He stepped into the thin light cast by the moon and stopped a half dozen feet in front of the man on the left.
He lifted one hand slowly, and a shot rang out as J.T. put a bullet dead center in the man’s forehead. The impact knocked the man into the water, where his body bobbed a few yards downstream before sinking.
Sonny shifted his attention to the second man in line. He was already shaking, and a sour odor indicated he’d pissed himself.
“Where’s my dope?”
“I—I don’t know. I s-swear I don’t.”
“Pat, isn’t it?” Sonny shook his head. “I’m giving you a chance to make things right, Pat. Tell me what you did with the shipment, and we’ll work something out.”
Number four in line, captain of the fishing boat whose catch had gone missing, snorted loudly, but Sonny ignored him. He would get to him soon enough.
“I—I don’t know nothin’, Mr. Y-Yates,” Pat stammered. “It was all the c-captain’s doin’. We didn’t know nothin’ un-until it was too late.” To his left, the third crew member nodded anxiously.
Pat was probably telling the truth. None of these guys was particularly bright. They knew boats, knew the ocean, and didn’t care whether their haul wound up on some yahoo’s dinner plate or up his nose as long as they were paid fairly. It was very possible the captain hadn’t told them about the double cross until it came time to transfer the load to another boat and scuttle the first. They might not have had any choice at the time, but they’d had choices once they’d reached shore. They could have come to Sonny at any time and confessed. He would have let them live. Probably.
Sonny signaled to J.T. The report cracked, and Pat dropped to the ground, half-in, half-out of the water.
The third man began to cry and grabbed Sonny’s arm. “Please, you can’t do this—I got a wife, k-kids— The captain’s got the stuff, he’s the one that took it. We ain’t seen it s-since we got back to Savannah.”
Sonny gently unpeeled the man’s fingers from his arm, then stepped back, leaving a clear shot for J.T. The faint echo of the man’s blubbering had faded by the time the water’s surface was calm again.
“Anything you want to say, Eddie?” Sonny turned toward the boat’s captain.
Fast Eddie, they called him, because he never got boarded, never had to dump a load, because he was slick and sly and clever. This time he’d been too clever for his own good.
Eddie wasn’t shaking or crying . . . yet. He stood there, shoulders back, gaze insolent. He knew he was going to die, but he was arrogant enough to think he was taking his secret to his grave. If he couldn’t have the quarter of a million dollars’ worth of cocaine, neither could they. Sonny intended to prove him wrong.
“Go to hell.”
“I imagine I will, when it’s my time.” Sonny took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, and drew deeply on it before exhaling. The smoke hung there, a thin, curling wisp, dissipating slowly into the thick air. “Where are my drugs?”
“Where you’ll never find them.”
“Don’t be a fool, Eddie. Tell me where you—”
“You gonna make a deal with me if I do? You gonna work something out? Let me walk away?”
“No,” Sonny stated calmly. “You’re dead either way. We have to make an example of you.”
“So why should I tell you?”
“Because there’s all kinds of ways to die. We can make it quick and easy, like your crew, or so slow and hard that you’ll beg to end it. It’s your choice.”
Eddie’s gaze shifted from Sonny to J.T., from Devlin to LeRoy. Calculating the odds for escape? The only place he could go was into the creek, where the water was deep enough that, with his hands tied behind him, he wouldn’t make it far.
“Last chance,” Sonny said. “You gonna take it?”
Eddie stared at him, tight-lipped.
After one last drag, Sonny dropped the cigarette and ground it into the dirt. “Give him what he wants,” he said, then turned and walked through the bar’s back door. A scream ripped through the night as he closed the door behind him.
The April afternoon was balmy, the streets busy with locals and tourists alike. No one noticed the girl standing in a doorway in the middle of the block. Her long curls were tangled, her clothes too small, and her canvas shoes were torn, exposing her little toes. She wore a backpack, as tattered and dirty as she was, and she watched the comings and goings with a practiced eye. She’d made a good lunch of the fruit and pastries she’d stolen three streets over. Now it was time to go to work.
She chose her target, a tall, slender man with a camera that would be worth at least fifty dollars, to say nothing of the cash he must have in his pocket. It was impossible to say for sure, but it seemed that she was his target as well. He pointed the camera in her direction and snapped off pictures so regularly that she imagined she heard the whir of the film winding. One of those pictures, she knew, would end up fastened to a page in William’s journal. What would happen to the rest?
She blinked, and the scene shifted. She was behind the camera now, and in front of it, as well. She watched herself through the viewfinder and wondered why William wanted the photo. He hadn’t yet met her—that wouldn’t happen for another six months. She knew nothing about him, and he should know nothing about her, but obviously he did. The answer must be in the journal . . .
The fourteen-year-old girl in the viewfinder flattened into a one-dimensional image, a moment caught in time. Startled, Selena reached for it, intending to take the picture from the journal, to claim it for her own, but a sound behind her stilled her. Then everything went black. Dear God, she was trapped in William’s vault. Claustrophobia tightened her chest and knotted her throat so the only sound she could produce was a frightened whimper. Her lungs were burning, her chest tightening so only the thinnest breath got through . . . until familiar voices penetrated the panic.
Tony. And William. No, not William. His real name was Henry. Selena tried to move toward the door, but arms clamped around her, squeezing her against something solid and warm. She tried to speak, but a hand locked across her mouth. She’d forgotten she wasn’t alone. Damon Long held her, and for a moment she was grateful. It was only his presence that kept her from shattering into a million pieces. But he was imprisoning her, not protecting her. He and Henry intended to kill her, and if she died, Tony would die, too, and the girl in the photo would never know—
With a strangled gasp, Selena jerked awake. Her skin was damp, her pulse racing, her mind so thoroughly dulled that it took her a moment to regain her senses. She wasn’t in Henry’s vault, but in Tony’s bed, and Damon Long wasn’t holding her prisoner once more; it was the covers tangled around her body that kept her from moving. She wasn’t going to die, Tony wasn’t going to die, and the girl in the photo . . .
She worked free of the sheet and blanket. The girl in the photo was her, taken fourteen years ago on an Ocho Rios street. But she hadn’t seen the photographer who’d snapped that picture, hadn’t even heard of Henry Daniels or his alias, William Davis, at the time, had been unaware of the very existence of the photo until that day two weeks ago when Tony shot him in his study.
Even then, all she’d gotten was a glimpse—long enough to recognize herself, long enough to note the date and the inconsistency with her history with Henry as she knew it. With everything that had followed, she hadn’t gotten the chance to return to the journal, to learn the secrets of her life that she was sure it contained. By the time she’d remembered, it and all the other journals had been taken into FBI custody, evidence in their case, impossibly out of her reach.
She tried to comb her fingers through her hair, but the muscles and nerves in her left arm protested. Instead, she used her good arm to stuff pillows behind her back, then took note of the empty half of the bed—empty of human life, at least. Tony’s dog, Mutt, lay curled at the foot of the bed. When she looked at him, he shifted to her side and rested his head on her stomach, waiting patiently for
a scratch.
She listened for some sound of Tony moving about, but heard none. A glance at the clock showed that it was past time for him to report to the Detective Division, though she doubted he’d left yet. Not without checking on her. Not without saying good-bye. Not without worrying about her.
He had worried the night before—on the drive to the hospital, while the staff had examined and treated her, when he’d taken her home. He’d undressed her, put her to bed, and tried to coax her into taking the pain medication the doctor had prescribed. When she’d refused, he’d lain down with her and held her, and she’d felt the tension in his body. I’ll keep you safe, he’d murmured.
No one had ever truly cared about her safety before. Even Henry had merely been protecting his property, for that was how he’d thought of her. He’d believed that in saving her life, he’d won her heart and bought her soul.
He’d been uncomfortably close to right. She had actually considered killing for him, just as he had once killed for her. In the end, he had intended to kill her. Only Tony had stopped him.
Now some stranger out there wanted to finish the job for Henry.
What was she going to do? She couldn’t live in fear, couldn’t allow Henry to make her a prisoner again. He’d controlled every aspect of her life since she was fourteen—had told her how to dress, talk, and act, where to go to school and what to study, what to think, what to want, what to do. She should be free of him now that he lay in a coma, but she wasn’t. As long as people who worked for him were willing to kill her, as long as the FBI used her association with him to threaten her, as long as much of her own history was still secret even from her . . .
Henry’s ultimate goal had been to place control of his business in her hands. He had chosen her as his heir and expected her to obediently follow his bidding. Could she do it? Could she accept the FBI’s offer, step into Henry’s shoes, and run his business . . . right into the ground? It seemed that only then, with his legacy in ruins and the FBI’s cases resolved, would she be truly safe.
And she would learn the truth about her past along the way.
Outside the bedroom door, the stairs creaked, making her nerves go taut. Her gaze shifted to the nightstand, where both her pistol and switchblade sat in easy reach. She took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. Mutt wasn’t the greatest watchdog, but only around her and Tony did he get so relaxed. The sound of a feline hiss in the hallway confirmed that it was Tony on the stairs. The fat black cat he’d taken in months ago when his neighbor died greeted every sight of him with a hiss and the swipe of a paw.
An instant later Tony stepped into the room, dressed in his usual white shirt, dark suit, and dark tie. He’d already started combing his fingers through his hair, making him look adorably boyish. The grin when he saw that she was awake completed the picture. “How do you feel?”
She smiled ruefully. “Like someone took a few shots at me.”
“Seventy-two, to be precise. That’s how many shell casings they found on the hillside above the range.”
While she’d been examined by the emergency room doctor, Tony had reported the ambush. Police officers had been sent to the range, along with the crime-scene unit, and one young detective had come to the hospital to interview her. She’d had little enough to tell the officer. She hadn’t seen the shooter, hadn’t seen his vehicle, didn’t know anything that would help identify him.
Selena shifted into a sitting position without disturbing Mutt. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“I told them I’d be in late. That I might get lucky and get to help you shower.”
“I think I can handle it. But offer again sometime when I’m not sore.” Aware of his gaze, she eased from the bed, then gingerly tested her arm. The movement was painful, but she’d endured worse. The wound wouldn’t put her out of commission.
Steadier, she raised her good arm and combed through her hair, dislodging bits of debris. A glance at the bed showed more dust and splinters on the pillowcase. A shower sounded wonderful, with or without Tony’s help. Too bad what she was planning after the shower wasn’t a fraction as appealing.
“What’s on your schedule for today?” Tony asked, moving to lean against the dresser. “Besides resting, of course.”
She wished she could lie to him and swear that was the only thing on her agenda, but she couldn’t. She’d told so many lies before the whole ugly truth had finally come out. She didn’t intend ever to lie to him again.
Warily she approached the dresser. Her purse lay a few feet to his right, and inside was the business card she needed. Her fingers folded over it as she forced herself to meet his gaze. “I need directions to an address.”
“A follow-up visit for your arm?”
If only she could say yes. . . . She unclenched her fingers and laid the card in his outstretched hand. He needed no more than the briefest of glances to recognize the FBI badge embossed there, and his gaze turned dark. “You’re not working with them, Selena.”
“I have no choice.”
“The hell you don’t! They’ll get you killed!”
She shook her head. “They’re my only way out.”
“They’ll paint a damn target on your back!”
“The target’s already there! Remember last night? Someone tried to kill me. Damon Long told you that Henry made no secret of the fact that he intended to turn the business over to me, and that it wasn’t a popular decision.”
“And you’re taking Long’s word for it? A career criminal and a freakin’ murderer?”
“So you think it was someone else shooting at me last night. Someone with no connection to Henry.” She raised one brow. “Just how many enemies do you think I have that are willing to resort to murder?”
“It could have been a random shooting.”
She wished she could believe that the ambush had been nothing more than a senseless attack, but she couldn’t. And she could see in Tony’s eyes that he didn’t believe it himself. “Somebody—most likely one of Henry’s people—wants me out of the way, and he’ll try again . . . unless I help the FBI stop him—stop all of them.”
He stared at her, frustration and anger stamped on his features. Resolutely she stared back, resisting the urge to shrink away under the weight of his censure. She didn’t want him angry with her, didn’t want to upset or disappoint him, to jeopardize their relationship in any way.
But if the relationship wasn’t strong enough to survive, better that they find out right away, while she could still survive.
Dragging his fingers through his hair, he pushed past her and paced to the window, then back. “This is stupid, Selena. I thought we’d agreed to take our chances in court. The feds are bluffing. They don’t have a case against you—everyone knows that but you. They can’t tie you to Henry’s business. They can’t connect you to any of the vigilante murders, not when the lead detective on every one of them testifies that you weren’t involved. The worst they can do is deport you, and even that’s not going to happen. Hell, you were born in Puerto Rico! You’re an American citizen!”
“I can’t prove that!” She’d once used the same defense with Henry when he’d threatened her. Prove it, he had taunted. You have no birth certificate, no records of any kind, no way of proving you’ve ever been to Puerto Rico. However, there is proof that you lived in Jamaica. The birth certificate you do have shows you were born in Ocho Rios. Immigration records show that you entered the US from Jamaica. He’d finished with an elegant shrug. You could, of course, take your chances with the courts.
She stood very still, reluctant to give voice to the words rising inside her but unable to stop them. “It’s not our chances, Tony. I’m the one who will stand trial. I’m the one who faces deportation or life in prison or worse. I’m the one who got shot at last night. From where I stand, it’s my problem and my decision.”
That stopped him midpace. He turned to face her, one brow raised, the frustration and anger joined by hurt. After a moment, his expression turne
d blank. “I see. I thought this couple thing meant we were in this together—you know, I love you, you love me, we deal with things as a team. Apparently, I was wrong.”
She reached out to him, but he took an awkward step back, avoiding her touch. Feeling some of his hurt, she let her hand fall to her side again. “I love you, Tony, more than I can say . . . but I have to do this.”
“They’ll sacrifice you if it suits their purposes. They’ll get you killed.”
Once more she shook her head. “They’ll give me a chance to live.”
“This is crazy. Your lawyer—”
“—can’t protect me from the people who want me dead. The FBI can.”
When the hurt in his dark eyes deepened, too late she remembered his words from the night before. I’ll keep you safe. She knew he would die to protect her, but that wasn’t enough. And if he got hurt because of her, if, God forbid, he died because of her . . .
“So that’s it.” His voice was flat, empty. “You get to make the decisions, and the hell with what I think. You’re going to let the FBI set you up as a target for every bastard who works for Henry, to put your life on the line just because those ass-holes from the Bureau are making empty threats, and I have no say in the matter.”
She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.
He rubbed the center of his forehead—amazing how quickly she’d sent him from a boyish grin to a headache— then exhaled loudly. “I’d better get to work.” He walked past her, far enough away that they couldn’t accidentally touch, then turned back when he reached the door. For a moment he looked blankly at the business card crumpled in his hand, then he tossed it on the dresser. “The office is on Sixty-fifth, just west of Memorial. You can’t miss it.”
When he turned away again, she quickly spoke. “Tony? I love you.” Any other time the pleading in her tone would have embarrassed her, but not then. She would beg him to believe her if that was what he wanted.
He was still for a breath or two, then he murmured, “Yeah. I love you, too.”
Deep Cover Page 2
