It had to be where Conroy had stashed Juliet.
Without hesitation, Sarah veered off onto the narrow path. One wrong move, and she’d be in the river. It was a vertical drop into the water, no real riverbank here. The path deteriorated into a foot-wide limestone ledge that led horizontally across the bluff to the cave, the same ledge where she’d come across Wes Poe that day with the snake.
The main path was twenty feet above her, the river twenty feet below her. If she fell, she didn’t know if she’d fare as well as Ethan had.
As she reached the mouth of the cave she heard the muffled yell again. The cave was only about four feet high and twelve feet wide, a dark, dank, claustrophobic slit in the limestone bluff. She and Rob used to like to sit on the edge and throw stones into the river, catch the occasional snake off guard and release it unharmed. But caves weren’t her favorite places.
With a quick intake of breath, she ducked and hurled herself inside.
Juliet Longstreet lay flat on the dirt and rock, in the shadows, her mouth gagged, her hands and feet bound.
Sarah scooted toward her. “You don’t have a bomb or something tied to you that’ll go off if I untie you?”
Juliet shook her head.
The bastard had used one of Ethan’s bandanna’s to gag her, so tightly the fabric cut into the sides of her mouth. Sarah carefully eased the gag down to her chin, until it hung loosely around Juliet’s neck. “Fucking snakes,” she spat. “Goddamn. There were two in here the size of Godzilla. I hate snakes. That bastard’s been bit. I hope it was a poisonous snake.”
“It was. I saw the bite. Are you okay? Were you bit?”
“I’m fine. Get these damn ropes off me, okay? Where’s Nate? He send you in here alone? What the hell’s the matter with him—”
“He’s with Ethan Brooker.”
“The gardener,” Juliet said sarcastically.
Sarah worked on the tight knots that bound Juliet’s wrists behind her. “Conroy thinks he’s the president’s brother. He used to live out here—he must have been a teenager at the time.”
“What, you two sit and chat awhile?”
The knots loosened slightly, but Sarah realized she wasn’t going to get them undone. She pulled and pushed on the rope, stretching it, noticing the marks on Juliet’s wrists that indicated she’d done the same. “He says he has my parents. He said you wouldn’t last here another hour—”
“I wouldn’t if another freaking snake slithered in here. Look, don’t be gentle, okay? Just get the fucking rope off me so I can go after this bastard.”
Using all her strength, Sarah clawed at the rope, felt it and her fingers digging into Juliet’s skin, but, finally, managed to get it below her thumb joints.
Juliet shook the last of the rope off and tackled the one on her feet. She was deathly pale, her lip swollen and bloody, her entire body shaking from pain and exertion. “What does this son of a bitch want?”
Sarah stemmed her rising sense of panic. “He wants me to get Nicholas Janssen a presidential pardon. He thinks Janssen will pay him five million dollars and the world will find out that he’s really the president’s brother.”
“Jesus Christ. The bite’ll slow him down.” Juliet freed her feet and gave a small, involuntary moan, then took a breath and turned to Sarah. “I’ll get him. I thought he was going to throw me in the river after he tied me up. I swear, I’d just as soon he did as be in here with the snakes.”
“Cottonmouths don’t nest the way you see in movies. When they’re born, they scatter. They’re very solitary.”
“Yeah.” She grinned feebly. “A solitary snake is plenty for me. Look, Fontaine let you go, right? He thinks you’re doing his bidding. You’re safe out there. So you go on, get to Nate, and fill him in. Otherwise, I’d have to stay and protect you, and I think we’ll all be better off if I go find this bastard.”
Sarah shook her head. “Juliet, listen to me. You’re in no condition—”
She crawled toward the mouth of the cave. “I’m never living this down. The guys at my apartment, this Brooker character, tied up and left to die in a goddamn cave.” She stuck her head out of the cave, into the sunlight, then rolled back. “Crap.”
“Is it Conroy?” Sarah asked, reaching for a loose rock, anything.
Juliet shook her head just as Ethan squatted at the mouth of the cave. “Nice little tea party you ladies are having, huh?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Juliet said. “Brooker, I’ve got a job to do. How did you get here? Why aren’t you drowned?”
“I’m a good swimmer. I picked up Sarah’s trail. The law’s right behind me.”
“I am the law.”
“You don’t look it. You look like a pretty lady who’s had the shit kicked out of her.”
She groaned in disgust.
“Juliet, Ethan’s right.” Crouching under the cave’s low ceiling, Sarah crept toward them. “Not about patronizing you, but about your condition. Ethan, tell me you have a SWAT team out there and not just—”
“No SWAT guys yet. Just Winter.” He settled back against the cave wall, his eyes glassy in the dim light. He had to be in almost as much pain as Juliet. “I’m not going to be much good to him with my head beat in. It wasn’t one of my smoother dives into the damn river.” He managed a grin. “Guess I’ll stay here and keep you womenfolk safe.”
Sarah suspected he was deliberately annoying them to cut through the tension, but Juliet gritted her teeth. “God, you’re even more obnoxious when you’re injured.” But some of her initial energy surge was going out of her. “Concussion?”
He shrugged. “Probably. I hit my head when you pushed me off the cliff.”
“I didn’t push you. I should have.”
Nate peered into the cave. “Juliet, Sarah—you two okay?”
Juliet nodded, but Sarah scooted to the edge of the cave. “Fontaine has my parents. He’ll tell me where they are if I get Nicholas Janssen a presidential pardon. If I don’t—if he doesn’t get word to his guy in an hour—my parents will be killed. I have an hour.”
Nate touched her hand. “We’ll get him, Sarah. Just hold on.”
She ducked out of the cave and stood up on the narrow ledge, pushing back a wave of vertigo at the steep drop to the river. “Conroy’s been bit by a cottonmouth. He’s not going to last long.” She could feel her heart racing. “He might not even last the hour.”
“Listen to me—”
“I have to find him before he dies and try to get through to him that I—” She placed a hand on the limestone layers to help keep her balance. “What he’s asking of me can’t be done. It’s impossible.”
“He could be bluffing,” Juliet said from within the cave.
But Sarah couldn’t wait any longer and moved as quickly as she could along the ledge. Nate could do what he wanted. Knock her into the river, follow her or stay put. It didn’t matter. She was going after Conroy Fontaine, aka John Wesley Poe.
She heard Nate behind her and thought, he could also shoot her.
“Keep going,” he said close to her ear. “I don’t want to end up in the damn river.”
“I know you’re worried Conroy’s hidden somewhere with a sniper rifle, but he’s in no condition—and he wants my cooperation.”
“Sarah.”
She nodded. “I’m going.”
Juliet figured that every nerve, muscle, vein and artery—every damn cell in her body—had been stripped raw. “If I don’t get out of this cave,” she told Brooker, “I’m going to go buggy. I have a cell phone in my coat pocket. My hands are too numb—can you get it?”
“No problem, Deputy.”
He crept toward her, his clothes soaked, his head swollen and bruised. He had to have a concussion. But she could see the ripple of muscles in his arms, sensed his overwhelming masculinity and felt an urge to carve out her own authority. He reached into her pocket and retrieved her cell phone.
She licked her cut lip. “I should be pissed at you for be
ing such a retro chauvinist, but right now, I feel like such crap that I’m going to let the ‘pretty lady’ stuff go.”
He grinned at her, not moving back from her as quickly as he could have. “That was worrying me, you know,” he said lightly, clicking on her cell phone. “Battery looks good.”
“Any service out here?”
“Should be.”
She eyed him. “What are you, some kind of spook? Secret Service?”
But he didn’t answer, just handed her back her cell phone. She crawled out of the cave onto the narrow ledge, managing to sit with her legs dangling over the side. She stared at the readout screen but couldn’t make out the dial numbers. “My eyes aren’t working right. That bastard Fontaine—” She licked her lips again. “He smacked me on the back of the head before he left me in the cave. I think he knocked my eyeballs loose or something.”
Brooker moved in next to her. “What number you calling?”
Her head was throbbing. She struggled to remember the number Joe Collins had given her in the E.R., then recited it to Brooker. He dialed without a word and handed the phone back to her. “Winter talked to some FBI type on our way over here. He’s sending in the cavalry.”
Juliet had expected as much. One of the FBI agent’s flunkies answered. She told him to put on the big guy. She’d been smacked around one too many times today for anything approaching niceties.
Collins came on. “Where are you?”
“In a cave with snakes and some kind of spook who’s been playing the Dunnemore gardener. Listen to me. This Conroy Fontaine character had someone snatch the Dunnemores in Amsterdam. He says they’re his hostages.”
“We’re on it. We’ve got a team on the way to your location. Sit tight, will you?”
“I don’t have much choice. Nate and Sarah Dunnemore—”
Collins cut in again. “Winter says you found the guys who ambushed you this morning—dead.”
Juliet paused. “Don’t start with me, okay? I didn’t kill those men. Look, get word to the SWAT guys that Fontaine thinks he’s the president’s brother.”
“Jesus Christ,” Collins breathed.
“And he’s been bit by a cottonmouth. It’s bad. Sarah Dunnemore wants to find him before he dies.”
“Winter’s with her?”
“Yes.”
“All right. You know what to do.”
“Yeah. I’m getting out of this goddamn cave. Tell your guys I’ll meet them at the Poe house. That’s where the bodies are.”
She hung up and glanced at Ethan. “You’re armed?”
“Nine-millimeter Browning.”
“Not going to share, are you?”
He grinned. “Not a chance.”
She’d figured as much. “Well, are you game for getting out of here?”
“I had my fill of caves in Afghanistan. Let’s go.”
She grimaced at the river below her. “Fontaine told me the water’s forty feet deep here. Strong current. I’m not the best swimmer.”
“Relax.” Brooker grasped the rock at the top of the cave and pulled himself to his feet, glancing down at her with a wink. “It doesn’t matter if it’s forty feet deep. You can drown in six feet of water.”
Thirty-Two
Nate appreciated Sarah’s spirit and determination and understood her fear for her parents, but he wasn’t going to drag her through the woods to look for a killer. They were almost to the Poe house. When they got there, they’d wait for the SWAT guys. FBI, USMS Special Operations, Secret Service, local guys—whoever Joe Collins managed to get in there could go find Conroy Fontaine. For all Nate knew, they could be there now.
In the meantime, it was his job to keep Sarah Dunnemore alive.
She didn’t see it that way. She walked just ahead of him, her energy not flagging even slightly. “You’re not responsible for me. It’s my decision to go after Conroy.”
“You have your own way of looking at things.”
“That’s right, I do.”
The trail had descended toward the river—they were only fifteen feet above the water now—and cut steeply back up toward the Poe house. Conroy Fontaine had the skills to hide in Central Park in the middle of a rainy early May day and pick off two marshals. He’d killed two presumably highly trained bodyguards. He’d wormed his way into the Dunnemores’ lives. Nate had believed the guy was just another reporter looking for a story.
“Conroy wants the pardon so he can get his money and his recognition,” Sarah said. “He doesn’t want to kill me. That’s not what this is about.”
“Let the SWAT negotiators talk to him. They’re the experts. What if you find Fontaine and end up screwing it up?”
That caught her up short. She broke her stride. She was in the shade of a cedar tree growing precariously up out of the limestone, between the path and the river. For a split second, Nate thought she was going to back off. He heard the rustling noise above them.
A huge black snake dropped from the cedar and landed on Sarah, latching its fangs onto the right side of her neck, its thick body writhing and wriggling. It had to be five feet long.
Simultaneously Conroy Fontaine leaped from the tree, its branches halfway out over the river, and made a sprawling dive into the water. Sarah screamed in shock and tried to pry the snake off. “Don’t shoot it!”
The snake wrapped itself around her arms and was going for another bite. Fontaine had used it as a distraction. “I’ve got it,” she said. “Trust me. Please.”
Nate jumped to the edge of the path and pointed his gun at the water, saw Conroy swimming toward a boat anchored in a small, shallow cove just downriver from the bluff below the Poe house.
Making his escape.
“Stop him,” Sarah said. “Don’t worry about me.”
She staggered backward over the roots of the cedar tree and went feetfirst over the edge, wrestling with the damn snake all the way into the river.
Nate ran past the cedar and tore his way down an eroded section of riverbank, slipping on the wet rocks and dirt. He could see the snake scurrying away from Sarah in the water. She came up for air and waved Nate on as she swam toward shore. Her strokes were strong, determined.
She’d be all right.
Conroy was twenty yards downriver, climbing into his boat.
Nate had a shot. A difficult one, but he’d take it if he had to. He raised his weapon, feeling a jolt of pain from his injured arm. “Freeze, Fontaine.”
Fontaine flopped onto the pilot’s seat. “You won’t shoot me.” His voice was raspy, breathless, as he shouted across the water at Nate. “I know where the Dunnemores are.”
The guy was in bad shape. But he was right. Nate didn’t want to shoot. Keeping his gun pointed in the general direction of the boat, ignoring the pain in his arm, he ran up the short stretch of embankment to the shallow cove, positioning himself above Fontaine.
He had one chance.
Without hesitation, Nate jumped, landing on Conroy, knocking him down and sticking the HK in his face. “Don’t move.”
“I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
His words were slurred, his body fiery hot even after being in the cold river water. “Where are the Dunnemores?” Nate asked quietly.
“Fuck you.”
“Was it a bluff? Do you have them?”
Sarah was on shore, scrambling along the eroded bank, blood from her snakebite dripping down her neck. “My parents—”
“Get the pardon,” Conroy screamed at her, trying to jerk his head up against Nate’s hold. “It’s not too late. Call President Poe. I’m his brother. He’s never known his true family. I’ll tell him everything about us. I’ll share the money with you.”
Nate had heard enough. The guy’s condition was worsening from the snakebite. “You need a doctor.”
Conroy vomited, what looked like mostly river water spewing out over the boat. He was shivering violently, panting, sweating. Nate got him to his feet. “The parents,” he said. “Come o
n. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier for you if you tell us where they are.”
But he was unconscious, slumped against Nate.
Sarah splashed out into the river, water up to her waist. “John Wesley, don’t die.”
Juliet was behind her, looking as if the current would sweep her away. But her voice was steady, firm. “Ouch. God, you’re a mess. Look at that neck. What happened to the snake?”
“He’s okay. It was just scared.” Sarah was hardly aware of what she was saying. She squinted at Juliet. “Ethan?”
“He’s greeting the SWAT guys.”
Sarah shook her head. “Nicholas Janssen had Ethan’s wife killed. Ethan’ll go after him.” She reached into the boat and touched Conroy’s hand. “Please, don’t die.”
Nate wasn’t optimistic. He looked at Juliet. “You’ve got him?”
“No problem. I’m in rough shape, but I can handle someone unconscious.”
He helped her into the boat and turned his weapon over to her, then climbed out. Blood flowed freely from Sarah’s snakebite. He had no idea if that was good news or bad news. Above them on the bluff, he saw the first of the black-clad SWAT guys.
“Shit’s hitting the fan,” Juliet said unnecessarily.
Sarah clawed at him. “My parents. It’s been an hour.”
But one of the first wave of SWAT guys to reach them told her that they’d just got word from Joe Collins. The Dunnemores were safe. Dutch authorities had them in Amsterdam. One of Janssen’s bodyguards had grabbed them at Schiphol Airport—Conroy must have offered him part of the five million to work on his behalf.
No Janssen. He’d apparently slipped out of the country.
As Sarah had predicted, Ethan Brooker hadn’t stuck around to greet the SWAT guys.
He’d disappeared.
Sarah sat in Granny’s rocker on the front porch of the log house that had always been home, a safe haven, and tried to drink some of her sweet tea punch. Her snake, though angry and frightened, hadn’t released any venom, just left a single nasty bite on the side of her neck. She’d had it cleaned and bandaged in the E.R.
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