As she passed by a house, the front door opened, spilling a square of light directly onto Sam. A cat strolled out, and the woman who’d opened the door jumped back, startled at finding Sam in the street. “Dios mio!” She pulled her sweater closed over her chest as if for protection.
“Airporto?” Sam asked her.
The woman gave her a strange look, but pointed in the direction in which Sam was already headed, and then closed the door. Sam took a moment to pet the friendly cat. Then she headed off again, trudging down the dirt road. On the outskirts of town, two roads met at right angles and then disappeared into the distance. But there was, blessedly, a sign: aeropuerto.
She could have used a restaurante at this point, or at least a bottle of agua, but she kept walking. Her exertions had warmed her and dried her clothes to a soft dampness that promised the onset of jungle rot if left in place for too long.
If she ignored her hunger and thirst, not to mention her headache and cuts, it was a pleasant night for a walk. The half-moon and stars were bright enough to distinguish road from grass. She remembered the magical times she and Chase had roamed the Utah plateaus in moonlight and made love under starry skies in the thick forests of the Olympic Peninsula. Was he still alive?
A few dark shapes darted across the road—lizards, at least one snake, and what looked like a rat, which wasn’t supposed to exist in the islands at all. But then again, neither were the cats and dogs she’d seen here. She stumbled twice, once tripping over a loose rock, and again when an iguana darted between her feet instead of out of her way.
A cluster of dim lights shone in the distance. She followed them to a couple of metal buildings and a runway. The first building she passed was dark and padlocked, but lights spilled from the open door of the second one. She heard voices. A small jet was parked close to the building, with its folding stairway leading down from an open door. She scurried in that direction, keeping to the shadows.
Was this Jonathan Sanders’s—Sandman’s—private jet? She skirted the side of the building. Standing in the shadows, she strained to see the logo on the jet. A giant S-something-something swoopy and more somethings. Sand-? No. SkyCo ExecuJets. Not helpful.
She sidled closer to the open building doorway to listen, and heard multiple male voices she didn’t recognize, but they were all speaking American English, which seemed like a good sign. Then she heard a deep, familiar voice say, “Keep looking. We’ll be here.” She’d know that voice anywhere. She’d woken up next to that man more than once.
Stepping forward into the square of brightness, feeling a bit like the proverbial dead spirit going to the light, she put up a hand to block out the glare from the unshielded bulb above. Adam Steele stood on the concrete floor with his back to her, blond hair gleaming in the light, beer in hand, chatting with three other men. Two wore white uniform shirts and pressed khaki pants. The third, like Adam, wore an expensive lightweight travel shirt and pants with more pockets than anyone would ever need. They all stood around a folding table laden with—food! Her stomach growled at the sight of sandwiches and cookies.
“Adam,” she said softly.
They all turned to stare at her.
“Sam!” Adam, looking movie-star-handsome as usual, swooped down to fold her in his arms. She briefly felt the cool dampness of his beer bottle against her shoulder blade. Then he backed off almost immediately, waving a hand in the air. “Whew! Everyone’s looking for you on that other island . . .”
“Santa Cruz,” the man in the plainer uniform shirt supplied. Copilot, Sam guessed.
The guy with the black ponytail was grinning like some sort of simpleton. The man with gold braid and epaulets—obviously the pilot—flipped open his cell phone.
“Looking for you on Santa Cruz,” Adam repeated. “For hours.” He pointed the neck of his beer bottle at her. “Where the hell have you been?”
“It was too hot in that jail. I decided to go for a swim.” She grabbed the bottle out of Adam’s hand. The cold brew tasted wonderful. She moved to the table, snagged a sandwich, and wolfed it down, chugging beer between swallows. The men stared. She couldn’t have cared less. Finally she wiped her mouth, burped, and elaborated, “The police were taking me to Guayaquil, but then I escaped and stowed away on a go-fast boat.”
“We’ve got her,” Epaulets said into his cell.
“Who are you talking to?” she demanded. The pilot glanced at her out of the corner of his eye but didn’t answer. Her pulse jumped into double-time. She turned to Adam. “Who is he talking to?” Were the police going to descend with flashing lights and handcuffs any second?
Adam shrugged, seemingly unconcerned.
Black Ponytail said, “You gave poor Sergeant Schwartz a concussion. He needed eight stitches.”
She quirked an eyebrow at the stranger. “Poor Schwartz?”
The stranger nodded. “He risks his career to help you escape and you K-O the poor schlub before our Piper can land.”
She blinked at him. Black Ponytail was starting to feel familiar, though she would swear she had never laid eyes on him before. “Schwartz is one of the good guys?”
“He is today. Tomorrow, who knows? When that woman from NPF, Dr. Brady—”
“Bradley,” Sam corrected. So J.J. hadn’t boarded a plane after all. Some word from her would have been nice, though.
“Anyhow, when Dr. Bradley tried to strong-arm the authorities into letting you go, Schwartz made some back alley deal with her.”
Epaulets chimed in. “The rest of the police are still searching for a murderer on the loose, though, so we’d better take off while we can. I’ll prep the jet. C’mon, Lyle.” The two uniforms took off in the direction of the runway.
Ponytail spoke again. “Yeah, let’s boogie. Schwartz didn’t volunteer for WildWest to clock him like that, although it certainly adds credibility to his tale of a vicious escaped criminal.”
“Wyatt?” Sam asked, suddenly realizing that Ponytail wasn’t precisely a stranger. “Tad Wyatt?”
He grinned. “You didn’t really think I’d leave you and Zing here, did you, WildWest?”
Hell yes, she did think exactly that. “Why didn’t you tell me the plan?”
“Too risky. Plus, we had no way of knowing it would work out.” He shrugged. “And you made it; you’re here. Besides, it makes a better story this way, don’t you think?”
“It’s a hell of a story,” Adam agreed enthusiastically. “Why didn’t we bring a photographer? Sam, where’s your camera equipment?”
“Uh. Back in the police transport?” Along with the laptop and her duffel bag with all her personal effects in it. She was happy nobody was taking a photo of her right now; she no doubt looked as bad as she smelled.
Then Adam held out his cell phone between them, raised it half an inch, and tapped the screen.
Drat. There was no privacy anymore.
Adam grabbed her arm. “Where’s Zing? You guaranteed an exclusive.”
“I guarantee that Zing will be on the plane,” she told him. “She’ll tell you everything. Can we go now?” She wouldn’t feel secure until they touched down in the U.S.A. “Sanders isn’t coming?”
Adam’s forehead wrinkled. “Who?”
“Jonathan Sanders. Sandman. The guy who sent the note telling me to come here.”
Adam laughed. “I think you mean San—dee—man. As in San-capital D for Diego-man.”
“What?” Suddenly it all made sense. “You’re SanDman?”
“Of course. You know Jonathan Sanders?” Adam’s eyes gleamed. “The Jonathan Sanders?”
Headlights abruptly zoomed into view. The police? No! The crunch of tires stopping too fast on gravel made Sam turn for the shadows. Adam grabbed her arm again. “Wait.”
The car door opened and slammed shut again, and as Sam tried to shake Adam off to make her escape, a lone figure dashed toward the building, grumbling, “That town is just plain creepy after dark. This dried-up old troll in the bar said—Sam!” A spiky-h
aired girl sprinted forward and threw her arms around her.
“Maya?” Sam hugged her and then stepped back. “Maya? What are you doing here?” She turned toward Adam. “What is Maya doing here? How do you even know each other?”
Adam shook his head. “This girl has called nonstop for two days. Not to mention Blake.”
“But mostly me,” Maya bragged. Sam noted that the girl’s short spiky hair was midnight black now, not the maroon it had been the last time she’d seen her a few months ago.
“But what is she doing here?” she asked Adam.
Maya rolled her eyes. “Hablo español. These turkeys can barely order a taco.”
Sam stared at the girl.
The teenager put her hands on her hips. “My name’s not Maya Velasquez ’cause Grandma came over on the freakin’ Mayflower, you know.”
“But I’ve never heard you speak a word of Spanish.”
“Why would I speak Spanish around you?”
Good point. But how could Maya board a plane for South America? “I’m surprised you have a passport.”
“I asked for one so I could take school trips to Canada.”
The kid had a passport for school trips? Maya’s teen years were a far cry from what Sam’s had been like, growing up in rural Kansas. Sam had had no need for a passport until well into adulthood. Which reminded her. She reached for her back pocket, surprised to discover that her own passport was still inside. She pulled it out and began to peel apart the sodden pages. “Where does your foster mother think you are right now?” she asked.
“Foster mother?” Adam squeaked, taking an involuntary step forward.
“Oops.” Wyatt fingered his earring nervously.
Ignoring both men, Maya told her, “Overnight at the Seattle Aquarium?”
Adam stepped between them. “You have a foster mother?” he asked Maya.
“She’s seventeen,” Sam told his back.
“Seventeen?” He stared at the girl in horror.
Sam put her hand on Adam’s arm and turned him around. “And you tell me I should be more careful.”
“Cripes,” he groaned. “This is not going in any news story.” He turned back to Maya. “As far as I’m concerned, young lady, you are not here at all.”
Maya rolled her eyes again. “Whatever.”
The pilot stuck his head in the door. “Anyone else planning to take off with me?”
Sam tried to put her arm around Maya as they walked toward the plane, but the teen shrugged it off. “I’d love to get all teddy bear with you, Sam,” she said, “except, I mean, like, you’re a little rank.”
Sam laughed. “I forgive you. Maybe you could loan me a clean shirt?”
“Good idea.”
“How did you know about me and Adam, anyway?” They’d split up long before she’d met Maya.
“I Google, you know. I looked up all that old cougar stuff and saw that he was the reporter. Then the way it all went together, Blake said you used to date a television reporter, so . . . duh! Adam Steele.”
“Duh,” Sam repeated, grinning at Adam.
They entered the jet, the pilot coming up the stairway last, and then pulling it up after himself.
Sam plopped down into a seat. Maya sat down next to her and began pawing through her backpack.
“Wait!” Adam turned to Sam. “Where’s Zing?”
“Sorry, I’m bound by nondisclosure.” She intended to run her fingers through her hair in a nonchalant gesture, but the salty tangles thwarted that goal, and all she ended up accomplishing was to open up the cut in the web of her right hand. She rubbed her bleeding hand on the front of her T-shirt, noting for the first time that the fabric was already splotched with bloodstains. So were the khaki pants she had on. She’d have to wrestle Adam’s phone away from him and delete that photo he’d taken.
From his seat across the tiny aisle, Tad Wyatt grinned at Adam. “You’re staring at Zing right now.”
“What?” Adam glanced from Sam to Maya and then back to Wyatt. Then Wyatt and Maya opened their mouths at the same time and chorused, “Duh!”
Sam looked at Maya. The girl widened her eyes at Sam’s unspoken question and shook her head in teen disgust. “You told me all about the scuba diving lessons?”
It took Adam almost a minute to clue in. As they began to taxi down the runway, he dropped into the seat across from Sam. “I of all people should have known.”
He buckled his seat belt and looked deep in thought as the jet gathered speed. Then as it left the ground, he shouted over the roar of the engine, “This is even better!” When they’d leveled off, he extracted a tiny notepad and pen from his shirt pocket. “Murrow Award, here I come!”
Sam managed to stay awake long enough to tell him almost the whole story of her week in the Galápagos. As she pulled up a blanket and reclined her seat, Adam frowned and said, “Wait a minute! Who killed Daniel Kazaki?”
During her long solitary walk, she’d come to a conclusion about what she’d say if she was still alive at this point. “His death has been reported as an accident. But as far as I’m concerned, the shark poachers killed him. Dan would never have died if he hadn’t been risking his life to collect evidence against them.” Take that, Carlos Santos. Ricardo Diaz. Gun-toting idiot kids who shot Bergit. And all the rest of you thugs that I never met.
They stopped twice to refuel before reaching San Diego, where a television camera crew met them. Adam had allowed her to comb her tangled tresses back into a braid and wash the worst crud from her face, but she had no makeup to cover the bruise on her brow from banging her head against the boat and the scratches across her cheek she’d picked up diving out of the police car. He insisted she put her bloody T-shirt back on for the short interview.
After agreeing that she would return for a longer session with the station’s talk show in a few days and that she would write the full story for Out There, she borrowed money and a cell phone from Tad Wyatt and made him promise to see that Maya got safely home to Tacoma. Then Sam boarded a flight to Salt Lake City.
27
While sitting on the runway in San Diego, Sam called the ski resort where she and Chase were supposed to be staying right now. Chase had never arrived.
She showed up at the FBI Building in Salt Lake City, determined to get the truth about Chase out of them. With six inches of snow on the streets, she must have looked deranged dressed in Wyatt’s extra large blue Out There windbreaker, Maya’s fuchsia-colored i love boobies souvenir T-shirt, her bloody tropical weight khakis, and sandals. When she told the front desk guard what she was after, the guy immediately pointed at a row of chairs lining the wall, then picked up the phone.
As the elevator door opened, she was afraid that a couple of federal thugs might appear and take her away. Instead, Nicole Boudreaux, Chase’s partner, stepped into the lobby. Her right arm was in a black sling and her face was lined with fatigue, but her light gray pantsuit was expensive and spotless, and every hair in her chin-length auburn bob was in place. So much for the jeans-clad Dolly Parton look-alike that Chase had described; Nicole was back to her usual immaculate self. Sam stood up to meet her.
“What are you doing here?” Nicole lightly touched Sam’s arm. “I thought you were in Ecuador. You look like hell.”
“I . . .” Sam started. “It’s a long story.” She felt the tears overcoming her, so she stopped there to ask, “What happened to Chase?” She braced herself for the worst. Tortured. Shot. Blown to bits.
“Nobody told you?” Nicole studied her, one eyebrow raised. When a tear escaped Sam’s left eye and ran down her cheek, Nicole’s expression softened and she quickly said, “The agents who died were Border Patrol.”
Did that mean what she thought it meant? “And Chase?”
“Mercy Hospital, Room 309.”
Sam dashed out of the building and almost fell down on the ice in her rush to flag down a taxi. But after reaching the hushed corridors of Mercy Hospital, she approached Room 309 with trepidation.
Was she prepared for what she would find? Why hadn’t she asked Nicole about Chase’s condition? Would he be conscious, would he have all his parts? She should have asked what it meant that she wasn’t on Chase’s list. Would he even want to see her?
She edged toward the open door. Even with his back to her and his shiny black hair reduced to dark stubble over his shaved head, she recognized the lean muscles of Chase’s back and shoulders. The hospital bed was raised halfway, his legs were beneath the sheets, but he was shirtless and half turned toward an attractive young woman with smooth olive skin and raven black hair swept back into a low clip.
The woman held out a water glass to him, crooking the straw so it would be easy for Chase to drink from. She smiled at something he’d said. Her face was a perfect oval, drop-dead gorgeous. Her movements told Sam she had an easy familiarity with the man in the bed. That woman was exactly Chase’s type. Somehow Sam knew that she was on Chase’s magic list at FBI headquarters. That woman had been informed every step of the way about what was happening, and she had been the one to fly to Chase’s side when he’d been injured, whereas Sam had been left to twist in the wind. Or rather, rot in a South American jail.
Sam was poised to walk away when the woman looked up and caught her eye. Then Chase turned, too. His expression of astonishment was quickly replaced by a broad grin.
“Summer!” He thrust out a hand in her direction.
She walked into the room, hesitating at the doorway. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
“You’re alive!” Chase exclaimed. This had been his greeting to her on more than one occasion.
“No matter what,” she said. She took his hand. “That’s what we promised, right? Sorry to arrive a day late.”
His chest was swathed in bandages. Red scratches like road rash decorated his right cheek, like he had slid facedown along a gravel road. He also seemed thinner than she remembered. It was unsettling to see him looking so damaged, but maybe part of the concentration camp effect was due to his lack of hair.
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