He cursed and massaged his temple. “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that?”
She grinned, planted a kiss on his cheek, and opened the door. “Death by sex, maybe.”
CHAPTER 17
“Stay beside me.” Rhett’s command came out stiffer than he’d intended, but he couldn’t hide the annoyance that stirred in his gut as he exited the car. The pier was more like a road with small parking stalls in front of each boat slip. Peyton rounded the vehicle and he caught her hand, smoothing his thumb over her cool skin. He hated that she was here with him, popping in on Stone’s boat, but she had a point—she was safest with him. Right now, he couldn’t trust anyone else with Peyton’s life, even his teammates.
She didn’t even seem appreciative that he wanted to preserve her life. No, Peyton wasn’t the type to rely on a man for anything, let alone safety, so his gesture was completely lost on her. Which should piss him the fuck off, but instead, it made him want to strip her naked and fuck her right on the pier under the blazing sun.
“Is that it?” Peyton pointed to slip number 808, which was on their left.
He paused and scanned the marina. The sun lit the early afternoon sky, and choppy waves crashed against the cement and rocked the boats. The salty scent of seawater clung to the air. In slip 808, a thirty-foot sailboat swayed in the water. The words Morning Star were painted in brilliant blue on the stern.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. He caught her bicep and backed her to the side of the pier, away from where vehicles traveled. No point in asking her to wait in the car. That would be a losing battle. “Wait here, I want to check it out.” He pulled his Glock from the back of his pants and ignored Priss’s narrowed eyes and the sassy pop of her hip.
Whether she liked it or not, she wasn’t getting close to the boat. He scanned the scene around them—no threat. She’d be fine for a minute. At the end of the day, he had to do his job, and that meant securing evidence as well as protecting the innocent—even if she wasn’t all that innocent.
He kept the Glock pointed down and in front of his feet and skirted to the dock alongside Stone’s boat. No cars occupied the surrounding stalls, and the only people he’d witnessed in the marina so far were old men doing maintenance near the pier’s entrance. Even though it was deserted he had to check it out. He kept his head low as he scanned the vessel’s main area. He studied every visible angle, but everything pointed to the ship being empty. So much for obtaining enough cause for a warrant.
He shoved the gun back into his pants, picked up a stone, and skipped it across the water. It plunged after one hop, much like the sinking case at his feet. Without the accomplice to Raquel’s murder, they didn’t have a fucking clue as to who’d hired Max and Peyton. Mandy had assured him the cops had searched every inch of Max’s apartment and the FBI had confiscated his devices—nothing. Wherever Max was, he likely held the phone he’d been using to communicate with the bastards. Until he turned up, the case was dead in the water.
He stared out over the glistening ocean—the only silver lining in this whole mess was that he got to stick close to Peyton a little while longer. But she wouldn’t let him play bodyguard forever.
“Rhett!”
He whirled around to see Peyton locked under a man’s arm. Panic beat a hole through his breastbone, and the air drained out of him. A gun was nestled against her temple.
* * *
Peyton wrestled against her attacker. She’d recognize his smoke-tainted breath and heavy body anywhere—Beanie. Rhett broke into a run. She shook her head wildly to warn him off, but it was too late.
One of Beanie’s henchmen stepped into his path, and Peyton caught sight of the long end of a silencer. No! Rhett had just put his gun away. There was no chance he’d get to it in time to fire before the oaf did. Rhett raised his hands and said something she couldn’t hear. Beanie dragged her backward, but she fought against him.
“Hold still, you little bitch.”
She dipped her head and chomped her teeth into his wrist. Blood hit her tongue and Beanie yelped. The other man swiveled around, and Rhett pounced on him.
Whack!
White dots exploded in front of her blurring vision. She felt herself being lifted off the ground. Rhett’s scream penetrated her fading thoughts, and she shook off the greedy fingers that wanted her to pass out just in time to see a bullet hit Rhett in the chest.
Blood blossomed on his pale-blue shirt. Fear claimed her voice and tears filled her eyes. The man kicked Rhett in the stomach and then the knee until he fell off the edge of the marina.
Her back hit the hot, rough material of the inside of a trunk. Beanie’s salacious smile was the last thing she saw before the lid closed.
She kicked and banged the metal around her, but her efforts made her arms burn, and the air turned stifling in seconds. The car lurched forward, and she was thrown to the back of the trunk. The weightlessness of her core made nausea build behind her throat.
Tears hotter than the dark space she was in rolled down her cheeks. Please, God. Don’t let him be dead. If he died because of her she’d never forgive herself.
She curled her knees to her stomach, pressed her back against the side of the trunk, and tried to stop the terror rushing through her. Rhett was strong. He wouldn’t go down easily. Doubt wormed around her heart. He’d been shot in the chest and thrown into the ocean.
And even if he made it out alive, he wouldn’t get to her in time.
She focused on slowing her breath. If she hyperventilated, she’d run out of air in seconds. She had to preserve the moist, thick oxygen as best she could. Surely they didn’t intend for her to die in the trunk.
Dammit to hell and back, she’d left her purse in Rhett’s car. If only she’d kept her phone on her—then at least she could send someone to help Rhett. The car hit a bump and she yelped and swept her hand around the bottom of the trunk trying to find something to hang on to. Her fingertips met a small lip at the edge of the carpet, where the floor met the wall.
There had to be something she could use stored beneath the floor. She lifted the thick carpet and the middle bent, opening a small compartment. She dug her hand inside and squinted into the inky darkness. She couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face, so trying to see what was beneath the floor was futile. She closed her eyes so she could focus on identifying the objects. A tire, cables, a long, skinny piece of metal . . .
She closed her hand around it and wrestled it out of the compartment. A tire iron. She gripped it to her chest. The car slowed, turned, and came to an abrupt stop. A peal of laughter echoed from the inside of the car, shaking her bones. She closed her eyes and summoned all her strength.
She only had one way out of this, and she had to make it count. If Beanie didn’t go down after she hit him, he’d kill her for sure. The other man would come at her too, so she’d have to be ready. They still wanted information from her. Hopefully that meant he’d hesitate to shoot. She shifted the iron so it lay in the crook between the floor and the wall and curled her hand around it. She’d just have to make sure Beanie didn’t survive the blow.
The trunk lid flung open, and sunlight hit her sensitive retinas. She blinked to clear her vision as Beanie’s hand clutched her bicep. She steeled the iron in her grip.
“Get the fuck up.”
She let him drag her halfway out of the trunk. Then, gripping the edge of the car with the hand of the arm he held and her leg poised on the tailgate, she swung with all her might and struck Beanie in the forehead. A sharp clank rang through the air. His head jerked to the side, his eyes unfocused. Blood poured out of the split flesh. She swung again, this time aiming at the back of his head, but the iron froze over her shoulder.
She wheeled around and faced the man restricting her swing. The mouth of the silencer that had shot Rhett stared back at her. He wrenched the tire iron from her grip.
“Bitch!” The younger man grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her from the trunk. She topple
d to the ground and her knees hit the pavement. She cried out but shoved her hand into the stones that dotted the asphalt, ready to run.
“Move one more time and I’ll shoot your leg!” The threat stopped her in her tracks. If he shot her now, there’d be no chance of escape later. She gulped air. Streams of sweat tickled her temples. The younger man dropped down at Beanie’s side. “Boss, can you hear me?”
Beanie groaned deeply.
Peyton’s stomach hurtled to her toes. A fierce tremble shook her.
“I’m fucking bleeding!” A river of crimson coated his forehead and dripped into his eyebrows.
“The whore hit you with a tire iron.”
“I know what happened, you moron!” Beanie struggled into a sitting position. His chest heaved and his eyes, their whites tinged red from a sheen of blood, locked on her. He lifted his lip and a smile followed.
Ice coated her skin, chilling her to the bone. She sucked back the plea that burned her tongue. Beanie wouldn’t care what she had to say. He’d make her suffer and would relish every minute. His henchman passed him a black T-shirt, and Beanie mopped up the blood then pressed the material to his forehead.
“Get her inside, Len. Take her straight downstairs. I’m going to give this cunt what she deserves—immediately.”
Len’s arms looped under her armpits, and he hauled her to her feet. Her toes glided over the cobblestone drive leading up to an old plantation-style house. White clapboard covered its exterior, and black modern facia and soffits revealed the home had been recently renovated.
“Move!” Len’s palm shoved her between her shoulder blades. She climbed the steps of the front porch. Smooth cedar dragged across the bottom of her foot, alerting her to the fact that she’d lost a flip-flop along the way. “Stay there,” Len said, shoving her against the wall beside the door.
She scanned the property, searching for a clue as to who owned it, while he fumbled with the keys in his hand. Beanie sat on the back of the car, the shirt pressed to his head and his phone to his ear. Vomit hitched up her throat, and she coughed and forced down the retched taste.
The door creaked open. “Inside.” Len shoved her in front of him again, and the scent of lemons drifted toward her. White tile covered the foyer’s entrance, cooling the sole of her sandal-less foot. They entered the living room and his phone chirped. He cursed and pulled it out.
“Don’t move.” He let his hand fall away from her as he surveyed the screen in front of his face, but she didn’t dare run. She’d never make it to the front door, and even if she did, she’d have Beanie to contend with.
She bounced her gaze over the living room. A cabinet full of sleek nickel picture frames dotted the shelves. An image of a smiling older man with a younger man in a black suit and ramrod-straight posture stuck out more than the others. Something about his eyes was familiar. She narrowed her focus, scanned the man’s face, and flipped through the rolodex of politicians in her head but came up blank. The man’s stance screamed authority more in line with someone in law enforcement or the military. She inhaled sharply as his grin matched with that of a guy in her memory bank: Eric.
“All right, move.” Len nodded toward the kitchen at the back of the house. Marble countertops glistened in the immaculate space, which appeared to have never been cooked in, let alone been the scene of a murder. First time for everything.
Len opened a door to reveal a stairwell, flipped on the light, and brought his nose close to hers. “Be quiet going down the stairs. You don’t want to wake our friend.”
Sirens of dread screeched in her head. Questions made her tongue flutter. She backed up involuntarily, but he caught her shoulder and pulled her forward. Unmaintained wooden steps filled her vision. She circled her hand around the railing and dragged her fingertips along the cement wall as she descended.
“Hurry up. Beanie’s going to be here any minute, and like he said, he doesn’t want to wait.”
Acid burned a trail of fire down her esophagus. She focused on her breath to slow her heart rate and keep the bubbling panic in check. At the bottom, Len reached around her and hit another light switch. She blinked and looked away from the glow that was much too close to her eyes, thanks to the low-lying ceiling. Her gaze fixated on the drip marks marring the chipped and beaten concrete. She followed the crimson route and the droplets became full, wet splatters.
Fresh blood.
CHAPTER 18
Rhett slammed his hand into the glass door that was the entrance to his team’s rented office. “You motherfucker!”
Three desks took up most of the space. Mandy jerked her gaze away from her computer and got to her feet. “You’re shot!” She bustled around her desk.
He didn’t want to acknowledge the searing pain of the bullet that had hit below his clavicle. Thank god for adrenaline, otherwise the pain would have slowed him considerably. On top of that, his lungs still ached from holding his breath underwater and dragging his ass out of the marina. Thank god someone had heard the commotion and helped pull him out of the water. He’d lain on the cement and coughed fishy water out of his windpipe until his throat went raw. Then he’d gotten himself to his car—ignoring the man who’d helped him, who kept yelling at him to stop—and headed straight to the office to confront the only sonofabitch in reach who might know where Peyton had been taken. He couldn’t be wrong about Eric. Peyton’s life depended on it. With her cell phone in his car and no tracking device on her, or Moretti, there was no other way to find her in time.
Rhett held out his hand to stop Mandy’s advance. “Thanks for the observation. Where is he?”
Her green eyes turned huge. “W-Who?”
Ignoring her question, he stormed toward the room divider that separated the desks from their brainstorming area, but Eric came around the corner before he could get that far.
“Dude, you’re soaking wet—and shot. What the—”
Rhett bared his teeth and launched himself forward. Grabbing Eric by his shirt, he flung him against the wall. “I know you’re involved in this, you fucking snake,” he said, crushing his forearm against Eric’s windpipe. “Peyton’s gone. Beanie has her. Don’t make me beat the information out of you.”
Eric’s hands hovered near his ears, and his body shook like a leaf in the wind. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice broke.
“Bullshit. You were at Max’s apartment right after Vicky was murdered. Why’d you go there so quickly?”
“Vicky was connected to our case. You’d just asked me to get Max’s information, so I had it fresh in my mind. When I heard about what happened at his building, I knew it was related.”
A seed of doubt planted itself in Rhett’s gut. Peyton’s terror-filled face loomed in his mind’s eye. Beanie had smashed his gun into her skull, nearly knocking her out, seconds before Beanie’s man had shot him. The wound above his heart throbbed threatening to sap his strength, but he wouldn’t let it. Not until Peyton was safe. But fuck, the pain was setting in. He searched the pasty-white skin around Eric’s eyes. The agent’s shirt collar was damp, and the fecal scent of fear wafted to Rhett’s nostrils.
The chambers of his brain clicked into place. “Bullshit. How’d Moretti know to send Beanie to Stone’s boat? Someone on the inside told him.”
“I’m telling the truth. Maybe your girlfriend’s playing you, dude.”
Rhett’s temper boiled over. “You fucking cocksucker!” He jabbed Eric in the nose. Pain ricocheted through his injured shoulder and he shook his wrist to draw the zinging energy away.
“Ah, shit!” Eric coughed, and blood squirted down the front of his shirt.
“Rhett!”
He turned to see Mandy behind him, looking nearly hysterical. “That’s enough. Let’s talk about this reasonably. Tell us what you know and we can figure this out.”
Rhett opened and closed his fist, fighting the burning sensation on his knuckles, which craved another satisfying blow. “After what happened to Vicky, I’m not taki
ng any chances. Eric knows something.”
“Fuck you!”
Something snapped inside Rhett. All logicality went out the window. He was done fucking around. “You’ve got ten seconds”—he reached behind his back, grabbed his waterlogged weapon, and pressed it into Eric’s throat—“before I make a fucking art display of your brain on the wall. Now talk.”
“Drop your weapon, Callahan.” Mandy’s deadly tone sent chills up his spine.
He loosened his death grip on his gun but didn’t move it from its position. He swiveled his head over his shoulder.
Mandy stood ten feet behind him, her Glock trained on his forehead. “Back away and put the weapon down.”
The bottom of his stomach dropped out, and he turned to face his teammate. He chortled and hiked up his hands, still gripping the gun. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.” He shook his head at his own stupidity. Mandy was the last person he’d expect to play double agent. Shit in this field just kept surprising him.
“Drop it, dammit!” Her green eyes were ferocious emeralds.
He swore a blue streak, bent down, and placed the weapon on the floor. Eric pushed away from the wall, grabbed a handful of paper towels off the roll, and pressed the material to his nose.
“You,” Rhett said, snarling the word at the woman he’d had a shitload of respect for. “You are the last person I’d expect this from.”
She cocked her head and lowered her weapon so it was aimed at his knees, which in no way calmed his nerves. She nodded to a chair behind a desk. “Sit the fuck down.”
Rage spurted behind his eyelids, but he beat back the impulse to lunge at her and shoot them both. Instead, he dropped heavily into the cheap plastic chair.
“Hands on the desk where I can see them.”
Rhett rolled his eyes to the ceiling but obeyed.
At the next desk, Eric whimpered pathetically as he mopped his face. “You busted my nose.”
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