And she’d overheard more than she’d let Munson know about, mostly because she hadn’t thought it that important at the time, and she was pissed because he wasn’t sharing all that he knew. The background sounds she’d heard during the call just might prove extremely important.
Egret Isle, FL,
Thursday, 22 September, 1200 hours
Atwah stood in the middle of the mansion’s foyer letting the air-conditioning cool his anger as much as his skin. He’d lost control. He could not afford to do that, not when he was so close to winning. A deep breath helped calm him and he steepled his hands against his mouth.
Genius often called for ingenuity and flexibility. And patience. He bowed his head as if in prayer. But thoughts of a god, or any power beyond his own, held little appeal. What he had accomplished he had done on his own. He looked around the opulent display of poor taste his brother’s wealth had bought and let sit empty most of the year. No, Atwah would not allow the FBI, or his brother’s weakness, to interfere with his plans.
Had not their father always insisted Man ruled because he’d adapted? Adapt or die. Well, Atwah had no intention of dying anytime soon.
He could, however, adapt. And unlike his older brother, he owed no one his allegiance.
* * *
Stillman watched Caitlyn’s breasts rise and fall in the slow rhythm of sleep. Afternoon heat had forced her to strip down to his favorite tank top. Now, she lay stretched out on the concrete in the helo’s shadow, her head pillowed on her discarded T-shirt, which rested on his thigh.
A long-ago song came to him. Yeah, she was killing him softly all right. His back rested against the helo’s wheel, his hand smoothing her hair back from her face. She’d released her ponytail and now its rich softness spread over his lap like an autumn blanket.
“Beer and nachos sure would hit the spot right now,” Joe said from his shady spot to Stillman’s right.
He glanced at the mechanic. Joe no longer dozed on his wadded-up flight suit and had stripped down to shirt and gym shorts in the roasting sun. Now he sat up, his gaze locked on Caitlyn’s sleeping form. “She’s pretty amazing.”
“One of a kind,” Stillman said, his hand continuing its lazy stroke.
“Most guys, especially her doctor-dates, think she’s high maintenance,” Joe volunteered. He unfurled his flight suit and began neatly rolling it up.
Stillman looked at the woman asleep on the concrete landing pad, dressed in military-issued drab, without a speck of makeup, and saw not only rare beauty, but also her innate courage. If he hadn’t met this version before the sex kitten he’d danced with Tuesday night, he wouldn’t have lost so much sleep. Because the real Caitlyn Stone was complicated as hell, fiercely loyal, passionate and funny, and goddamned if he wasn’t falling in love with her.
His body, heart and lungs stilled while what little brains he had left contemplated the beauty in his lap. The relentless sun had reddened her cheeks and shoulders. After Hilary, he’d vowed to keep his heart safely detached from females and their convoluted schemes. And here he was acting like a green recruit, contemplating dreams he thought he’d outgrown in the harsh reality of a failed marriage.
At thirty-five he’d craved normal, complete with kids, mortgage and a dog. All the things he’d missed in his own sterile childhood. In the beginning, Hilary claimed to want the same things. Somewhere along the way she discovered what she really wanted was his mother’s lifestyle. Turned out she loved being Mrs. Stillman Gray III more than she loved him.
He looked at Caitlyn’s face. A streak of hydraulic fluid marred her forehead. “No, Queeny’s not high maintenance. High expectations, maybe. Those fools only saw the pretty packaging, totally missing this side of her.” But was their loss really his gain?
Joe tossed a pebble into the palmettos. “Yeah, but I gotta warn ya, she has more shoes than any other pilot I know.”
Stillman’s mouth quirked up. If the spindly spiked concoctions he’d seen Tuesday night were a sample of her collection, he couldn’t wait to see the others. Being together didn’t have to be forever.
He tried to ignore the ache of regret that thought brought.
Joe cleared his throat and Stillman braced himself. With Ryan gone, Joe’d apparently inherited Royal Protection duty.
“You mentioned your parents the other night. Are they going to notice you’re gone?”
The innocent question hit like a shark in shallow water, unexpected and deadly, stealing his breath away with a slash of memory. He’d forgotten his father’s upcoming surgery. He stilled his hand until the tremor passed, then resumed the slow stroke.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Joe’s expression showed curiosity shadowed with concern. Despite an almost painful tightening of vocal cords, Stillman forced the words out. “My father. He’s having heart surgery.” A quick review of the past twenty-four hours brought a frown. “Shit. Tomorrow morning.”
* * *
The whisper of pain in Stillman’s voice woke Caitlyn. Heart surgery? He stopped his gentle stroking of her hair and she blinked. Had he planned on flying to New York? Would anyone tell his family why he wasn’t there?
His mouth tilted up in a sad-looking smile and he tugged on a lock of hair. “Have a nice nap?”
“Yeah.” The dark stubble on his jaw drew her hand upward. His eyes dilated when she skimmed her knuckle back and forth along the rough edge. An answering tremor settled low in her belly. “You need a shave.”
To hell with the shave, she wanted him naked in the shower. But Joe was asking about Stillman’s family and Caitlyn forced her mind away from more prurient designs on the doctor. Distance would help, along with donning her more modest T-shirt once again. Desire smoldering in Stillman’s heated gaze didn’t do much for her tenuous self-control.
She stood and pulled the faded Coast Guard Academy T-shirt over her head, then set about rebraiding her hair. And listened to Stillman answer Joe.
“I can’t decide which would be more upsetting, my not showing up tomorrow, or them hearing I’ve been hijacked.”
Caitlyn’s fingers stopped their weaving motion. She closed her eyes. Great, Caity. Not once had she thought about the impact the hijacking would have on her family. So much for that short-lived illusion she really wasn’t so self-centered.
“Do you think we made the news?” Joe asked. He scrambled to his feet and yelled at Yasin. “Hey, did we make the eleven o’clock news last night?”
Caitlyn’s stomach rolled with a beginner pilot’s wobble, even as she stood still. She must have made a distressed sound because both Stillman and Joe immediately flanked her.
“Are you okay?” Joe asked.
“Sit down before you fall down,” Stillman ordered. “Yasin! Bring a bottle of water!”
Caitlyn sank to her knees. “I’m fine. I-I just hadn’t thought about h-how this could affect my family.” She closed her eyes again. Her parents would be devastated if they’d heard about it on the news. Or, God forbid, what if they’d sent an officer along with a Coast Guard chaplain? It would be exactly like when Johnny died.
* * *
Stillman crouched next to Caitlyn. Her face had gone sand-white, highlighting freckles scattered over nose and cheeks. Her respiration danced on the edge of hyperventilation. “Put your head down.”
He slipped an arm around her waist and his palm on the crown of her head and pushed forward. Naturally she resisted. “Lieutenant, put your head down before you pass out,” he growled. Damn fool didn’t know when to quit fighting.
Muscles in her neck and back relented and she folded over his arm. “I’m okay,” she protested in a muffled voice.
He could feel small tremors passing through her body, creating an answering ache in his own. He wanted to shield her from any and all real and imagined pain.
“Yeah, honey, you keep rig
ht on tellin’ yourself that.” Yasin thrust a dripping bottle at him and he directed Joe to uncap it.
“Drink,” Joe said as he knelt on her other side.
“What’s wrong?” Yasin asked in a hushed voice.
“I think the queen just realized the royal family might have heard about our little party here.” From what she’d told him last week, he had no doubt her parents would freak over the news of their little girl’s capture. And God forbid they believed she’d been hurt. Or worse.
He looked up at Yasin, framed by late-afternoon sunlight. “Are they keeping this thing under wraps? Did anyone contact our families about what’s going on?” For once he hoped Hilary had stuck her nose in and taken whatever call might have been directed to his parents.
Yasin nodded sharply. “I heard this morning there was a news leak when they brought the swimmer in last night. But that’s been controlled. The Coast Guard would have notified the crew’s next-of-kin. The army probably took care of your contact. No particulars would have been divulged, just the usual, we’re doing all we can, don’t talk to the media, blah, blah, blah.”
Caitlyn shook off Stillman’s hand and raised her head. “Clay’s alive?”
Yasin’s expression turned wary. “Yeah. He was wounded, but he pulled through.”
Stillman stopped her surge forward.
“You little bastard. Why would you keep that from us?” Her eyes were shooting laser-guided missiles. “Any word on Ryan?”
“N-no. My next contact will be late tonight. I’ll see what I can find out.” He stood and took a step back as if concerned she might attack. “I think you should return to your quarters. Atwah will be expecting a report on the repair efforts.”
Joe nudged Caitlyn’s water bottle toward her mouth and she took another sip before he answered Yasin.
“Nothing’s wrong with the helo. It’ll fly whenever he wants. But fuel could be a factor, depending on the destination.”
Yasin gestured loosely with the AK-47 toward the gravel path. “I wish I knew the answer to that one. Come on, we’d better head back.”
Stillman kept his arm around Caitlyn’s waist as she stood unsteadily. Her fleeting protest told him how upset she really was. Hell, now he was missing her I’m-in-control attitude?
Joe walked ahead while Yasin followed at a discreet distance, giving Stillman and Caitlyn a semblance of privacy.
He pulled her tight to his side as he matched his stride to hers. “From what you told me, your parents are used to handling emergencies. Isn’t that life as usual with a platoon of kids?”
She surprised him by resting her head against his shoulder as they walked. “Yeah, I guess. But I can’t forget what it was like when the army showed up on our doorstep to tell us Johnny had died. I was there when it happened.”
A tremor, like an aftershock trailing an earthquake, rippled through her. “Mom seemed more worried about my reaction than the fact she’d just lost her only brother.”
She made it sound like it was a hard thing to believe. “Honey, when it comes to closeness, I think daughters trump brothers every time.” He gave her a squeeze. “Was this the Johnny that taught you how to fly?”
She’d been surprisingly reticent when she’d mentioned his name the night he took her up in his plane. But he’d heard a wealth of emotion in the lone reference to the man who’d shared his love of the sky with his young niece.
The crunch of their footsteps on gravel and the incessant crash of surf and seagull calls filled the air. All right, fine, apparently Johnny wasn’t a subject open for discussion. The bite of that little rejection shouldn’t have felt bone-deep. But it did.
Jacksonville, FL,
Thursday, 22 September, 1845 hours
Valerie eased the cold pack from around her neck and squinted at the computer monitor. She might not possess the clout of the federal government, but she did have a sharp, if slightly nefarious mind. And her contacts didn’t have to worry about following any legal protocols like the FBI did.
She checked the Waterford clock on her desk. Fifteen minutes before she could take another pill. Her eyes burned and her stomach still threatened to heave, but she hadn’t lost her sight, so she could continue connecting the dots.
A few more taps of her fingers brought up more associations between the two calls she’d overheard. Rather than scroll the dense pages of text, she typed another name in the Find query box and punched Enter. It only took hitting the Find Next button three times to get what she wanted. Thank you for being so damned conceited, you little bastard.
Not trusting her migraine-impaired eyesight, she printed the pages with the highlighted names. Closer inspection and slower reading confirmed her earlier elation. Through a very dubious source who considered her family because of his relationship with her father, she’d found a link to a Ray Atwah. Diligent digging had uncovered the names of parents and a brother.
Born to an Iranian father and an American mother, both academics in Middle Eastern culture and politics, he’d been uprooted from his Massachusetts home at the age of eleven. From there it appeared his life had gone downhill rapidly. A suicide bomber killed his father within five years of his return to Iran. His mother seemed to have disappeared shortly after; an uncle, with radical political beliefs and a strong hatred for anything Western, took in “Atwah” and his brother.
More links and a few discreet phone calls led to more information and an hour later Valerie gave up trying to fight the nausea any longer. As she knelt in her cold office bathroom, she knew her life was in very real danger.
Egret Isle, FL,
Thursday, 22 September, 2025 hours
Stillman watched Caitlyn circle their room like an airliner stacked above O’Hare. She’d been acting strange ever since she’d thought about her parents’ reaction to the hijacking. Then, after a subdued dinner brought to their room, she and Joe started exchanging odd little looks. He’d even caught her blushing over some gesture Joe’d made. Now Joe was in the shower and the queen was wearing a path in the concrete.
If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she and Joe were lovers planning a rendezvous.
He stretched out on the bed, his hands stacked behind his head. “Mind tellin’ me what’s got you so worked up?”
Her step faltered and her face reddened again. Definitely some royal intrigue going on. Water stopped running in the shower and she shifted direction abruptly. She avoided meeting his gaze and plunked her butt onto the end of his bed and began unlacing her boots.
He’d half-expected her to choose Joe’s bed over his, given her jumpy behavior. Joe came out of the bathroom wearing faded gym shorts and a ratty USCG T-shirt. Obviously another set of clothes stashed for emergencies. He headed to his bed without glancing their way, then made a production of putting in foam earplugs. He rummaged through his flight suit and pulled out a set of hearing protection muffs, the kind used when working on helos with engines running, and plopped them on his head before lying down.
“What the hell are you doing?” Stillman asked, sitting up.
Caitlyn started laughing then lobbed Stillman’s pillow at Joe. “He’s being a moron.” She stood and tugged on Stillman’s arm. “Come on. He obviously doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
Stillman resisted Caitlyn. “Come on where? It’s not like we have a lot of choices here.” Hell, they were both acting weird.
Caitlyn gave an exasperated sigh then grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and yanked it over her head. She tossed it at him and took two backward steps. “I think we need to practice water conservation.”
Two more steps and she began easing his favorite tank top up, exposing her creamy stomach with a challenging gleam in her eye.
He shot a hasty look toward Joe, but the mechanic was lying on his back with his eyes closed. Son of a bitch. They’d planned his seduction together.
Her pink tank hit him in the face as he lunged off the bed. Three quick strides and he was in the bathroom in time to see her shimmying out of her flight suit.
He blinked in disbelief. “Thank God I didn’t know you had that on under there,” he managed to choke out.
Caitlyn stood facing him wearing the lacy black bra that exposed more than it covered, and a black thong that had to be illegal in at least three states. “Honey, you’re out of uniform.”
Her husky chuckle added to his already hard condition.
“My only question is, how come you’re not?”
He untied the looped arms of his flight suit before reality bit him in the butt. “Shit, I don’t have any protection with me.” Hardly in the habit of carrying condoms on a normal day, he sure as hell hadn’t thought to bring any for a training mission.
Caitlyn’s wicked smile would have short-circuited his brain if there’d been any blood left in it. She bent over to pick up her discarded uniform and his heart went arrhythmic. He wanted to bury his face in her perfect and oh-so-generous cleavage. Jesus, she was built.
“Joe gave me his and Ryan’s stash,” she was saying as she straightened up. She opened her fist to reveal a half dozen or more assorted condoms.
“Queeny, I’ve died and gone to heaven.” Uncensored and unashamed he let his gaze roam every square inch of her edible body. His imagination hadn’t come near the reality that stood proudly for inspection.
“Not yet you haven’t,” she said softly. She tossed the condoms on the tiled sink and stepped forward. “Heaven will be when you’re buried deep inside me.”
He lost all power of speech with that little pronouncement.
She stopped when she stood a breath away. And took the edge of his borrowed T-shirt in her hands. “Isn’t it time you put some skin in this game, Doctor?”
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