by Cindy Dees
Something sharp and hot stabbed his gut. It took a millisecond to register that the pain was an actual knife. The bitch had stabbed him!
He wrapped his right arm around her neck and slammed his left fist down on her forearm with all his strength. The worst of the fiery pain in his side subsided. He must have knocked the blade out of her hand and out of his side.
She fought like a tiger to escape his grip, kicking and biting and scratching anything and everything she could reach. He finally managed to turn and trap her against the wall of the bar, using his superior size and weight to subdue her, but it was only a partially successful maneuver.
And then he felt something hard and cylindrical in almost the same spot she had stabbed him.
“Let go of me, you son of a bitch, or I’ll shoot you dead right here. Right now,” she growled.
He tsked in her ear. “But there are security cameras at both ends of the alley.”
“I disabled those weeks ago,” she snapped scornfully.
“I hooked them back up, this afternoon. You should have destroyed the cameras and not just unplugged them...Mina.”
He jumped to one side just as the gunshot exploded. The noise was tremendous in the brick canyon of buildings. The pain in his side magnified by several orders of magnitude, and Mina leaped away from him.
She raised the pistol in both hands and pointed it directly at his face. “You’ve gone and done it now, you stupid bastard.”
He registered a small caliber handgun. The kind that fit in a woman’s purse. Not a lot of stopping power, but enough at this range to mess him up bad. “You gonna kill me?” he rasped. “Why? Because I love Marley and not you?”
A muzzle flash banished the night, and the next gunshot was even louder than the first one. The last thought that passed through his mind was a single word. Bitch.
Chapter 16
Marley moved around the edges of the party, sticking to the shadows mostly. It was hard to keep remembering to channel Mina. To walk and slouch like she was a badass biker chick.
She used to imitate her twin in high school in front of the bathroom mirror in hopes of gaining a little of Mina’s confidence and assertiveness. The results had always looked silly to the point of absurdity. But she gave it her best shot tonight. Archer’s safety might very well depend on finding Mina’s accomplice.
She could do this.
She stumbled around in the dark for nearly an hour, and her feet hurt like hell. Mina had always hated being short and worn stupidly high heels. Even her biker boots had been wedges that added several inches to her height.
Not to mention Marley felt weird wearing leather pants like this. They clung far too revealingly to her thighs. Although it wasn’t like the black tank top under her leather jacket left a whole lot to the imagination, either.
“What the hell are you doing here?” a male voice hissed from behind her.
Marley whirled to face the big tree behind her. A big, bulky form lurked in the shadows beyond it.
“I told you never to make contact with me, you idiot. I’ll make contact with you when I have information for you.”
Marley’s jaw actually dropped open for a moment. Gordon Trapowski? He was the insider?
She improvised fast. “Yeah, well, I’ve got a problem. Marley knows I’m here. I have to get her away from here before she tells anyone.”
“You were supposed to kill her. Little whore couldn’t wait to spread her legs for that damned Army prick.”
Channel Mina. Be Mina. She said sarcastically, “You’re just pissed off she didn’t go for you.”
“Hey, I’m screwing the hot sister, anyway. It was your idea for me to go after her, not mine. It was a good idea, too,” he chuckled. “Pissed off Archer Prescott to no end.”
Marley felt filthy. Used. She’d just been a pawn in Mina and Gordon’s scheme...whatever that was.
“Speaking of which,” Gordon murmured in what she gathered was supposed to be a sexy voice, “How about a quickie? It’s dark and there’s no one around.”
Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.
“C’mon, baby. I’ve done everything you wanted me to do to mess up the movie. I heard a rumor today that Turnow’s even thinking about shutting down filming. We won. We screwed over the people who took the studio away from my family and we cost your sister her job. After I’m done spreading rumors about her being behind the accidents on his shoot, she’ll be poison in Hollywood. No one will ever hire her. Just like you wanted. So how about it? Show Gordon a little sugar.” He leaned down like he was about to kiss her her.
“Not a chance.” The words were out of Marley’s mouth in her regular tone of voice before she could call them back.
Gordon glared at her, peering closely at her in the dark. “You look different tonight...”
He lunged, slapping a hand over her mouth and dragging her into the jungle of trailers just beyond the tree line. He swore in a continuous stream under his breath as he bodily carried her through the trailer park at a heavy run. The guy was massively strong and she struggled for all she was worth to break free or at least get her mouth free of his huge hand so she could scream for help. But to no avail.
Steve’s men were watching her. They had the feed from the wire. They would know Gordon had recognized her. They would come for her. Save her. Right?
* * *
Archer blinked up at the night sky. Someone was kneeling over him
“Wake up, Archer!”
“Jeez. I’m awake. Quit shouting at me,” he groused up at his brother Jackson. His head was pounding and his ears ringing. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Covering your back, you lucky bastard. The cops are here, too.”
“Mina?” He lurched and tried to sit up, but a guy wearing a medic’s jacket shoved on his shoulder and held him down.
“In custody. Sheriff Thomas shot the gun out of her hand and then his guys moved in and arrested her.”
“How did they get here?” he asked. Man, his brain was foggy.
“I called them, nimrod. No little brother of mine was walking into an ambush with a psychopath alone. The sheriff and his guys have had the bar staked out all evening. Apparently, you talked at some length with an undercover deputy at the bar. Got him pretty drunk, too.”
“Huh. Thanks for the backup, bro. She talking?”
“Nothing worth repeating. She’s been calling you some pretty creative names. I may have to write a few of them down to use in my next movie.”
“What about actual names? Has she dropped the name of her accomplice? She has one on the movie set, and I really need to know who it is.”
“Dunno. I can ask the sheriff, though.”
To the medic, Archer asked, “Can I sit up now?”
“I’m almost done bandaging your side. You have a puncture wound. It’s not deep. You’re lucky you had that flak vest on. It stopped most of the blade’s penetration. And, of course, it stopped the round she tried to put into your heart.”
Jackson grinned. “You were wearing a bulletproof vest?”
The medic glanced up at Archer’s brother. “How else do you think he survived that point-blank gunshot? He’s going to have a hell of a bruise on his chest. Might even have cracked a rib or two. But he’ll make a full recovery.”
“I have to talk to her. Let me up,” Archer demanded.
The medic lifted his hands away. “I’m done. And you’re welcome.”
“Thanks, man. Seriously.”
Archer took Jackson’s hand and let his brother hoist him to his feet. “Where is she?”
“Over there.”
Archer strode over to the nearest working streetlight where the sheriff and two of his deputies were talking with Mina. Or trying to. She had her mouth stubbornly shut and didn�
�t look interested in answering any of the questions they were peppering her with.
She glared murderously at Archer as he strode up to her.
“Yet again, you failed to kill me,” he commented lightly.
Her glare intensified.
“So. Are you going to tell me who your accomplice on set is, or should I just call my brother and ask him? He knows who it is by now.”
Mina spat an epithet at him and then, “Your brother’s a dead man. And so are you. He’ll kill you all.”
Archer was startled. “What does your accomplice have against Steve?”
“He’ll kill all you damned Prescotts.”
Archer’s gaze followed her glare. Huh. She was giving Jackson the evil eye now. “What have you got against the Prescotts?” he asked.
She ignored his question. “I want a trade. My freedom for the name of my stooge.”
Her stooge, huh? So it was definitely a man. “Not a chance.”
“That bitch always got everything. Everyone liked her better than me. She was always the good girl. Teachers liked her. Boys liked her better. Hell, our parents liked her better. She always got to do whatever she wanted while I was always grounded and in trouble and getting punished.”
“Maybe that’s because she wasn’t running around trying to kill people,” he retorted.
“I’ll kill you. Kill her, too. I’m coming for you. All of you! I’ll get even. You wait and see!”
He stared down at this madwoman who looked like a bad parody of the woman he loved. “You’re genuinely crazy, aren’t you?”
Mina lunged against the hands holding her arms and growled like a rabid dog.
Archer looked at the sheriff in distress. “She’s clearly mentally ill. Violent and unstable. Keep a close eye on her, will you? I’d hate to see her harm herself. Her sister would be heartbroken if something bad happened to her.”
Mina’s growl rose in pitch until it was a feral scream of fury.
Whether it was fury over being caught or fury at the idea of Marley still caring for her, Archer couldn’t tell. And frankly, he didn’t care. Marley was safe now. That was all that mattered to him.
“You think you’ve won!” Mina screeched. “But I’ve got a surprise waiting for you, Flyboy...” Her words devolved into mad cackling.
Damn. Now what did she mean by that? Had she sabotaged something back at the movie set? Something that would hurt Marley? Oh, God. What had she done? His blood literally ran cold in his veins as fear streaked through him. Marley. He had to warn her and Steve. What on earth did she have planned? Frantic, he struggled to think clearly. Mina used the word flyboy. Was her “last laugh” directed at him and flying, maybe?
Terrified, he reached for his cell phone to warn Steve and Marley. But just as he fished it out, his phone rang.
He answered it quickly. Marley had been leaving messages on his phone for much of the day.
“Marley, baby. I’ve got good news for you.”
“It’s Steve, bro. And I’ve got bad news for you...”
* * *
Jackson drove, which was just as well. Archer was so freaked out he’d have had trouble keeping a car on the road. He’d been stunned when Steve told him the identity of Mina’s accomplice. And he’d nearly lost his supper when Steve told him that Gordon had apparently kidnapped Marley.
Where in the hell had the bastard taken her? And why was Gordon Trapowski, of all people, trying to destroy the Prescotts? What had they ever done to him?
Steve told him that Gordon had made a reference to the Prescotts stealing Serendipity Studios from him and promised on the phone that he would have his private investigator look into it. But in the meantime, Steve and all of his entire crew were searching the set frantically for Gordon and Marley.
Every time Jackson’s sports car topped a ridge and they momentarily got decent cell phone coverage, Archer called Steve. Finally, after nearly an hour and only minutes away from the set, Steve had news for Archer.
“A helicopter just lifted off from the airport the studio rented out. With its transponder turned off. And I’ve already verified with Adrian that no flying was scheduled for tonight.”
“Are you tracking the bird on radar?” Archer asked tersely.
“Air Traffic Control has been notified, but if he gets down in the valleys they won’t be able to track him by skin signature.”
Archer swore. Mina had alluded to doing something to harm him and his flying. Was this what she’d been talking about? Or did she have something else cooking? “I’ll be at the airport in ten minutes.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Steve replied. “And don’t do anything stupid if you get there before me.”
Archer disconnected the call without bothering to answer. “Floor it, Jackson.”
* * *
Minerva was gone. Apparently, Gordon had decided to emphasize his victory by not only taking Archer’s girl, but also taking his helicopter.
While Archer didn’t give a flip for the bird, it made his blood run cold to realize how much hatred Gordon must harbor for him. Enough to take out the whole Prescott family? Damn. The guy must be at least as crazy as Mina.
The first thing Archer did when he leaped into one of the studio’s other helicopters, a model identical to Minerva, was turn on all the radios. The battery had plenty of power to run them until he got the engines going. He skipped ninety-nine percent of the usual preflight checks and went straight for a combat start. His hands flew across the controls and his thumb jammed the ignition switch. The rotor overhead started to turn ever so slowly, taking a gradual, freaking lifetime to spin up.
A tall figure sprinted out of the hangar toward his passenger door. Steve jumped in the aircraft with a grim nod and buckled his seat belt while Archer finished powering up the last systems.
Over the headsets, Steve asked, “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”
“Just up into the mountains.”
“The Sierras are pretty damned big, bro.”
“I have to find her. I have to.”
They lifted off and banked north and west into the mountains. Archer followed the valley in which the airport was situated, on the assumption that Gordon would have wanted to stay below radar coverage immediately after his takeoff. Had Steve not alerted the authorities already to be on the lookout for an unscheduled takeoff, Gordon likely would have gotten away unnoticed, too. As it was, the local air traffic controllers had only caught a glimpse of Minerva on radar before they’d lost the helicopter.
He flew for perhaps ten minutes, setting up a loose search-and-rescue pattern to crisscross the terrain. Steve used binoculars to scan the valleys below them.
Abruptly, the emergency radio crackled to life. “Oh, my God!” a female voice exclaimed.
That was Marley. Panic ripped through him like a tornado. Archer transmitted urgently, “Where are you Marley? Say your position!”
Silence.
“Talk to me!” Archer transmitted urgently.
The radio crackled again. “There’s smoke!” Behind Marley’s scared voice, Gordon was audibly swearing. He sounded like a pilot in trouble.
Archer’s adrenaline spiked off the charts. Gordon and Marley were in the helicopter he usually flew. Had Mina done something to it? Sick certainty that she had took hold in his gut.
“Trap, take your bird back to the airport. Or back to the valley where we’ve been shooting the combat scenes. They’re big and open and you can set down safely. Mina sabotaged that helicopter because she thought I was flying it next. I won’t call the police, man, I swear. You can walk away. You have my word on it. Just put the bird down on the ground now.” He was begging, but he didn’t care. Gordon couldn’t kill Marley. He couldn’t.
“I think I see smoke,” Steve reported. “It�
�s over that ridge off to our right.”
Archer pointed the helicopter where Steve indicated. He jammed the throttles forward and trees sped by. But it was taking forever to get there.
A dozen endless seconds ticked by. A year fell off Archer’s life for each one that crawled past. Marley! What the hell was going on with her? If he lost her, he’d curl up in a ball and die.
“The engine is on fire,” Marley cried. “We’re spinning around!”
Only the lap belt stopped Archer from coming out of his seat as he bit out to Steve, “They’ve lost power. They’re autorotating.” He chanted in terror, “Damn, damn, damn.”
Autorotations were bitches at best, and controlled crashes—or worse—when they went badly. People often died in them. Particularly when they had nothing but trees to come down in.
A long, drawn-out scream came across the radios. Mother of God. That was Marley screaming her head off. He’d never heard anyone sound so terrified.
He keyed his mike frantically. “Talk to me, Marley. What’s going on?”
“Omigod. We’re going down. We’re going to die! Archer!”
“Is there smoke in the cockpit?” he demanded sharply.
“We’re spinning around! We’re falling! I don’t want to die!”
Dammit. Marley wasn’t screaming now. She was moaning in raw, animal fear over the radio.
“It’ll be okay, baby,” Archer lied in desperate calm while he died a little with each of her moans.
“I’m going to die,” she wailed, “and I never told you.”
“Never told me what?”
Her voice rose to a frantic cry. “I love you, Arch...”
The radio cut off. Only static came across the channel.
Archer yelled, “They’ve gone down!”
Steve snapped sharply, “Keep flying your own bird, Archer. You can’t save her if you crash yourself.”
He fought back the panic enough to scan his flight controls. His bird was okay. Steve dropped into terse, calm, crisis mode beside him, which helped him to do the same. Sort of. “I’ll call the FAA. Request search and rescue. You just fly, Archer.”
