Gonsalves considered the idea. “For now.” Nodding, he straightened his cuffs and powered down the unit, staring at the worker, who had collapsed and was now held up only by the guards.
Gonsalves kicked the man’s leg viciously, again and again, until a bone cracked. “So he will not run.” Then he waved to his guards, who dragged the unconscious man outside, leaving a dark line of blood across the freshly polished wood floor. Shaking his head, Gonsalves pulled out a handwoven linen handkerchief and carefully wiped the bloodstains from the floor.
Just your normal average millionaire cleaning up his castle.
Except this millionaire was delusional and ruthless.
When Gonsalves finished, he stared down at the spot where the man had collapsed. “This is a bad thing, my friend. It is all very clear to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No? This man was no kitchen worker. He made no protest. He showed no fear. He was a professional.” Gonsalves turned slowly, a vein pulsing at his throat. “How did an outsider learn of our auction? I keep asking myself this question.”
“One of the buyers may have sent him. They are all careful men.”
Gonsalves rubbed his chin. “No, I think there is a different answer.” After a final look at the three display units, Gonsalves flipped off the overhead light. “With your help, I will have the truth, my friend. Let us discuss the possibilities upstairs over some cognac.”
Although cognac was the last thing MacInnes wanted, he nodded, the picture of affability. No one would guess that he was gripped by pain. “Of course, Martim.” MacInnes moved toward the door. “Perhaps you should—”
The sixty-thousand-volt charge hit him full in the neck. His vision exploded in a cascade of white light. Pain slammed through his body as every muscle went rigid.
One second. Two. He fell into an eternity of pain. Jordan MacInnes didn’t feel his head strike the floor or two security guards carry him outside in a black plastic bag.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SOMETHING WAS WRONG.
Nell shifted, caught in dreams of pale Himalayan snows and finger jams along red Moab cliffs. She thought she heard her father’s voice carried on the wind, thready and low, as if from a great distance.
He needed her help.
But there was nothing to see, no one to help, and Nell drifted back into dark images, tossing in her worry.
Warm hands awakened her. She sighed, falling into the surprise of Dakota’s mouth and the slide of his tongue. Need raced out into restless discovery.
Dakota whispered her name. Emotion swam through his eyes. Then he put it all away.
Impersonal. Ready to do whatever had to be done.
Nell sat up stiffly. Her muscles ached and her fingers burned from climbing. “Is it time to go?”
He nodded. “No moon. Night climb. One more chance for you to put me through the wringer.” He smiled slightly, then raised her palm, tracing the welts and broken skin along her fingers. “Nell, you don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” she whispered fiercely. “Of course I’m going and I’ll be climbing with you.” Desire made her throat dry. “If you’d stop touching me, this would go a lot faster. Safer too.”
His eyes narrowed, focused and dangerous. “I never liked playing things safe. I’m telling you now that when this is done, I’m coming for you, Nell. Being safe will be the last thing on your mind when I do.” His teeth nipped her inner palm. He tongued the sensitive skin at the base of each finger, each touch a silent promise.
And sensual warning.
Nell closed her eyes, her heart fluttering as his fingers trailed over her breasts.
Blindly she reached for her clothes, knowing that if she looked at him she would be lost. When she opened her eyes Dakota was standing at the foot of the bed carrying a nylon backpack. Wind shook the trees outside the gatehouse as she pulled on her jacket and followed him out to the waiting car.
NELL STARED at the classic dark towers rising against the ink-black sky. “In the style of Edward II,” she murmured. “Concentric fortified towers, well-defined moat and extensive parapets. The man didn’t mess around when it came to crushing the resistance in Wales.” Even in the moonless night, the castle walls loomed clearly above them.
Six round towers curved out from the straight castle walls, just as the other towers were built. Nell pressed one palm against the jagged stone, testing the rock face.
No chips fell away. No masonry cracked and tore loose. She prayed Dakota’s luck would likewise hold.
“Put these on.”
Dakota handed her a pair of night-vision goggles and she slid them on awkwardly. Now when she looked up at the notched teeth at the top of the highest tower, she could calculate height and circumference in the pale green images. The dimensions appeared to match those that Dakota had given her. The climb would be deadly in the dark, and he would be clearly exposed for the last twenty-five feet, a visible target even without any lights to guide him.
Nell wanted to scream with frustration at the reality of what he was preparing to do. But screaming wouldn’t help, so she closed down her feelings and focused on the job ahead. She was going to get Dakota up that wall and back down again even if they had to stay here choosing and rejecting footholds all night.
“Will there be any lights at or near the entry wall?”
“None, so far as we can tell.”
She pulled out a notebook. “I want exact dimensions of the arrow loops and those lower parapets. I’ll chalk out your route while you call out measurements.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” Dakota murmured.
“Where are the gloves that I made you?”
Dakota reached into his pocket and held up a pair of white mitts carefully constructed of thick athletic tape wrapped to fit his hand.
“Put them on. You’re going to need them.” She glanced up at the castle wall. “We’ll train for the route that we discussed earlier, but I want a second plan in place. There’s no telling what you’ll find when you get there. Weather, surface deterioration, security lights, anything could go wrong.” She took a deep breath, forcing down her uneasiness. “I’m going to give you a plan B.”
A good climber always had a plan B, and Nell would know it when she saw it. Dakota was going to memorize both plans until he could do them in his sleep.
She frowned as something vibrated in her pocket. Digging out her phone, she scanned the LED for caller ID and recognized the number of her climbing partner. What time was it back in Utah? she wondered. “Eric? No, everything’s fine. I decided to take a few days off. What? Nothing earthshaking.” She glanced at Dakota, then looked away. “I’m in Utah. You know how I’ve been itching to try a new pitch at Bryce.”
Her voice carried eerily in the night air. As Dakota chalked up his hands, he watched Nell cradle the phone and speak confidently. He noted the calm, uncomplicated friendliness in her voice.
He was glad that this partner of hers wasn’t a lover. That fact had been in Nell’s file, but it was nice to have the detail confirmed. Nell’s voice would have betrayed her. Dakota could read her too well now.
She paced a little, rubbing one shoulder. “What? No, I’m fine, Eric. I just wanted to get away for a few days and relax. When I finish a painting I’m always a little restless. You know that.”
Dakota cleared his throat to catch her attention. The call was harmless, but he didn’t want anything distracting her from the work ahead of them.
She gave a little wave and nodded. “Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow, Eric. Yes, I promise. Gotta go now.” She hung up and shoved the phone back in her pocket. “Sorry. Eric and I have known each other a long time and he gets overprotective if he doesn’t hear from me.” She opened her notebook and made quick sketches, walking as she wrote. “I’m assuming that you’ll be coming in from the back, so let’s go take a look.”
OUT IN THE SHADOWS beyond the long driveway, Izzy watched them work. The woman was relentless. She kept Dakota movi
ng at a demanding pace, directing him down the wall with clipped and detailed instructions, guiding him every foot of the way.
Watching Nell find a foothold and toe her way up the wall gave Izzy a new respect for the kind of climbing she did. He hadn’t expected the grace or the intelligence it required. But what surprised him most was the charged energy between Nell and Dakota. Sometimes she didn’t finish a sentence before Dakota completed it. The two were definitely on the same wavelength.
Or something deeper was at work.
He noticed an intensity that had not been there before, from a darkening in Dakota’s eyes to the seemingly casual brush of fingers as they unloaded equipment. Unless Izzy was mistaken, another member of Foxfire was about to bite the dust, and Ryker was going to chew dirt when he found out.
Not your business, pal.
If the connection between Nell and Dakota helped get the job done, then Izzy was all for it. Nell was one of the few people who could get Dakota safely up that wall with only a few hours of training. Getting him down again, safe and in one piece, would be Izzy’s problem.
Izzy had a few ideas on how to make that happen, but he wasn’t discussing them with anyone until Ryker relayed final mission orders. Meanwhile, he had one more job to do before they left.
AT TWO IN THE MORNING Izzy’s dusty Land Rover pulled up the driveway. Nell and Dakota had been training hard, and Nell’s fingers were scraped raw, but she couldn’t stop thinking about everything that could go wrong.
So she trained harder, always looking for a better pull or a neater jam, showing Dakota cleaner cross movements. More than once she forced him to close his eyes, feeling his way up the wall completely blind. He’d have to read the wall when he made his actual climb under hostile conditions. Nell wanted him prepared to work by touch alone.
Through the long hours, Dakota never complained and barely broke a sweat. As he moved easily up the stone face, Nell marveled that after less than one day of free-climbing, he had tackled moves that had taken her two years to master.
Izzy turned off the Rover and jumped out, watching Dakota toe up the edge of an arrow loop. “He’s looking sharp. You’ve been going at it straight?”
Nell moved over to stand beside him and checked her watch. “Three hours, twenty-two minutes.”
“He’s ready, Nell.” Izzy’s eyes were calm, his expression unruffled. “You have to let him go.”
Nell shifted from foot to foot. Dakota was ready, but she wasn’t. There were still too many things that could go wrong, too many details left to teach him. “You watch them go out, facing heaven knows what kind of risks, not knowing if…. if they’ll come back. How do you stand it?”
“We all know what we signed up for,” Izzy said quietly.
“But what if I missed something? What if Dakota pays the price for my mistakes? How can I live with that?”
“I won’t lie to you, Nell. It never gets easier. You just do it. That’s all there is. Just go forward.”
Just go forward. It sounded so simple.
“What if I taught him the wrong hold? What if he falls and—” Nell’s voice tightened.
“You didn’t. He won’t.” Izzy turned, squeezed her shoulder once and released her. “You’ve both done everything you can. You train hard, do your best, then call it a day. He’s ready, Nell. You know it and I know it. It’s time to move.”
She took a deep breath, thinking of a possibility that she’d hesitated to mention. “I could go in his place, Izzy. I’d be faster, better prepared—”
“No.”
“Just consider it. It’s the logical thing—”
“No. You’re a civilian,” Izzy said curtly. “You shouldn’t be involved at all, but given the situation, you were our best choice for a trainer. And no, you’re not heading into the fire zone.”
“Then what about as backup? I could follow Dakota and take a different route, drawing attention away from him.”
“No. It’s out of the question.”
Nell sighed. She hadn’t expected him to agree. Her own skills under fire were negligible, but as a backup climber, she might have helped buy Dakota some time.
“Forget it.” Izzy stared at her, eyes narrowed. “You’re not going anywhere near the site. Even if I agreed, Dakota never would.”
She took a breath. “So how is he going to get down when he’s done?”
“Fast rope and a straight drop. He’ll anchor on the tower, throw a line over and shoot down. By that point, there will be no more need for concealment, since we assume his cover will be blown once he goes for the art. He’ll slip into the water and return the way he came.”
Nell knew Izzy was making it sound far easier than it would be. “What about the art?”
“He’ll carry waterproof containers to keep it safe.”
The climber in Nell liked the plan; the art expert in her shuddered at the thought of one drop of water staining the priceless sketch.
There had to be more questions, but she couldn’t think of them. Her mind was spinning. There were so many things that could go wrong and a real possibility that Dakota might not come back.
A single star rose overhead, winking against the moonless sky like a forgotten wish. Nell made a new wish on that faint star, asking for a future with a man who had had too few of his own hopes answered.
Just go forward.
She turned back toward Dakota, summoning her best smile. “Call it a day, Navy. You’re as good as I’ve ever seen. School is out.” She glanced back at Izzy. “Your friend here agrees.”
“Yeah, but who cares what he thinks?” Dakota dropped lightly to the ground and brushed the extra chalk from his hands. “What I want to know is whether he has a rare steak waiting for me.”
Lightness and teasing in the face of death, Nell thought. Not so different from the bravado of climbers.
She took Dakota’s arm and shrugged one of the gear bags over her shoulder. “If not, I’ll cook the steak myself. What do you say?”
Dakota’s eyes narrowed. “If you can cook half as good as you climb, I think I’m a fallen man.”
Four in the morning
SO MUCH TO SAY. No time to say it.
Across the hall Nell heard Dakota talking quietly on a cell phone. Through her open windows she smelled the rich perfume of old roses. Restless, she pushed away the covers, thinking about her father and wondering why he hadn’t called back.
Barefoot, with a white robe belted against the night’s chill, she padded down the hall, where a bar of light shone through the door of Dakota’s room. Funny, the man never seemed to sleep. Was that another part of his training?
Nell stopped in the middle of the hall. Dakota was pulling off his shirt, his chest sculpted with lean muscle. He had an unforgettable body, taut and powerful. She smiled crookedly as she saw the tattoo on his left shoulder.
A tiger, black and red, coiled along one shoulder. Beneath the sleek body were three characters that appeared to be Chinese, though Nell couldn’t be sure of that.
As Dakota moved, the tiger seemed to move too, muscles shifting as if sensing danger. It was an arresting sight. Then Nell’s smile faded. She saw the old cuts on his back, the welts along his ribs and pale silver scars from old bullet wounds. There were also newer marks, including a bruise on his elbow and one just above his waist. She guessed those had come when he threw the motorcycle to one side to avoid hitting her.
He had looked angry and haunted that night. She didn’t know why and probably never would. The man was a walking book of secrets. And their time was nearly gone.
He stretched, rubbing his neck. Opening the nylon bag on the dresser, he pulled out a white tube and applied gel on the cuts at his neck. There was no name on the tube and the heavy blue gel looked unfamiliar. More secrets from the book of Dakota Smith.
Nell didn’t care about his shadows as long as he came back alive and brought her father with him.
As Dakota turned, she felt a hot stab of awareness. He wore only a pair
of jeans, riding low at his hips. The first button was undone, the denim pulled tight against his stomach. The sight stirred melting memories.
But logic won out over desire. Silently, Nell headed back to bed. The man had to rest.
White curtains danced at the gatehouse windows, and the sudden grip of a hand made her gasp.
“What’s wrong, Nell?”
“Nothing—I couldn’t sleep. Sorry if I disturbed you.”
His eyes were cool and distant. Nell knew he was preparing for the challenges to come.
But she thought of the ways she’d dodged honesty and avoided trust for so many years. So she took a deep breath, choosing honesty over safety. “I want my life back, Dakota. No more shadows and evasions. So here’s the rest. I wanted you in Scotland, and I want you now. I can’t stop thinking about us. About you inside me.”
A muscle tightened at his jaw. “I’d have to say that’s a bad idea, honey.”
“No kidding.” Nell looked away. She’d told him how she felt.
“You don’t understand.” Dakota moved, blocking her way. “Something about this house is wrong. I’m seeing colors I shouldn’t see. Movements at the edge of my vision. It’s off, and my vision is never off. And then there’s the problem with you.” He cradled her face, his eyes unreadable. “You are doing what no woman has ever done, Nell. I don’t like it.”
She started to pull away, but his hand slid to the small of her back, driving her flat against his hard, aroused body.
“That’s what you do to me. That’s how you split my focus. It’s never happened to me before. Not even close,” he said grimly.
She took a breath. “So what are you going to do about it?”
He edged her back until she was trapped against the wall, then framed her body with his arms. “My first choice? Strip away that robe and take you right here, and then on every other flat surface we can find. Even then I wouldn’t have enough of your body, which means that this is out of control. You’re going to get hurt if this goes any further, Nell. We both are.”
To Catch a Thief Page 19
