She tossed her head back and laughed. “If I give you what you want, I’ll want something in return,” she teased.
“Name your price, woman.”
“Hmm …” She nuzzled the thicket of hair surrounding his straining erection. “I want breakfast in bed. And then I want a bubble bath. You can scrub my back.”
“Agreed.”
“And—”
“There’s more?”
“I want to cuddle in bed and talk about hearts and flowers and moon and June and all that mushy stuff.”
Griff chuckled. “You’re beginning to sound like a silly, frilly female.”
She ran her tongue over his penis, from tip to base and back to tip.
Griff moaned, deep in his throat.
“And you’re acting just like a … a …a man!” she told him, her tone playful.
“Damn right about that.”
When she eased his penis inside her mouth, Griff groaned with pleasure. Her lips were soft and moist, her mouth hot. He gently held her head in place while she drove him mad with her flicking tongue and her mouth’s milking motions. When he was on the verge of coming, he tried to ease himself away, but she refused to let him go. Not until he climaxed.
Huffing loudly and shuddering with release, his ears rang and the top of his head exploded. His body jerked repeatedly, draining every ounce of pleasure from the moment.
Nic swallowed hard, then slid her tongue over the length of his penis and spread kisses up his belly and over his chest.
He grabbed her, pressed her damp, luscious body down onto his and kissed her. His tongue mated with hers, the taste of his come rich and musky in her mouth.
Griff served Nic breakfast in bed. Afterward, he made slow, sweet love to her, giving her the same pleasure she had given him earlier. Then he drew her bathwater in the claw-foot tub, filled with scented oils and overflowing with foaming bubbles. And he did a lot more than wash her back.
By the time they finally left her bedroom, it was afternoon and they joined the others for lunch. She had skipped her therapy session yesterday because it had been Christmas. But since she would be leaving Griffin’s Rest next week, she wanted to take full advantage of Yvette’s expertise while they were together.
The sunroom had quickly become their daily meeting place, and as with the other sessions, each took the seat familiar to them.
“I’m going to miss you,” Nic admitted aloud.
“And I you.” Yvette smiled. Her fragile smiles never quite reached her black eyes, which always seemed sad. No, not sad. Melancholy.
“But I’m sure we’ll see quite a bit of each other in the future,” Nic said. “I’ll be visiting Griffin’s Rest fairly often and you will, too.”
“I look forward to our becoming good friends, when we are no longer doctor and patient.”
“So do I.”
“You are very good for Griffin.”
Nic sighed contentedly. “And he’s very good for me.”
“He has been content with the life he made for himself, but never truly happy. Not until now.”
Nic’s heart did a stupid little rat-a-tat-tat. “He’s told me some of what happened to him on Amara, but I know there’s much more he hasn’t told me.”
“There are things he may never be able to tell you.”
Nic gazed deeply into Yvette’s eyes. “He didn’t tell me anything about you and Sanders, except that you were both York’s captives, just as he was.”
Yvette folded her small, delicate hands in her lap. “I was more than York’s captive.” Her soft voice dripped with anger. “I was Malcolm York’s wife.”
“Oh.”
“He wanted me because I was beautiful and possessed a special talent that he knew he could use against me and against others.” Yvette bowed her head. “I was twenty years old and a medical student when he had me kidnapped and taken to Amara. I was what is often referred to as a child prodigy. I was in my final year of medical school when …”
Nic wished she could think of something to say, but Yvette’s confession had rendered her speechless.
“I hated him,” Yvette said. “He was quite mad. And unfortunately, he was also exceedingly wealthy.”
“Yvette …” Nic leaned toward the other woman, something tender and maternal in her desperately wanting to give comfort.
“I was tormented and tortured and forced to do things against my will. I became nothing more than an instrument, a tool in the hands of a monster.”
Nic slid to the edge of her chair, reached out, and grasped Yvette’s tightly clenched hands. The moment Nic touched her, Yvette’s eyes widened in surprise and their gazes met in a moment of realization.
Heat suffused Nic’s body, as if an electrical current had sent a jolt of mild shock through her nervous system.
“Do not be afraid,” Yvette told her. “I did not harm you. You simply picked up on my extremely powerful life force. If I had not allowed my memories to make me so emotional, you would not have felt anything more than a mild warmth.”
“That special talent you possess—what is it?” Nic asked.
“I have certain psychic abilities.” Yvette spoke so quietly that her voice was barely audible. “Empathic psychic abilities.”
Nic pulled her hands free of Yvette’s and eased back in her chair, but did not break eye contact. They sat there and stared at each other, neither of them speaking for several minutes.
“You were able to get inside the minds of York’s captives, weren’t you? You could sense what they were thinking and feeling and—oh, my God, you endured their pain with them, didn’t you? And he loved watching you suffer.”
Before Yvette could respond, they heard someone clear their throat. They looked toward the open door and saw Sanders standing there.
“Please forgive the intrusion,” he said, looking straight at Nicole. “Griffin wishes to see you in his office immediately.”
Nic jumped up. “Has he heard something about LaTasha Davies?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Thank you, Sanders. I’ll—” She glanced back at Yvette.
“Go, go. We will talk more later.”
Nic rushed out of the sunroom and hurried to the office. She didn’t bother to knock; she simply flung open the door and walked in. She looked around the room, expecting to see Holt Keinan, the Powell agent on duty at Griffin’s Rest, with Griff, but Griff was alone.
“Come on in.” He sat at the head of the conference table.
When she approached, he stood, took her hands in his, and said, “I just spoke to Doug Trotter. This morning, not long after sunup, a Costa Rican fishing boat came upon a rowboat floating in the sea. There was a woman on board.”
Nic held her breath.
“The woman had been shot. She was unconscious and near death.”
“Was it LaTasha?”
“Possibly. Probably. Her description fits LaTasha’s.” “Is she still alive?”
“As far as Doug knows, she is. He’s on his way to Costa Rica right now. He’ll send her fingerprints to D.C. If this woman is LaTasha, we’ll know right away.”
“Oh, God, Griff, if she’s alive, she can tell us where he is.”
“If,” Griff said. “Everhart has to know she escaped, which means unless our government can keep her existence top secret so he won’t know that she was found, he won’t stay put. If word leaks out that she was not only found but is still alive, he’ll run.”
“But if he believes she’s dead and that no one found her floating around in the ocean, then he’ll feel safe and stay right where he is and we can find him.”
“The Caribbean Sea is a large body of water,” Griff reminded her. “Everhart could be anywhere from Mexico to South America. And there are countless tiny islands, some so small they aren’t even charted.”
Chapter 30
The FBI and the U.S. Army worked in conjunction to bring Corporal LaTasha Davies out of Costa Rica and back to the United States. All of this was d
one in a top secret move to keep the woman’s identity unknown to everyone, except on a need-to-know basis. She was taken directly to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C., and after five days in intensive care, she remained in a coma, her condition critical.
Doug Trotter phoned Nic with daily updates.
The Hunter had not called either her or Griff with clues about a new victim.
Did Everhart suspect that LaTasha was still alive? Had he stayed put, biding his time, or had he moved on, setting up in a new locale and searching for another woman to participate in his murderous game?
The waiting had been as excruciating for Griff as it had been for Nic. With each passing day, she had grown more and more restless, as had he. But Griff had taken action, doing his best to distract her from her concerns about LaTasha and her fears about the Hunter’s next victim. During the day, he’d kept her busy: a trip to see Lindsay and Judd Walker and their daughter, Emily; a visit to a Knoxville firing range so she could practice her marksmanship; long drives on country roads, exploring the northeastern Tennessee countryside; an evening trip to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg to see the holiday lights; and a dinner reservation in Maryville, at Foothills Milling, fine dining in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. And Nic had spent every night in Griff’s arms, loving and being loved.
A part of her wished that she could stay here forever. But she had a life back in Woodbridge. A home. A job in D.C. And a maniacal killer to find.
Besides, it wasn’t as if she and Griff wouldn’t be seeing each other on a regular basis. She’d be coming back to Griffin’s Rest as often as possible and when she couldn’t come to him, he would come to her. They had agreed that their relationship was long-term. Just how long-term, they didn’t discuss. And Nic was grateful for that. She wasn’t ready to define their love affair.
Her bags were packed and in the Escalade. Powell agent Shaughnessey Hood would be driving her truck to Woodbridge for her and hopping a commercial jet back to Knoxville.
“I have something special planned for tonight,” Griff had told her. “And it involves our taking an airplane ride.”
She had asked him for a special date on New Year’s Eve. But Griff had made every day and night they had spent together special.
Griff knocked on her bedroom door and called, “Ready to go, honey? It’s after eleven and I’d like to be airborne when the clock strikes twelve.”
“Be there in a second.” She looked at herself in the cheval mirror one more time.
“Don’t dress up. Wear something nice but comfortable,” Griff had told her.
She had chosen from the array of new clothes that lined her closet. A pair of dark brown corduroy slacks, brown boots, a red turtleneck sweater, and a camel wool coat. She had taken extra time with her makeup and hair and even agreed to wear a pair of gold and diamond hoop earrings that Griff had hidden in the glove compartment of her truck—as a surprise.
Pudge had spent hours walking along the beach, trying to work through his doubts and uncertainties. LaTasha had floated away in a rowboat nearly a week ago and probably she and the dinghy had been swept into the sea by the storm. There hadn’t been one word about the boat being discovered. He had watched every newscast he could find on satellite TV, broadcast from both the U.S. and neighboring countries. He had scoured the Internet, searching for any story that might be linked to his escapee.
She’s dead.
If she hadn’t been found in this length of time, she never would be. One of his shots had probably put a hole in the dinghy and it had sunk not long after leaving Tabora, taking LaTasha’s corpse with it to the bottom of the sea. He had no reason to worry. She was nothing more than fish food now.
He would wait another day or two, and then he would phone Nicole and Griff with their clues. New game. New rules. Only neither of them would know what all of those new rules were, not until it was too late.
Pudge had come to realize that Nicole had ruined his game. She had taken all the fun out of it. That’s why he’d failed with LaTasha. She had bored him.
And no doubt Mia would bore him, too. That’s why he had devised a new game and would put new rules into play. Mia would not be his prey. She would be his bait.
Once Nic had settled comfortably on the plush leather sofa in the Powell jet and Griff had given Jonathan orders to take off, she tried again to persuade Griff to divulge their destination.
“Please,” she whined unconvincingly. “Tell me where we’re going.”
He kissed her on the nose. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and pretended to pout.
Griff laughed. “You need more practice at those silly girlie tactics. You’re absolutely no good at whining or pouting.”
“It’s because I hate women who do either. But since I seem to be becoming more of a girlie-girl every day that I’m around you, I thought I’d give them a try.”
“What makes you think you’re turning into a girlie-girl?”
She tapped the dangling earring in her right ear. “Diamond earrings. If these aren’t—”
“Made for you,” Griff told her. “They’re beautiful, just like you.”
“Well, it’s not just the earrings.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I’ve turned into a sex-craved femme fatale. And it’s all your fault.”
Griff laughed, the sound reverberating loudly inside the plane. “Look what you’ve done to me. You’ve turned a perfectly satisfied playboy into a simpering, lovesick fool.”
She widened her eyes. “Hmm … Lovesick, maybe. Simpering, decidedly not. And you, my darling Griff, will never be a fool.”
A chime sounded. Nic looked at Griff, who tapped a button on his wristwatch.
“It’s midnight,” he said.
“Happy New Year, Griff.”
“Happy New Year, Nicki.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
When he ended the kiss, he said, “Sanders packed dinner for us. Cold cuts and cheese, freshly baked sourdough bread, and champagne.”
“I’m going to have to start dieting,” Nic told him. “I’m back up to my normal weight.” She laughed. “Actually I’m four pounds over my ideal weight.”
“Start dieting tomorrow.”
“I believe it’s already tomorrow.”
“Then make it day after tomorrow.”
“Tell me where we’re going and I’ll put off dieting.”
“Blackmail does not work on me.”
She ran her hand over his crotch, letting her palm linger over his semierection.
Griff moaned. “You don’t play fair, honey.”
“Tell me where we’re going.”
He grabbed her hand. “It’ll take us a little over an hour to get to our destination. If you don’t want to eat, I can think of another pleasant way to pass the time.”
“Hmm … Burning calories instead of consuming them. I like your suggestion.”
A black limousine awaited them at the airport. Griff whisked her off the plane and into the limo so quickly that she didn’t have time to get her bearings. Wherever he was taking her, he intended for it to remain a secret, at least for a while longer. The limo windows were so dark that she couldn’t see out to identify streets or buildings.
Sometime later, when the limousine parked and Griffin helped her out, she blinked several times. She knew exactly where they were. Walter Reed Army Medical Center. And Doug Trotter stood there on the sidewalk waiting for them.
The frigid winter wind moaned as it bored through her wool coat, chilling Nic to the bone. But what had she expected? This was January in D.C. The residue of a recent snow hid in dark corners, and pockets of refrozen ice shimmered in the moonlight.
Griff and Doug shook hands. “Thanks for doing this,” Griff said.
Doug grunted, then focused on Nic. “It’s good to see you. You look great.”
“Thanks. I feel good. And I’m doing fine.”
“Ready to come back
to work?”
“I’m ready whenever you say I’m ready.”
“A few more weeks. A few more counseling sessions,” Doug told her.
“Sure. You’re the boss.”
Doug chuckled. “Is this your doing, Powell?”
“What?” Griff asked innocently.
“You’ve mellowed, Special Agent Baxter. I like it. It’s becoming on you.”
Nic growled. “Screw you. Sir.”
Doug and Griff exchanged a that’s-our-Nic look.
“Well, let’s go. I’m freezing my butt off out here,” Nic told them, then added, “you brought me here so I can see LaTasha Davies, didn’t you?”
“Corporal Davies remains in a coma,” Doug said. “There’s a good chance she’ll never come out of it.”
“I refuse to believe that,” Nic said. “I survived and so will she.”
Ten minutes later, Nic stood by LaTasha’s beside. Although physically she and the young black woman did not resemble each other, she saw herself when she looked at another of the Hunter’s victims who had escaped.
She touched LaTasha’s seemingly lifeless hand. “Stay strong, Corporal. You have so much to live for. Think about your little girl. She needs you.”
And we need you to wake up and tell us where Rosswalt Everhart is.
When they left the hospital, Griff took her home to Woodbridge. Nothing had changed, and yet her home seemed oddly unfamiliar. Strange how that in a month’s time, she had, purely on a subconscious level, come to think of Griffin’s Rest as home.
“I’m staying a couple of days,” Griff had told her. “Just until you settle in.”
She hadn’t argued. She’d wanted him to stay.
They had slept until past noon on New Year’s Day. And when they finally roused out of bed and she trudged sleepily into the kitchen, she found coffee already brewed.
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