Deception Island

by Brynn Kelly

  “What did you have to do when you were taken from the refugee camp?”

  “Kill Gabriel.”

  “But you didn’t, obviously.”

  “No.” The word was twisted with disgust. Regret? “But I did find that place of darkness.”

  “And now you have to kill me.”

  “Yes.”

  “He thinks you’re capable of that—killing an innoc—” She cleared her throat. “Killing a relatively innocent woman?”

  “I was, once.” His eyes widened, as if inspiration had caught him.

  “You are speaking past tense, right?”

  He swiveled, and grabbed her shoulder. “If they believe I’ve killed you, we’ll have a chance.”

  “I thought we established you weren’t going to do that. Never strike a woman, remember?”

  Life glittered back into his eyes. “I’m not killing anyone, not when you’ve already done it for us.”

  “I’m not following.”

  He jumped up and strode toward the shed. Okay, so he probably wasn’t going to kill her. What would he do—let her go? What then? For six years, the only thing she dreamed about was freedom. Now, freedom seemed empty and lonely, and lacking in funds. Her past and her future were two scary gaping holes. Which left just the present. She had nothing and no one to live for, but one thought gnawed at her: somewhere nearby a child was in danger of growing up like she had—like Rafe had. Alone, unloved and vulnerable.

  Right now, that at least was something to live for. And fight for.

  Chapter 14

  Rafe yanked open the door to the shed, blinking impatiently while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. He tossed several ropes into a pile outside the door. No tarpaulins—the parachute would have to serve as a body bag. Laura—Holly—kept her distance, eyeing the haul. What else could he use?

  “What are you going to do?” She looked ready to bolt. She really did think him capable of killing her—and why not, seeing as he’d nearly strangled her fifteen minutes ago. So much for all the years of turning himself inside out and endlessly reliving the hell for a parade of psychologists and psychiatrists and psychotherapists. After all that prodding and picking over his brain, after all their attempts to reprogram him, the dark place still beckoned. If Holly hadn’t played dead and jolted him to his senses, she’d be dead for real. God knew what the next twenty-four hours would hold—whatever happened, he needed to keep a hold on his emotions.

  “Ja—Rafe?”

  Task at hand. He’d been staring at a corrugated iron wall. “They want a body? I’ll give them one.” He scanned the shelves, and riffled through some boxes. Duct tape. He lobbed it outside, onto the coil of ropes.

  “Oh! The pirate. Right. Of course. I thought...” She closed her eyes for second, and huffed out a breath. Yep, she’d thought he was about to kill her. “You think we can fool them?”

  “Bodies decompose quickly in this heat. The smell alone should be enough to deter them from looking too closely.” He tested three carabiners. Rust flaked off them and fluttered onto the packed-dirt floor, but they held—strong enough to take his weight in a cliff rappel. “If I wrap the body up tight, I’m guessing they won’t feel the need to confirm it’s the right one.”

  Outside, he crouched over the ropes, separating out the strongest and longest to be his main and safety lines. He’d lower himself down and carry the body out around the shoreline. That way he wouldn’t need Holly’s help. He’d handled enough bodies to want to save her the trauma, princess or not. His jaw tightened. Not a princess. A stray like him.

  “When will the militia come?”

  He shook the dirt off a pair of gardening gloves. They’d do for protection against rope burn. The parachuting gloves were too thick.

  “High tide tomorrow afternoon,” he said, “assuming they’re sticking to the contingency plan. But I’m not taking chances. We’ll get what we need from the villa and sleep rough tonight.”

  “The contingency plan?”

  “The fallback position if the ransom wasn’t paid.”

  She grunted. “Right. Get rid of the...evidence and get out of here. Will you go with them?”

  “That’ll be their plan. Even if Gabriel intends to have me killed, he’ll want to be there to see it—perhaps to do it. That should buy me time.” Enough time to overcome the entire militia and rescue Theo—alone? He’d had some long-shot missions, but this had to be the most impossible—with the most at stake.

  “You’ll leave me here?”

  “Yes. Hiding in the forest. You’ll be safe here until I can come back and get you. If I don’t come back... I’ll leave instructions for my guy to get you. If neither of us comes within a couple of weeks, you’ll have to assume I’m dead, and take the risk of showing yourself to the next honeymooners. It’s that or live wild on the island.” She was chewing her lip, processing the instructions. Maybe he should have sounded more upbeat. “But I will come back for you.”

  “I want to help.”

  “Here.” He threw her the safety rope. “Untangle this. No knots, not even a kink.”

  “I mean, help you get your son back.”

  He strode into the shed. “This isn’t your problem.”

  “In my experience it’s always useful to have another set of hands, another pair of eyes. Someone you can trust.”

  “Trust? I don’t even know who you are. No need to play mind games anymore, princess. As I say, I have a guy.”

  “Who you haven’t heard from.”

  “I’m well aware of that.” He hauled out the Windsurfer’s sail. It’d do as a shelter for a jungle camp. “You’re on your side, I’m on mine. Best we keep it that way.”

  “It’s not about playing games, Rafe. I think we understand each other better than most people who’ve been acquainted a day and a half.”

  Had it only been that long? Just hearing her say his real name injected a warmth into his veins that threatened to melt the ice around his heart. He needed the ice, to trap all those dangerous human emotions inside. The avalanche had very nearly released a few times in the past twenty-four hours. Christ, he’d messed up this mission. “I just tried to kill you. Why would you want to help me?”

  “But you didn’t. I don’t believe you’re capable of it.”

  “I am capable of it, believe that. If you hadn’t collapsed...” He screwed up his face. What was wrong with her? She should be running from him, not volunteering for duty. “I’m letting you go. What I did just then... These men wouldn’t hesitate to finish the job. I have enough on my conscience without getting you hurt, or worse. You’ve been dragged far enough into problems not of your making. Go back to America—live. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—that’s all you need to worry about.”

  She stared at the rope in her hands. After a minute, she began to unpick it, slowly but deftly. A change had come over her since he’d discovered she wasn’t Laura. Relief, possibly, but something else, too. She’d let go of the act of playing the heiress, the spirit of defiance had broken, and she seemed...lost. He had to be careful—vulnerability never failed to fuel his protective instinct.

  “Princess. I’m letting you go. You’ll be safe from me, and from them. You can go back to America—your family, your job, your home, your Facebook page. Isn’t that what you want—your freedom?” Wasn’t that what anyone wanted from life? He wouldn’t know. The freedom he sought was from a past that haunted him, and that would never come.

  She blinked up at him, evidently lost in her own thoughts. “Freedom,” she repeated, as if the word was unfamiliar.

  “You’re worried the senator’s people will come after you?”

  She shook her head. “The world’s a big place, and I’m good at hiding. If I stay quiet and out of sight, they’ll have no reason to make my life difficult.�
� A wry, sad smile settled over her.

  Don’t ask. You don’t want to get involved. He collected his cache and strode down the track to the clearing. He took the steps to the villa in one leap, grabbed the parachute bag from beside the gaping doorway and ducked inside to get a couple of towels. Truth was, he itched to know more about her. Where did they make women with courage like hers? There was something very different about her—he’d sensed it from the start.

  He shouldn’t care. He didn’t.

  When he returned to the clearing, she was slumped at the picnic table, the rope between her teeth, tugging at a knot as if it was Jasper’s balls she was tearing apart. Or Rafe’s, more likely.

  “All right, fine,” he said, walking up. “I speak English but I don’t speak woman. You’re going to have to spell out why you’re looking as if being free is worse than being dead.”

  “Oh, it’s not worse,” she mumbled. “I like being alive, very much. God knows why. It’s just...freedom’s not something I’m used to. Family, a job, a home, a Facebook page. I don’t have any of those things.”

  He stuffed the duct tape, gloves and carabiners into the side pockets of the bag, and picked up the other rope. “How is that even possible? I’m guessing your real father’s house isn’t an option and this Jasper guy is out, but you can’t have nothing—you’re American.” Rafe knew what nothing was. He’d started with nothing half a dozen times before he turned twenty—the refugee camps, the militia, the missionary school, the Legion. But even he had a family now, and a job, and perhaps a home, if the barracks counted. “What’s your story, Holly? Who are you?”

  Her face screwed up, as if she was bracing for a reprimand. “I’ve been in prison for the last six years. I’d just been paroled when the senator’s people approached me.”

  He froze, the rope half coiled in his hands. Something snapped in his chest and came out as...a laugh.

  “Why is that funny?”

  “I’m not even sure.” The sound of his own laughter was as unfamiliar as the sensation. “All this time I’ve been thinking you were a pampered, beaten-up little princess and...oh la vache.” He shook his head. “What were you in jail for—murdering Jasper?”

  She grimaced. “I wish. Try identity theft, criminal impersonation, fraud, grand larceny, cybercrime, conspiracy, counterfeiting, money laundering... I’m just your basic twenty-first-century bank robber.”

  Ah. She was an expert at fooling people. That explained a lot. “Doesn’t sound so basic. A balaclava and a shotgun would have been much simpler.”

  “And more likely to cause collateral damage. I don’t like to hurt people.”

  “Oh, so you’re a pacifist now. And those bruises you’ve given me...?”

  “Self-defense, in the heat of the moment, if you remember. And each one deserved.”

  “What about all your training?”

  “To defend myself. Never to attack. Even in self-defense, I can only bring myself to hit back if there’s no other choice, and if I don’t have time to think about it. I know too well...” The parallel lines appeared between her eyes.

  “...what it feels like, to be hurt,” he said. “That’s why you couldn’t shoot me back there, on the cliff. You gave yourself too much time to think.”

  “That was part of it, yeah.” She studied him, her head angled. “You must hurt people, in your job. How do you deal with that, after the pain you’ve suffered?”

  “Usually the people I hurt are threatening others, so it’s in defense of the innocent. I try never to cause people pain. The most successful soldier manages a situation without violence.”

  “But it’s your job. What if you’re ordered to hurt someone you don’t want to hurt? That’s got to happen, right?”

  He winced. “Those moments are the worst. I don’t—what’s the English phrase? Come off lightly. None of us does.” In those moments he could feel the slide back to the devil he once was. Every time, it took all his presence of mind to stay focused.

  Enough about him. As usual, she was digging too deep. “So if you didn’t use shotguns, what did you use?”

  She stayed silent half a minute, the rope slack in her hands, no doubt seeing his change in subject for what it was—a deflection. He grabbed the parachute and began folding it.

  “We found more subtle ways to get around bank security,” she offered eventually, getting stuck back into the knots. “It wasn’t about hoarding wads of cash. It was about changing numbers on computers, and preying on people’s greed and gullibility. It’s incredible how vulnerable greed can make people. I don’t think we ever targeted anyone you’d call ‘innocent.’ I hope not, anyway.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Jasper. He betrayed me, ratted me out to the Feds and took all the money.”

  “Ah. True romance.”

  “More like the film than the real thing. Though Jasper was no Christian Slater, it turned out.”

  “Huh?”

  “You need to watch more movies.”

  “Life gives me all the drama I need.”

  “Good point.”

  “What happened to Jasper?”

  “He got everything. I got worse than nothing.” She slammed the rope onto her thighs. “Fucking knot,” she whispered.

  “Give it to me.” She relinquished the rope. He scooted up onto the bench beside her, drew her pocketknife from his shorts and eased it into the knot, just hard enough to loosen it, without fraying the fibers. “I see why you have an issue with trust.”

  She leaned back, propping her elbows on the table. “The great, stupid irony is that he was one of the few people I ever allowed myself to trust. Turns out love can make people even more gullible than greed can.”

  “Ah, love. It’s a dangerous emotion, I am told. Possibly the most dangerous thing in the world.”

  “You are told? Are you saying you have no firsthand experience?”

  He shrugged.

  “But your wife, your son.”

  “Ah, my son. Wait until you have children—then you become truly vulnerable.”

  “Like now, you mean.” She twisted to study him, squinting against the sun. “But you don’t strike me as the kind of man who regrets becoming a father.”

  “Never,” he growled. His protectiveness for Theo was a beam of light in the darkness of his soul. “Theo... His very existence makes up for my half life. If I do nothing else to make up for the pain I’ve caused so many people, at least I’ll leave one good, innocent, pure thing behind.” He stabbed the knife into the table. And, by God, he’d keep Theo that way—if it wasn’t too late. “But that kind of love—if that’s what it is—it makes you weak. It opens you up to fear, and there’s no more powerful driver than that. Fear can drive a man to do things he thought he wasn’t capable of.”

  “Like kidnap.” Her hand fluttered to her throat. “And worse.”

  He ground the knife into the table. Whenever he thought of his son, of what Gabriel was doing, his chest churned like a lava pit—fear, anger and the instinct to protect swirling ever faster.

  She swung around to straddle the bench, and rested her hand on his thigh. He knew this was some kind of sympathy, but she was entering the red zone. A touch like that could ignite the whole combustible cocktail. But looking into her eyes seemed to settle him, too, their coolness and sincerity offsetting the heat. He didn’t dare let his gaze stray.

  “I think I understand,” she whispered, her voice tight. “There was a time I would have done anything for Jasper. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but you’re right, it comes down to fear. My fear was that he’d stop wanting me around, and then I’d be back to having nothing and nobody to live for.” She stroked his leg, firing up the skin under his shorts. “I know it’s different for you—I don’t mean to compare it like that. A man like you—you don�
��t have a choice whether or not you’re going to love a child. And you can’t walk away.”

  “Is love a choice?”

  She lowered her gaze, eyelashes brushing her cheekbone. “I don’t think so, but I’m not the person to ask. Maybe some people just can’t love, like my father. My mother tried to protect me sometimes—I don’t know if that counts—but her fear of my father was greater than any feeling she might have had for me. Jasper’s the only person I’ve loved—thought I loved—and that was so destructive it’s hard to even remember what it felt like, beyond an all-consuming desperation.” She met his gaze. “Is that what love is, for normal people? Is that what it was like for you and your wife?”

  “You forget, princess—I’m far from a normal person. I was wrong to think I could be. Simone and I...” He leaned his head back and stared into the cobalt sky. What was he doing, telling all this to a stranger when he’d never spoken to anyone about it before—never even allowed his own brain to process it? When he dropped his head, those blue eyes were holding their position, waiting for him to return to her when he was ready. She wasn’t playing him now—she genuinely wanted to know. And for some reason he ached to tell her. Somehow, talking to her calmed him, right to his soul. He could do with a bit of calming—a lot of calming.

  “She loved me, but I could never love her back, not the way she wanted. She got pregnant not long after we met, and I married her because it was the expected thing—her family is very traditional. I guess I liked the idea of having a family, after yearning for one as a child, and I tried to choose to love her, but it didn’t work like that. I discovered I’m the kind who’s not capable of loving a woman. And for her...it could be dangerous, as you might have figured out.”