Safe Passage

by Loreth Anne White

  He stared at the mysterious woman asleep on the sofa opposite him. Calm and innocent in repose. But who would she be when she woke?

  One of La Sombra’s soldiers?

  He flopped his head against the back of the chair, closed his eyes. Little was known about La Sombra apart from the code name given him when he trained under Castro’s regime on the Isle of Pines.

  Authorities did not know his real name. Nor his nationality. And no one knew where The Shadow was based. It was believed he moved around, adopted different identities, and only those in his closest confidence knew it was he who called the shots. His cells, stationed around the world, were so tightly structured that none of the members knew who delivered the orders and who controlled whom.

  La Sombra was the genius who’d stepped into the confusion created by the demise of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. He began to consolidate a loose net of international terrorist groups that were spawned during the 1960s and 1970s. Groups that were left retarded or disenfranchised and directionless with the collapse of the Soviet empire. No matter the religion or ideals of these various groups, La Sombra had reinstated a flow of funds and given them common cause, a reason to unite and cooperate in a massive international web…to fight what he called the American Evil, or Western Imperialism.

  And he’d kicked into gear aggressive and sophisticated training programs.

  La Sombra had theatrically dubbed this network Anubis, after the ancient Egyptian god who judged the souls of the dead and guided them to the underworld.

  Scott pulled a face at the notion. It suited La Sombra to see himself as the ultimate judge. But there was little doubt in Scott’s mind that the philosophies he espoused were purely Machiavellian. It was power that drove the man.

  Not ideals.

  Possession. Power. Ruthless control. That’s what La Sombra got off on. He had no soul. And that’s what made him infinitely dangerous.

  Harsh images flashed into Scott’s brain. He flexed his leg, flinched. Sometimes it still seemed like it had happened yesterday. But it was almost a year ago that he’d been tracking an Anubis cell in the northern reaches of the Thar desert. A cell comprised of rebels who had been flirting with a suspicious zoonosis, one that had already killed several children in Mumbai. But Scott had been ambushed. His guides, tipped off earlier, had fled with camels and supplies. There’d been nothing but him against the rebels.

  But they hadn’t killed him.

  They’d fired a bullet into his knee, shattering the joint, turning cartilage into gelatinous mash. And they’d left him to die a slow, tortuous and certain death under the merciless Indian sun, hook-beaked vultures circling up high.

  He’d had time to think as he’d begun to die, tongue thickening, cracking with thirst in his mouth.

  Visions of mercurial delirium had shimmered in front of him with the waves of heat off the sand. He’d seen Leni and Kaitlin, spectral figures, wavering, calling to him. He’d tried to call out to them, but no sound had come from his parched throat. He’d reached out for them to take his hand.

  The insects had come to his bloodied knee.

  The vultures had come closer.

  The desert would have eaten him alive if it hadn’t been for that lone Jawan soldier.

  That man had taken him back to his camp. The Jawans had nursed him under a white canvas tent, eased him back out of fever and delirium. He’d eventually been carted off to Mumbai. And there he’d spent many months under the care of Dr. Ranjit Singh.

  He’d survived, and he’d vowed revenge. Not against the rebels—he wanted La Sombra himself. It was men like him who’d taken his family, his life.

  Could this job be giving him another stab at his nemesis?

  Scott opened his eyes, studied the sleeping form in front of him. If Skye was involved with the Anubis group, it was most likely she didn’t know the man.

  She stirred, moaned softly in her sleep, rolled over.

  His heart stumbled.

  And for a second he wanted to believe the image on her hip was sheer coincidence. He couldn’t begin to mentally align the broken bride, the raw pain he’d seen in her silver eyes with the calculating cold of an Anubis terrorist.

  He cursed.

  He was deluding himself. She had the moves, the secrets in her eyes, the gritty edge. He’d recognized that the instant she’d stepped across that threshold and into his life.

  And she had connections. But if she was in partnership with Danko, why had he left her? What was their game?

  Scott took in a deep breath, filled his lungs to capacity, blew out slowly.

  Questions. Lots of questions.

  And he’d get answers.

  He’d play her.

  He closed his eyes, allowed the tired, rhythmic throb of his knee to pulse through him. He strained to find mental space.

  Like the wild, hot emptiness and endless horizons of the desert.

  He took his mind there. But instead of numb space, he saw only a bride, a broken Aphrodite shivering on her rock, overlooking a sea as mysterious and silver as her eyes…and a snarling jackal-headed beast.

  He awoke with a start.

  The fire was dead. Cold. Gray fingers of dawn searched through the blinds.

  His eyes flashed to the sofa.

  Nothing.

  Just a pile of blanket.

  Skye was gone.

  He jerked to his feet, threw back the blanket.

  Damn. She’d sneaked out under his trained nose while he’d dozed in front of her. She’d cut under his highly tuned radar. Only a bloody expert operative could do that.

  Then he heard it.

  The unmistakable deep-throated growl of a powerful motorcycle engine.

  He hobbled quickly over to the window just in time to see Dr. Skye Van Rijn pull out of her garage astride her bike. Her hair hung in a thick dark braid down the center of her back. And, Scott noted, she was wearing his old leather jacket.

  She roared into the street, spun her tires and disappeared in a cloud of dust and fumes.

  A brown sedan, parked across the street, pulled out behind her.

  Chapter 5

  Skye had to find Jozsef.

  She intended to demand an explanation. She wanted to hear it come from his own lips, to watch his eyes when he gave it to her. Because not only was she burning from rejection, she was flat-out scared. Things weren’t adding up right. She needed to try to make sense of it all, to put her mind at ease.

  She flicked her wrist, opened the throttle, fed speed and life into her engine. She bent low, headed for the coast road that would lead her to town, to Jozsef’s penthouse.

  In her mirror she caught sight of a dun-colored car behind her, matching her speed. An edge caught in her throat. Skye barely hesitated at the intersection, cutting sharply in front of a logging truck. The driver swerved, blew his horn at her stupidity. She fed her bike more gas, accelerated. The brown car tucked in behind the truck.

  She went faster, put distance between the car, the truck and herself. She watched the tail of road grow like string spooling out behind her. Sea air pummeled her face.

  And she smiled.

  It was only with speed that she felt free. Truly free. If fleetingly. Skye knew she used speed as just another way to try to outrun her past, her fear. But right now she didn’t care. She wanted distance. And fast. She wanted space. Lots of it. Between herself and a life that was becoming more convoluted by the hour.

  She fed the engine more gas. It gobbled hungrily at the spurt of fuel. The wind pulled at her cheeks. She crouched lower, raced away from her house and the wedding cake that sat, uncut, on her dining room table. Away from the sight of the wilting hors d’oeuvres and the unopened bottles of champagne and the clean, empty glasses.

  Away from the writer next door.

  Not because he’d stepped out of the wilds of nowhere into her life. Not because he knew how to use a knife and his deep green eyes held even deeper secrets.

  B
ut because he’d cared.

  He’d reached right through her fortress, touched her at the very core in a way no other man had.

  And that scared the hell out of her.

  Not once in her relationship with Jozsef had he even come close to touching her soul. Her real self had always stayed safe, hidden. Jozsef had never known the real woman who cowered, lonely, inside a prison of lies and secrets. A prison she’d built for herself.

  To keep safe from Malik.

  Skye shot even more power into the engine with another flip of her wrist. She swerved dangerously close to the edge of control. Still, the feeling of Scott McIntyre’s strong, tanned arms around her, his male smell, chased her. And even as she fled, a part of her knew she couldn’t run from this.

  Even in her flight, something in her had reached back for the comfort of his leather jacket, taken it with her as protection against the elements. And deep, deep down, that told her she was in serious trouble.

  She slowed briefly at a stop sign, glanced down the road, accelerated. She knew once she stopped, life would again catch up with her.

  She cut onto Haven’s main road. The dun sedan stayed with her. Her breath snared in her throat. She thought she’d lost it. Her heart thudded against her ribs. She slowed her bike. The car was still behind her when she came to a stop in front of Jozsef’s waterfront apartment building.

  She didn’t turn to stare. Too obvious. She dismounted, removed her helmet, bent as if to fix her nonexistent makeup in the bike mirror. She could see the car reflected there. Two men in it. Too far away to make out any distinctive features. Her heart skittered, skipped up a few more paces.

  But outwardly she remained calm, walked casually up to the entrance of the apartment complex.

  Scott pulled into a parking space a block down from the brown sedan and watched Skye saunter up to the entrance of a swanky apartment building. She was still wearing his leather jacket.

  He turned his attention to the car. Who in hell was on her tail? He punched Rex’s number into his sat phone, watched Skye open the front door with a key.

  “Rex, I need you to run another plate for me.”

  Skye used the key Jozsef had given her to enter the plush lobby. She took the stairs, then strode along the corridor to Jozsef’s suite. She didn’t knock. She wanted surprise on her side now. Skye slipped the key quietly into the lock, turned, edged the door open.

  And stopped dead.

  Jozsef had cleaned out.

  There was nothing.

  She felt her mouth drop, her hands begin to tremble. Every last little piece of furniture was gone. The photograph of her on the mantel was gone. The big TV screen he loved was gone. The sofa…gone.

  Skye walked on numb legs into the kitchen. She yanked open the refrigerator. Empty. She put her hand inside. It wasn’t even cool. The power had long been turned off. Dazed, she entered his office. Nothing. Computer, files, all gone.

  She moved faster now, from room to room, frantically yanking open cupboards, drawers, bathroom cabinets, searching for a sign. Some damn little sign. Anything. Any little thing that might have shown he’d actually cared, been here, a part of her life.

  Then she heard a noise. She froze. She’d left the front door open.

  “Hello, anyone here?” It was a woman’s voice.

  Skye peeked cautiously out from the bathroom into the hall. Jozsef’s landlady.

  “Oh, Mrs. Tupper. Hi. I—I’m…” She didn’t know what to say. How did you tell your fiancé’s landlady you were looking for the man who’d ditched you at the altar?

  Hettie Tupper shuffled forward. “Dr. Van Rijn, I’m glad you came. I tried to call you, but you weren’t home.” She fished in her pocket as she spoke, pulled out an envelope. Skye saw her name on the front, written in Jozsef’s distinctive bold hand.

  Hettie held it out. “He asked me to look out for you…to give you this.”

  Skye stared at the white envelope, not taking it.

  “He said he had to leave in a hurry. He didn’t have time to give this to you personally.”

  Skye reached out, snatched the envelope. “Thank you.” Her throat felt tight.

  “He was a good tenant.”

  “I’m sure he was.”

  But Hettie Tupper made no sign she was leaving.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Tupper.”

  “Um, if it’s all right with you—” she cleared her throat “—may I have the keys? Jozsef said you had the other set. I have a new tenant moving in next week—”

  It dawned on Skye then. She’d lost her right to be here. It really was over. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She felt for the keys in her pocket. But she wasn’t ready to let them go yet. “Do you mind if I lock up and drop them off in the box downstairs. I, ah, lost an earring, somewhere on the living room carpet. I’d like to try to find it before I leave.”

  Hettie reached out, touched Skye’s arm. “It’s okay, dear. I understand. Take your time.”

  Skye waited for Hettie Tupper to close the door behind her. Then she ripped open the envelope. He’d typed it. On the computer. Impersonal.

  My dear Skye,

  I have no words to say what I need to say. But I can’t go through with it. I think it best I leave immediately. A clean cut will be easier on both of us. Please do not try to locate me or contact me. I wish you all of the best in life.

  Jozsef.

  Bastard!

  He could have told her before the wedding. She crumpled the note tight in her fist, hurled it at the floor, clutched her arms tight into her waist, trying to hold in the emotion bubbling, roiling up from her core.

  She couldn’t.

  It surged in a confusing wave of hot angry pain up through her chest. She sunk into a heap to the middle of the living room floor. She clutched her knees and she let it all come out. Racking, aching sobs. She cried where no one could see her. Until she was dry. In the empty apartment of the man who’d abandoned her.

  Then she sat, spent, staring out drapeless windows. She told herself she’d be fine. She’d get over it. She’d gotten over way worse. She hadn’t really loved him. She never wanted to love anyone. She’d wanted Jozsef for other reasons. For a semblance of normality. For comfort. She had human needs, even though she’d been taught to shun them.

  Her whole childhood had been about denial, sacrifice for the Anubis cause. She’d been born into an Anubis camp, sequestered in the children’s compound, schooled daily in Anubis dogma. She’d been trained to fight, to think like a soldier. She’d been taught not to feel, to kill in cold blood. But she did feel.

  She had emotions she’d never managed to subdue in spite of all her years of training. That’s what had gotten her into trouble in the first place.

  That’s why she was here now.

  Skye stood, dusted herself off mentally. If she’d learned anything in that camp, she’d learned how to survive. Alone. In a foreign environment. She walked over to the window, stared blindly out across the ocean, trying to make sense of it all.

  Because it didn’t make sense.

  Why had Jozsef left so suddenly? Why had she felt so unsettled around him lately? Why were there men following her? Why were they waiting outside for her right now?

  A talon of panic gripped her heart.

  Malik had found her.

  Her past was coming to get her. She must have slipped, gotten too complacent. The claw of fear squeezed. Skye’s hand shot automatically to her belly. She hadn’t done that in more than ten years. But the pain…the fight with Malik when he’d discovered her trying to leave the camp pregnant with his child. She closed her eyes tight. She could almost feel the black heat of his fury again, the brutal beating he’d given her. She’d managed to escape, bleeding. She’d lost her baby. The pain…it was suddenly all so real, so raw again.

  She pressed her hand harder on her abdomen, felt once again that unfathomable, aching loss. She blinked back hot, bitter tears.

  An overwhelming sense of claustrophobia swamped over her. She didn�
��t understand how. Or why. But things were closing in on her. And she couldn’t afford to take chances. She smudged the tears angrily from her face. It was time for her to get out of Haven. Go somewhere, lay low, figure out what was happening. Plan her next move.

  She’d hide out at Henderson’s cabin in the mountains. It was totally isolated. He’d said she could use it anytime. And the alpine snow would have receded by now. No one would be going near that place until the summer. Henderson only used it for fishing during the warm months.

  She could make it up there with her bike.

  Scott followed the dun car as it pulled out behind Skye’s motorbike. He kept his distance well back, tailing the tail.

  Skye headed into Haven, pulled up in front of the general store. She wasn’t in the store long. She came out with a backpack, a bedroll and food supplies.

  Scott turned to the dog beside him. “Well, Honey, looks like the doctor is leaving town.”

  The brown sedan followed Skye back home, parked under a tree down the street. Scott cut down a side road, approaching his house from the opposite direction. He noted her tail was still there.

  This was getting real interesting.

  Skye lifted the blind slightly with the back of her hand. It was getting dark, but from her living room window, she could still see the sedan with the two men. Damn. How was she to get out without them seeing her?

  Anxiety swamped her. She took a deep breath.

  Calm yourself. You’ll screw up if you panic. Think this through.

  She forced herself to relax.

  She dropped the blind, lit a candle. She wanted to keep the interior dim. Then she double-checked her backpack, her supplies. She had enough to keep her going for a couple of weeks at Henderson’s place. She rolled her sleeping bag tight, punched it down into its sack, secured it to the bottom of her new backpack.

  She wanted to be gone before sunrise. It would take about six hours to reach the cabin. And if she could, she wanted to take one last look at her beetles before she left. She was still queasy about Marshall’s desire to rush the project.