He leaned closer to her again. She could almost feel the full length of him. The texture of his flesh. The strength of his body.
All of it…so threatening.
Evil. Eerie.
His lips nearly upon hers, his breath coming in and out, a whisper forming on his mouth, against her own.
“Now…” he began.
Then another voice suddenly cut the air. A female voice.
Furious.
“My God! Just what in hell do you think you’re doing?”
15
O ddly enough, Hinnerman was at the door of the cottage as Adam made his way toward it.
“What the hell is it, cop?” Hinnerman demanded nastily. He was wearing boxer shorts and an open robe, and he held a glass of liquor in his hand. A nightcap.
“I’d like to see Miss North, please.”
“Why?” Hinnerman demanded belligerently.
“That’s between Miss North and me.”
“You want to talk to Jerry, big man, you gotta go through me.”
But Adam didn’t have to go through Hinnerman. Jerry was standing behind him.
Such a pretty woman. Looking so much younger than her years. Except for her eyes. Her eyes looked so much older.
“Adam, what’s wrong?” Jerry asked.
“We’re looking for Sam.”
Jerry, in a white cotton robe and delicate white slippers, shook her head worriedly. “She isn’t here.”
“Of course she isn’t here! What the hell would she be doing here at this hour of the night?” Hinnerman’s eyes narrowed on Adam. “Maybe she’s decided you aren’t such a hotshot in bed after all, huh?”
Adam clenched his teeth, forcing a false smile to his lips as he faced Hinnerman. “Maybe she feels just that, Hinnerman. But you know what, butt head? At least I never had to beat a woman to get her to stay with me.”
Jerry gasped. Hinnerman swore.
“You wiseass piece of shit!” Hinnerman bellowed, starting toward Adam. Jerry leaped between them. Hinnerman looked as if he was about to slug her, but Jem instinctively came forward, sweeping Jerry up, just as Adam stepped forward, flinging up an arm to ward off Hinnerman’s blow while carefully aiming his own right.
Hinnerman went down.
Adam discovered that he was shaking. “Why the hell do you stay with him, Jerry? Why the hell do you need him when…when—”
He broke off, shaking his head.
Jerry eased from Jem’s hold, looking down at Liam, who was just beginning to try to pick himself up. “You…know?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Does Sam?”
“No, not yet. I thought it was something you might like to tell her yourself. But then again, I kept other information from her, and that’s why she’s missing now.”
Hinnerman had made it to his feet. He was staring balefully at Adam.
“Sam Carlyle seems to like you just fine right now, doesn’t she, Jerry?” he jeered. “Wait until she finds out you’re the mama who deserted her and her daddy on this island. Wait until she finds out that you were snooping around her daddy right before he disappeared from the face of this earth!”
Jerry was white. She looked at Adam. “He’s right. How can I tell her? She’ll hate me.”
Adam shook his head. “How can you not tell her? How can you keep away from her? You’ve got a beautiful daughter.”
“Too beautiful, maybe, inside and out. She’ll hate me.”
“I don’t think so.” He glanced contemptuously at Hinnerman. “You need to get away from this abusive bastard. She’d help you.”
“You mind your own business, you cop asshole.”
“I’m not a cop anymore.”
“Who the hell are you working for?”
“Myself. I’m my own damned employer. Jerry, we’ve got to find her. Want to help us?”
“Yes, yes, just let me change.”
Adam nodded. “Jem, you stay here. If he lifts a finger against her, deck the bastard again.”
“Gotcha, Adam,” Jem agreed.
“Yancy, we’ll try Jim Santino’s next.”
“Want me to go to Sukee’s?”
“No, I don’t want you alone anymore, either. Just stick with me. Behind me,” he added after a moment. “Santino is the son of a gangster.”
Yancy took him at his word. She hung just behind him, holding his elbow as they hurried across the beautifully manicured lawn to Santino’s cottage.
Yet even as they neared it, they could hear the screaming. Adam glanced at Yancy quickly, then started to run.
“You bastard! I’ll kill you!” cried the furious female voice.
Sam heard a whacking sound.
Then her attacker, speaking again, contrite, pleading now.
“Stop it. Calm down. You don’t understand what I’m trying to do.”
“It’s obvious what you’re trying to do.”
“Bullshit! Her old man killed mine. What possible interest would I have in her?”
“Your libido seems to have no problems with her!”
He was off her, Sam realized, inhaling raggedly and fighting a different battle. She could hear the blows that were raining against him.
“Sue, stop it!”
“You slimy, two-timing, gigolo son of a bloody bastard. You said—”
“Oh, my God!” Sam gasped, realizing to whom the voices belonged. The Emersons. “Joey, you bastard. Get this blindfold off me and untie me. I don’t know what you think—”
“Great!” Joey broke in. “This is just great, Sue. Now she knows who we are. We’re going to have to kill her.”
“Now wait—” Sam began.
“Don’t be an ass, Joey. If you just explain—”
“Explain? Are you out of your mind?”
“Oh, no, don’t explain!” Sue said sarcastically. “Your way is much better. Beat her. Rape her. That will make the both of us just adore you.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
“Then what the hell were you doing?”
“Trying to scare her. I was working—”
“What a chore that must have been!”
“Sue, I love you!”
“For the love of God, will you at least take this stupid blindfold off me?” Sam pleaded.
The Emersons were silent. A moment later Sam exhaled a sigh of relief as the blindfold was wrenched away from her eyes.
She was on a boat. A nice one. The bunk she was tied to was surrounded by mahogany cabinetry and shelves lined with books. She was staring at a complete entertainment system.
Joey and Sue were staring at her. They were both in bathing suits.
Not formally dressed, but in far better shape than she could claim herself at the moment. Her dress was in tatters. She felt both frighteningly vulnerable and ridiculous at the same time.
“Would you please consider untying me?” she demanded icily.
Sue glanced at Joey, who had the grace to look ashamed.
“Please, these ties are really painful. I can barely feel my arms anymore.”
Sue stepped forward. Sam realized that she had been tied up with a pair of Sue’s stockings.
“Sue, I didn’t tell you that you could untie her.”
“Shut up, Joey.”
“All right, Sam. I’m actually sorry about this,” Joey said, “but I want you to know that I’ve got a gun on you now. Don’t try anything.”
“Thanks,” she told Sue, rubbing her wrists to bring some life back to them and ignoring Joey’s threat.
Her feet had been secured by one of Joey’s belts. She freed herself. Joey did indeed have a gun. It was very small, the size of his hand. But considering some of Joey’s family ties, Sam was sure that the gun was both real and lethal.
Sue stood next to Joey but kept staring at Sam, shaking her head.
“You’re slime, Joey. And to think that I married you, that I fell in love with you!”
“Dammit, Sue, I didn’t really intend to do anything to her. I knew you w
ere sleeping in the other cabin, just waiting for the drug to wear off her.”
“This was idiotic to begin with,” Sue insisted.
Joey sighed deeply. “It is not idiotic. I want to find that ship. My mother wants me to find that ship, and my brother wants me to find that ship. My dad was stabbed. And I’ll bet you she knows it.”
“I just found that out this afternoon,” Sam said awkwardly. “Joey…Shapiro?”
“Yeah. Son of a dead man. Knifed through the gut. He was half consumed by fish when they found him.”
“Your dad was a gangster. Joey, come on!” Sue pleaded suddenly. “You don’t want that life.”
“He was a diver.”
“He was a criminal, playing rough games for high stakes.” She glanced at Sam. “I told him not to do this! The day he came after you in your living room, he was nearly decked by that cop friend of yours. Idiot!” she told Joey.
“How was I supposed to have known they had a past history and that Adam O’Connor would come rushing to her rescue? This should have been all over that night. She should have passed out nicely, wakened terrified and answered all my questions.”
“I don’t have the answers you want!” Sam insisted. She looked at Sue. “And he didn’t attack me in my living room,” Sam added, deciding it might serve her well to keep the argument going between the two of them. “He broke in through my window and attacked me in the bathtub.”
“The bathtub!” Sue shrieked at Joey.
She’d never realized before just how young the Emersons were, Sam thought. Right now, they looked like a pair of squabbling children.
Except that they were children with a prisoner. Playing cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers.
And she still might get an arrow—or a bullet—through her heart.
Joey was attempting to be placating once again. “Sue, you knew I was going to get her to talk, no matter what it took.”
“No, you’re wrong on that one, Joey. I knew you were getting obsessed with this thing, but not at the cost of everything else.”
“Sue…”
“Joey—” Sue broke off, staring at Sam. “He really attacked you in your bathroom?”
“I was right in the tub.”
Sue swung around, slapping Joey as hard as she could. “You son of a bitch! She was naked.”
“Well, it wasn’t my fault! How the hell did I know what she was going to be doing when I went through the window?”
“Amazing! She’s nearly naked right now! Oh, Joey, I just do not believe this!” Sue cried. She swung at Joey again.
And hit him.
Hit him so hard that she knocked him off-balance. Trying to regain his footing, Joey grabbed at his wife.
They went down together.
Sam stared at them for a split second, then decided that opportunity might not come again.
She sprang from the bunk, wincing in pain as the sudden movement stabbed straight through her arms and legs. Joey’s gun had fallen. If she took the time to reach for it, Joey might well drag her down, as well.
She kicked the gun. It went flying under the bunk and clattered as it slipped between the boards of the cabinetry.
“Look what you’ve done!” Joey shrieked at Sue, gaining his feet.
Sam didn’t wait for Sue’s reply.
She flew out of the cabin, past the salon and galley, and bounded up the steps that led to the upper deck.
And there she stood dead still.
She was surrounded by darkness.
The darkness of the water.
The Stygian darkness of the sea at night.
The wind whipped around her. The boat was rocking wildly.
The storm was brewing wickedly.
And she was in the center of a wild black void.
She swung around. Thank God. Light. She could see light. Seafire Isle. If only she could judge the distance. They hadn’t come so far.
But far enough.
They’d come somewhere between one and two miles from shore, perhaps.
What a difference! she mocked herself. What was a mile on a night like this?
The difference between life and death, perhaps. Say it was two miles. With a whipping wind, a churning dark sea. The undercurrents would be as volatile as the air around her.
“Damn it, Sue, I know you can reach the damned gun. Get it!” she heard Joey cry.
She saw a pair of flippers leaning against the port side decking. She grabbed them and slipped them on.
“Joey, I’ve got it!” Sue cried. “I’ve got the gun.”
Sam plunged into the sea.
Adam shouted, banging on the cottage door. “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll rip your heart out, you bastard!” He set his shoulder against the door, slamming at it with determined strength.
He burst into the cottage.
The living room was dark. Adam rushed through it.
Into the bedroom.
He stopped short.
Jim Santino was in bed. Doing nothing evil to Sam. He wasn’t even with Sam. He was with Sukee.
Sukee, naturally, had been doing the screaming.
But she hadn’t been in any pain.
She was staring at him with the sheets drawn around her breasts.
Sukee smiled very slowly. “Hi. Did you come to join us?” She looked at Jim, taunting him. “Did you hear the way he threatened you? I really like tough guys!” She sighed, lashes fluttering as she looked at Adam. “But no, he didn’t hurt me. Still, if you want to rip his heart out, we can make it into a wild night.”
Yancy had come up behind Adam. He spun around.
“The Emersons?” she said.
He shook his head. “The Shapiros,” he murmured.
“What?” Yancy demanded.
“A very long story,” Adam said, turning to leave Jim Santino’s bedroom.
“Hey, wait, what’s going on?” Jim yelled after them.
“Sorry we interrupted!” Adam shouted.
With a sense of urgency building inside him, Adam started to run again.
He reached the Emersons’ cottage and started to bang on the door.
It swung in at his touch.
He stepped into the living room. It was dark and empty. “Sam!” he cried, moving into the kitchenette, the bedroom, the bathroom.
The cottage was completely empty.
He turned around to leave and slammed into Yancy. “They’ve taken her,” he said huskily.
“Where?” Yancy demanded.
“Where else do you go when you leave an island?” Adam demanded bitterly. “The water. They’ve taken her out to sea.”
It was amazing how cold the water—the usually wonderful, temperate water—could be in the middle of the night when a storm was approaching.
Sam was a good swimmer. A strong swimmer. The water had been her life. She was almost as comfortable in it as she was on dry land.
Usually.
But then, usually she had the sense to stay out of the water when a storm was nearing the island. And she never swam in these depths in the middle of the night.
In the chill of the wind….
In such unbreakable darkness.
Life. How she wanted to hang on to it.
She wondered now what her father had felt, fighting for his life. Surely it had seemed as precious to him during his last few minutes as it now seemed to her. Had he thought of her? Had he fought against the possibility of going away forever until the very last minute? She was strong, and the flippers helped, but it didn’t matter. For every few feet she managed to make toward the island, another swell came by and swept her back. The salt was stinging her eyes. Tears filled them. As afraid as she was for her own life, she suddenly felt her father’s suffering.
And if she perished here…
Yancy had Hank and her baby to sustain her. Jem had his family. They would hurt, but they were strong. Then there was Adam. Adam, whom she had thrown away. Adam, who had played his own games of deceit. Adam, who had told her that
he loved her.
She had to stop crying, she told herself furiously. She would definitely die.
She was going to die.
No. She could survive in the water for a very long time. She squinted, drawing her wrist above her head, grateful that she wore a diver’s watch with a luminous dial.
Nearly five o’clock.
Nearly morning.
How long had she been in the water already? How close was the storm?
The storm that hadn’t been due to come near them for at least another twenty-four hours.
The rain hadn’t started yet, thank God. Just the wind.
The wind…and the vicious swirl of the water.
She’d shed the remnants of her dress and was swimming in her underwear, nothing restricting her movements. She reminded herself that when she got tired, she only had to float. The current should take her toward the island.
It was just that the current kept changing with the erratic whipping of the wind.
Sharks.
There were sharks in these waters. Lots of them. She’d faced them so many times.
Faced them. At their level.
Now her legs were dangling. Temptingly. And she was blind to what lay below her. She’d always had a healthy respect for sharks but never a fear of them. Until now.
Terror suddenly filled her. From below, she would look just like a smorgasbord.
She had to float, rest, relax.
She flipped onto her back, breathing deeply. The sea was rising, the water slapping over her face. She had to take care with every breath. No matter how experienced she was, her muscles were tiring.
Adam had tried to protect her. He had stuck to her like glue. She’d thought herself so much older and wiser than the last time. She’d lost her temper without seeking an explanation again. She’d been hurt. Last time she had forced him away.
This time she had run.
Now she was going to die, and it wasn’t going to matter if he did love her or he didn’t.
Still, she’d been so close. She’d wanted Adam from the time she had first seen him, and she’d wanted him more with each hour that passed. They’d shared the sea. A knowledge of it, a love for it. The secrets within it. A love for the life around it. Adam loved her island. He’d said that he loved her….
She closed her eyes briefly, trying hard to breathe easily and regain her strength, to keep herself afloat on her back so she wasn’t constantly fighting the swell of water into her nose. She sneezed, coughed, choked. The salt water stung through her nostrils to her eyes. Thank God she was so accustomed to it. She would have been dead already if she wasn’t. She had to keep going, keep fighting. Fighting until she was dead. Oh, God, though, this was hard. A bullet in the heart would have been an easier way to go.
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