“A woman who burns so brightly I feel like I’m being blinded by a star whenever I look at her.”
She blinked rapidly.
“A woman who will walk away from me without a backward glance as soon as this is over.”
Her mouth opened in shock. She stared at his throat, avoiding his gaze. “I’ve never not wanted to walk away in the past…” She raised her eyes to his then, not in apology, but with fear. “I have no idea how I’m going to feel about you when this is over. I’ve never…” She swallowed her words then tried again. “I’m not a woman men want to get involved with for anything besides sex, Quentin, and the sex has been fantastic.”
She stroked her hand down his chest, but he didn’t let himself get distracted.
“Are you actually trying to tell me men walk away from you first?”
She gave him a look. Then laughed. “No.”
“No?” He opened the negotiator’s toolbox again.
The anger went out of her. “I always leave before I get emotionally involved. I don’t want those clingy, awkward emotions. I don’t need the distraction from my work.”
“So, to be clear, you’re saying, when this is over, when we are rescued,” because they were going to be rescued, “you’ll walk away rather than pursue a relationship with me?”
“Relationship?” she asked.
“You know. People who talk and date and have sex as often as possible.”
She opened her mouth again, but no words came out. She stared at him in silence.
He went to turn away, but she grabbed onto his arm.
“I don’t want a relationship,” she whispered.
He blew out a long breath and twisted out of her grip. He should have been relieved. He knew exactly where he stood, and if they did have sex again, he could enjoy it without worrying about how that reflected on his marriage or the depth of feeling he’d had for his late wife. It would be a purely physical act with an incredibly attractive woman.
But for the first time since Abbie died, he had to wonder whether or not that would be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The screaming from the video that had been uploaded online came to an abrupt end, cut off just as violently as the man’s ear. The video was in black and white, but the blood was obvious. The video was twelve seconds long and hideous.
Eban’s stomach churned. “Play it again.”
The victim was held down by a knee pressing his head into the dirt. The only thing visible was the side of the man’s head, thick black hair and a dark t-shirt.
Heavy panting filled the audio feed as if there’d been a scuffle. Next, another man’s hands came into view, holding a large hunting knife. He grabbed hold of the top of the captive’s ear and sliced through the cartilage and all the way down to the lobe, leaving the remaining flesh ragged and torn. The wound welled with blood as the victim screamed.
Eban closed his eyes. The message on the video stated they had twelve hours until they cut off Quentin’s other ear. After that, they’d snip off his fingers and toes before removing his balls.
Eban grabbed his head between his hands. “Fuuuuck!”
Charlotte Blood was on one video-link, her complexion ashen. Alex Parker was on another sans baby, thank god.
“How soon can we get that money together?” Eban asked. The new head of the task force was on his way from CIRG, and Eban didn’t want the guy screwing this up with by-the-book procedures that would get his boss killed.
“It’s ready to go,” Alex said. “But I want proof of life for Haley before I send it.”
“Guys,” said Charlotte.
“Are you serious?” Eban asked Alex incredulously.
“Deadly.” Alex’s tone was implacable.
“Guys,” said Charlotte.
“They just cut off his fucking ear,” Eban snarled.
“Guys!” Charlotte snapped with impatience. “I don’t think that was Quentin,” She was doing something on her end. “Look at this photograph.” She emailed Eban and Parker a picture of Quentin from the side taken at some wedding. The guy had shorter hair in the image—it was from before Abbie had died and he’d gone all Keanu Reeves on them.
“Compare the still of the person who just lost their ear with this picture of the boss.”
Eban stared hard at the two images. Then sat up straight. Ears were as individual as fingerprints.
“She’s right.” Alex produced an overlay of the two images, and the ears were not even remotely the same shape.
Eban inhaled slowly. It wasn’t Quentin who’d just had his ear shorn off, it was some other poor bastard. “Why pretend to cut off his ear?”
“And why the big hurry to get the cash? They know this usually takes months.” Charlotte looked worried.
Eban blinked as facts collided. “Shit. They don’t have him anymore.” His elation rolled straight into despondency. He rubbed his hands over his face, all the stress and strain of the past few days hitting him like a tank. “He’s probably dead.” He stared up at the ceiling of the legat’s office at the US embassy, choked by despair. Working kidnap and ransoms was always rough, but nothing had prepared him for what happened when the hostage was one of their own.
“He might have escaped,” Alex argued.
Eban shook his head. “Quentin knows the best thing for a hostage to do is to wait for a ransom to be paid.”
“Ask them for proof of life for Haley and Quentin, but tell them we have some money ready to be sent immediately as testament of our good intentions. Beg them not to hurt them any further.” Alex narrowed his eyes at his monitor. “I’m not ready to give up on either of them until we have irrefutable information that says otherwise. Give me some time to track the video upload, and my data analysts are still working on all the cell data, but it’s a lot of information. It’ll take some time.”
Eban straightened his spine and nodded, ashamed of his loss of hope. “I’ll email them right now.” Regardless of whether Quentin was alive or dead, Eban was going to hunt these bastards down. No one got away with attacking US citizens without experiencing the full brunt of US resources. No one got away with killing his friends.
“Do you have a hostage rescue team in place and ready to move if we locate these guys?” Alex asked. “Because I have a private group based in Colombia on a flight to Jakarta as we speak.”
Eban nodded slowly. “HRT are on their way. Will be based onboard the Navy frigate near the site of the attack.” Ready to kick some terrorist ass just as soon as they figured out where the bastards were.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Are you okay?” Darby asked anxiously when they arrived back at camp. He’d made the owl call as arranged, and she’d replied in kind, the signal that they were safe for now.
Dusk had crept in with the storm. The rain had finally stopped, and steam rose from his clothes in misty waves.
Quentin nodded, but decided to let Haley do the talking while he got to work finishing the shelter. He hoped they wouldn’t be here long enough to need it.
He picked up the machete and started hacking at a few more saplings to shore up the roof. Then he layered large fronds over the structure, holding them down with more branches and repeating the process until he had what he hoped would be a waterproof covering beneath which they could sit out any future tropical downpours.
He slapped at a mosquito.
“Here.” Haley held out a bottle of bug spray, and he took it from her, not meeting her eyes.
“Thanks.” He sprayed himself, DEET hitting the back of his throat in a noxious wave.
Darby was out of earshot, digging noisily through the cooler looking for something to eat as a snack. They’d agreed to ration her supplies in case rescue took longer than they hoped, but she needed food. Tomorrow he’d see if he could catch any fish. Give Bear Grylls a run for his money.
He grunted to himself.
Haley leaned closer, and he was suddenly aware of every cell in his body.
�
�When I said I didn’t want a relationship, what I really meant was that I don’t want to want a relationship. The idea of being under anyone’s control scares me…” she whispered.
“That is not what a relationship is about,” Quentin said, trying to keep the edge out of his tone. Where was his late-night DJ voice? Or his good buddy voice that had helped talk down bank robbers and whacked out meth-heads? “One person doesn’t control the other.”
“I know that on one level, in the rational part of my brain.” Her hands curled into fists. “But the fourteen-year-old girl buried not that deep below the surface is aware that without a wealthy grandmother, I would have been dependent on my parents, who didn’t believe I was being abused in my own home—or I’d have been on the streets doing whatever it took to survive.”
He wove another leaf through the branches. “You equate intimate relationships with subjugation and abuse?”
“Yes. No.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Quentin, I just know that I…that I…” She started gulping air.
Ah shit.
He turned back to her. God, he was a jackass. “It’s okay, Haley. Just breathe. I should never have brought it up. I don’t want a relationship either.” What the hell had he been thinking? “We are in a survival situation, it wasn’t fair to do that to you and put you under pressure that way. I’m sorry.”
She clutched at his forearms. “No. You were thinking like a normal person. I’m trying to explain that I’m not normal. I don’t think I’ve ever been normal.”
He hauled her to him and then saw Darby staring at them with haunted eyes, looking lonely and lost. He opened his other arm wide, and Darby flung herself into the group embrace.
He stood there holding two scared women in his arms and staring up at the pristine navy sky as the silver moon started to rise. He grieved for what these women had lost. Grieved for the pain and suffering they had endured at the hands of men. He murmured soft words and rocked them both. He would do anything he could to protect them, even if it ended up leaving him open to hurt.
The wind dropped, and the clouds had disappeared as if they’d dumped everything they had onto this remote and vast wilderness.
“You know what I want to see?” he said, realizing it was true, even though he’d simply been searching for something to distract them all from their situation.
Haley straightened away from him, wiping her eyes and looking embarrassed. Darby followed suit. “What?” they asked in unison.
“A lava flow at night.”
Haley snorted out a laugh, and Darby’s eyes gleamed.
“We’ll have to wait for the moon to rise fully so we can see the path,” Darby told him, putting her hands on her hips and doing what she did best, organizing things.
“You two try and get a few hours rest until then.” Even though it was early, they were all exhausted. “I’ll take first watch.”
Darby handed him the pistol, and he nodded to her and grabbed the camp chair, then went off to find the best vantage point. They had to keep one step ahead of the enemy.
* * *
The path was narrow and dangerous, but the moon was so bright and the night so clear it was almost as if it were daylight. Sweat beaded on his brow. His muscles ached from the steep climb. They’d been at this for nearly an hour, going steady, because breaking a limb might be a death sentence.
The rock underfoot was coarse. The air held the odor of sulfur and was so dry and hot he could feel the heat in his lungs.
They’d brought a canteen of water and a granola bar each.
“Did you ever get lonely out here all alone?” Haley asked Darby.
“Not really. I’m used to wide open spaces and like my own company.” The young woman led the way, and Quentin noticed a sway in her gait that hadn’t been there before. It gave him hope she could get through this, even though he knew it wouldn’t be quick or easy.
“I spend a lot of time on a remote island in the Caribbean. After two days of solitude I’m clawing the walls.” Haley huffed, clearly feeling the altitude. “I always think I want it, but when I get it, I don’t want it anymore.” She laughed.
“I’m the same.” Quentin put his hands on her hips to steady her as she clambered up a small rockface. The look she gave him over her shoulder was full of so much passion, his fingers clenched reflexively on her hips.
She ran her hand across his cheek, almost tenderly, then hoisted herself up and over the ledge.
“The same as who?” Darby asked and laughed, oblivious to the sexual tension strumming between him and Haley.
Damn. He could barely remember how to breathe, let alone think.
“Do you like your own company or not?” Darby prompted.
He grinned as he hauled himself up the rock. Darby was still a shrewd and focused cookie, in spite of everything she’d endured.
“Well, I always think I enjoy solitude, but I’m not sure it’s true, as I never take a day off work.”
“Never?” Haley asked, incredulous.
Quentin shook his head. “Not anymore.”
Haley frowned at him quizzically.
“How far is it to go?” He changed the subject, because he didn’t want either of them catching on that something had changed, and that change had been the tragic loss of his wife and their stillborn child. Even though he knew every corner of their trauma, he wasn’t ready to share his. Or perhaps he didn’t want to burden them with more sadness. They were already suffering enough.
Darby moved to the top of a nearby ridge and planted her fists on her hips. “We’re here!”
After making his way to join her, Quentin stopped short at the dramatic scene. Below them was a jagged slope dark with shadow. Midnight black except for a glowing line of fervent orange—molten lava moving inexorably toward a cliff before abruptly plunging into the sea. The stench was like brimstone.
“Welcome to Mordor,” he said under his breath.
Darby grinned at him, obviously thrilled to find a fellow Tolkien fan.
“This isn’t considered an active volcano?” Trepidation seeped into Haley’s tone. The red glow of the lava gilded the edge of her face, and he found it hard to keep his eyes off her. She was beautiful. Stunning.
“It’s an active volcano, but a stable one for the last seventy years or so. USGS monitor it—hence me being here—but we don’t have a full-time team assigned as it isn’t showing any signs of imminent eruption, and the island isn’t populated.”
Quentin looked away from the spectacular scenery. “Any way to make it appear an eruption might be imminent?”
And grab someone’s attention?
Darby pressed her lips together. “Well, moving the benchmark GPS stations might do it. Except, as they are portable, they might not be monitored automatically, the way the permanent, fixed, GPS stations are.” She frowned harder. “If we unscrewed the casings and jiggled a few of the tiltometers that might set off an automatic alarm, but my boss and the USGS would be pissed we interfered with baseline data.”
Her boss could go fuck himself. Quentin curved his lips, hoping he didn’t look as pissed at the guy as he felt. “They can take it up with me after we’re rescued. Come on, let’s go stage a little seismic activity of our own.”
* * *
They piled back to camp with the tired, happy feeling of scouts returning from a long hike. It was crazy to feel that sense of deep satisfaction, but Haley was practically euphoric.
“I’ll take first watch,” Quentin offered.
“I think you already did.” Haley rolled her eyes. He’d kept watch while she and Darby had slept earlier. If she had to guess, she’d say it was about three AM.
“I don’t mind doing an extra shift,” he insisted.
“That’s not how this equality thing works.” Haley shook her head. “I’ll do it.”
“No.” Darby held her hand out for the weapon Quentin carried in his waistband. “I’ll do it. I slept well earlier, and I’ve had enough nightmares for one nigh
t.”
The euphoria died. Haley’s mouth went dry. It was easy to forget Darby had recently gone through such a brutal ordeal. She was so collected and competent. But when she closed her eyes, she probably relived every detail. Haley ran her hand over Darby’s shoulder, and the girl smiled at her ruefully.
“Four hours, and then it’s Haley’s turn,” Quentin said sternly.
As soon as Darby trudged out of sight, Haley looked around for the blanket she’d been using. Quentin picked it up, shook it out and offered it to her, already knowing what she was looking for. It was scary how well he knew her already.
He unzipped Darby’s sleeping bag and laid it on the sleeping pad then glanced at her standing there uncertainly. “It’s big enough for two if you want to share.”
That was all the invitation she needed. She hurried in beside him and once again found herself snuggled against a strong male body, resting her cheek on his chest. She adjusted the blanket over them both, the breeze off the ocean keeping the temperature tolerable.
She rubbed her hand gently over his chest. He grabbed her fingers and held her still.
“Keep touching me like that, and I’ll never get to sleep.”
Haley felt a shiver of desire whip over her skin. But it wasn’t fair to Darby to initiate anything sexual when she might walk in on them. Not when her wounds were so fresh.
“Maybe we can go looking for more rocks again tomorrow,” Haley suggested. “Get a little lost on the way back.”
His hands tightened around her waist, and his voice got husky. “I like how you think.”
The scent of him comforted her. The warmth of his solid muscles provided a reassuring sense of safety.
“I wish I could figure out why I was the only person they planned to take alive,” he said quietly after a few moments of silence.
It was obviously eating at him. “Perhaps you were the target all along.”
“Jesus, I hope not.”
Haley lifted her head to look into his face. “It doesn’t make what happened your fault, Quentin. You know that.”
Colder Than Sin (Cold Justice - Crossfire: FBI Romantic Suspense Book 2) Page 20