Kiss the Bride

by Lori Wilde

Resolutely, she again hoisted the photo albums in her arms. As she did, her gaze slid over the flip side of the People article.

  It was a piece about an Indian woman working with the WorldFem organization to put a stop to the horrific practice of honor killings. Because of her work, she’d been placed on a death list, targeted by an assassin. Tish’s eyes drifted to the photograph. She’d seen this woman before.

  At Shane and Elysee’s engagement party.

  A thought stirred at the back of her mind, not yet fully formed. Yes, this was definitely the woman she’d seen. Could this woman be the key to why someone had tried to steal her disk?

  Pondering that question, Tish took the third copy of the disk from her purse and slipped it into the camera, which was hooked to the DVD player. Seconds later, she was reliving the engagement party.

  Fast-forward through the pomp and circumstance. Fast-forward through Shane giving Elysee the ring and kissing her. Fast-forward through Nathan Benedict announcing their engagement. Fast-forward past the congratulatory toasts.

  To the part Tish was searching for.

  Elysee was surrounded by well-wishers, blushing prettily, innocently. Then the camera caught a furtive woman wearing a scarf over her head hovering in the shadows. Tish watched as Elysee made her excuses, slipped through the crowd, headed toward the woman. They shook hands and Elysee led her through the French doors and out onto the patio.

  Her pulse quickened. She didn’t even remember filming this. Her mind must have been too befuddled by the engagement.

  The camera angle swung away from Elysee to put Shane in the foreground. He was talking to Cal Ackerman. The camera lingered longingly on his face, spelling out for anyone who wasn’t too blind to see that the person behind the camera was hung up on her subject.

  Tish yanked her eyes off Shane and searched the background. Dammit. There wasn’t any more footage of Elysee.

  Wait, wait. There it was. Out on the patio when she’d accidentally left the camera on without knowing it.

  It was the mystery woman and Elysee was handing her something. Was the footage of this woman the real reason someone had wanted her disk in the first place?

  Tish had no answers. None of it seemed to have anything to do with someone burning down her apartment. Were the two incidents even connected? She rewound the tape.

  The camera moved again, back to focus on Shane. Was she besotted with the man or what? There were other people in the frame behind Shane. The Ambassador from India was speaking in a language she vaguely recognized as Hindi, to a man who had his back to the camera. They were both eyeing Rana Singh.

  She still didn’t get it. Something was going on, but it was over her head. Whatever was on this disk held no meaning for her, but it definitely meant something to the person who was on it.

  “Turn off the video and eject the disk,” a voice from the doorway commanded. Too late, she realized she’d left the door to her bedroom ajar.

  Startled, Tish turned and immediately let out a gasp of shocked surprise.

  For there, pointed at her face, was the business end of a very large handgun with a silencer attached to it.

  Chapter 20

  Pete Larkin motioned toward Tish. “Hand me the disk.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t make me shoot you.”

  “Who are you? What do you want?” she asked.

  “Just the disk.”

  “Why would you want the disk of the engagement party unless—”

  “I’m on it and it’s not a flattering camera angle,” he growled. “Give me the disk.”

  “You speak Hindi,” she said, as a terrible thought took root in the back of her mind. Larkin was the man talking to the Indian Ambassador on the tape.

  “Fluently.”

  “You’ve been to India.”

  “Many times.

  “Oh my God,” Tish gasped as her suspicions crystallized. “You’re the death squad assassin I read about in People magazine hired to kill Rana Singh. That’s why you want the disk. It can incriminate you.”

  “Ding, ding, she’s smarter than she looks, folks.” Larkin ripped the disk from her hand and stuffed it in his front pocket then lowered his gun, pressing it firmly against her rib cage.

  “Pick up your car keys,” he commanded, nodding to where they rested on the desk.

  Once she had the keys in her hand, he took the gym towel that was slung around his neck and used it to cover the gun in his hand. He wrapped his arm around Tish’s shoulder.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “We’re going out the side exit. If we meet someone on the way out and you give any indication of what’s going on, I’ll kill them. Got it?”

  Tish nodded. She had no reason to doubt his sincerity. The cold, calculating look in his eyes told her he was very capable of carrying out his threat.

  “Walk at a steady pace, neither too fast nor too slow,” he instructed. “When we get outside, walk to your car, get in on the passenger side, and scoot over behind the wheel. Now let’s go.”

  He muscled her out of the room and forced her to walk down the corridor beside him. Larkin had slung his arm around her waist, his gun pressed icily into her side.

  Tish had fleeting thoughts of escape, but before she could even form a plan, Larkin whispered, “Forget about trying to make a run for it. I have no compunction about shooting you here if I must.”

  The flagstone walkway was wet from water sprinkler overspray. Now Larkin’s other hand was at the back of her neck and he was pushing on her spine with his thumb, keeping her in line by putting pressure on her nerve endings. He guided her around to the back of the house where visitors parked in a covered lot.

  “You’re doing fine. Just keep it up.”

  When they reached the Acura she did as he’d instructed, getting in on the passenger side, sliding over to the driver’s seat. He slid in after her, never taking the gun from her side.

  “When we get to the security checkpoint, give a friendly little wave and keep driving. The guards don’t pay as much attention to who’s leaving as to who’s coming in. If you so much as raise an eyebrow I’ll kill you both. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now drive.”

  “You’re not going to get away with this, you know. There are cameras hidden all over the place. When I don’t come back, the Secret Service will review the security tapes and hunt you down.”

  “Wrong. I’m CIA. I know exactly where the security cameras are and how to disable them,” he bragged.

  “If you’re CIA, how come you’re working as a physical therapist at the President’s ranch house? Not much foreign intelligence going on in Katy, Texas. Doesn’t seem like a job they’d give to their best agent.”

  His scowl deepened. “I got sent here when Elysee was engaged to her previous fiancé, Yuri Borshevsky. He had KGB ties. Someone had to keep an eye on him—since I speak twelve languages including Russian and Hindi, guess who got picked?”

  “Still, it seems like a menial assignment. Babysitting, almost.”

  “It is.” Larkin gritted his teeth. Clearly this was a touchy subject. “Now shut your mouth and drive.”

  Her life was in her own hands. She had to do something to get away from him or he was going to kill her. Of that she had absolutely no doubt.

  Drive off the road.

  “If you try to drive off the road,” he said, reading her mind, “you’ll be dead before your head hits the steering wheel.”

  “Lovely imagery. Thanks for that.”

  “Just wanted to let you know I’m not screwing around.”

  “There’s one problem with your threat.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “If you kill me now you’ll never know who all I gave copies of the disks to.”

  “You made copies?” His voice hardened.

  “Lots of them.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Are you willing to take that gamble?” She sn
uck a glance at him. His eyes narrowed, glaring, and his jaw tightened. She could see his mental cogs turning.

  He swore violently and pressed the gun against her temple. “Who else has copies?”

  The feel of the end of the gun against her head was more chilling than finding a rattlesnake in her bed. Her body went cold with fear; her fingers blanched white on the steering wheel. Her mind raced desperately around the possible avenues of escape.

  Stay calm. You’ve got to stay calm or you’re lost.

  “We’re in traffic. Someone could see you with that gun pressed to my head and call 9-1-1,” she said quietly. “Why don’t you put it out of sight?”

  She could tell it irritated him to have to do what she said, but she also knew she’d made an excellent point. He slid the gun down the side of her head, past her neck, and repositioned it against her rib cage. It was only slightly less terrifying there than having it pointed at her skull.

  “Hang a left at this next traffic light and remember my finger is on the trigger. You make a wrong move and the gun goes off.”

  “And you’ve got one hell of a mess to deal with.”

  “I’ve dealt with worse.”

  “Still,” she said, struggling to keep hysteria at bay by sounding flippant and carefree. “You’ll never know how many copies of the disk I made.”

  “It’s a risk I’m willing to take. In fact, I think you’re lying. I don’t think you made any copies at all.”

  “But you’ll never know for sure.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I know a way to persuade you to talk.” His voice sounded so sinister, she dared a quick glimpse at him. His features were maniacal, and she knew this was no mission sanctioned by the CIA. He had to be a rogue agent who’d lost all sense of boundaries. One look at his ominous face and she knew he was talking about torture. Horror sickened her stomach. She had no doubt he was completely capable of carrying out such an awful deed.

  Please don’t let me throw up, she prayed.

  She had mistakenly thought that by telling him she’d made copies of the disk he would spare her life, because there was no way of knowing whether she was telling the truth or not. She’d never counted on torture. If this deranged lunatic tortured her, she knew she would end up telling him anything he wanted to hear. Including the fact that she’d given a disk to Elysee.

  Dear Lord, she’d placed the President’s daughter squarely in the line of fire.

  You have to get away from him. It’s the only chance you have. It’s the only chance Elysee has.

  “Take the overpass,” he instructed. “Drive at the speed limit. Not one mile above or below.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked, really not wanting to hear the answer but frantic for some kind of information that would help her form a plan.

  “To the shipping channel. To the docks.”

  “Why are we going there?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve already made arrangements for the disposal of two bodies. A third corpse shouldn’t pose much in the way of an added inconvenience.” His grin was pure evil. “There’s a lot of places to torture someone down along the waterfront where screams go unheard.”

  After his talk with Elysee, Shane hurried to Tish’s bedroom to tell her that they’d broken the engagement, but she wasn’t there. He went in search of anyone who might know where Tish had gone. The place was in a bustle because the President was coming in. He couldn’t find any staff members who’d seen her.

  Until he spoke to one of the valets, who told Shane he’d seen Tish get into her car with a man just a few minutes earlier. Shane pressed for a description but the valet said he hadn’t been close enough to get a good look at the guy.

  Shane thought about phoning Cal, but hesitated. He no longer had any idea who he could trust. For all he knew, Cal could be behind the arson fire. He hated to believe it of his former partner, but at this point, everyone who’d been staying at the ranch that had been at the engagement party was suspect. Especially Cal, since he smoked and had access to those matches. Especially since Shane had seen bits of red lava rocks—the very same red lava gravel that was in the garden outside Tish’s apartment—underneath Cal’s shoes in the limo the night of the fire.

  Call Tish.

  But, of course. He was so frantic with worry, he hadn’t thought of the simplest solution first. He went into Tish’s bedroom, picked up the cordless phone, and called his cell.

  It rang six times, then switched to voice mail. He left a message asking her to call him immediately and hung up. That’s when he realized Tish’s camera was hooked up to the computer monitor and photos were scattered across the desk.

  Tish might be a little flighty at times, but when it came to her work, she was a dedicated professional. She would never have gone off and left her camera on or her editing equipment strewn around. He examined the camera and saw the disk was missing.

  Alarm jolted through him.

  He stabbed his fingers through his hair, blew out his breath and let out a short but emphatic curse. Something had happened to interrupt Tish from her work. Where had she gone?

  And with whom?

  He pivoted. On his way back out the door he saw a decorative glass bowl filled with the same matchbooks Dick Tracy had found at the scene of the fire. He scooped up a handful as he went past and stuffed them into his pocket, convinced they held the key to the person with whom Tish had gone.

  His training told him not to jump to conclusions, but his gut told him his fears were valid. Someone had taken Tish and her camera disk from the engagement party, he guessed. And he feared it was someone who meant her serious harm.

  Shane’s father had taught him that in times of crisis he should always listen to his gut and not to his head. Listening to his head had sent him walking out on his marriage when he should have paid attention to what his gut had told him.

  Instinctively convinced Tish was no longer on the ranch, he raced back to his Durango, got in and zoomed to the security checkpoint at the front gate. The guards had changed shifts, so the officer in the guard shack hadn’t seen Tish leave, but it had been logged in that Tish and a passenger had left the grounds seventy minutes earlier.

  “Passenger?” Shane asked of the guard. “Who was the passenger?”

  “It doesn’t say here, sir.”

  “Male? Female?”

  The guard lifted his shoulders in a helpless gesture. “No notation was made regarding the sex of the passenger in the car with Ms. Gallagher. Would you like me to call the other guards at home?”

  “No.” Shane didn’t have time for that. Besides, he had another plan. He would track her via the GPS device in his cell phone. Wherever she was, he could target her location.

  Once he had a plan of action, Shane calmed. He would find her and when he got hold of the sonofabitch who’d taken her, his retribution would be both swift and relentless.

  He felt a surge of protectiveness for Tish unlike anything he’d ever felt before. It was far stronger than his sense of duty, far deeper than his patriotism and his honor code. It wasn’t about revenge. This wasn’t about his ego. This was about Tish’s safety. She needed him—this time, he was determined to be there for her.

  The sun was slipping down to the horizon as Larkin shoved Tish ahead of him through the maze of shipping pods lining the docks. Huge freighters lay tied up at their berths. There was a lot of activity around the new arrivals, but Larkin stayed clear of those areas, guiding her farther and farther away from any dockworkers and her possible salvation.

  Larkin shunted her down dark and musty rows of heavy metal containers, and the smell of fish and brackish water was thick in her nose. With all the noise and hustle, it was doubtful anyone would have heard her cry for help. The gun poking hard into her back deterred Tish from even trying to call out.

  Finally, he told her to stop beside one of the pods positioned right at the edge of the water. “Open it up,” he said.

  Oh God, was this where he was g
oing to torture her and kill her? Was this pod to be her coffin?

  She hesitated, unable to make herself open the door.

  He jabbed her in the spine with his gun. “Do it.”

  She obeyed his demand, struggling to unlatch the heavy metal door. As she worked on it, his pager went off. Cursing, he tugged it off his waistband and squinted at the display. For a brief second his concentration left her and went to the pager. Her eyes went to the water: If she jumped off the pier could she swim away from him? Or would she simply be a sitting duck in the water, a perfect target for his bullets?

  “Sonofabitch.”

  “What is it?”

  “The President is arriving at the ranch in an hour and he wants a training session and a massage when he gets there,” Larkin fumed. “He treats me like I’m his frickin’ servant.”

  “Well, he is the President of the United States.”

  “Like I have time for this crap.”

  “You better show up. If you don’t, someone might get suspicious of your whereabouts,” Tish said.

  He cursed again. “Okay, in you go.”

  “What?”

  “The pod.” He waved his gun. “Get in there.”

  “But it’s dark inside.” She peered nervously into the black depths. “It smells like mice.”

  “You’d rather I just shoot you now?”

  “I’m in.” Tish hopped into the pod.

  Larkin slammed the door on her and turned the lock. She pressed her ear against the door, straining for the sound of his footfalls walking away.

  He was gone.

  Relief weakened her limbs and she sank to the floor of the pod, wrapping her arms around herself to stem the uncontrollable shaking that suddenly gripped her body.

  Inside the shipping container was airless and empty. Tish had never known darkness could be so deep and black, except for in her own mind, in her soul, after she’d lost the baby.

  And then she’d lost Shane.

  Mentally, she had whirled out of control, spinning wildly, madly—a dizzying dance of consumer excess. Buying, shopping, throwing away money. Until she’d lost momentum and like a wobbly dreidel, fallen over, top-heavy, spent and out of balance.