“No!” Ethan’s shout reverberated in Kelly’s brain.
She slapped a hand to ear. Her eyes teared up from Ethan’s shout. Not just from the physical torture to her eardrum, but from the anguish in his voice.
Thank God her captor hadn’t heard.
“Take it off,” the wiry masseur ordered again from his position in front of the door to the cleaning service supply room. He bore little resemblance to the gentle, new-age masseur who’d taken time to mix ylang ylang bath oils for her.
Kelly stumbled away from him, reaching behind her for anything—a mop, a jug of cleaner. Some weapon.
She wouldn’t allow this to turn into the nightmare of her experience with the college professor. Kelly scrambled to think of something to say that would reassure Ethan while still figuring out a way to get out of this hell.
Why would Peter waste time on this?
Unless he had nothing left to lose.
She wouldn’t, absolutely wouldn’t let this happen to her. And she wouldn’t be separated from the tiny microphone inside her dress button. Peter hadn’t said anything to lead her to believe her cover had been blown. She needed to hold on to that.
“Whatever part you had in what went down tonight, you don’t want to make it worse.” Her grappling hand closed around an iron. “Ethan will be looking for me any minute. Give—”
Peter backhanded her.
Kelly reeled, slammed against a shelf. Towels and brooms rained around her, the iron thudding to the ground. Pain exploded through her head for a second time, but she held back her own scream for Ethan’s sake even though the smack must have transmitted.
Ethan’s growl rumbled in her ear. “He’s a dead man.”
His cold vow chilled her soul.
She wanted to let Ethan know she would make Peter pay big-time. Once she found her opening. Let Peter think she was weak now. She’d kick his ass soon enough, regardless of how strong the wiry man was from years of giving massages.
Thank you, Ethan, for giving her the tools to do it.
She’d learned. She would make it.
She hoped.
Peter snagged a housekeeping uniform off a hook. “Here. Take this.”
Kelly sagged with relief. He just wanted her to change. She needed to let Ethan know before he lost it and barged through in some reckless dash. “Oh, you want me to—”
“Shut up.” He leveled the gun at her temple.
Fair enough.
Kelly inched her zipper down. Revulsion swelled into nausea. Twice Peter had touched her while giving her a massage, looked at her, and she’d never known.
Swallowing down bile, she distanced herself. Besides, she wore a bra and slip beneath her gown. She was still covered, her 9mm out of sight.
She wasn’t the helpless student from all those years ago. She was a government agent, with training. She could keep herself focused, protect her gun in the white garter-belt holster until she could button that housekeeping smock.
“Kelly!” Ethan barked through her earpiece. “Damn it, Kelly, find a way to talk to me. Now. Give us your twenty.”
The gun never wavered. She couldn’t risk talking yet and feared he wouldn’t be able to hear her anyway, not with the growing space between her and her button microphone.
Kelly wrestled into the khaki jumper, fumbled as slowly as she dared with the buttons. Done. She straightened in time to see Peter pitch her gown into a cart of dirty sheets. He yanked her toward the door.
“Kelly!” Ethan demanded. “Kelly, damn it, say something.”
The edge to his voice worried her more than the gun, and she was seconds away from leaving her mike. She gathered her thoughts and gave one last shot at communicating with Ethan. “Peter, why am I changing—”
He dragged her into the hall and kicked the door closed.
“Kelly?” Ethan’s call echoed. “Talk. Let me know you’re all right.”
He couldn’t hear her.
Peter wrenched her arm. “I hate the delay, but it was necessary. I had to make sure my hostage wasn’t wearing a wire and or one of those listening devices. But then I guess it was ridiculous of me to think you might be some kind of undercover cop.”
“Yeah, silly.” He’d pay for that one later, Kelly assured herself.
He jammed the gun in her side. “Not a sound.”
Kelly slowed as much as she dared along the hall, Ethan’s voice her constant companion.
“Kelly, I’m with you,” Ethan rumbled through, steady, strong. “No matter what’s happening right now. I’m with you. Know that. Listen to me. Do what you have to do to stay alive. I’m gonna pray you’re kicking the crap out of him right now.”
She heard his heartbeat thudding harder, faster.
“But if you’re not—” his voice turned hoarse, pain radiating from his quiet words, “that’s all right. You do what you have to do. Just zone out. Go to that far-away place in your head when you’re meditating. Anything you have to do to stay alive.”
Tears burned her eyes as his words seared into her mind. Yes, she heard him. Every ounce of his love and hurt transmitted and stabbed right through her.
Finally she understood what he meant, how love could be wonderful, but it could be hell—their pain as tightly entwined as their joy. She’d thrown his love and his need for her back in his face. Which didn’t say much about the love she thought to have for him.
A love she hadn’t even told him about, and now she might never have the chance.
“We’re looking for you, Kelly. By God, we’re going to find you. So just hang on. Hang on, Kelly. I love you. I hope to God you can hear me. I love you.”
Again, she heard him, as did everyone in ARIES. This time, she believed him and grieved she hadn’t listened before. If—when—she got out of this, she would remind him he’d made his vow to a host of listening ears. No holding back, Williams.
And she would give him hers, as well. To a room full of people. From atop her damned cubicle if she had the chance. She wouldn’t give up, couldn’t give up, because of Ethan. She couldn’t do that to Ethan.
He needed her.
Peter rounded the corner, stopping in front of the stairwell. Would he go down or up?
“Okay, Kelly-girl.” He swung open the stairway door. “Time to hang out on the roof and wait for my ride, while everyone downstairs cleans up the mess I left behind, patting themselves on the back for what a good job they did.”
He scooped his hand into his pocket and withdrew…
A rock. A fist-sized sapphire. On the inside of his wrist, usually covered by sweatbands, scrolled a tiny tattoo with Rebelian lettering woven into a snake. “I’ve got what my leader asked of me, anyway, and a valuable hostage. I’ll bet Williams pays big-time to get you back from Rebelia.”
All roads led to Rebelia.
“How did you get the sapphire?” Her mind flashed through the evening. All the jewels had been secure…
Except for the case crashed open by the Gastonian ambassador’s body.
“So nice of Miss Eugenie to drop that punch bowl into the case and cover the missing jewel, not that she intended to help. But I’ll take it any way I can.”
At least he still didn’t know her part or Ethan’s or that they knew she was missing. It bought her an edge.
If she could just lead Ethan to the roof. Even if these scum received ransom ten times over, they would never release her. She’d studied their like in ARIES profiles too often. Once she climbed into that helicopter, she’d be as good as dead, taken from the country and tortured—if they weren’t shot down first.
She pressed a hand to her thudding heart. The gemstone necklace tucked in her bra cut into her skin.
The necklace.
Kelly eyed the doorknob.
Slowly, she inched a finger into her bra to hook onto the chain, easing it up and into her palm. Hand clenched, she dropped her fist by her side.
Willing any remnants of Kelly the Klutz aside, she glided her hand along the door and slid her ch
ain over the knob.
Okay, Williams. Time to live up to that hotshot agent rep.
Because she needed him every bit as much as he needed her.
Ethan tore down the halls. Fourteen more floors to go. The elevators were out. Only eight minutes had passed since communications with Kelly had gone down.
Eight endless minutes. He fought roiling nausea in his gut.
He couldn’t think about what might be happening to her. He had to focus on finding her. Someone would find her soon.
The hotel was just so damned big.
Through his earpiece, a barrage of voices filled the waves. None of them Kelly’s. At the ARIES command post, Hatch had assumed control, clipping out commands in rapid succession for additional backup.
Ethan listened, all the while chanting through a litany of heaven-only-knew-what to Kelly in the hopes that she could still hear him. Damn it, he customarily made security checks on people in his aunt’s life and Miller’s record had been clean. The fact reeked of a scope of influence Ethan didn’t even want to consider. Not now.
He rounded a corner, ready to search the next floor.
A flash of light sparked.
His feet slowed. Ethan squinted, looked closer as he closed in on a glistening pendulum swinging on a door at the end of the hall. A chain with Kelly’s semi-precious stone dangled from the stairwell to the roof.
Kelly wasn’t in one of those rooms. Relief almost drove him to his knees.
A temporary reprieve.
If they’d headed to the roof, Peter intended to leave. A hell of a lot worse waited for Kelly if they got away.
“They’re heading for the roof. Send backup.” He looped the chain off the knob and clutched it in his fist. “Aquamarine, Kelly. Message received and I’m on my way up. Not much longer.”
Ethan charged up the stairs. A helicopter hovering out of radar range could swoop down in seconds and be gone just as fast. He wasn’t too late. He wouldn’t let it be too late.
He stopped at the door. Don’t go blasting in. Think. Pull that mojo out of exile and put it to work. Go on the assumption Peter didn’t know they were looking. Give nothing away. He spoke softly into his mike, “Kelly, I’m coming onto the roof.”
Ethan tucked his gun in his pocket, donned his idle-rich facade and pulled open the door, his most important undercover op yet, with Kelly’s life the stakes. “Kel, hon, you up here? Don’t be mad, babe. I just want to talk to you.”
He stalked across the roof, all of historic Alexandria sprawled below. Frigid wind tore gusts of steam from vents, blasting snow in a near-blinding swirl. Good. That would make landing a helicopter damned near impossible.
If they hadn’t left already. “Kelly?”
“Over here, Ethan my boy.” Peter Miller stepped out of the shadows, Kelly tucked against him, gun in her side. Two henchmen, more spa workers, loomed behind him.
Ethan allowed himself three precious seconds to absorb the vision of Kelly alive, and apparently unharmed, other than the hint of a bruise on her face.
Peter Miller would pay for that. Slowly. Painfully.
But first he had to take care of three sets of enemy hands holding guns. Two-against-three odds. Not what he’d hoped for but losing wasn’t an option.
“What the hell’s going on, Peter?” Ethan bluffed.
The feds couldn’t be more than a couple of flights below. Stall. Pray the helicopter couldn’t land and that there wouldn’t be a hail of gunfire.
“You should have stayed downstairs, Williams. Now we’re going to have to take you, too.” Peter nodded to one of his henchmen who swung around and aimed a Glock at Ethan. “Of course you shouldn’t have started asking all those questions about your parents. I had it good here and you screwed it up. Now I have to leave.”
Ethan kept his stance loose, deceptive, trying not to think of the gun pointed at Kelly. She stood limply against Peter, no doubt luring him into assuming weakness. The wind blasted snow around her feet. Her teeth clattered but her eyes sent a clear message of honed training.
Ethan eased forward. “Messed up a good thing?”
Crooks always loved to brag, ego ruling them. He could use that to distract Peter, and get as much of the confession as possible into the mike. Ethan eased closer. “What do a few questions have to do with a jewel heist?”
Peter asked. “You’re thinking small. I’ve been collecting secrets for years and giving them to my country. I wish I’d killed that bitch Eugenie and taken my chances with her ridiculous press-release threats.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. My mistake then, but not now. Too bad you didn’t die in the mine. That would have paid her back. Her snooping cost my homeland a big piece of what the CIA had going on back then.” His boots moved backward as he dragged Kelly with him. The odd shuffle, the snow, the boots all merged with the image of another pair of boots in Ethan’s memory.
The day his parents died.
“Or maybe I should kill you after all. I walked away from you alive once before thirty years ago. I won’t make that mistake again. So what if the old bat talks? Who’ll care about one of your long-gone turncoat agents selling my country a few laboratory secrets thirty years ago anyway?”
The irony of it nipped Ethan with more power than the tearing wind. There had been a Judas in their social ranks all along—Peter Miller. The guy had been using his position catering to the DC politically powerful to pilfer secrets, and had no doubt used his position to watch over Eugenie, as well. The stakes were too high for Peter to negotiate. Any hostage was as good as dead. “Let Kelly go. I’m a more valuable hostage anyway.”
“How short-sighted of you. It’s not just about money. It never has been. It’s all about country.” The barest hint of an accent slid past his flat broadcaster’s voice. “My sister Iona was prepared to die serving our homeland, and so am I.”
Peter and Iona, linked, thirty years ago and now, danger so close. Every muscle in Ethan contracted with the magnitude of what could have happened. He’d been so focused on Kelly and future threats, all the while this slime had put his hands on Kelly and Eugenie countless times. Hell yes, Ethan could understand well a fury that would rage for years—for a lifetime.
Helicopter blades slapped the air in the distance. Closer. Time to trust his partner.
“You’re not leaving with Kelly.”
Peter shifted his gun from Kelly to Ethan. “How do you plan to stop me, pampered rich boy?”
“I won’t need to.” Ethan smiled at Kelly and winked. “My partner will.”
Kelly jammed her elbow back. Stomped Peter’s instep. And whipped out her weapon.
Ethan rushed the nearest henchman while Kelly swung her gun and fired at the other, twice, in a clean double-tap. Blood pumped from the man’s shoulder. He stumbled back off the roof.
The helicopter eased out of the haze, hovering inches from the roof and swaying in the wind.
Peter shoved a hand into his pocket. Ethan stiffened, ready for anything. Another weapon. A grenade. Anything…
Except a rock?
Roof lights gleamed off a fist-sized sapphire. Peter backed away, turning, running and pitching the sapphire ahead into the helicopter cockpit.
Ethan sprinted after him, even knowing he wouldn’t make it in time. At least it would give him a closer shot. Peter’s back made a perfect target, a deserving target after what the man had done to Ethan’s family. To Kelly.
“Ethan! Think. Don’t let the past screw with your mind.” Kelly shouted with the uncanny ability to read his intent. “Damn it! He can’t talk if you kill him.”
His logical Kelly.
Peter’s back might offer the perfect target, but Kelly’s voice offered the perfect promise for tomorrow. A promise he couldn’t throw away. Years of survivor’s guilt peeled away in soul-releasing loads. Time to step out of the past and into a life with Kelly.
Ethan adjusted his aim. Squeezed the trigger. Pumped two quick bullets into Peter’s kneec
ap. Blood spurted.
Three steps shy of the helicopter, Peter stumbled, fell. Screaming in agony, he rolled on the ground. Immobilized.
Just as Ethan started to launch forward, feds poured through the door, swarming the roof and surrounding Peter and the other downed henchman.
Leaving Ethan free to focus on Kelly.
Three strides and he locked her to him, against him, a part of him.
Alive.
Warm and alive. He backed her away from the scene. Their time had faded. ARIES operatives didn’t take credit. Hatch would clear away any hint of their participation, already the director’s voice echoed in Ethan’s ear with orders to that effect.
Ethan wrapped Kelly closer to his chest, breathing in her scent and molding her body to his.
“Kelly,” he whispered against her hair.
Just Kelly. A single word said it all.
The helicopter rose out of sight. One jewel, one man flying an escape. But millions of dollars worth of gems and a ballroom full of people saved. And foremost, the location of Alex Morrow had been narrowed considerably from anywhere in the world to the small region of Rebelia. Not bad odds for one op.
He and Kelly made a damned fine team.
His hand clenched around Kelly’s semi-precious rock that had purchased her priceless life. Now, he just had to convince her to take a chance on him. No doubt, a riskier proposition than dodging bullets on a snowy rooftop.
It was well past midnight. His Cinderella stood on a wind-swept building rather than in a ballroom. Her coach was nothing more than a dirty Jaguar. Her gown exchanged for a maid’s smock, she was covered in sludge and blood, hair falling in her face.
And never had his Kelly been more beautiful.
Ethan’s hand clenched around the chain and the aquamarine. He might not have a princess-cut diamond on hand, but he had something far more precious and lasting.
He had a future. If he could just convince Kelly to share it with him.
The night inching toward the next morning, Kelly counted as church bells chimed the hour. Three, maybe four times. Stepping out of the hotel lobby into the crisp air, Kelly didn’t know for certain. Didn’t care.
Ethan’s jacket around her shoulders, they made their way through the snowy back lot for his car. Valet service was a bust tonight in the mass exodus of guests, not that any agent worth his salt would ever use a valet service and risk car tampering. Thirty-degree weather tempered the adrenaline heating her.
The Cinderella Mission Page 22