissa swallowed back the anxiety that surged. “What?”
“Well, your instincts are still as sharp as ever, and it goes along with what I just heard. There’s no record of these people except for credit cards with a post office box for mail. No real estate, no voting records, no navigation information, nothing.”
“Color me surprised.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “I knew when Adrian McCormack blew the whistle on me I’d have a target on my back for life. Maes is not the type of person to forget. You can bet tracking me down has been high on his list.”
“I’m well aware of that.” Avery frowned. “Let me think a minute. The first thing we have to do is get you out of his line of sight.”
Yes, please. She felt sick to her stomach at the thought that Maes had tracked her here. Killing her would be the most merciful thing he could do if he got his hands on her.
“Maes has had two years to stew over his situation and nurture his hatred for me,” Marissa pointed out. “I still don’t know why he’s not in prison.”
“Because he has a team of very expensive, very good attorneys,” Avery reminded her. “They have been making the case that everything was done by people who worked for him and that he had no knowledge of any of it. And truly, I think the CIA was just as happy to put him out of business rather than go through a very long, very expensive trial.”
“Poor man.” Marissa snorted. “He’s had to live off his legitimate enterprises, which aren’t quite as lucrative.”
“He’s also had all this time to plot and plan. I’m sure, knowing about him and knowing his type, he’s working on some method to fill those coffers again.”
“You can bet the farm on that.” Marissa shook her head. “I have this weird feeling that he’s cooking up some disaster.” She stopped breathing for a moment. “I thought he was pretty much neutralized.”
“‘Pretty much’ being the operative words,” Avery pointed out. “He’s persona non grata in several countries and of course he lost billions when the CIA froze his accounts. It seems none of those banks want to do business with him anymore, even for legitimate reasons. He must be a nasty piece of work. He even had to pull his legitimate accounts from Switzerland and they’ll take just about anyone.”
“Those accounts are just a drop in the bucket compared to what he made from his illegal activities.” She locked her fingers together in her lap. “So where is he getting money to replace what he’s lost? He can’t exactly fund his revenge from his legal accounts.”
Avery nodded. “According to Brian, he’s been pulling strings wherever he can, tapping every crooked, evil source to line up some cash. Word is he thinks he can mount some kind of operation to reclaim what he says was stolen from him.”
Marissa swallowed back the nausea creeping up in her throat.
“He can do it, too,” she told Avery. “He’s got all those unstable third world governments beholden to him. If he can gather his core team of monsters he has a good shot. Except…”
“Except what?”
“Except, like I said, he lost billions because of our operation. Many billions. He can’t get enough handouts to match the amount. Besides, I know Maes. Revenge will be as strong a need as building a treasury again.” She slammed her fist on the arm of the chair. “How does he get away with this? Why can’t the CIA or someone just go in and shut him down?”
“You know yourself stealth is his middle name,” Avery reminded her. “He knows how to bury his activities until the last moment. After what you did to Maes, there’s no way Brian or anyone could get a person into his organization undercover. Because he’s been burned, and badly, he’s twice as suspicious of everyone and everything.” She studied Marissa. “Those people are probably just a small piece of a larger network checking everywhere for you. Maes still has plenty of money to fund an operation like that.”
“I know he’ll be playing this very close to the vest, like you said.” Marissa swallowed back the tendril of fear trying to curl its way through her. “He wouldn’t want word to leak out until he’s ready to pounce.”
“Right,” Avery agreed. “He wouldn’t risk sending you into hiding someplace else. He didn’t count on your instincts still being as good as they are.”
Marissa rubbed her face. “I feel like I’m in a bad dream and can’t wake up.”
“Speaking of hiding,” Avery continued, “that’s exactly where we’re going with this. We need to get you out of here until we can figure out how to neutralize him.”
“Good luck with that.” Marissa inhaled a deep, steadying breath, trying to think of all the loose threads here. “If I leave so suddenly, just the way I disappeared from London, won’t that be sending a signal to him that it’s really me? What about the gallery? Won’t people think it’s weird if all of a sudden, it’s closed? And what if that couple comes back again just to check on me for Maes and start asking questions?”
“I’ll have someone at the gallery.” Avery made notes on her tablet. “If anyone asks, we’ll say you were called away on an emergency. We’ll cover everything here.” She curved her lips in a reassuring smile. “This isn’t our first rodeo, Marissa.”
“I know, I know. I just feel as if the last two years have been for nothing.”
“Not for nothing,” Avery assured her. “You’ve made a life here, friends, and all those things will still be here when we shut down Maes.”
“But what can I do? Where can I go?” She wanted to scream and throw things. “This just sucks.”
“What we can do is get you out of here until this Maes situation can be handled and t
his whole thing comes to an end.”
Marissa raked her fingers through her hair. Didn’t she know that shutting down Maes was a near impossible task? “God. Am I going to be running from him for the rest of my life?”
“No. Not gonna happen.” Avery took Marissa’s hands. “They—we—will stop him, I promise you. But you can’t hang around until that happens.”
“Where will I go that he can’t find me?” God! “Montana? It gets very cold there. Or maybe the Yukon Territory. It’s even colder.”
“I have an idea, but I need a few minutes to take care of the arrangements. Justin will take you to your cottage while I make some calls. Pack only personal items. Write down your clothing and shoe sizes for me, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Sizes?” Marissa frowned. “What for?”
“You’ve made it a habit to dress down here in Arrowhead Bay. Nothing outstanding in your clothing that would call attention to you. I want you to blend in with the crowd where you’re going.”
“What crowd? Where? What kind of clothes? No cold weather gear. Please?”
Avery chuckled. “No Yukon Territory, I promise. This is very private resort that’s the only thing on a small Caribbean island. I know the owners and they owe me. No one will be able to track you there.”
Marissa chewed her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Are you sure it’s the best place for me?”
“It’s perfect. The people who vacation there do it because they are protected from the outside world. They get a lot of very wealthy European businessmen and their wives. Some of them come for private meetings and combine business with pleasure. No reporters. No place where they could be spied on. No commercial transportation to leave a trail. The only access is by boat or water and unexpected arrivals are not permitted. Rosewood has a trained security force to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Europeans?” Marissa froze. “Don’t you think—”
“No.” Avery shook her head. “I don’t. It so happens last year the Morgansterns hired us to vet all their guests, including repeaters in case anything changed. But just to be sure, I’m going to run the current list through the rest of the month past Brian Gould. If it’s a problem, we’ll look elsewhere. Now get going. I’ll take care of your clothes.”
“My car,” Marissa began.
“No worries. We’ll bring your car here and store it in the Vigilance garage. That way people will have to guess whether you drove, or flew and left your car at the airport. Or whatever.”
Marissa tried to sort everything through in her mind. It’s a good thing, she thought, that the CIA had trained me in the art of disappearing at a moment’s notice.
“When you get back here I’ll have all the details. And Justin will be going with you.”
She looked at Justin, who just smiled as if this was an everyday occurrence in his life. But there was something else swirling in his eyes, too. Something that made her nerve endings tingle.
“With me?” Marissa’s eyes widened as her body responded. Good lord. She was going into hiding with the man who starred in all her fantasies?
“Of course.” Ignoring them, Avery made some notes on her tablet. “You didn’t think I’d let you go off without protection, did you? Justin’s one of the best I’ve got. Plus, you know him and will be more comfortable than with a stranger.”
“But can he just take off like this? Doesn’t he have assignments?”
“Yes.” Avery nodded. “This one, right here. Just like any other I might send him on.”
“Avery, that’s really very nice of you, but I can’t afford your prices. Or the cost of wherever you’re sending me.”
“This one is on the house, my friend. I owe Brian Gould and I like to think we’ve become close these past couple of years. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do this and something happened to you that we could have prevented. Now let’s get this show on the road.”
As she rose from her chair, Marissa thought again about being in a secluded, exclusive resort with Justin. Alone. With the first man in years who had made her body sit up and take notice of what it was missing. Just how was she supposed to deal with these feelings that kept cropping up whenever she saw him or heard his name? Sure, they’d danced around this a little, each testing the other, but in reality, she didn’t know how he felt. What if she was misreading his signals and somehow made a fool of herself?
Was she leaving one kind of danger only to walk into another?
Chapter 4
Justin waited while Marissa grabbed the personal items she’d need. She laughed at the look on his face when she took her Glock 23 from a locked case.
“I’m guessing you know how to use that thing?”
She nodded, and checked it with practiced efficiency before putting it away in her bag.
“I spent hours on the CIA gun range. And Avery’s been letting me use the range at Vigilance to keep in practice.” She grinned at him. “So, you don’t have to worry that I’ll shoot myself in the foot. Or you.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Don’t get jealous when you see what a crack shot I am.”
“I’ll try to contain myself.” Then he winked, clearly trying to defuse the tension of the situation.
At Vigilance, Justin went off to gather his things, and Avery had three brand-new suitcases waiting for her.
“Resort wear for all occasions.” She grinned.
“I’m not going ask how and where you got it. But, um, thanks.”
“Just so you know, Rosewood limits its guests. Sixty is their capacity. Of course, they charge enough that it doesn’t matter. They had a cancellation, so they were happy to have you as their guest. The accommodations are just what you need. Vigilance checked every one of their guests six ways from Sunday, including those who’ve been there before, and we’re good to go in that department.”
Justin walked into the office and set the two duffels on the floor. “So who are these people?” he prompted.
“Some of them are couples who’ve been cruising the Caribbean and are spending a few days there. It’s a Tuesday, so the resort is only half full right now.”
“Who else is on the list and due to arrive?” he asked. “And when will they be there?”
“There are about twenty couples due to arrive Thursday. Marissa, here’s the list. Even though Brian and I have both been over it a dozen times, I want to make sure before we send you off that there isn’t a name that jumps out at you. Someone you met during your assignment in London. Someone who could blow your cover.”
Marissa studied the screen on the tablet.
“There are a few names I’m familiar with, but not in connection with Maes. I’ve never met any of them or come across them in Maes’s accounts. And I never attended any events where they were likely to be. Besides, my appearance is different now and I’m using a different name.”
“Speaking of which…” Avery looked from one to the other. “You guys will be Mr. and Mrs. Kelly. Do not address each other by first names and do not socialize with any of the guests. Walt Morganstern is keeping you out of the database. I didn’t even want to use the agency name, just in case.”
“Good.” Marissa blew out a breath.
Avery took the tablet back. “One more thing. Stay out of the main restaurant, Sunset, just to be extra sure. There’s a little casual eating bar called the Bistro, or you can take your meals in your villa. They have excellent room service and I recommend using that most of the time.”
“Villa?” Marissa frowned. “Isn’t that a little elaborate?”
“It’s the furthest guest accommodations from the main building and is completely private. The less you mingle with guests, the better.”
“And people won’t think that’s unusual?” Marissa asked.
Avery shook her head. “Much of the clientele there prefers isol
ation. No red flags here.”
“We’ll be fine,” Justin said. “Avery, you still have that clearance set up, so we won’t have any problem with firearms?”
She nodded.
Justin looked at Marissa. “You know under normal circumstances we’d have to land in Nassau, clear customs and go through a big hassle with firearms.”
“I wondered about that when you didn’t say anything back at my house.”
“But thanks to the relationship Vigilance has with various customs services, and the favors they’ve done for numerous people, we can bypass all that.”
“What are you bringing?” Avery asked.
“My favorites. The Heckler & Koch 45 CT, the one the SEALS adopted, plus my personal favorite, the Smith & Wesson M&P .45 cal. It’s slightly lighter to carry.” He looked at Avery. “Do you know Marissa’s got her own firepower?”
“I do. I checked her out on our range when she first got here.”
“I thought about bringing my LaRue Tactical OBR but decided it was probably overkill.”
“What’s an OBR?” Marissa asked.
Avery answered for him. “Optimized Battle Rifle. And yes, you aren’t preparing for a massacre, just self-defense.”
“Then I guess we’re good to go,” he told her.
Moments after that they were racing for the new Vigilance Sikorsky helicopter, already warming up in front of the hangar behind the Vigilance office. The pilot shook hands, loaded them and their luggage into the bird, and they were off.
They flew down the west coast of the Florida peninsula, over the Florida Keys, and then a scattering of small islands in the Caribbean. Marissa looked out the cabin window, trying to focus on the gorgeous scenery below them. But Justin was so close to her, reaching around her to point out things they saw, that she had trouble thinking or appreciating anything. His clean, outdoorsy scent was tantalizing her nerve endings and sending her brain into orbit. When he rested his hand on her shoulder, she was sure his fingers left scorch marks. She’d been fighting this for so long, and now, here they were, heading for a tropical paradise where they would be alone and—
