by Jaime Rush
He was on the other side of the parking area. Looking for people in hiding was obviously something he was used to doing. He meant business.
It was only a matter of time.
She had to move. The crowd broke into applause. Careful of what might be lying on the ground, she took a step. Her knee jammed on a large piece of glass. She hissed in pain, but luckily she’d hit a blunt edge. She took another step and knocked her head into a metal box mounted on the side of the building. Grimacing in pain, she felt her way around it.
The music stopped. Faintly, she heard the lead singer thanking everyone for coming, and applause broke out. Then…silence.
Even swallowing the hard knot in her throat sounded so loud she was sure her hunter had heard it. She still had no idea how much farther she could go or where it led. Now she couldn’t see the guy either.
But she could hear him. He was walking up the ramp. How obvious was her hiding place?
Probably obvious as hell. She’d found it.
Suddenly she saw a dark figure leap sideways over the short fence…feet from her. With a yelp she ran back, feeling the fence like a blind person. Then nothing.
Nothing!
She saw an open space with white gravel and cars. She ran toward it, his footsteps right behind her.
He’s got a gun.
She darted behind the cars as she ran. A street! She was on one of the side streets. People walked nearby, laughed, only silhouettes to Zoe. Remembering how her pursuer had been about to shoot that man at the theater, she couldn’t chance approaching anyone. Same with going up to the cottages that looked so cozy and safe.
She ran to the right, keeping to the shadows, then to the left. Her best bet—hide. If he couldn’t find her, he’d give up, at least for the night. Did he know where she was staying? What she drove? How the hell had he found her?
She looked behind her and saw him coming up fast. Ahead, where Caroline Street crossed Simonton, the streetlights left her vulnerable. She clutched the bag slung over her shoulder and turned back toward Duval. He hadn’t come around the corner yet. She dropped behind a car parked along the street, tucking herself as close to the rear as possible.
A flash caught her eye. She looked down. The rhinestones on her sneakers glittered in the faint light. Crap. She slid out of them.
Footsteps scraped on the concrete. Just once. He was light-footed as he passed. A predator. She rose just enough to see through the windows of the car in front of her. He reached the bright lights of Duval and looked both ways, then turned to the left.
She crossed the street and headed to Duval, too, ducking into a store at the corner. She peered out the window but couldn’t see him in the flow of people.
“Can I help you?” a man of Middle Eastern descent asked with a smile.
“I need some clothes.”
He pulled a swath of beautifully patterned fabric in her favorite colors of cinnamon and clove from a rack, oblivious to her strained breathing. “These are wrap dresses. Very popular. See how easy it is to change your whole look?” He wrapped it around himself, twisted the top, and secured it around his neck. The fabric draped down to his blue Crocs. “Very nice, yes?”
“I’ll take one. And a hat. Tie it on me.” She lifted her shoulders, still looking out the window. “Over here, by the mirror.”
He wagged a finger at her. “Ah, I see. You try to ditch boyfriend. Happens many times.”
“Just tie it,” she said through gritted teeth.
He did, turning her toward the mirror. “Now take a look, see how beautiful.”
She planted a straw hat on her head. As far from Zoe Stoker as she could get. “How much?”
“Forty dollars. But a special for you, twice as much.” He grinned.
She shoved the money at him and started to head out. Wait! She turned back. “I need sneakers.”
Twenty more dollars, and she sported brown canvas sneakers. She sailed out of the shop and tried to pull off the charade of the year: not looking like someone who was afraid for her life.
And stopped dead.
The man stood to the left of the store’s entrance, cell phone to his ear. His words chilled her: “It’s Steele. She gave me the slip.”
A shirt that was hanging outside the shop jumped to the ground.
Costa Rica. Green Turtle Key.
He turned around, and she launched out of the doorway and down the sidewalk.
Steele’s frustration level threatened to explode. He had taken out diplomats surrounded by bodyguards and terrorists expecting a hit at any time. But these freaks—women, no less—were sneaky.
He was considered an asset by government agencies that needed certain matters taken care of without being implicated. For a tidy sum of money, he did just that. Even though he’d retired, his boss had offered him an even tidier sum to return to work.
He bumped into someone on the sidewalk, paying no attention to the flow of people, no one but Zoe Stoker, who had given him the slip.
Eventually, she would return to that old car of hers. He could wait for her there, but that parking area was busy. And he didn’t want to wait. He wanted her done so he could move on to the others. It was becoming a matter of pride.
He called his employer as people streamed on either side of him, paying him no mind. “It’s Steele. She gave me the slip.”
“Gave you the slip?” Darkwell said, his voice reeking of disappointment.
“She made me. I don’t know how. I couldn’t exactly climb through the bushes after her and not attract attention. When she shows up dead, people would remember some guy crashing through the plants after her.”
“Why didn’t you just take her out from a distance?”
“I can’t just go shooting in the streets of Key West. It’s a busy place, lots of cops, too.” A lot of everything, he thought, as two brightly dressed men walked by holding hands. He hated having to explain himself, and even more, pushing out the words, “Can your freaks tell me where she is? Just give me a clue, and I’ll take care of her. She’s not going to leave Key West alive, that I promise.”
“I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”
Steele wandered to the left, watching the streets. If only he’d seen in which direction she’d gone, he would have had her. Dammit, the dark alley had been perfect. He clenched his fist. If he’d shot her where she’d been hiding, no one would have even found her body for a few days. He’d have been long gone.
He kept looking for her, hoping he wouldn’t need the help he resented having to get, especially given the source.
Darkwell got on the line. “There’s an aquarium—”
“I know where it is. I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up and headed toward the waterfront. He made it a point to know where everything was in whatever town his assignment took place. Now he would make it a point to kill Zoe Stoker.
CHAPTER 4
Z
oe staggered past the aquarium, which, like the stores down by Mallory Square, was closed. Lights twinkled out to sea, on the exclusive island offshore and a cruise ship. A few people wandered in the distance, appearing in the dim lights, then disappearing like ghosts, their voices and laughter floating through the air. People having fun. In control of their lives. It was beyond comprehension that Zoe Stoker, who owned Creative Ink and minded her own business and kept her life under tight control, was in Key West not living out a travel dream but running for her life. She might have melted into a puddle of hysteria if not for her instincts, which, thankfully, were on high alert and driving her actions. She was almost sure she’d lost Steele—she’d heard him on the phone—but then again, she’d thought she lost her enemy before. How had he found her, among all the places in Key West, all the people?
She watched for men walking alone. If she spotted him in time, she would go into a crowded bar. She didn’t think he would shoot her in a crowd. Remembering his cold face, she couldn’t be sure.
The heebie-jeebie feeling made her spin
around. No one. She strolled down the sidewalk, still trying to look like someone not scared down to her bones. She ducked into the Memorial Sculpture Garden, a fenced-in square containing royal palms, benches, and busts on pedestals that lifted them to roughly her height. Landscape lighting dimly lit the small area. What a great place to hide.
She stood behind one of the statues at the far corner and watched, leaving the second entrance in sight. With all those silhouettes of heads, the only way she could tell if one was actually a person was movement.
After a few moments, she was sure she was alone. The question was, for how long? She waited. Listened. She needed enough of a head start to get back to her car. Then go where? She couldn’t endanger her employees or her family.
Focus on this moment for now.
She stepped out from behind the statue…just as a man walked into the square. Her gaze darted to the second entrance. Her heart jumped. She could just make out a man’s silhouette there, too, lingering in the walkway between the garden and the darkened Cuban restaurant.
Not two of them! No, she would have seen them. Except maybe it was the guy he’d been talking to on the phone.
She looked toward the first man. Where was he? Between the statues and the trees, he was hidden. Did that head just move? Damn, this is a terrible place to hide. At least she was camouflaged, too. Very slowly she moved toward the entrance through which she’d come. One step. Two. Three. Still no movement to give him away.
Him. Somehow she was sure it was Steele. What about the other man? She could no longer see him from her angle, but the fact that he was lurking didn’t bode well. She took another step, aligning herself behind a bust, eyeing the palm tree she would slide behind next. The entrance was only a few steps from there.
Something shifted a few yards away. She blinked. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. Not helping matters, her heart pounded so hard it made her peripheral vision pulse. She stared at the place where she’d seen movement. There! The slightest shift. Steele was moving around to her right, between her and the first entrance. Like a life-and-death chess game, each moved one square closer to the other. She looked to the second entrance. Oh, God, the other man had moved closer, too. Each man closed in on her one step at a time.
She was done. No, don’t give up. But she was trapped here in this garden. A beautiful place to die.
She looked toward the second man. He was a shadow among shadows, and yet she felt him. Something about him tingled along her skin and raised the hairs at the nape of her neck. Then he stepped out of the darkness. His shadow shimmered. Her breath caught as his silhouette liquefied and reformed into something low and sleek and completely different.
I’m seeing things. Or going crazy.
A low, ominous growl came from a black panther slinking closer. Its eyes glittered in the dark. She could only stare. Even when she heard a sound behind her, she couldn’t pull her gaze from the creature. She felt more than saw its body tense, contract, and jump at her.
The scream caught in her throat. A hand grabbed her shoulder from behind. The panther knocked her to the side, also knocking the hand away. She fell, watching the panther land on Steele and throw him backward onto the bricks. She felt the fur brush her skin, the tail flick her arm.
“What the f—?” Steele’s words were cut off as the panther pressed its paw to his throat.
Amazingly, it turned and looked at her.
Go!
That word was not her own, and yet she’d heard it in her head. She ran, daring one last glimpse back to see the panther’s head lowered to the man’s, a warning growl keeping him there as much as the panther’s weight.
A panther. In Key West.
Not just any panther.
She ran down the street parallel to Duval, back toward her car. What the hell had happened back there? Was adrenaline and fear driving her totally insane?
Blood pounded in her ears as she ran. Her legs ached, her heart hurt. Have to get to the car. Get out of here.
People stared at her, those few she encountered off the main drag, but she kept racing down the narrow street.
Wait.
That voice again! Oh, jeez, she was going crazy. Just like her father. Had he seen men turn into panthers? Was that why he’d walked into his office with the shotgun?
Zoe, Stop!
She turned around, her body coming to a stuttering stop, her breath gasping as she searched for the source of the voice. As the panther stepped from the shadows of a lushly landscaped yard, it morphed into a man, a man with dark wavy hair that fell to his shoulders. That he wore black jeans and a tight black shirt, normal clothing on a body that had just been an animal, was even more bizarre. That whole scene had kind of creeped her out, to put it mildly. He was breathing heavily, too, as he came closer. He had attacked her enemy, but that didn’t make him friend.
“You can’t go to your car. They know what you’re driving.” He took her arm and led her around the corner of the building while his gaze checked the street.
“They…” She could barely put thoughts and words together.
“How do you think he found you here in Key West, and at the statue garden?”
“I don’t know. How? And who are you? How did you do…whatever it was that you did? Is that guy dead?”
“No. I just bought some time. I’m Cheveyo. Come with me. I’ll take you to people who can help you. People like you and me. They’ll tell you everything you need to know.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her across the street.
She stopped, tugging him back. “People like me? I don’t understand. What the hell is going on here?”
“There’s no time to explain. We’ve got to get back to Maryland. Now.” He met her gaze. “You have to trust me, Zoe. Right now, I’m the only one you can trust. When I take you to the others, they’ll explain everything.”
She let him lead her farther into the residential area. “Why can’t you explain it?”
“It’s not my place. I will deliver you to safety and leave you in good hands.”
“Leave me? Aren’t you one of these…people like me?”
He looked back at her. “I am, but I am not part of the group and cannot be.”
Before she could ask more, he came to a stop at a black motorcycle parked behind the bushes between two small, clapboard homes. He easily straddled the seat and handed her a helmet.
“No way.” A laugh bubbled out of her. “All the way to Maryland on this? No freaking way.”
“Have you ever ridden a bike before?”
“Once. An ex-boyfriend took me for a ride, and, when I told him I wasn’t going to have sex with him, he tried to scare sex out of me.”
His mouth quirked. “Did it work?”
“No. It just pissed me off, and I never talked to him again.”
“Okay, he was a dumb bastard. I don’t want to get involved with anyone, and no offense, but you’re not my type, so you’re safe with me.” When she didn’t move toward the bike, he said, “It’s not like we have a lot of choice here. Besides, I can maneuver up the Keys much better on a bike. I know it’s not exactly the most comfortable ride, but it’s all I have. I didn’t have time to make other arrangements; I had to get down here immediately.”
“For me?” The words squeaked out. “You came down here just to save me from that creep?”
“Yes. I intervene with the others when necessary. And if we don’t want that son of a bitch to catch up with us, we have to go now.”
With a resigned sigh, she took the helmet and pulled it on. He helped secure it, then put on his own. Both matched his bike.
“Have you ever climbed on a horse?” he asked.
“No, but I’ve seen it done in the movies.” She wrestled out of the wrapdress thing.
“That’s how you climb on the bike.”
He inclined his head, and she climbed on behind him.
“You can hold on to me until you’re comfortable. Then sit back and relax. Lean into the turns; don’t fight
them. If you need to stop, let me know, but keep it to a minimum. We have to get out of the Keys as fast as we can. We’re trapped down here. Not the best place to run off to, by the way.”
Before she could protest that she wasn’t exactly an expert at this running-for-her-life stuff, he started the engine. She wrapped her arms around him, and they were off. She had to smile at his assurance that he wouldn’t try anything. He wasn’t her type, either. But she was damned glad he’d come down to save her.
Steele washed the four long scratches on his cheek, wincing at his reflection in the restroom mirror. Anger surged inside him. He’d had it with these freaks. Not only were they making him look incompetent, they were pissing him off.
He called Darkwell. “Who is the freak that changes into a damned cat?”
“Don’t tell me she got away?”
“Just tell me, which one changes form? I didn’t even know they could do that.”
“None that I know of.” Darkwell paused. “Wait a minute. Cheveyo Kee. Has to be. His father was Native American, the only one who could change his energy into animal form. He was a hawk.”
“I remember him. Quiet, eerie.” He fisted his hand. “I had the girl. I was seconds from taking her down, the place was perfect, no one around—or so I thought—and then this man shows up and changes into a panther before my eyes, like an acid trip. He pounced on me, and the girl ran off.”
Darkwell stewed in silence for a second. “Cheveyo. I haven’t been able to find him. Now it seems he’s joined up with the enemy. Dammit. Wait. Let me see if we can spot them.”
Steele walked outside, his eyes scanning the area. He wanted these freaks of nature gone. Give him an ordinary terrorist any day. He headed toward his car, ready to move.
Darkwell came back on the line. “We can’t see them. It’s the same kind of block we’re getting when we try to see where they’re hiding out, which makes me wonder if Cheveyo has something to do with that. All right, come back. They won’t stay in Key West, not now. He’ll bring her back here to the rest of them. See if you can find them on the way. If you do, just follow them. They’ll lead you to the others.”
