Although they all knew he was all right, had all been watching the video feed since their more in-depth recon, Draven guessed that the jab of relief he felt at the direct contact had been felt by all of them.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s up? Don’t tell me you’re in a hurry, too.”
“Even my patience has limits.”
Draven knew that even Josh’s celebrated cool would run out eventually. Especially when the situation involved risk to Redstone’s own.
“I don’t know what Redstone’s paying, but it’s probably a lot,” he said.
As he’d hoped, Josh picked it up quickly. “At this point, I don’t know if money is the object.”
So Josh and Tess knew nothing more than they did about the motive behind all this.
“Won’t know until the man arrives, I suppose,” Draven said.
“Get on with it!”
The harshly whispered order from the man standing next to Josh was muffled over the phone, but Barton quickly wrote it out.
“Exactly,” Josh said. “No way to know. And I’m tired of waiting around.”
“If you worked for Redstone, you’d be used to it. I know all about them.”
There was a second’s pause before Josh answered, in a quieter tone that told them he’d gotten the message that they’d identified the gunmen.
“Do you, now.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. Small-time with big connections, that’s them.” And that was about as much as he could risk, he thought, and moved on. “So when exactly do you think you’re going to run out of patience?”
He knew Josh would understand he wanted a guess on their captors’ breaking point. “Soon,” Josh said, adding. “I’ve got a date with an angel I can’t miss.”
The angel flight, Draven thought. He glanced over at St. John who nodded, indicating he’d already made arrangements to cover it. Draven had expected no less; no detail ever seemed to escape the man—unless he was distracted by Jessa, which made for enjoyable entertainment for all who had known the taciturn to a fault, haunted man he’d once been.
“Hey, I can handle that for you,” he said into the phone. “You just wait long enough, and things work out.”
“He’d better make it fast, or I’ll just handle it from this end and he’ll have to live with it.”
And that, Draven thought, was aimed at me. “Relax.” Then he threw in a tidbit for the man hovering next to Josh. “His friend’s already here, so it’ll probably only be a little while longer. Go play a computer game.”
On the video monitor, he saw Josh’s brow furrow for a split second.
“Yeah, sure,” Josh muttered.
He was tempted to add a hint to grab Tess and work out whatever the hell was standing in their way, but he didn’t think it appropriate at the moment. He studied the man leaning over the phone to eavesdrop, thought maybe one more reassurance might help.
“Tell you what, I’ll call you when he gets here,” Draven said, in the tone of one magnanimously making an effort to help.
“Thanks,” Josh said. Then, after a glance at the man beside him, he added, “I’ll hang out awhile longer.”
The question was, Draven thought as the connection was abruptly ended when the other man grabbed the phone, would the two hostage takers? If he misjudged this or them, things could go to hell in a big hurry. But Josh had indicated he thought the call and the reassurances had bought them a little more time.
Not that they needed it, he thought as he looked at his team, and all the additional Redstone people who had gathered. They were ready, more than ready; they were nearly as impatient as the gunmen. The difference was they were professional, highly trained and competent. Not to mention critical thinkers; none of them would ever make such a huge blunder out of their own prejudices.
“Barton?” he said.
The young tech genius nodded. “Ready whenever you say.”
“As soon as he reactivates it on that end.”
Again Barton nodded. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, ready to strike in the same way any other person on the team would be when the right second arrived.
And in that moment, Draven had never been prouder to be part of Redstone, part of the magnificent thing a young man, barely more than a boy, had built on a single design and a dream.
A computer game.
Draven knew perfectly well that except for the occasional game of chess when he needed to think about tactics and strategy but wasn’t getting anywhere with the real problem at hand, Josh didn’t have time to indulge in them.
Which meant that suggestion had been specific, purposeful. He had no idea why, but he also knew Draven was the best at what he did. He hadn’t gotten to where he was by ignoring the very people he hired for their knowledge and skills.
He strolled over to the computer and sat with as much aplomb as he could manage. As he’d hoped, apparently the computer game suggestion slowed Brown Shirt down just enough that he didn’t react until after Josh had keyed in the reactivation code and the screen had gone live again.
“Get away from there,” Brown Shirt snapped.
“Just checking to see if there are any games on this thing.”
“You think a guy like Redstone plays computer games?” Pinky said with an audible snort.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Josh said, pulling his hand back from the keyboard just as a news ticker he’d never seen before began to scroll along the bottom of the screen. Tagged with the name of a news service he’d never heard of before either, the words marching across the red banner indicated a dangerous summer thunderstorm was headed their way.
“What’s that?” Pinky asked, peering at the screen. “Is that for here?”
He sounded a bit nervous, Josh thought. But from what he’d seen, Pinky always sounded a bit nervous. “Looks that way,” he said. “Those can get nasty here. I don’t want to be sitting here on this open field in an airplane when that hits. Lightning likes planes.”
Even Brown Shirt took notice of that, and leaned in for a closer look.
Then, in the upper right of the screen a window popped open, and Josh found himself staring with some surprise at what appeared to be a business news brief, about a Redstone takeover of a company he’d also never heard of. That was followed by a report he had seen about the quelling of the unrest on Arethusa, a small Caribbean island near the Redstone Bay Resort.
Brown Shirt frowned. “What’s all that? Where’s it coming from?”
“He has it set up to search for anything Redstone’s mentioned in,” Tess said from behind him, the first time she’d spoken since they’d been dragged out of the stateroom. “It feeds his ego, I think.”
Josh just managed not to let his eyebrows shoot upward; if there was anything more boring to him than reading his own press, he couldn’t imagine what it was. He left that to others, trusting them to let him know if there was anything he truly needed to know. And he knew Tess knew that. Tess knew him better than anyone, after all.
Pinky, on the other hand, smirked; Tess had once more fed his perceptions, and thus made whatever was coming through believable to him. And, Josh hoped, to Brown Shirt, as well.
And then a photograph popped up. It was a paparazzi-style shot of a couple, a tall man with a strikingly beautiful, long-legged blonde. It was captioned simply “Billionaire entrepreneur Josh Redstone and date arrive at the Redstone gala on Saturday evening.”
Sam, he thought, looked gorgeous in that deep green gown, even though she’d never shown up at said gala, mainly because it had never happened. Redstone didn’t run to that kind of thing.
And the man in the photograph most certainly wasn’t him.
Chapter 18
Josh, Tess thought, was not happy.
She thought of the words he’d written atop his list of supposedly necessary repair parts. Ignorance was definitely opportunity in this case, but clearly he didn’t like the way Draven had seized that opportunity. Somebody, Ryan Barton she guess
ed, had been busy with some photo manipulation software.
“Whoa, now that is a seriously hot babe!” Pinky exclaimed.
Tess knew the moment she heard him that Draven had again pulled a rabbit out of the hat; even Brown Shirt was so focused on the sexy blonde he practically looked right past the man in the photo. Samantha Gamble looked incredibly beautiful, as usual. She had, Tess knew, occasionally accompanied Josh to functions when Draven felt the need for some personal security, albeit very low profile; Sam looked exactly like the kind of woman you’d expect a wealthy man to turn up with.
It was the man labeled as Josh who was the surprise. But the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. She was sure the entire Redstone Security team was here, and if the presence of St. John was any indication, more besides. She wasn’t surprised. She wouldn’t be surprised if every one of the thousands of people who worked for Redstone around the globe showed up, so strong was their feeling for the man who had built the world they all loved. But of those best suited for this kind of situation, the choices were limited. Rand, if he was even here yet, Tess thought, was clearly out of the question with his very blond, Nordic looks. Just as Tony Alvera was, for the opposite reason.
Even if St. John, who likely knew Josh and his mannerisms better than any man—although if these guys didn’t even recognize the man when they had him, they hadn’t studied him enough to care about mannerisms—had not already been seen, he, like Draven himself bore a scar that even these two would likely realize Josh Redstone did not. Gabriel Taggert carried himself like exactly what he was—an ex-military man, with his hair still kept nearly that short. And Logan Beck had a similar problem; the ex-cop still had the air. Noah Rider wasn’t a trained agent, and also didn’t look anything like Josh, and they couldn’t assume these two were completely ignorant, just that they were among the many who would never recognize this scruffy-looking man as their billionaire target.
No, Draven had made what was likely the best choice under the circumstances. Not simply because there was more resemblance between Josh and this man than any of the others available; he’d also been dealing with likely one of the very few people he could not say no to. Not one of the triumvirate, as she was, as he himself was, but close enough.
The man who’d named them.
“Leave it to a guy as rich as Redstone to have the good-looking women hanging off him,” Pinky said with a sneer that lost some of its impact because of the obvious envy in his voice. But Tess barely noticed that; what was important was that the man had accepted the man in the photo without question.
“Gold digger,” Brown Shirt snorted. But he, too, didn’t question the image presented.
Josh wasn’t frowning, but Tess knew him too well to miss the tightening around his eyes as he studied the picture. She knew it wasn’t Samantha who was bothering him; Sam was one of the best security agents Redstone had.
“Is she some movie star or supermodel?” Pinky leaned in for a closer look, focused on the sexily low-cut back of Sam’s gown. “She looks it. Man, I’d like a piece of that.”
“I’ll stick with the hot Latin look, myself,” Josh said, startling her. But he wasn’t even looking at her, so she didn’t have to worry about the color she knew was tingeing her cheeks. She knew he was saying it for effect, but still…
No, what was bothering Josh was the message Draven had sent with that particular photo. The message that they were indeed going to take advantage of the mistake their captors had made.
And they were going to use one of Josh’s oldest friends to do it. A man who had once gone through a very vicious kind of hell. A man who apparently now was going to willingly risk ending up a captive again. She knew too well what kind of shape Mac had been in when Draven had pulled him out of that jungle—beaten, burned, weak and sick from weeks of brutalization. He still carried the scars of the torture perpetrated by evil men who knew what the word really meant.
The size of that sacrifice awed but didn’t surprise her; no one she’d ever known in her life inspired the kind of loyalty Josh did.
She supposed the fact that Mac had been off the public radar since settling down with his beloved Emma had played into the decision, as well. People’s recollection might be fuzzy enough by now to know only that they’d seen him before and connect the memory to Josh, since they’d been photographed together often once the news got out that Mac had been his first—and only—backer. It would be easy for someone who had only noticed such pictures in passing to substitute the one for the other. Besides, Mac had a bit of that same dynamic air. Not to mention he could, when pressed, imitate Josh’s easy drawl passably well, although she knew he usually did it to tease his old friend.
And she knew Mac well enough to realize that somewhere in the back of his clever mind was the idea that as a hostage, he was worth as much if not more than Josh; while Josh was known for his planes, his work and the empire he’d built, Harlan McClaren was known mainly for his fabulous wealth. And as a treasure hunter. The somewhat quixotic appellation struck a chord in the human psyche. Especially in those who didn’t realize how much risk and planning and plain hard work was involved, those looking ever and always for the easy way, the quick fix.
If Draven’s plan doesn’t work, he’s going to try and trade himself for Josh, she thought with a sudden certainty.
And Josh would never, ever let him do it.
Things were just getting more complicated.
“I wonder,” Josh said in the tone of a man doing just that, idly wondering, “if that storm caught Redstone up in the mountains? Maybe that’s why he’s so late.”
Brown Shirt was suddenly paying attention. He shouldered Tess aside. She barely resisted the urge to reach for the weapon, knowing she could take him out right here and now. But they’d agreed to wait, and her move would take Josh by surprise, and surprised victims got hurt. Not to mention, who knew what Pinky would do if shooting started?
The man leaned over to peer at the scroll crawling across the bottom of the screen, which was now reporting some political story Tess would have liked to have thought also untrue but sadly guessed probably was real. It was followed by some sports scores, rolling on until Brown Shirt swore impatiently.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered.
Unlike Pinky, the thought of the mentioned storm—which Tess was guessing didn’t exist—hadn’t bothered him until Josh had mentioned it as possible explanation for their quarry’s continued absence.
Finally, the warning scrolled by again, and Brown Shirt’s face scrunched up as he read the rather dire-sounding predictions of winds, torrential rain and dangerous lightning strikes. When wording went by accrediting the weather reporting station at the very airfield they were sitting at, she almost smiled at the inventiveness.
“You live around here, right?” Brown Shirt asked the mechanic.
“Some of the time,” Josh answered easily.
The man gestured at the screen with a thumb. “Those predictions ever pan out?”
“Sure they do. That’s why I only live here some of the time. It gets scary in one of those big storms.”
Brown Shirt looked more annoyed than scared, but Tess knew the goal had been to give him one more thing to worry about. The more scattered he was, the better their chances were.
As long as they didn’t push him so far that he exploded, she thought. She hoped Draven could read the man well enough from a distance to judge that. But she also knew if anyone could, Draven could.
Brown Shirt’s phone pinged again with a new text message. The man scowled.
“You didn’t answer the first one yet,” Pinky said to his partner.
“Trying to weasel out. I’ll answer when I’m good and ready,” Brown Shirt muttered, still looking at the computer screen.
Tess’s breath caught. She didn’t dare look at Josh. Quickly reassured herself that from where Brown Shirt was standing, there was no way Draven and his team could have missed the words. They couldn’t be positive
the communication had anything to do with what was happening here, but it seemed too likely to assume otherwise. And if he’d meant weasel out in the common sense…
“Get them out of here,” Brown Shirt ordered, indicating them with a dismissive gesture.
Pinky smirked at Josh. “Hey, you can pick up where you left off.”
Tess couldn’t help the vivid image that shot through her mind, even as she told herself that was the last thing she should be thinking about now.
“Come on, get to it.” Pinky was leering now. “I’d like to see the show.”
“I’ll bet you would,” Josh said, sounding disgusted enough that Pinky appeared to take offense, which Tess found interesting.
“Just get them in back,” Brown Shirt ordered. “And you stay out here, I don’t care what they do in there.”
Pinky muttered something about taking all the fun out of this, and ushered them back toward the stateroom. She was focused on that last text message, turning the various possibilities around in her head. And was totally unprepared when they reached the stateroom door and Pinky reached out and blatantly put a hand on her right breast and squeezed.
Her instinctive reaction was to take his arm off, quite possibly followed by his head.
She didn’t get the chance.
“Remove your hand, or I will.”
Josh said it quietly, without any particular inflection, but Tess’s breath caught anew. She’d heard that tone from him before. And she knew what it meant.
Josh Redstone was through playing games.
Brown Shirt yelled from the main cabin for him to hurry up. Pinky backed off, with a wary glance at Josh, but with a look at her that chilled her. “I don’t mind sloppy seconds. I’ll be in later, honey.”
In the moments before Pinky closed the door on them, Josh grabbed her.
And kissed her again.
Chapter 19
“I know we need to put on a show,” Tess said, Pinky’s groping and nastiness all but forgotten, “but do you have to be so convincing?”
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