by Dianna Love
After several seconds, he held out his hand to her. “Let’s check your other arm.”
She hesitated to uncover her middle and couldn’t take another moment of his hands on her skin. Not if she wanted to keep her ridiculous hormones under control. “I’m okay, really. Thank you.”
Don’t ask me about what’s bulging under my shirt.
His eyes flickered with a moment of indecision that raised hairs on her skin in warning, but he didn’t press her further.
In an effort to change the subject, she asked, “Where’re we headed?”
“Jacksonville.”
Her quota of divine help had just run out.
Mason had a division in Jacksonville.
Chapter 4
“You’re landing at the Jacksonville International Airport?” A frisson of worry slipped into Angel’s voice in spite of her effort to sound casual. Could Mason’s men have gotten Zane’s flight plan?
Zane eyed her as though he could see right through to the secrets she harbored, but he shook his head. “No. I’m making a delivery to a client at a private airfield.”
“How, uh, soon?”
“Little over an hour if the storm doesn’t force me to circle too far out.” He turned toward the control panel, searching for something amid the mass of lights and gauges, then faced her again, apparently satisfied for the moment. “Where you headed?”
“South.” That was as good a directional choice as any. To avoid focusing on herself any longer, she pushed the subject off course. “Is this your plane?”
“Yep. I have a charter company.”
“What kind of charters?” Seemed like a cargo pilot wouldn’t have to work in the middle of the night, flying through storms. Not that she was complaining since she’d benefited by whatever had forced him to fly in this mess.
“I handle special cargo that normally can’t be transported by most commercial carriers. We’re based in Ft. Lauderdale at Sunshine Airfield. Those ventilated boxes contain lab mice my client needs right away. I’m headed home as soon as I deliver them.”
She gulped coffee to cover a shudder. Ugh, she hated rats. The slight smell and frantic scratching emanating from the boxes suddenly made sense.
“Sounds like an expensive way to ship rodents.”
“These are special rodents.”
“They do tricks?” She couldn’t resist teasing him if for no other reason than to get another dose of that hot smile of his.
She got her wish.
He answered her with a grin that made her want to preen under his attention. She barely stopped herself from sighing before a slap of common sense tamped down her burgeoning attraction.
Hadn’t Mason turned her head just as easily?
All charm and teasing when she’d worked in his warehouse. Too late, she’d found out what kind of animal hid behind the million-dollar smile and impeccable manners. This pilot might behave like a perfect gentleman, but only a fool flirted with a man who’d helped her escape without even knowing who she was or why she’d been running.
Would she ever learn?
Confusion crossed Zane’s face. “What’s wrong?”
She flushed the irritation from her face and gave him a polite smile. “Nothing. I just wondered how long the airplane would fly by itself.” Yeah, right. Well, she had thought about that a few minutes ago. To support her claim, she glanced at the controls.
“We’re good until I take it off of autopilot in just a minute.” He put away the first-aid kit and shifted to face forward in the left seat. “We’ll be hitting a rough patch of weather soon. You should come up here and buckle in.”
Having never flown, and definitely not in a small plane, she hesitated at the idea of being buckled in so close to the windshield.
Limitless black heavens changed from a constant patter of rain to a loud drumming over the entire craft.
Zane issued a quick order. “Jump in the co-pilot’s seat now before it gets worse.”
Wrong time to have a distracted pilot.
She bent her legs to stand, gritting her teeth at the ache in her stiff muscles. She managed to get into the seat and not hang herself on the headphone cord.
He reached over without waiting for her okay this time and secured her harness, then took control of the airplane. She didn’t move a muscle while the plane dipped and bucked against the turbulent atmosphere.
Zane calmly discussed weather and exchanged flight information with an air traffic controller. Vicious wind and rain pummeled the outer shell. When the fuselage shuddered hard several times, she questioned her choice of nights to run.
But without the storm there would have been no escape.
Temperature outside the plane had cooled. Her damp clothes chilled her to the bone, but she refused to complain while Zane had his hands full flying in this mess.
Warm air began to migrate through her space. When another dry towel fell in her lap, she wrapped it around her shoulders and cut her eyes left. He maneuvered the buffeted aircraft with amazing dexterity.
In the middle of fighting a storm, he’d actually noticed the goose bumps on her arm? And he’d cared enough to pause what he was doing and try to make it better. Could this man be just as decent as he seemed? Where had Zane Black been when she’d been in the market for a nice guy?
The airplane dropped hard in a downdraft.
Her stomach lurched. Just when she thought her heart might climb into her throat from sheer terror, Zane glanced over long enough to wink and smile.
That little reassurance was all she needed.
Air Traffic Control finally cleared them to enter the Jacksonville air space. The aircraft began to drop steadily. Nothing in the darkness below resembled an airport.
He pressed his mike, but didn’t talk. Down below, out of nowhere, two straight lines of white lights beamed up from a tiny spot on the ground. Would the landing be as wild as the take off?
The aircraft lights danced across the wet runway ahead of them. She wrapped her arms around the harness and held her breath, but the touch down was surprisingly smooth.
A light mist drizzled against the windshield as he slowed the plane.
Halogen lights glowed over the flat terrain surrounding the airport.
This facility appeared larger than the one they’d departed near Raleigh. Three imposing hangars and a single-story brick terminal stood along one side of the airport.
As he finished his radio confirmation, Zane taxied to a parking spot near the center hangar. With the engines silent, chattering noise from the aerated crates echoed through the cabin. He flipped off his headset.
“Why don’t you stay put until I locate my client then we’ll get something to eat?” he suggested.
“Sure thing.” Not a chance. What if this pilot called in the police? He might even think he was doing her a favor. She hadn’t seen any vehicles pulling into the airport as they taxied to the hangars, which might mean the men chasing her hadn’t gotten Zane’s flight plan.
Settling back into the seat to convince him she was content to wait, she hoped he’d be gone long enough for her to disable or remove the armband. There had to be tools on board. Surely Mason’s men couldn’t track her this far away, but no point in taking that chance.
Zane opened the cargo hatch and left the steps in place when he exited the airplane.
Angel waited until he’d walked around to the opposite side and headed toward the terminal where soft lights glowed inside. She’d been eyeing a pair of yellow work gloves on the floor behind his seat and reached over to snag them. They swallowed her hands, but she could make them work. Unbuckling her harness, she hurried to the rear of the cargo hold to search through the darkness for a bag or storage bin.
She ran her hands across a rectangular box mounted against the wall. The latch popped open. With a shaft of ambient light drifting in from the open hatch, she could identify a screwdriver, pliers, and a file kind of thing, but smiled when her gloved fingers caught on two sharp points –
tin snips.
Maybe her luck hadn’t run out after all.
She caught the sound of someone calling out a greeting and started forward in the cabin. Through the rain-streaked window next to the pilot’s seat, she spied Zane speaking with a man wearing khaki pants and a windbreaker. His client. That meant Zane would be back soon. She dropped down and quickly cut through the bracelet, then crimped the metal pieces several times, hoping to destroy the tracking components.
Another peek outside the cockpit and her moment of relief came to a screeching halt.
A black Land Rover bearing the signature gold triangle of Lorde Industries crept into the airport and parked next to the far hangar. Dread fingered across her skin. Mason’s men had tracked her after all, which meant they must have gotten access to Zane’s flight plan. She checked Zane to see if he’d noticed the Land Rover, but he stood talking with his back to the vehicle.
Life never got any easier.
Her pulse throbbed in her throat. If Mason’s men caught her with the coins she had no bargaining power and no way out of this mess. And Zane Black would be a mere inconvenience in their way.
She searched through the bag he’d pulled the thermos from earlier. She’d never been one to pilfer through someone else’s personal belongings, but this wasn’t a normal circumstance. Her hand closed around a flashlight. Bingo.
Most of the containers in the cargo hold were consigned to High Vision Laboratories. Shielding the light from the windows, she ran the beam close over the labels on miscellaneous packages and boxes in the rear.
She had to find one not slated for Jacksonville.
Giving up the coins could mean her death, but the last thing she wanted to do was get caught by Mason’s men with the coins on her. She’d have zero bargaining power.
She’d hide them in a package in here, then once she had them back, she’d stick to her plan and find someone to corroborate her alibi for the day they were stolen.
None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t recognized a stolen painting hidden in Mason’s warehouse. The priceless work of art had been plastered all over the news for the better part a week. Shocked by the discovery, her first thought had been that she had a chance to prove she was an employee worthy of trust. She’d innocently brought the painting to the attention of her sainted employer and put her life in jeopardy.
Now all she wanted from the FBI was freedom and a slot in the WITSEC program where Mason couldn’t get to her.
Why not? She had no family and no life at this point.
A soft package three-foot square, a foot thick and covered in brown paper lay in the very back of the cabin. The company label on the upper left corner stated, “Best custom boat enclosures east of the Mississippi.” She made a mental note that it was addressed to the Security Office for the Gulf Winds Marina in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Attention: Slip 18.
Not as close geographically as she’d like, but a safe distance from Mason’s home turf – and a long way from here. She just hoped she could reach Gulf Winds Marina by the time the coins arrived and that the boat owner was in no rush to install the boat curtains.
First she had to live long enough to reach the marina.
Removing the gloves, she carefully pried the wrapping tape away from the paper covering the package and ran her hand deep into the heavy canvas material, feeling seams and pockets. Groping blindly along the edge of the material, she snagged a hemmed pocket wide enough to slip three fingers inside.
With a quick jerk of the plastic sleeve of coins under her T-shirt, the clear tape holding the ends together broke.
Feeding the narrow sleeve of coins into the canvas pocket was tedious as pushing a rope. Once she’d pressed the tape on the large package back in place, Angel scurried forward and wiped down everything she’d touched without the gloves, including the tin snips she put back into the tool box.
She’d been convicted of a crime she didn’t commit based on a single fingerprint. Never again.
Her cellmate had laughed at her over the fastidious habit that bordered on OCD, but Angel ignored the jibes. After a year in jail, wiping anything she touched was now as ingrained as taking her next breath.
Rushing to the window, she made one more quick check of Zane’s position.
He was headed back to the airplane.
She searched the area beyond him. The man in khakis he’d spoken to was nowhere in sight.
Neither was the black sport utility with the triangle logo.
Good sign or bad sign?
She had to make a run for it. Now.
Angel tiptoed down the steps, cringing when one creaked. Her legs were pumping before her feet touched pavement. She scurried through the shadows, down to the front of several private airplanes secured with ropes to the tarmac.
The rain had ceased and every sound seemed amplified.
Her heart raced at the tiny noise her sneakers made even though she moved softly between the planes. She stooped next to a yellow aircraft with a double black stripe along its fuselage that glowed like a midnight sun.
Through the stillness, she caught the sound of Zane’s shoes scrunching against the steps to his airplane, no more than seventy-five feet away.
Something scraped the pavement near Angel.
Her hair stood on end. She froze and listened for another sound to tell which way someone was moving. Two seconds passed and fear overran all caution.
She made a half pivot away, foot lifted to take off.
A thick arm clamped around her chest and jerked her back against a hard-as-concrete wall of body.
“No!” She choked the word out before his hairy-knuckled hand cut off her next breath. Kicking frantically, she fought to break loose. The stench of nicotine on his fingers gave Vic away. He ran Mason’s Jacksonville division.
He dragged her backwards.
Angel dug in her heels to slow him down. Muscles contracted in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. He got her to the nose of the yellow airplane, but no farther.
Vic made a gurgling sound, then his hands jerked away.
She spun out of his grasp.
He struggled in a headlock of Zane’s powerful arms.
“You know this guy?” Zane barked, clearly in control of the situation.
“He jumped me.”
A strangled noise wheezed out of Vic. Zane wrenched a little tighter. “Go call the police.”
“No!”
“No?”
Angel silently pleaded for him to understand, glad that Zane had the upper hand and Vic had come alone. “Thanks for the ride. I’m sorry.”
She turned and ran.
Chapter 5
“Who are you?” Zane loosened his grip enough to let the mugger speak. He had a Keltec .32 stuffed in his boot, but hadn’t taken the time to pull it out when he’d had the opening to grab this guy in a chokehold. His captive reeked of cigarette stench and heavy aftershave.
How did this goon know Angel?
The stocky bruiser, a head shorter than Zane, appeared neither threatened nor concerned. “Take your hands off of me, you fool.”
Shouldn’t he be concerned since I have the clear advantage? Of course, back in his special ops day, Zane had known guys on the team who were much shorter than him that he never wanted as an enemy. Silent and deadly.
But this guy was nothing more than a thug.
Zane ground his teeth at the absurdity of all this. Angel might have done him a favor by not calling the police. High Vision had made it clear they did not tolerate unnecessary media attention, regardless of the reason. They had enough bad media with PETA groups.
And the DEA wouldn’t be any happier to see Zane’s face in the news either.
No problem. He preferred a low profile for his own reasons.
His chin-high captive warned, “You’ve got maybe ten seconds to let me go.” He sounded annoyed and impatient, not the least intimidated.
The idea of turning this scumbag loose was a piss poor option. Amused by the guy
’s show of bravado, Zane started to ask, “Or what, Shorty?” when he heard the distinctive “click” of a gun hammer cocked next to his ear.
“Turn him loose,” a baritone voice ordered.
Zane dropped his arms and backed away, hands in the air.
Smoothing back his slick black hair, the cocky mugger jerked away from Zane’s grasp. He spun around and straightened his Indigo silk suit with a look of pure hatred on his dark, Mediterranean face. He threw a short chin jerk as some signal to his gun-toting partner.
“Turn around,” the partner demanded. The tap of cool metal on Zane’s cheek accompanied the terse order.
Zane shifted slowly with deliberate movements to face the owner of the suppressed 9mm Smith and Wesson pointed at his head. A faint light cast by the distant halogens outlined the mahogany-skinned gunman’s stern features. He stood inch for inch as tall as Zane and outweighed him by twenty pounds that looked put on by steroids. The mountainous body filled out a dark, tailored suit no CEO would refuse to hang in his closet.
That suppressor was an expensive toy. These two were high-priced hired guns. What had Angel gotten mixed up in? Was she some mob leader’s babe?
“Where’d she go?” Shorty asked, evidently the one in charge.
Zane thanked his Air Force Special Ops training for being able to read people and adapt at lightning speed. He affected his best rendition of a confused look accompanied by good old boy repertoire.
“Hey, man, I don’t even know the broad. I take off with some maniac driving down the fuckin’ runway, get up to ten thousand feet and she climbs out of the cargo hold. Says some guy doesn’t want to let her go. Must be a hell of a lover’s quarrel. She belong to one of you?”
The two best-dressed henchmen in Jacksonville exchanged unreadable looks.
But Zane had picked up just enough hesitation on their parts – combined with the suppressor on the weapon – to figure out these guys were expected to operate below the radar, draw no attention. Or he’d be dead right now.
He continued, “I don’t fly passenger charter. She said she’d pay me to drop her off here for a little vacation, but she didn’t flash any cash. You got an address where I can send a bill? I’ve got to make this month’s lease payment.”