Not that Haley and Quentin were in a relationship, at least not a conventional one. Maybe one based on mutual survival, which was a little too close to need in Haley’s estimation. She let go of his hand and took a drink of water. He took a drink too, and they both scanned the view.
Small islands dotted the sea in the distance. Not close, but close enough to make their kidnappers still present a threat. No boats were in sight. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
After a short rest, they trudged over the next rise. Darby reached a bright yellow tripod held in place with some large rocks. A white disk sat on top.
When Haley and Quentin caught up, Darby explained it to them. “We call it a benchmark.” She gestured at the concrete cylinder planted in the ground beneath the white disk. “Geophysicists intermittently come back and take measurements at fixed reference points marked by concrete blocks, so we can assess changes over time. We also have permanent, fixed GPS stations, but this will be easier to move, along with the portable solar panel.”
“What’s that over there?” Quentin pointed to some sort of concrete structure.
“It measures the angle of tilt. As a volcano grows, we see an increase in the tilt, and that change in tilt speeds up the closer we get to an eruption.” She walked over to it and grinned. “Don’t worry, there hasn’t been a dramatic shift since…” Her voice faltered. “Since I was taken.”
Haley changed the subject, trying to skate over memories Darby would never outrun. “What exactly are you studying?”
Darby blinked. “My dissertation was supposed to assess any deformation in the geology of this volcano in the wake of Krakatoa’s recent increased activity. Deformation is usually caused by magma building beneath the surface. We measure it by doing a campaign GPS network on the volcano’s surface using these benchmarks.”
Darby looked off into the distance. Her hands started shaking as she began spooling the wire that led from the solar panel to the battery. “I have no idea if I’ll be able to finish the work here or if I even want to, after…”
She couldn’t finish her sentence.
“You don’t have to make any decisions right now, Darby,” Quentin said softly.
The woman drew in a stuttering breath. “My supervisor is one of those professors who doesn’t believe in excuses—”
“What happened to you is not an excuse.” Quentin’s tone was firm. “It wasn’t a failure on your part that led to the attack. If anything, it was a failure on the university’s part not to provide adequate protection for one of its students, and I will be talking to them about it, trust me.”
“But what if I don’t want them to know?” Darby’s voice rose, and her expression grew stricken. “How can I look my supervisor or fellow students in the eye if they know what happened—”
“It doesn’t change who you are,” Quentin said quietly.
But he didn’t understand. It did change you. It assaulted every truth you thought you knew about yourself.
Even so, Haley was shocked Darby would consider hiding what had happened to her. It was such a violent attack. Except…wasn’t that what she’d done? When her father had refused to believe her over his brother, hadn’t she buried it so deep no one would ever find it unless she allowed them to?
“You don’t need to make any decisions yet,” Haley assured her. “All we need to do right now is figure out how to be rescued by the good guys.”
Darby’s eyes went huge, and she nodded, the fear of their captors returning ten-fold. Haley wanted to say something to ease her anxiety, but nothing came. What if the bad guys did track them down? What if the terrorists found them? They were not out of danger yet. They were trapped on this island until they were rescued—and figuring out who the good guys were could be a problem.
Darby folded the legs of the tripod so it formed one long unit, but before she could shoulder it, Quentin took it from her.
“Is there another one of these not too far from here?” he asked.
“Yes.” She tipped her chin to the west. “Over the ridge. Not far.”
“Do you think two GPS units will be enough to get someone’s attention?” he asked.
Darby shrugged. “I don’t know. They might all be watching more active volcanoes, like the one on the island where we were kept.” Her voice tripped.
“Why aren’t there volcanologists there?” Quentin asked, moving off in the direction Darby had indicated.
Haley brought up the rear.
“It only recently became active. I’m sure teams will be arriving there soon to set up monitoring stations.”
“Where from?” asked Quentin.
“The States usually deploys a team.”
“Which means presumably the bad guys will need to find somewhere else to set up camp,” Haley said.
“Which is probably why they came here in the first place,” Quentin added. “Looking for somewhere to relocate.”
“Oh, god.” Darby gripped her throat. “They’ll come back.”
Haley exchanged a look with Quentin. Shit.
“They might,” Quentin agreed cautiously. “Or they might head to one of the thousands of other uninhabited islands around here that isn’t a volcano. So, the sooner we get these signals transmitting with our cry for help the better, because I don’t know about you guys, but I want to catch those bastards and make them pay for everything they’ve done.”
Darby started hurrying to the next station, and Haley’s heart broke for her again. Along with it came fear for herself and Quentin. If the terrorists did catch them again, she’d suffer the same fate Darby had endured, and Quentin would be killed.
The realization that they still weren’t safe had her stomach cramping with dread, so she hurried to catch up with the others so they could figure out a way off this goddamned volcano.
* * *
Quentin would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried about the terrorists tracking them down to this island before he could secure their safety. He worked for the FBI. He was responsible for protecting American citizens. He had one pistol with a single magazine of ammo and a knife he wasn’t afraid to use, but that wouldn’t be enough against a small army of murderous thugs.
Having these two strong but vulnerable women in his company made his apprehension worse. The thought of anyone hurting them made him furious. They’d both been hurt too much already.
The three of them needed to use guile and brains to get to safety, not rely on violence or brute force.
He thought about Abbie and what she would have thought of him hiding out on an active volcano after escaping a terrorist camp. Of him having killed five men with his bare hands. She would have hated that. She’d been a soft and gentle soul who couldn’t even swat a wasp.
The memories and loneliness of missing his late wife didn’t cut quite as deep as they usually did. It was both a guilty relief and a terrifying prospect, because he knew why. Maybe it was the “almost dying” part that had gotten him to finally shake loose some of his emotional paralysis. Maybe it was the inexorable passage of time. Maybe it was the amazing sex with a stunning beauty. Or maybe it was simply allowing himself to care about another person as both a lover and a friend. They were usually one or the other. Although there was nothing usual about Haley.
Currently she was taking it in turns with Darby to carry the second tripod and flexible solar panel downhill to a location above the tree line that Darby thought would be a suitable place to build their SOS signal. It was hidden from view on land and from the water. If the terrorists flew directly over it, they were screwed, but they had to take that risk.
The heavy tripod was cutting into his shoulder, so he adjusted it slightly. Almost there.
“You move these things around on your own normally?” He didn’t want to be sexist, but Darby was five-two tops and slight with it. He was over six-foot and fit, and he was feeling the burn in his muscles.
Darby slicked sweat from the side of her face onto the shoulder of her
t-shirt. “The helicopter dropped the crates close to where each benchmark needed to be set up. I only had to move them twenty or thirty yards.”
He flashed his brows in acknowledgement. She was tough. She’d need to be.
Finally, Darby stopped walking and helped Haley carefully lower the heavy unit to the ground and set it up on its feet. He surveyed the patch of ground and walked thirty paces away so the tripods would mark the two ends of the three letters.
“We have to make the SOS as large as possible so that it can be seen from space, and heavy enough it doesn’t blow away if the breeze gets up.” He put his hands on his hips. “How about Haley and I look for rocks while you set up the GPS?”
“Okay.” Darby glanced around nervously.
They needed to instigate a watch system, but this came first. It was their only chance of rescue.
“We won’t go far,” he assured the girl.
She nodded sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m not normally such a scaredy-cat.”
Haley opened her arms, and the two women embraced. “You don’t have to apologize to us, Darby. Quentin and I know what you endured, and we are both so impressed with your strength and spirit.” Haley laughed, but it was a half-sob. “Feel free to fall apart any time. I know I do.”
Funny that he was the one who was supposed to be good with words, but she knew exactly what to say.
Haley gave Darby one last squeeze.
“Right.” Haley sniffed. “Come on, Savage. We get to haul rocks.”
One side of his lips lifted in a smirk. He liked the bossy side of her. The fact she was regaining her rather magnificent self-confidence after their shitty ordeal bolstered his own spirits.
They started building a pile of stones and scouring the adjacent area for anything they could find. Pity they didn’t have some white paint.
As soon as Darby was done setting up the two GPS stations, she set to work on marking out the letters. First, she loosely created the outline so they knew how many gaps they’d need to fill. Having exhausted the rocks in the immediate vicinity, he and Haley headed over a small rise into what was probably a stream bed when it rained. Right now, it was dry.
Haley bent over to pick up a rock, and her legs looked a million times better in his gym shorts than his did. The phantom weight of them around his hips had blood diverting to his groin.
“Like what you see?” She’d caught him staring at her ass.
Rather than looking away, he told her the truth. “I’m thinking about what happened back at the hotel. Hoping it happens again some time when we’re not running for our lives.”
Her eyes widened, pupils dilating. “Oh.”
He laughed. “Oh? That’s all a guy gets for being honest?”
She blinked, and her sudden loss of composure had him panicking because, shit, maybe she wasn’t ready for any mention of sex after living under the threat of violence. And maybe the two of them had been a never-to-be-repeated one-night stand. Perhaps he was the only one who thought the sex had been stupendous.
She laughed. “I thought I was going to have to work a lot harder to persuade you to do that again.”
“Persuade me?” He mirrored her words, angling for more insight though he was mentally fist pumping.
“Persuade you to have sex with me. You don’t think I could do it?”
She only had to breathe, and he was volunteering for duty. He let her come closer, her walk turning seductive, her eyes sparkling and her smile… like she knew every dirty fantasy he’d ever imagined and probably a few he’d never dreamed of.
When she got within touching distance, he cupped her face while she was still trying to turn this into a competition, because that’s how she made it less personal, less about them making love and more about the power play of an explosive hookup.
That’s how she usually operated. He knew it without her telling him. And he knew why.
She stood toe-to-toe with him, and he stared into those eyes of hers, blue planets in unknown solar systems. The lust was sparking for sure, but so was something else. Something timid and unsure that he didn’t want to think about too deeply, because he knew it was reflected in his own. It was something she wouldn’t want or know how to deal with. He didn’t want to deal with it either, but he recognized it. He kissed her so neither of them had to think about anything except how the other tasted.
Her lips were soft and parted for him immediately. His arm went around her waist, and he pulled her to him so that she knew the effect she had on him even if they couldn’t do anything about it any time soon.
He bent her back over his arm and swept his tongue into her mouth, tasting her, exploring her. Not in the same feral rush of a few nights ago, but savoring, coaxing. Nipping, soothing, murmuring as he drew her further and further into him, into this.
And she responded like magnesium to a flame, sizzling in his arms. She slid her tongue into his mouth, tangling it with his as she savored him. He purposefully kept her off balance. His free hand smoothed over the curve of her waist, over the rounded hips until he spanned his fingers across one globe of her ass, wishing he could do more than rough out the territory. They couldn’t risk leaving Darby alone for long and needed to get this SOS signal constructed as soon as possible so the civilians could be rescued, and he could get back to helping bring these bastards to justice.
Slowly he raised his head and looked down at her slick, reddened lips.
“Somehow, I don’t think I’d need much persuading,” he said, grinning at her. “And when I get the chance, I’m going to get you naked for two days straight and make you come every chance I get.”
Haley went to open her mouth to reply, but a piercing scream rent the air, and Quentin almost dropped her. Quickly he pulled her upright and then sprinted for the top of the rise.
When he got there, he saw Darby dancing around on the spot.
“What? What is it?” He was so fucking happy there wasn’t an army of hostiles surrounding her, but his heart was pounding.
Dammit they needed to set a watch.
Darby looked up sheepishly. Sweeping her hands repeatedly over her arms and legs. “Spider.”
Haley raised her hand to her mouth and failed to hide a laugh. A grin tugged at his own lips.
Darby finally stopped hopping around and started to laugh, but after a few moments of hilarity, her face crumpled in sadness once more. Haley went and put her arms around the young woman, and Quentin went over and loosely hugged them both.
“We’re getting out of here,” he promised them both. One way or another, he was bringing these women home.
He looked up at the sky, wondering if the satellite that tracked these GPS signals had passed overhead yet. Wondered if, right now, someone somewhere was looking for him and Haley. Given the sheer scale of victims at the hotel and the raging inferno of flames that had engulfed it, they probably assumed they were dead like all the others.
But he wasn’t dead.
Ironically, he felt more alive than he had in years.
Chapter Nineteen
“Where did the image originate?” Eban was in the legat’s office in the US embassy in Jakarta. Legat Reid Armstrong sat next to him. Max Hawthorne, the other negotiator from CNU, paced behind them, wired after pulling another all-nighter at the scene of the hotel massacre. The scent of smoke lingered, despite the fact Hawthorne had showered down the hall a few minutes ago.
The photograph they’d received of Quentin had shown him looking tired and beaten, but essentially whole. The one of Haley Cramer revealed a beautiful woman who’d looked subdued and terrified—and no wonder.
Alex Parker was on a video-link cradling a sleeping newborn. “There’s no identifying information in the metadata. Someone wiped it clean before sending it.”
Which suggested a degree of sophistication that made Eban uneasy. These guys were pros.
“The email came from an anonymous account set up in Indonesia a few days ago,” Alex continued. “No other messages to or from t
he account. IPS address of the computer where it was created was a busy internet cafe in Jakarta—no surveillance cameras. I checked. I think the most interesting thing is the fact they sent it to the same local detective who’s been negotiating the release of the two Westerners abducted from the South China Sea. It kind of tips their hand despite their efforts to conceal their identities.”
The FBI rarely dealt with the kidnappers directly in these kind of cases. The language barrier was one issue. Time was another. In this instance, they’d worked through a local police detective Hawthorne had been coaching. The detective had been doing a damn fine job, even though they hadn’t made much forward progress.
“Any update on the other woman, Darby O’Roarke?” Alex asked.
The guy sure had gotten up to speed fast. Darby’s abduction hadn’t even hit the media channels yet.
Eban shook his head. “Nothing.” He was more and more convinced she was dead.
Alex rocked the baby as it—she, if the pink sleep suit was any indication—started to stir. “What do we know about the Alexanders’ kidnappers?”
Eban let Hawthorne take over as he’d been working the case most recently.
“Our main suspect is a guy named Darmawan Hurek.” Hawthorne spelled it for the cyber security guy on the other side of the world. “A major in the Indonesian Army who went AWOL five years ago after getting caught stealing military equipment and selling it on the black market. A bunch of his men deserted with him.”
Alex nodded, tapping keys with one hand. “Why do you think he’s involved?”
“We didn’t until about three weeks ago when a man was arrested for murder in northern Sumatra. He claimed he knew where the Alexanders were being held and that Hurek was behind the kidnappings.”
“Did he give you proof when you questioned him?” asked Alex.
“Never got the opportunity. He was sentenced to death and executed immediately. By the time I arrived, he’d already been cremated.” Hawthorne looked pissed.
They’d all been furious.
Colder Than Sin (Cold Justice - Crossfire: FBI Romantic Suspense Book 2) Page 17