“The pictures, they are done? Can I see them?”
Cali opened her mouth to tell him that she was terribly sorry but the photos were too drab and dreary, but John, apparently reading her mood too well, smoothly stepped between them.
He nudged her firmly past Quéval, saying, “I think what I have here is great. I didn’t want to waste your chemicals doing them all up. We’re heading out of here right now.”
Cali looked over her shoulder just as Quéval’s eyes lit up. He’d been following John down the hallway, but stopped. “You’re leaving the island?”
Cali noted that John picked up on the undercurrents immediately. His congenial smile never wavered as he turned back to the shopkeeper. “Why, yes. I think my search is over. I’m going to head straight back to the studios and get to work on a presentation. I’ll develop them there. I appreciate your help.”
“Your studio is in New York City?”
Cali felt rather than saw John tense. She hadn’t missed his intentionally vague reference.
“We have both East and West Coast offices.” He turned back down the hall, pushing Cali along in front of him. “Thanks again.”
His pace wasn’t rushed, but his grip on her arm told Cali that nothing was going to stop him until he was outside.
“You will let me know?” Quéval followed them down the hall, apparently so intent on getting information out of them that he was unconcerned over appearing anxious.
“Sure thing.” John waved a hand over his head, then all but shoved Cali out the front door. “We’ve got less than an hour to get off this island,” he said, his voice low and carrying only as far as her ear. He picked up his speed, causing her to stumble along beside him for a few steps.
She finally pulled away from him and stopped. “Can we slow down for a second?”
“No.” He kept walking.
“We forgot my box of merchandise. John—” She broke off on a frustrated sigh and stormed after him. Her legs were average length, but she was almost trotting to maintain his pace. “Do you really think they are so close?”
“Breathing down our proverbial necks. Weren’t you listening back there?”
“Of course. I know you purposely avoided telling him where we were heading. But that’s just good common sense.”
“Everything we said will be common knowledge very shortly.”
“Oh, come on, he’s a busybody, but the whole town isn’t in on this conspiracy.”
“Someone nearby is. Bet on it.”
“Your super-secret”—she stopped when he glared at her—“spy instincts,” she finished evenly. “I can get my stuff out of the bungalow in less than thirty minutes.”
“No time for that. We’re heading directly for the harbor.”
“There has to be time.” She stopped. “Harbor?” He kept on walking. She had to dash to catch up to him. She grabbed his elbow. “Slow down, or I’ll pass out before we get anywhere.” He did. Marginally. “John, I have to go back to the bungalow. Five minutes. Just let me get a few things. It’s important.”
“You can get whatever you need when we get off the island.”
“I’m not talking about cosmetics and a treasured blouse, McShane.” She yanked on his arm. “For God’s sake, slow down!” It was like trying to stop a train with a handcart. She let go and abruptly stopped, crossing her arms. The path to the bungalow forked ahead. He strode another dozen yards before finally slowing then stopping. He looked up, sighed, then turned to face her.
“Whatever it is can’t be worth your life.”
Calmly, she said, “What I want is all I have left of my life.”
John stared at her for an eternal moment, then turned toward the path leading to the bungalow. “Five minutes.” He didn’t look back to see if she followed.
Cali refused to run, but she did catch up with him as they hit the front walk. She stepped on the deck in front of him and turned at the door. “Thank you. It’s just some photos and the stuff in my purse. But it’s all of me I have left.”
“Just hurry.”
She frowned. Where was the tender, compassionate man who’d kissed her so thoroughly? “I’ll be out in two.” She slipped through the screen and headed straight to the small bedroom. She heard the door tap the frame and John’s soft tread on the floor. She felt rather than heard him in the doorway behind her. She tossed the backpack on the bed and opened the single small drawer on the wicker nightstand. “Eudora will have a field day wondering where I went when she comes to get the flowers. At least I paid her up front. I’d feel awful if—” She was rambling. Nerves. She took several steady breaths. John remained silent. It didn’t help much. He made an impressive sentry.
She scooped the contents of the drawer into the backpack then snagged a handful of shorts, tees, and underwear from the wardrobe. “I could throw this in a suitcase and—”
“Keep it light, only what you can carry.”
“Fine.” She hit the small bathroom and dumped her cosmetics bag in. She thought she heard John sigh but wasn’t sure. She smiled. “Hey, it was here, I was here. You never know when you might need kohl eyeliner while dodging bullets. Could come in handy.”
John scowled. She’d been hoping for a reaction. That hadn’t been it. “Okay, okay. Done. Let’s go.”
She got to the doorway but he didn’t budge. “Well?”
The tension emanating from him was almost a visual aura. “Cali, there are some things you should know. In case anything happens to me. Who to contact.”
“Give it to me on the boat. I assume that is the desired method of travel?” She spoke quickly, not wanting to entertain even for a moment the thought that anything could happen to him. “Come on.” She went to push past him. He stopped her. She didn’t look at him. “McShane, you’ve been yelling at me about how much of a hurry we’re in. Let’s go.”
“I don’t yell.”
His answer had her turning to him without conscious thought. “Wha—”
The slapping of the screen door brought an abrupt end to her question.
SEVEN
John grabbed Cali and pressed her to the wall behind the bedroom door, flattening his body against hers. “Don’t move, don’t even whisper.” His words were hot and urgent, his lips pressed directly on her earlobe. She nodded.
John locked his gaze on hers as he backed slowly away. He watched her eyes widen when he slipped his hand to the small of his back and retrieved a fully loaded, folly automatic handgun. He watched her skin pale and her throat work. Stay with me, Cali, he urged silently, holding her gaze by sheer will. As if he’d spoken, she slowly nodded. Adrenaline hammering through him, he winked his approval, tried for a reassuring smile, then turned his full attention to the front entry.
Angling his body, he peered through the slit between the door and the frame. He swore silently as a tall figure moved into view. It was no one he knew, but the man had definitely been to Uncle Sam’s super-spy school. Cali’s time had just run out.
The only exit open to them was the window over the bed. Unfortunately the old rattan headboard half covered the lower screened-in portion. The man crept into the kitchen.
John moved back to Cali, pressing his mouth against her ear. “We go out the window. I’ll get the screen out, you go out first. Don’t wait for me. Run uphill and bury yourself in the biggest bush you can find.” It was a calculated risk that they’d sent only one agent. But until he had a chance to find out, good cover in that jungle she called a garden was their best hope. “Run fast, Cali, and don’t look back. I’ll find you.”
She nodded. Their time to escape undetected had passed. He knew they’d be lucky to clear the window.
It had been totally unprofessional of him to let her come back there. Now they might pay for that unpardonable mistake with their lives. He’d broken rule number one—don’t form any attachments.
Cali grabbed his arm. He spun back and shook his head hard. No time, he mouthed silently. She shook her head just as fiercely
then pointed to the bathroom. There was no window in there. Which meant she wanted something. Frowning, he shook his head again, intentionally looking as formidable as he could, which was a fair amount if his colleagues and previous rescue targets were to be believed.
The sound of the back screen door creaking stilled them both for a split second. He pulled away and moved as silently as possible to the headboard. At the right angle, he could be easily viewed from the main room. But from the kitchen, the intruder would have to be square in the doorway to see him. He heard a bare whisper of sound behind him and spun, weight centered, ready.
It was Cali. She was heading for the bathroom, easing the backpack straps onto her shoulders. In two strides he was in front of her. What in the hell was she doing? Anger coursed through him, fear was a close second. The two emotions combined put him closer to going over the edge than he’d ever been before. The threat of losing all control helped him focus. Get her out alive. Then throttle her.
Just as his hand closed around her wrist she pointed up. Set into the bathroom ceiling was a screened vent with a crank handle to lift the louvered cover. He made the decision in an instant. He shoved her inside, silently closed the bathroom door, then grabbed her face and kissed her hard on the mouth. “You just saved your life.”
She grabbed his face and kissed him back. She grinned. “Yours too. Let’s move.”
Too stunned to do anything else, he released her, immediately stepped up on the small vanity, and opened the glass panel. The screen came out easily. He pushed it out onto the roof, then cupped his hands as Cali climbed onto the lid of the commode. She slid the pack off, and John slung one strap over his shoulder. Then she grabbed his shoulders to steady herself and put her foot in his hand.
As he went to lift her she captured his gaze. She wasn’t smiling now. Her eyes burned holes into him, sending messages he didn’t have time to interpret. He lifted her, and she disappeared gracefully through the open frame.
He could feel the proximity of the agent like hot breath on his neck. Terror crept right along with it, scuttling down his spine. A sudden vision of Cali running and a single bullet taking her to the ground almost paralyzed him. Instincts far more ingrained than these new emotions roiling through him kicked in, and he hoisted the pack to her waiting hand, then jumped up and grabbed the edge of the frame.
As he pulled his feet through the hole he heard their intruder enter the bedroom behind him. That the agent was unconcerned about making noise was a good sign. His instincts were telling him the house was empty.
John intended to make the agent’s rusty instincts prove correct.
Cali was already standing. He was beside her an instant later, his hand on her shoulder keeping her from moving. The weight of their first step would likely give them away, so he quickly scanned the roof for the most direct route down.
She pulled on his arm, then pointed to the back of the house, over the kitchen. “A shed,” she whispered. He didn’t wait; he grabbed her hand and made a beeline for the back of the roof. They hopped down on the shed roof, but before Cali could turn to jump down the sloped front, John jumped off the side, putting the shed between them and the back door, then motioned for her to jump down to him.
He caught her easily against him. In that split instant he gave in to the overwhelming need to kiss her one more time, not wanting to acknowledge that he took the risk because he might never hold her again. It was far too brief and nothing like the tender taste he’d wanted.
“Run, Cali. Don’t look back.” Giving her no time to argue, he shoved her in front of him, pointed uphill, and said, “Now!”
To her credit, she took off like a bullet, getting herself behind the first tree then darting uphill. John had covered the back door in case the agent came out before she got clear. Satisfied now that she would do as he’d instructed, John flattened his back against the wall and edged to the opposite corner.
Where are you? “Come out, come out wherever you are,” he sang under his breath. He wanted to neutralize the threat. In a perfect world, that meant incapacitating the intruder and drilling all the information out of him. But if silencing him permanently was the only way, he wasn’t opposed to that either. John was pragmatic. It was a “him or me” world. He didn’t waste time worrying about why the “him” did what he did. He just made sure when the dust cleared it was the “me” left standing.
He crept along the side wall of the bungalow, ducking under low, razor-edged palm fronds, then crouching at the front corner. The fact that the agent hadn’t immediately pursued them was not a good sign. They hadn’t left anything behind. And they’d crossed the roof with speed, not stealth, in mind. There was no way the agent could be unaware of their presence.
Where in the hell are you? John was getting a very bad feeling about this. Had they positioned someone uphill? Had the agent been sharper than John had given him credit for? Had he purposely let them know he was there in order to flush them out the back, knowing the jungle behind the bungalow was their best bet for cover and therefore escape?
Escape that had been an illusion?
Instincts clamoring, feeling dangerously out of touch, he closed in silently on the porch. He moved up the steps and positioned himself, back flat to the wall, next to the screen door. He went in hard and fast, gun held two-fisted, directed first at the bedroom then at the kitchen doorway.
Nothing.
“Hell.” He scanned each room thoroughly. The back door was closed. He doubted the agent had left that way. He’d gone out the front while John was overseeing Cali’s safe escape. Safe. He swore loudly and fluently.
He all but ripped the back door from the hinges, then hit the tangled, weed-choked hill at a dead run.
He’d gone less than ten yards when a large shadow came out of nowhere, tackling him hard. The blow as he hit the hill stunned him. The one shortly after that to the back of his head put him to sleep.
The air was warm and steamy, yet she shivered. Where was he? She refused to look at her watch again. It had been two hours since McShane had given her a hard shove and told her to run.
Cali waited behind a thick stand of palms and bird of paradise. How could there be such ugliness in a place of such exotic beauty? she thought. As a distraction, such speculation was useless. Once again she peered through the fronds. Her line of vision to the bungalow was severely limited, as she’d been afraid that the better she could see the bungalow, the better her pursuer could see her.
She was about fifty yards from the back door. She’d have gone farther but that would have plunged her into the thick vegetation she knew bordered on one of the small rain forests of Martinique’s interior. She trusted John to find her, but only to a point. Once in there, she’d be lost.
She shifted the pack, which she’d switched to a front hold, its bulk resting on her chest. The continued adrenaline rush into her system was beginning to take its toll. Her stomach was pitching against her throat and there was a fine tremor in her hands she couldn’t seem to control.
I’ll find you. She heard his urgent command as clearly as if he still had his lips pressed against her ear. For the last half hour those words had echoed incessantly in her mind, trying to drown out her little voice, which was telling her something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. He’s not coming.
She wanted to whisper the words out loud. Maybe acknowledging the truth would return some of her control, help her stop shaking, give her courage to deal with the obvious. She was alone. Again. Just her and the bad guys.
The warm ground was damp and the dampness had long ago seeped into her shorts. The edges of the palm fronds tickled her forearms. She hugged the backpack tighter and shifted slowly and quietly onto her knees. She scanned the hill leading down to the back door for the hundredth time. Nothing.
What now, Cali? Did she stay put? There had been no activity at the bungalow since she’d squinted downhill through the fronds for the first time. During her mad dash, she thought she’d heard the swish of bod
ies crunching through the brush and tangle behind her, but hadn’t dared look over her shoulder. Once she’d gotten settled and could hear something other than her own labored breathing, it had been quiet. Too quiet, her little voice put in again. It was getting harder and harder to ignore the facts.
Either John had abandoned her or he’d been caught. She couldn’t believe the former. He was loyal to a fault. Her fingers were on her lips, tracing the memory of his kisses, before she realized her action. She felt the commitment in his last kiss. Had seen it in his eyes. No. He wouldn’t leave her. Not willingly.
That left capture. Or worse. He wouldn’t lead them to her, to the disks and the notebook. That she knew. Which meant right at that moment he was probably being subjected to—
“Stop it!” she ordered in a harsh whisper, even as she shuddered at the unavoidable mental picture. The bile pitched more violently against her throat. Food. The banana plantation that she passed on the way to the village stretched far back into the hills. She knew she should eat, not let her strength diminish. But even the thought of a piece of fresh fruit made her stomach roll.
Focus, Cali, focus. Her head told her to get off the island and track down someone on John’s team, turn the disks, the notebook, and the search for John over to them. Even if she could get off the island undetected, she had no idea whom he was working for now. Or whom to ask.
Your father. No. She refused to get him involved, because it would be akin to handing control squarely back to him. But mostly she wanted to keep him safe. He was her only family, the only person left alive with whom she felt a connection. In fact, she’d wondered before, when her condo had been searched then emptied, if she shouldn’t warn him anyway, in case they went after him as a means of getting to her.
The questions went round and round in her head until she wanted to cover her ears and scream. She had one other option—to stay on Martinique and try to find John herself. Oh, that would tick him off. The thought almost made her smile. But even if she somehow found out where they held him, what weapon did she have to force his release? A bunch of bananas and a razor-edged palm frond? More likely she’d walk right into some kind of trap, and then all hope would be lost.
Silent Warrior: A Loveswept Classic Romance Page 9