Heath pulled on socks, then stepped into a pair of brown shoes that went well with the pants. He added the slim belt and picked up the .357 on his way to the balcony.
The table held a selection of foods in cartons. He recognized the pineapple and watermelon and bananas and breadfruit. He’d had the ball-shaped fried dumplings before, and he knew that the other two servings held meat. There was also a small pot of coffee from the room’s coffeemaker and a carafe of orange juice. He picked up a plastic fork and one of the disposable plates.
“What’s this?” He pointed at the yellow clumps in one carton.
“Ackee and saltfish. Ackee is a fruit. Very subtle flavor that complements the salted cod.”
“You’ve had it before?”
“I have. Not everything has to be steak and potatoes.”
“I look like a steak and potatoes guy to you?”
She wore large sunglasses, so he couldn’t see her eyes, but her lips quirked up at the corners. “You do.”
“Okay. What’s this?” Heath pointed to the carton that held what looked like fish and tomatoes.
“Sweet and sour fish. Mackerel sautéed with onions and tomatoes. I picked all of this up at the Pegasus Hotel.”
“I’m paying for breakfast, too?”
“No. I’m buying breakfast.” The sunglasses centered on him. “You saved my life last night.”
“I think we actually saved each other’s life.” Heath pointed his fork at the cartons. “You want to divvy?”
“I thought you were old enough to feed yourself.”
“When somebody lays out a spread like this, I get intimidated.” Heath rolled up his sleeves while she sorted out the cartons. “Manners aren’t my strong suit. Maybe you could have guessed that, too.”
“You look good in those clothes.”
“Thank you.” Heath felt a little self-conscious at the compliment. He knew he turned women’s heads every now and again, but they didn’t compliment him on the way he was dressed. His eyes, his hands, those were the usual things. “You look good, too. How did you get the sizes right?”
“The shirt was easy. I just checked the shirt you’d been wearing. I did the same for the shoes. The pants were a guess.”
“You guess pretty good.”
“I help outfit a lot of stage magicians. Extra pockets. Hideouts. Things like that. I have to know sizes and what you can do with them.” She finished putting food on her plate.
Heath looked around and smiled. “You’ve got the view. The table. The food.” He tapped the fork against the empty plastic flower vase glued to the table. “I’m surprised you didn’t get a table setting, too.”
With a small grin, she spread her hands, and a bright pink hibiscus appeared in them. She stuck the flower stem into the neck of the vase, and it sat there.
“Now you’re showing off.” Heath frowned at the flower. “How did you manage that?”
“The flower?” She looked terribly innocent.
“Yes, the flower.”
She shrugged. “Magic. Don’t you believe in magic?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should start.” She picked up her fork and speared a pineapple chunk.
“You are missing a candle, you know?”
An arched eyebrow rose above the sunglasses lens. “You believe in candlelight dinners?”
“I do. Easier to believe in than magic. And you can have steak and potatoes by candlelight. Does that surprise you?”
“What do you think?”
Heath forked a helping of ackee and saltfish into his mouth and chewed. It was surprisingly good. “Actually, I don’t think you get surprised by a lot.”
She didn’t say anything, just kept eating for a moment. Then her expression sobered. “What are we doing after breakfast?”
Heath hated that the casual flirting had been set aside. It was easy to believe, just for a little while, that he was in the Caribbean with a beautiful woman that might be the least bit interested in him. More than that, it was a pleasant diversion from the dark thoughts that had plagued him for the past few weeks since Janet’s death.
“After breakfast we’re going to my hotel room.”
“That could be dangerous if Gibson’s people are watching your room.”
“Let’s hope I see them before they see me. I have equipment there that I can use.”
“It might be safer to get more somewhere else.”
Heath shook his head. “My files are there, too.”
* * *
The two men watching Heath’s room weren’t any of the bodyguards from the villa, but they weren’t Kingston policemen, either. They were both African-American, decked out in casual wear and likely carrying concealed weapons. Judging from the tattoos and the scars and the way they manned their positions, they had military backgrounds.
Even though she wasn’t trained for such things, Lauren was used to watching people and figuring out what they were about. Living in foster homes had taught her that, and everything she had learned told her these men were dangerous.
She sorted through the tourist brochures hanging on one wall, selected a few, then walked back out of the hotel. Heath, dressed in the lightweight jacket and amber-tinted sunglasses, waited in her rental in the parking area adjacent to the hotel. He reached across and opened her door.
Lauren climbed in and sat, pulling the door closed. “Someone’s watching, but they’re not any of Gibson’s regular bodyguards. From the looks of them, they’re military.”
Heath’s eyes narrowed. “What is it with Gibson and these military guys? There has to be some connection.”
Lauren shook her head. “I don’t know. Like I told you before, Gibson is almost a nonentity in the magic circles. He just...appeared, and he vanishes whenever he wants to.”
“I know. Janet and I tried tracking him back through taxes, but all we ever reached was a legal firm that backed us off. We never got enough evidence to get a warrant to leverage the attorneys.”
“What about the attorneys? Do they have access to people like Roylston, Sisco and the others?”
Heath looked at her in surprise. “Janet and I never thought to ask about that.”
“Might be worth it.”
Heath nodded and used the cell phone he’d purchased after leaving Lauren’s hotel this morning. Lauren kept watch on their surroundings while he talked.
“Hey. Do me a favor. In the White Rabbit file on my computer, there’s a listing for the attorneys Janet and I tracked Gibson back to. Run a background check on those people, see if you turn up any ex-military or paramilitary connections.” Heath folded the phone and put it away. He looked up at the hotel.
“What are you thinking?”
“That my hotel room didn’t have any alarms on the windows.”
Looking out her window, Lauren spotted the fire escape snaking up the side of the building. “That’s not a good idea. If there are people watching the lobby, you can bet there’s someone watching the room.”
“Yeah. From the outside. I’m not going in from the outside.” Heath slid the revolver from under the seat and tucked it into the back of his pants. “Keep a lookout here. If you see something suspicious, call me on my cell.”
Worry knotted in Lauren’s stomach, but she knew better than to argue. It would only be wasted breath. “Good luck.”
Heath left the vehicle, and Lauren slid over behind the steering wheel. She watched as he walked to the rear of the hotel and started up the fire escape. Keeping an eye on Heath and the front door of the hotel was hard, but she managed.
Chapter 15
At the fourth floor landing on the fire escape, Heath paused and hunkered down. He peered through the sliding door, unable to see through the drapes.
Drawing back an arm, maneuvering so his back was to the sliding door, Heath thrust his elbow into the glass and broke it. Turning back around, he used his jacket so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints on the pieces and plucked out enough fragments to allow him t
o stick his hand through. Again using the jacket, he unlatched the door, opened it and strode through with the .357 in his hand.
His clothing lay strewn all over the room. The drawers were pulled out and dumped onto the floor. Someone had taken the poster of evidence. He cursed the theft and walked to the table where his gear was. The travel bag containing spare rounds for the revolver, restraints and other gear sat open under the table. His computer was gone.
A maid stepped out of the bathroom carrying folded towels. She wore earbuds that connected to an MP3 player hanging around her neck. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her skin was dark and she looked as if she was in her mid- to late twenties. The maid’s outfit didn’t flatter, but she had a hard, lean body.
“Oh. Sorry.” The woman spoke with an accent. “I didn’t think anyone was here.”
Heath started to reassure her that he meant no harm, then he realized she was carrying folded towels out of the bathroom, not into. More than that, she was supposedly cleaning a room that looked as though it had been burglarized.
He reached for the gun, sweeping it up as she fired a pistol of her own from under the towels. Bullets whipped by Heath and jerked at the curtain folds. The sliding glass door shattered and fragments tinkled against the floor. There were no gunshots, only liquid thwips that told him she was using a silencer.
Throwing himself sideways onto the bed, Heath fired twice. The shots sounded incredibly loud inside the room, and he knew they were going to be joined in seconds.
The woman staggered back, dropping the towels and the pistol. She leaned back against the wall beside the bathroom and bit her lower lip in pain. Her left hand covered her right shoulder. Blood soaked into her blouse.
Holding the .357 on the woman, Heath engaged the secondary locks on the door. He walked toward the woman. “Who are you?”
She glared at him, eyes narrowing. “Room service.”
“Tell me one that’ll make me laugh or I’ll put another bullet in you.” Heath reached for the MP3 player, held it in one hand, and managed to stick one of the earbuds into his ear.
Men’s voices carried over the frequency, not music. “That was a heavy-caliber pistol.”
“That woman had a silenced nine, man. That’s not her.”
“On my way up. You watch the lobby.”
“I will. If you see our target, give me a yell. I’ll cover your six.”
Heath pocketed the radio in his jacket pocket. “We don’t have a lot of time to get to know each other, and my dance card looks pretty full, so I’m going to ask you one more time. Who are you?”
She shook her head. “Nobody you would know. I was contracted to kill you.”
“By who?”
“By the man I work for. I don’t ask questions. He pays me not to ask questions.”
“Do you know Roylston?”
“I don’t know anybody by that name.”
“Let me see your arm.”
Reluctantly, the woman lifted her hand. The bullet had hit her in the shoulder, sliding in under the clavicle and over the top of the scapula. She had some rehab ahead of her, but she wasn’t in any serious danger of bleeding to death.
Taking advantage of his distraction, the woman attempted to knee him. Heath blocked her with his own knee and shoved her back hard enough to bounce her off the wall. He screwed the .357’s barrel into the side of her neck. “Don’t.”
She froze, mouth hard and set, her eyes fluttering as if she expected him to pull the trigger at any moment.
Heath reached down for one of the towels and draped it over her injured shoulder. “Keep the pressure on to stop the bleeding. Have your friends get you to a hospital.”
The woman hesitated, then nodded. “Thanks.” She was a total professional.
Heath picked up her pistol by the barrel, dumped it into the equipment bag, zipped it up and hoisted the bag over his shoulder as he sprinted for the fire escape.
* * *
Even with the window rolled down, Lauren only thought she heard gunshots. It wasn’t until people started running out of the hotel lobby that she had confirmation. She turned on the ignition, listened to the motor catch and glanced anxiously at the fire escape. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do if Heath didn’t appear there soon.
But he did.
He came out of the room and rapidly descended the stairs two and three at a time at a headlong pace that threatened to throw him off balance. By the time Heath reached the second floor, a man stepped out of the fourth floor room brandishing a large pistol. Lauren recognized him immediately as one of the two men she’d spotted in the lobby.
Leaning over the fire escape railing, the man fired three shots at Heath. The bullets ricocheted from the metal fire escape and from the hotel wall. The spang of metal on metal rang loudly. Heath threw himself over the second-floor landing and dropped the final story to the pavement, catching himself on one hand and bent knees. Turning, he brought his gun up and fired four times.
The return fire struck the fire escape around the gunman on the fourth floor, causing him to duck back to cover.
Lauren put the car in gear and sped closer to Heath, throwing open the passenger door. Heath tossed the bag into the backseat and climbed into the vehicle. He flicked the revolver open, shook out the empties, and started feeding new cartridges into the cylinder.
“Go! Now!” His gaze roved the street as Lauren wheeled the car in a tight turn and headed for the street. She floored the accelerator and held on to the steering wheel, hoping no one stepped out in front of her and a lane was clear in the street when she arrived there.
Bullets hammered the pavement around them. One cored through the roof of the car and knocked a hole in the floor next to Lauren’s left foot. Another round took out the back glass. Then she turned hard right, screeching out onto the street. The car fishtailed wildly, and she fought the wheel.
“Straighten it out! Straighten it out!” Heath’s hand flashed out and covered hers, holding the steering wheel tight. “Hold steady! Get the car under control first! Just like you would on slick ice!”
Lauren didn’t know how he could speak so calmly. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t have the time. The comparison to ice locked in for her, though. She was used to Chicago winters, and sometimes the streets felt the same way this out-of-control slalom felt. She stopped fighting the wheel and the car settled into place.
“Good. That’s it.”
Heath wasn’t even looking at her. His attention was riveted on the street.
“What are you doing?”
“Guys set up like that will have a chase car set up, too, if they wanted to seriously cover the hotel. I want to find it before it finds us.”
Lauren glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a dark sedan roaring up behind them, dodging in and out of traffic. “There it is! Behind us!”
“These guys are good.” Heath turned in the seat and brought the pistol up in both hands over the car seat. “Cover your ear if you can. This is going to get loud.”
Taking her right hand from the steering wheel, Lauren covered her right ear and waited tensely, grateful that the traffic in front of her was light. She pulled to the left, dodging around a Jeep, then popped back into the correct lane just as a cargo van rushed at her, horn blaring.
Glancing back in the rearview mirror, she saw the chase car was closing on them. Her heart thudded painfully, and she willed the car to go faster, but the engine just didn’t have any more to give.
Heath opened fire without warning. Six thunderous booms filled the car, and Lauren lost most of her hearing.
“Turn right.” Heath was beside her, yelling into her ear, and still he sounded as if he was a long way off. “Head into town. We have to find a place to lose this car.” He emptied his pistol again and started reloading.
Looking up into the rearview mirror again, Lauren saw that the chase car was falling back. Gray smoke billowed from under the hood and green fluid rained between the front tires
.
A few blocks farther on, the adrenaline aftershock hit Lauren, and she thought for a moment she was going to be sick. But she kept breathing, kept forcing her way through it, and she gradually calmed down.
“Are you okay?” Heath was looking at her so she could partially read his lips. When he’d at first leaned in, she’d thought he was going to kiss her again, and she knew she would have welcomed that. It was disappointing when she realized he was just trying to talk to her.
“Yes. I’m fine. Are you all right?”
“I’m good. Keep driving. I’ll give you directions.”
“All right.”
“In the meantime, I need you to call the rental agency and tell them your car has been stolen.”
“What?” She shook her head. “The police will start looking for it.”
“The police are already looking for it.” Heath pointed at an alley. “There. Pull in there.”
Obeying, Lauren drove the car into the alley. No one was around at the moment.
“Stop here.”
She did, but she couldn’t help looking back through the broken window, knowing that the police were going to drive up behind her at any moment. “We can’t stay here.”
Heath was already getting out. He paused to pick up the empty casings from his revolver, counting them silently—or maybe just too quietly to be heard through the deafness in her ears—till he was satisfied with the number. He slid them into a pocket and looked at her. “Get out.”
Lauren got out.
“Walk to the end of the alley and flag down a taxi. Hold it till I get there.”
Lauren started walking, almost up to a run in the short distance. She glanced around, afraid that a taxi wasn’t going to be nearby, then she spotted one coming up the street. She waved a hand to flag down the driver. She turned to call out to Heath, but he was already headed in her direction. Behind him, the rental car suddenly sprouted flames underneath it.
“What did you do?”
Heath took her by the arm and walked down the street away from the mouth of the alley. “I cut the gas line and lit a match. I want that car to be as confusing as possible for the forensics team when they get here. Did you call the rental company?”
No Escape Page 15
