Bones waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. There was light spilling through the slatted blinds on the front of the building. That was going to have to do, because there was no way he was announcing his presence with a light. To her credit, Marina didn’t seem to have any interest in turning on lights either.
“So what are we looking for exactly?” Marina whispered.
Bones worked it through in his head. “The Brazen Belle is docked at position 105. Look for the file for that berth. It should have the manifest. If we can find containers listed with that prefix, we’re in business.”
MARINA WAS A little in awe of his absolute certainty. Did nothing rattle this guy? It was a little daunting. She felt completely overwhelmed as she began searching the file cabinet. She squinted at the labels. They looked to be numbers. Then she ran across a manila folder labeled 105, and she realized she’d discovered exactly what Bones had been searching for. It was a little gratifying, to say the least. Although it was beyond her why she was so worried about this stranger’s opinion of her.
“Look at this.” She pulled a penlight from her pocket and carefully held it low over the file. “This is the file from the ship. Right here is says Brazen Belle. The owner is listed as the Hanson Pharmaceutical Corporation.” Marina frowned. “Hey, wait a second. I’ve heard that name before!”
“Yeah.” Bones looked as grim as his name. “I have too.”
Marina racked her brain, trying to remember what Hanson Pharmaceuticals had meant to her. Then all at once it hit her hard. She felt the blood drain from her face, and she had to grab the edge of the file cabinet in order to stay upright. “They provide diagnostic services.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really? I thought they were just into distribution. The usual. Medications, pills, prescription stuff, and a few heavier narcotics for a select list of clients.”
“They do diagnostics,” she told him quietly.
In her mind she could picture the logo on the side of the caddy carried into the ER bay by the snooty phlebotomist who had poked and prodded Marina without exhibiting one ounce of empathy for her situation. It had been a low point in her life for sure.
“Do they have corporate offices here Baltimore?” he asked slowly.
She shrugged. “Don’t know. Not sure I care.”
“Oh, honey,” he said, pointing his finger at the name on the manifest. “You’re going to.”
Marina ground her teeth together. She wanted to know what was going on. She wanted to know now. That was why she’d signed on for this particular mission. It was why she was running herself ragged and spending every single penny of her inheritance trying to find out what had happened to her. So if this guy was going to stand here looking so smug and certain, she wanted answers. Now!
She sucked in a deep breath to give him a piece of her mind. Then he surprised her by giving her a hard shake of his head and holding up one finger to his lips.
“No,” he said in a bare whisper. “Someone’s coming. Do you hear that?”
“The guard?” Marina guessed.
He cocked his head, obviously listening. Marina held her breath and tried to hear too. She caught the vaguest sound of boots on pavement.
“Guards don’t walk like that.” He was already pushing the file cabinet drawer closed. Then he plucked the file from her hand and shoved it into his jacket. “That’s too deliberate. Guards meander. Especially security guards who have been making rounds for hours on end.”
Marina’s heart began to hammer against her ribs. Someone was coming, and they were trapped in that tiny office, ready to be caught red-handed.
BONES HAD SEEN enough PTSD in his lifetime to know a pretty severe case when he saw it. Marina was so nervous she was practically vibrating. Her eyes were wild, and she kept looking around as though she were seeking the nearest exit in preparation to take flight.
“Calm down,” he advised quietly. “There’s nothing to be gained from overreacting.”
“Calm down?” she squeaked. “What are you waiting for? Let’s move!”
“We don’t know what door he’s coming to,” Bones pointed out. “There are two options. As soon as we…” He heard the footsteps make a definitive move toward the front entrance.
Grabbing Marina’s hand, he closed the distance between them and the back door in two strides. This was the way they’d come in anyway. It was definitely easier to backtrack than to figure out a new route. Marina was breathing heavily, and he could feel the tension vibrating through her body.
Tasha and Yates hadn’t told Bones squat about this woman other than she had a vested interest in their investigation and she could probably be trusted. Now he was beginning to think that someone had left out significant chunks of information where Marina’s history was concerned. One did not generally get this much of a crazy strong flight reflex from a casual brush with a criminal.
Bones went out the door, Marina on his heels. He reached behind them and carefully pulled the door closed with a muffled snick. In Marina’s state of mind, she’d probably be willing to slam it shut and bolt just to get clear of the room.
As he’d expected, she was already at the bottom of the stairs. Seconds later she was sprinting across the parking lot. Beyond that he lost visual contact with her in less than a minute. He let her go. The woman had her own demons to deal with for the moment. He had his.
Circling around to the front of the harbormaster’s office, he found a pool of inky black shadow and squatted down low. He was prepared to wait however long it took for the intruder to finish what he’d come for. The man might be there on other business. But something in Bones’s gut told him that whatever was going on inside that office was absolutely related to Rachel Trapp’s whereabouts.
It took almost twenty minutes for Bones’s stakeout to bear fruit. His back was cramping from holding this tight position for so long, and his thighs were screaming with the strain. He didn’t care. He was a SEAL. Discomfort was part of the territory. None of his training had prepared him for what walked out that door, though.
For one brief moment, the other intruder paused in a pool of light in order to secure the office door. It was exactly the reason Bones had shunned that entrance to begin with. The man’s face was highlighted just long enough for Bones to identify him.
“Son of bitch,” Bones cursed beneath his breath. “Lieutenant ‘Prissy Pants’ Whiteside, what in the hell are you doing?”
Chapter Three
Marina did not stop running until her lungs were burning and her legs were trembling with fatigue. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she could see nothing but the pavement in front of her. Her boots slapped the sidewalk with each step. Inside her head she could still feel the close confines of that prison where she had been kept. She could sense the cold air tickling the back of her neck. The rancid scent of human waste and rotting food was in her nostrils. The dread was back like a boulder in her belly.
How far had she run? She forced herself to slow down. She was alone. There was nobody around. Not even Bones. What had happened? She abruptly stopped running and put her hands on top of her head to open up her lungs. Her breathing was heavy. She was in good shape, but it wasn’t as if she’d been paying attention to her pace or anything else for the last however long she’d been sprinting full out.
She closed her eyes. Her therapist had taught her to do grounding exercises in order to stop the nearly crippling episodes of PTSD. She focused on the feel of the hard concrete beneath her boots. She listened for the breeze whistling between the buildings. She caught the scent of someone’s cooking floating out of an open window. On the corner just ahead there was a neighborhood pub. She heard the raucous sound of men and women drinking and having fun. The odor of greasy bar food hung heavy in the air. There was no threat. The world around her was wide open. There were no confines. She was safe.
Safe.
How had she managed to go inside that dark office, anyway? Marina began to walk. She took her be
arings and realized she was several blocks from her car. There weren’t many people on the sidewalk this late at night, but she kept her eyes peeled for anyone who might have ill intentions.
While she headed back to her car she contemplated recent events. She had been horrifyingly claustrophobic since escaping the tiny cage where authorities speculated she had spent the better part of six months. When she had rejoined the world she had been unable to tolerate a regular apartment. Instead she’d found an old loft with vaulted ceilings and no walls. Not even her bathroom had walls. It was perfect for her.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t go inside buildings, but it usually took a good bit of rationalization, some cognitive behavioral therapy tricks she had learned from her counselor, and a whole lot of determination. Yet tonight she had walked right into that office and dug around in a file cabinet, with that low ceiling pressing down on her, and she hadn’t even thought twice about it.
Why?
“Bones,” she whispered.
There was something about that man that pushed her buttons. He was big, fierce, and so damn certain of everything. It both pissed her off and fascinated her at the same time. Whatever he had, she wanted it.
BONES SAT IN his apartment and stared at the phone sitting in the middle of the coffee table. He needed to make a call. He just didn’t know what to say. The place was dark and still. He liked it that way. He thought more clearly without a bunch of light and noise cluttering things up.
He found his thoughts drifting in the direction of Marina. He didn’t know why they would be. The woman had left the harbor as if her ass were on fire. She’d been running at a terrific pace. In fact, Bones was pretty certain he couldn’t have kept up with her if he had tried to.
The thought brought a smile to his face. He wasn’t particularly fast to begin with. A man didn’t get to be the size Bones was, with his bone structure, and still manage to be fast. But Bones got around just fine. He was still well within Navy standards for sprinting speed. Even for a SEAL. Marina? Marina could have put even Sparks to shame, and he was considered the fastest sprinter on their team.
Bones sighed. He rubbed a hand down his face and over his clean-shaven head. What was he doing? Procrastinating wasn’t going to make this phone call any easier. Deliberately reaching for the phone, he dialed the number and waited. Less than thirty seconds later someone picked up the line.
“Hey. What did you find out?”
Trapp’s voice sounded tense, although Bones couldn’t fault him for that. The man’s sister had been missing for going on two weeks. The news they had had of Rachel wasn’t exactly good, either. And the news Bones had to impart wasn’t going to help matters any.
“I did some digging around tonight,” Bones began. “I found the ship. It’s deserted for now. From everything that we’ve come across so far, I would almost guess they purposefully evacuated their assets from that ship because they know we’re aware of it.”
“All right.” There was a rustle, as though Trapp were digging through the usual pile of paperwork on the camp desk in his field tent. “What else?”
“I broke into the harbormaster’s office and nabbed the ship’s manifest. I think there might be a way to trace the containers.” Bones took a deep breath. This was where it got hairy. “I got interrupted though. By Whiteside.”
There was a long, definitive pause on the other end of the line. It was so silent that Bones could hear the clicking of the towers as their call got bounced around. Then Trapp sighed. “Will Whiteside?”
“Yeah. I’d already noticed that the guard was conspicuously absent from his rounds. I heard someone coming. I didn’t see him until he left, but he was bold as brass about it. Just stood there in the light as if he didn’t give a shit if he was seen or not.” Bones considered that for a moment. The guy had to be breaking and entering. Why would he be so careless?
Trapp was silent for so long that Bones began to wonder if the connection had died. Then his friend and longtime commanding officer sucked in a breath so large Bones was surprised the barometric pressure didn’t change even from a half a world away. “Go talk to him,” Trapp ordered in a low voice. “I want to know what that bastard has to say for himself.”
“Yes, sir.” Bones would go, but only because Trapp had been his brother in arms for more years than Bones cared to count.
MARINA PLACED BOTH hands flat against the tile wall and let the hot water sluice down her back. Her hair had been crinkled from being braided since she’d gotten out of the shower the day before. Now the long strands stretched all the way to the small of her back. The heavy mass tugged on her scalp, but she closed her eyes and ignored the pressure.
When she had first escaped her captors and run barefoot and half naked to the first help she could find, her hair had been matted and snarled almost beyond saving. For some reason that had become something to focus on in the weeks following her captivity. Even the mundane task of trying to untangle and comb her hair had helped to center her in the moment. Since then she had refused to cut it. Her therapist often referred to the hair as her personal talisman. Marina didn’t know if she bought into that notion, but she liked keeping her hair long all the same.
A noise at the front door of her loft made Marina jolt upright. She shut off the water and reached for a towel. There was knocking. Why would anyone be knocking at her door? It was the middle of the night.
Her stomach began to cramp with nervousness. What if someone had seen her at the harbormaster’s office? What if they were here to take her back? She had to twist her hands in the towel to keep them from shaking. She would not be ruled by fear!
Taking a deep breath, she wrung the water out of her hair. Whoever was at the door would have to wait. She obviously needed to get some clothes on. And it wouldn’t hurt to grab a gun before she checked the video feed from the camera stationed over her front door.
There was no more knocking by the time she had pulled on some loose yoga pants and a camisole. She twirled her hair into a bun and tied it into a knot to keep it out of the way. With a gun hanging low in her left hand, she headed for the door.
BONES DIDN’T KNOW what to expect when he banged on Marina’s door. The woman might not even be here. At the pace she was running, it was possible that she had made it to Maine by now. Or at least it was highly probable that she’d gone to ground somewhere.
Then he heard footsteps on the other side of the huge metal door. The converted warehouse looked as though it had been split into four lofts. Each occupied a narrow section of the original space, with the access to each dwelling being the original loading bays. Truthfully, Bones was a little envious of the space. It looked inviting.
“You?”
If the caustic surprise in her tone wasn’t enough to tell him that he wasn’t welcome, the 9mm semiautomatic pistol in her hand was. Bones held up both hands, showing he was unarmed and hoping he came across as harmless. Well, as much as any six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-eighty pound man could look harmless.
“I didn’t come to make trouble,” Bones said carefully. “I need your help.”
“My help?” Two lines appeared between her delicate eyebrows.
In the light spilling from her loft, Bones was stunned to see how incredibly beautiful she was. Not that he’d thought her unattractive before. He just hadn’t had an opportunity to notice the smooth texture of her light brown skin, or the spectacular dark eyes that did not miss a single thing. Her eyes were turned up at the corners, which gave her an exotic flare. Her body was perfect. She was athletic and strong, with pronounced curves, and breasts just the right size to fit his hands.
Bones swallowed and hoped that his body did not respond in the way it was considering. Getting a raging hard on right now would not send the right message, even if he did find himself incredibly attracted to this woman.
He was here for a reason. At least he thought he was. With a tiny shake of his head, Bones tried to find his words. “I saw the guy that broke into the harbormaste
r’s office after we did.”
“Okay.”
Her arms were crossed over her chest, and he couldn’t help but get lost for a moment in the sight of her delectable cleavage. She suddenly cleared her throat with an exaggerated ahem. Bones jerked as he dragged his gaze back up to her face. She was smiling. No. She was actually laughing, which was good because the alternative probably had her aiming that gun at his damn head.
“Uh, sorry,” Bones stammered. “The man was—is—a former colleague.”
“He’s military?” She cocked her head and looked less than thrilled. “So what does that have to do with me? He’s your problem, isn’t he?”
“I need someone to help me break into his house,” Bones admitted.
She chuckled. “You know, the only thing I’ve done since meeting you is break and enter. I’m pretty sure this means I should turn and walk the other way.”
“But?” he prompted.
“But I’m going to say yes. I’ll help you.”
Chapter Four
“You might as well come inside.” Marina stepped back from the doorway to let Bones walk in even as her inner voices were screaming at her that this was a bad idea. Men did not come into her space. Ever. Truthfully, she’d only had sex once after her abduction, and that had just been an experiment to see if it was even possible. To say that the night had ended disastrously would be an understatement of epic proportions.
He seemed to take up all the space in the room as he entered her loft, yet it wasn’t an ominous presence. In fact it was quite the opposite. There was something strangely comforting about having him around. He was big and solid and safe.
All except the part where he’s also gorgeous.
Marina couldn’t seem to stop staring. She’d only gotten the basics about Bones before. Now, in the full light of her loft, she could see that he was dramatically handsome in an exotic way. His skin wasn’t just dark. It was the color of caramel. He was clean-shaven. His jaw was stubborn, and his chin was strong and square. The way his forehead sloped back from his thick brow gave her the impression of a thinker. This was a man who would evaluate everything. He might look like a muscle-bound meathead, but he was far from it.
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