by Peggy Jaeger
She repeated her question.
“At a friend’s.”
From the top of the stairs a door opened and the dark hallway was bathed in shards of sunlight. A massive silhouette stepped in front of the light, blocking it.
The skin on the back of Gemma’s bare arms chilled. Instinctively, she moved back a step and rammed into Ky. The feel on his hand winding around her waist calmed her immediately. She told herself she’d think about exactly why that was, later. For now, just knowing he literally had her back eased her fear.
The giant said something to Ky in a language she didn’t recognize. She felt his own voice reverberate along the length of her spine when he responded in kind and she realized they were speaking Greek.
The giant stepped back, swiped a hand through the open door and said, “Please come in, Miss Laine. I assure you I don’t bite.”
She stumbled into the room when he added, “Unless I’m asked to, of course.”
* * *
Gemma looked around the room and tried not to gasp. There wasn’t an inch she could see that wasn’t covered with some sort of computer device. Dozens of colored electrical wires dropped from the ceiling, cascading down the center and sides of the room, attached to at least ten computer hard drives that were visible. She counted an equal number of differing sized monitors all in a row, set across two massive tables, each one of them on and processing data across their screens. Two forty-inch flat-screen televisions took up one complete wall. They, too, were turned on, both tuned to opposing financial market stations.
A dull, persistent, mechanical hum permeated in the air.
The windows were covered with clear plastic from pane to pane with what looked like aluminum foil surrounding the borders.
Once the door closed behind them, the giant grabbed Ky into what Gemma truly could call a bear hug, and slapped him on the back several times.
“It’s been too long, brother,” the man said.
“Truth.” Ky turned his attention to her. “This is one of my oldest friends, Theo Kanikaredes. Theo, Gemma Laine.”
She took her first clear look at him. He really did look like a bear; a teddy bear. Yards of unruly, curly black hair covered his head, and an equally messy beard, his face. He was at least half a head taller than Ky and twice as wide, with shoulders as broad as the back of a truck. A faded, elbow-bare MIT sweatshirt covered his torso, the same logo gracing the side of his baggy sweatpants.
Eyes the color of fresh coffee beans crinkled at the corners when his face broke into an open smile.
“Theo and I went from kindergarten to high school, and all through Greek school, together.”
“Xaipete. Welcome,” Theo said, slapping Ky on the back again. “But I don’t think you’re here to talk about old times, eh?”
“We need your help.” Ky quickly filled him in on the reason they’d appeared at his door.
Theo’s gaze shifted several times from his friend’s face to Gemma’s and then back again.
“First things first.” Theo moved to one of several desks in the room, opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle and two shot glasses.
“Theo, I can’t,” Ky said, watching his friend pour. “I’m on duty.”
The giant said something in Greek that Gemma knew was an oath. She’d heard Ky grunt the same thing when they’d been in the hotel room. He downed a shot glass full of the liquid, re-poured, and downed another.
With a full body shake, he put the bottle and glass back into the drawer.
“Now,” he addressed Ky. “Tell me what you need.”
While the two men talked, Gemma sat on the only cushioned chair in the room. The computer monitors scrolled continuously around her, scores of numbered columns flashing against the blackened screens in a continual motion. It looked like a scene out of movie about an underground cyber world.
She scrubbed her hands down her face. Her nerves felt like flayed and exposed electrical wires. There was a fine tremble in her hands that wouldn’t completely quell. She’d never been so scared in her life as when they’d been fired upon. That she might die in the van, never seeing her family again, never taking another picture, ran through her mind in a continual loop while they were under attack.
Anger pushed through the raw, stark fear, the churning bile. The urge to scream at the top of her voice, to hit something hard, to fight against this seemingly endless nightmare, was powerful. She was supposed to be safe now; he’d promised her she would be. No one knew where they were heading, but yet again, they’d been found and ambushed.
It was obvious he couldn’t keep her safe, no matter how hard he tried. And Gemma did believe he had done everything he could. Even through her anger she recognized that. He’d never let go of her hand during their entire trek, never once. He was her protector, her defender, her guard, and he hadn’t shirked his duty for one moment since she’d been placed in his care.
Despite all his efforts, though, she was still in danger.
Leaning back into the cushion, she allowed her eyes to close and tried to calm her mind while the men spoke in Greek.
An idea wormed its way through her exhaustion.
A gentle hand on her shoulder pulled her back to the land of the living.
She startled instantly awake. “Wha—“
“You’re okay.” Ky squeezed her shoulder.
Gemma bolted upright in the cushioned chair to find him and his friend staring down at her.
“I fell asleep?”
“Only for a few minutes, I think,” Theo said. “And totally understandable.”
“We need to get moving,” Ky told her. “I need to get you out of here, out of the city.”
“Where?”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out,” Theo said. “It seems as if no place is out of this wacko’s reach so far.”
Ky shot him a speaking glace, then looked back at Gemma.
Before he could say a word, she swallowed and said, “I have an idea.”
Chapter Eight
Ky swerved around the narrow bend in the road, barely missed grazing a low-slung tree branch, and bit back the curse dancing on his lips. Next to him, Gemma consulted a map using a flashlight.
How Ky got talked into this crazy scheme, he couldn’t begin to understand. But here he was, in the dead of night, driving a beat-up, ready-for-the-crusher two-door sedan that should have been junked ten years ago, up a mountain thoroughfare that barely qualified as a road and not a rut.
“It looks like we make the next right turn,” Gemma said, pulling the map closer to her eyes. “Another quarter mile or so. There’s a marking on the right side of the trail that’ll read: Gossamer Way.”
A thoroughly stupid name for a road in the middle of nowhere. “How far is the cabin from the turnoff?”
“About a mile,” she said. “Give or take.”
Ky shook his head. So far, as a human GPS, Gemma was doing a fair job—they hadn’t gotten lost yet, but he would have preferred an actual navigational system. They couldn’t take a chance on using anything that could be electronically tracked, though.
“The text says it’s the only place for ten miles in any direction, so we should be safe enough for the moment.”
For the moment was the operative phrase, he told himself.
After speaking with Theo for over an hour and still having no idea what he was going to do, Gemma had the idea to contact her brother-in-law and ask for help, since, as she put it, “he was the best at what he did and would know what to do.” Ky’s pride had been wounded, the not-so-veiled implication being that he didn’t. At first he’d nixed the idea, but Gemma had argued her case astutely, telling him that Josh was used to subterfuge and even if Ritandi’s men had him and his business under surveillance because of his connection to her, Josh was an expert and knew how to help them without being seen
to do so. The pride and love she felt for the man rang through her voice, once again shooting his ego down.
Gemma trusted her brother-in-law implicitly with her life; that was a fact. It was obvious she didn’t afford him the same assurance.
Ky had given in to her request and so far her confidence in Keane had proven sound.
Through an untraceable cell Theo had provided, Ky had contacted Keane on what Gemma called his bat phone—a cell no one but those closest to Josh had access to—and had been able to relay what had occurred during the past day.
Several back-and-forth calls later from various phones, and Keane had arranged for them to pick up the barely alive car they were currently in from a friend who, Josh told them, owed him a favor. Under the front seat they’d found an envelope with more than three thousand dollars in small bills with a note that read “For gas and sundries,” and two bags of groceries in the trunk.
When Ky met up with the private investigator again, he was determined to find out what the favor had been.
They were on their way to a cabin in northern Pennsylvania that belonged to Josh’s partner, Rick Bannerman. Josh had texted them the access codes to the cabin’s security system, telling them not to worry, the name on the deed wasn’t Rick’s and couldn’t be connected back to him.
That was the single reason Ky had consented to driving them out of state. No matter how deep the moles who worked for Ritandi dug, they shouldn’t be able to locate the two of them. Theo had provided several disposable burner phones, in addition to a laptop he guaranteed Ky was “invisible.” To Gemma, Theo explained it meant no one would be able to zero in on their location when they used it.
If this panned out and he was able to keep Gemma safe, and get back on track with trying to locate Ritandi, Ky knew he owed Gemma’s brother-in-law big time.
“There’s the marker.” Gemma pointed through the windshield.
He turned the car down an unlit, unpaved road, riddled with potholes and channels. He was forced to keep their speed down to a little above a crawl just to ensure the chassis wouldn’t fall off before they reached their destination.
“At least we’ll know if anyone approaches the cabin.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“They’ll need ATVs or loud heavy machinery to get safely down this poor excuse for a road.”
When she didn’t reply, he took his gaze from the dead-of-dark view in front of them and snuck a glance at her. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the ghost of a grin pulled at her mouth.
She had to be beyond exhausted. He knew he was. The punch of adrenaline had run through both of them once they’d made it safely from Theo’s apartment to the arranged pick-up place for the car. They hadn’t stopped to eat, wanting to put as much distance between themselves and any more of Ritandi’s men as they could, opting to share a bag of potato chips and a liter of water they bought at a rest stop along the highway when they’d gassed up.
Tomorrow, he promised himself, he’d make her the French toast she’d missed—God, was it only this morning? It felt like days since they’d fled the safe house.
“I can see it up ahead,” he told her. The bright headlights cut through the inky darkness to outline a small, rectangular structure.
He pulled the car right up to the front of the cabin and stopped. When he didn’t shut the engine, Gemma turned to him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just want to get a look at it before we go in.”
Gemma glanced out the front windshield and then turned to the passenger side window. “I can’t see a thing in all this dark, but dark.” She opened the door and slid her legs out.
Ky was in the process of reaching around to the back seat where she’d tossed the flashlight before he could stop her from exiting the car. A sudden, brilliant burst of light exploded from the front porch.
“Motion detector lights. Rick thinks of everything.” Gemma jogged up the porch steps, punched in the alarm code they’d been left and opened the door.
Damn it. Did the woman not realize even after all that had happened, she was still in danger?
“Wait!” he called, bolting from the car, but she’d already gone into the cabin.
Ky sprinted up the porch steps after her, his gun poised.
“It’s bigger than it looks like from the outside,” he heard her say. “Why do you have your gun out?” she asked, her brows pulled up under her bangs when she turned toward him.
“Because you can’t just sprint ahead of me into a place I haven’t made sure is secure.” He cursed and moved right up into her face, unable to leash his anger. “You have no idea if anyone is in here and you barge into the house without any regard for your safety or the consequences. That’s just stupid and careless.”
He realized he was yelling when her back went ramrod straight and her eyes darkened. “Don’t you dare call me stupid—”
He cut her off with a swipe of his hand. “Then don’t act without thinking. Running into a building without checking it out first is a stupid move. We’ve already been ambushed twice today. I’m not in the mood to be blindsided again.”
If looks could kill, he’d be six feet under just from the deadly heat in her squinting gaze. In the next instant, her eyes went wide and the lips scowling at him turned pale.
He’d forced her to remember the details of their day. A small amount of guilt at bringing the fear back to her shot through him, but with it, resolve, because he was right to call her on her reckless behavior.
“Look.” He pulled down deep for calm. “I know you thought this place was fine because it’s your friend’s house. I get that. But you need to let me do my job, which is keeping you safe. You had no idea if this place was empty, you just presumed it was because you were told it would be. I can’t think that way. I have to assume and prepare for every potential threat, and running into an empty house without first making sure it is, in fact unoccupied, is one of those potential threats.”
She swallowed, the movement of her long throat making the motion almost erotic.
“Do you understand?”
“Y-yes. I’m, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I…I’m just…sorry.”
He gentled his voice even more, hating the fear now glazing over her face. “I understand this is all confusing and unfamiliar to you, and if there were any way I could turn back time to before you ever saw Calafano walking down that street, believe me, I would. But I can’t. You’re in danger and I need to ensure that nothing happens to you. I can’t do that if you don’t listen to me and let me lead you through all this. Okay?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t wait. I never even thought to.”
It was Ky’s turn to nod. “And I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
He knew what the apology cost her, so he felt giving his own would even things between them. He was happy to see some of her color returning. “Let me take a quick look around and then we can bring in our gear. Okay?”
It was Gemma’s turn to nod.
“Just stay here.” The front door opened into a wide, wall-to-wall living area. Ky’s eyes swept the room. A stone fireplace took up space to the left, an L-shaped sofa and chairs in front of it. A remodeled kitchen and breakfast bar was at the opposite side of the room, three closed doors along a hallway beside it, and an open staircase leading to a second floor. While Gemma stood in the center of the room, Ky took a quick tour of the upstairs.
“From the outside this place looks like just one story,” he said when he came back to her.
When he was satisfied the house was truly empty except for the two of them, they brought in everything from the car without a word. He hoped Gemma’s silence meant she was considering what he’d told her and accepting how serious the situation was for them.
They were in a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere with no Agency backup, no one except her brother-in-la
w and his partner knew where they were, and he had no weapons except for his Glock to protect them.
He’d never felt so powerless and unprepared in his life.
Gemma placed the bags of food on the kitchen counter and then opened the closed doors off the hallway.
“Small bathroom, pantry,” he said, following behind as she peeked inside each, “and bedroom.”
She opened the door fully and stepped inside. “Lucy and Ricky beds.”
“What?”
He came into the room with her.
Two dressers, two twin-size beds, and a small closet were the only furnishings. The beds were made; colorful Americana quilts atop them.
She turned around to him, a look of confusion sliding across her face. “Lucy and Ricky?” she said. When he didn’t answer, she added, “The Ricardos? The television show? No?”
Ky dropped his hands in his pockets. “Sorry. We didn’t watch a lot of TV in my house.”
“But you have to know about I Love Lucy.” Her eyes actually widened. “The whole planet knows who she is.”
Ky shook his head and again said, “Sorry.”
Her mouth closed into a thin line of what he assumed was disgust.
“Who doesn’t know Lucy Ricardo?” she muttered, as she shook her head, went past him, and out of the room.
He knew he’d gone down another notch in her esteem. Ky pressed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger, squeezed once, and then followed her from the room.
“The two bedrooms up here have a connecting bathroom,” she called from above him. When he looked up she was leaning against the stair rail.
“Do they have, what did you call them? Ricardo beds, too?”
For the first time in hours, she smiled. It was as if the sun had decided to come out in the dead of night. She came down the stairs, her smile still in place. “Lucy and Ricky beds, and no. These are kings, not twins.”
Ky nodded, pushing the thought from his mind of what she would look like spread across a king-sized bed, naked and waiting for him.
“Okay.” He prayed his voice didn’t betray his thoughts. Thoughts he had no call letting slip into his conscious mind. “It’s late. Why don’t you get to bed? I’m sure you’re tired.”
