“Sorry,” she gasped. “Just made it.”
She glanced inside the plane while the attendant checked her ticket. She didn’t want Idiot Number Two to see her, not if she could avoid it. Kimmie either, because Reese knew she’d give her away. But she couldn’t tell where they were sitting.
“All set.” The attendant signaled to the crew member below to remove the stairs.
Reese hoped for a seat in the front, but the plane was nearly full. She had to walk all the way to the back. She spotted the idiot on the left, leaning across Kimmie to peer out the window, and turned her head quickly when he straightened. Praying neither had noticed her, she dropped into the aisle seat in the empty second-to-last row and buckled her seatbelt. She peered up the aisle through her bangs. Both of them still faced forward. One crisis averted.
Bring on the next.
Anxiety reacted as if it had been waiting for her challenge. Her already racing pulse accelerated. New sweat broke through the drying moisture from her run to the plane.
She peered in desperation through the window where the asphalt was sliding by. Too late. No escape. Her throat closed and she couldn’t get any air. Her vision darkened around the edges except for golden lights dancing in the center.
Oh, God. What had she done?
She couldn’t breathe, and the hairs on her body rose with the panic, prickling with static, the only electricity in proximity. But she could feel her body opening up, reaching out, seeking more. Had the pitch of the plane’s engines changed? She trembled, her heart slamming against her breastbone. It was going to explode. She was going to die, and she would take all these innocent people with her.
Oh, no, you won’t.
She struggled to slam the door closed, focused on cutting herself off from the electricity. The slam didn’t come, but slowly her arm hairs lay flat again. Now she had to control the panic. She couldn’t call attention to herself, or risk losing it completely. She wasn’t dying, she knew that. She was only scared of dying, of damaging the plane and sending them all plummeting to Earth. Of sitting helpless while the people around her bounced around the cockpit, smashing into the windshield and roof.
She choked and tried to rein in her frantic imagination. That wasn’t her fear. That was her memory. That was Brian, who’d taken off his seatbelt to check on her because she couldn’t move. Who hadn’t put it back on because he was trying so hard to keep them from being killed.
Her lungs expanded and she caught a little air. It’s not the same situation. Up front, Kimmie’s handler didn’t know she was here. He had no reason to harm anyone or interfere with the plane.
The plane was fine. She was fine.
And she was not responsible.
Her eyes flew open and she froze, shocked. Her heartbeat settled, and her lungs, while still tight, seemed more like they were waiting than collapsing.
I’m not responsible.
She hadn’t allowed that thought to fully form since the accident. At the beginning, her own injuries had made up for Brian’s. But as she recovered and he didn’t, guilt festered and grew, manifesting in the need to wreak revenge on the man who’d destroyed them. He was the one responsible, but until she punished him, she carried the blame. If she had been able to move that lever, Brian wouldn’t have unbuckled. If he hadn’t lost precious time reaching for it, he might have survived the crash with fewer or less devastating injuries.
The guilt wasn’t logical. As Griffin had pointed out more than once, she hadn’t sabotaged the plane. And Brian had put them in danger in the first place by letting his partner involve him in criminal activity. If she hadn’t gone with him on that flight, he would have died alone, probably with no one knowing what had happened or why. So her presence on that plane might be the only thing that would lead to justice.
Permanent justice. Retribution.
At one time, she’d thought when she found him and had her questions answered, had the man who’d done this to them arrested, gotten closure, she could move on. Lead a normal life.
Brian’s death had shown her how delusional she’d been. The moment she’d decided to pursue vengeance, she’d set in motion an unstoppable stream of events. Big K would never let her live but even worse, he’d made clear that he wanted her to suffer first. He’d demolished her life piece by piece, and there was only one thing left that mattered to her. One person.
Whatever the consequences of preventing that, of committing premeditated murder…however it might change her, however many years she might spend in jail, it would be worth it.
Her vision cleared and she looked around. The plane had taxied to the runway with no problems, and no one appeared to have noticed her panic attack. If they had, they probably chalked it up to routine aerophobia.
The plane began its takeoff run and she clutched the armrests, closing her eyes and forcing herself to think of something else. White light kept flashing behind her eyelids, making her body jerk. But she kept her body closed, pretended the airplane didn’t use electricity, that there was nothing to connect to. Concentrated on that and only that. She would worry about the rest later. About justice for Brian, who’d walked into his activities willingly, if not intelligently. For herself, for this curse she was struggling to make into a gift. And for Kimmie and every other victim of this man’s crimes.
But first, she had to make it to the island alive.
…
Reese managed—barely—to avoid screaming every time the plane dropped in an air pocket or shook from turbulence, but only by clenching her teeth so tightly they were locked together when they landed. Her relief was immediate when the plane lurched to a halt near the island terminal. And so complete, she imploded with it. The plane’s cabin lights, which had just flashed on, flashed back off, and the man across from her frowned at the tablet he’d been tapping on.
But they were on the ground, and safe. She nursed her guilt until the lights came back on, though the guy’s tablet, and probably other electronic devices near her, would need new batteries. Hopefully nothing more than that.
She worked to relax her jaw and rub feeling back into her white-knuckled fingers while the passengers disembarked, then followed Two and Kimmie off the plane. They were met by a man at the curb outside the terminal. He stood with two bikes, and Reese blinked when Two got on one and motioned to Kimmie to get on the other. When the young woman balked, he glowered at her and patted his pocket. Presumably he had a weapon in there, because Kimmie bit her lip and swung her leg over the bicycle.
Confused, Reese scanned the street and realized there were no cars anywhere. Logical, of course, on an island with no boat access, but cripes. Now what was she going to do?
“Taxi?” A tall, gangly teenager had approached. When Reese looked quizzically at him, he motioned to a rickshaw, connected to a bicycle. She had her doubts about his ability to pull her, but she nodded and followed him to it.
“Can you follow those two on the bikes?” she asked. It was risky. Maybe Big K knew and owned everyone on the island, and following those two would reveal her presence to him. But she had to follow them. The kid just nodded as if his fares made such requests every day, and set off.
The airport sat on a rise that allowed them to look down over the town toward the center of the island, which made the teenager’s start an easy one, heading slightly downhill. They passed people wandering on sidewalks past shops and cafés and pausing to look at wares displayed in windows. Those not walking rode bicycles or Segways, and there were a dozen other rickshaws around, some pulled by running men, some by bikes, and a couple by horses. That gave her an idea, but she’d have to wait and see what their destination was.
The rickshaw driver sped down the main road that seemed to circle the island, following Two and Kimmie down the hill, at enough of a distance that they wouldn’t likely be spotted.
“What can you tell me about the island?” Reese asked, once they were away from town and she could hear his answers. He went into tour guide mode, describing
its shape and weather and doubtful history as a smuggler’s hideout. She studied the homes and empty dunes they passed and the glimpses of ocean between them.
“That house, right up there,” the rickshaw driver said, pointing up a hill, “was Smuggler Sam’s.” They’d come around a curve that bowed inland. The house looked like an old sea captain’s, complete with turret and widow’s walk.
“Is it a museum now?” she asked, not interested until Two’s bike turned left into the winding driveway, Kimmie following.
“Nah, it’s a private home. You want I should turn in there?” He started a hand signal.
“No!” Reese held her breath as they passed, but no one looked back. “We can just go back to town.”
“Easier ride if we keep going around,” he suggested. “Hill’s less steep going up the other side.”
She guessed he was angling for a bigger fare, but she agreed. They circumnavigated almost the entire island in half an hour. This kid’s legs had to be robotic. And whenever she looked, Smuggler Sam’s was visible, perched on its unbreachable hill.
“Who lives in Smuggler Sam’s now?” she asked when they finally reached the end of the tour. “I’d love to see inside.”
He stuffed her fare and generous tip into his pocket and beamed at her. “Don’t know how you could, seeing as Mr. Kryszka is pretty reclusive. He don’t mix with the locals. Or the tourists.”
Wait. What?
Reese lost track of what he was saying. The panic she’d felt on the plane was nothing compared to this feeling of being punched in the stomach with an iron fist.
“Mr. who?”
“Kryszka. Chris Kryszka.” He frowned. “Why? You know him?”
She sure as hell did.
Chris Kryszka was her ex-husband.
Chapter Fourteen
Reese paced her hotel room, pausing now and then to look out the window at Chris’s house on the hill. She’d had to use her credit card for the room and a new prepaid phone, the clothes she’d also bought, and the dinner she’d carried out from the island’s best restaurant, but it didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t care if Chris knew she was on the island, because soon enough, she’d be right up in his face.
She was dying to call Griff, but every time she opened the phone and thumbed the keys, her own words, her own horrendously cavalier voice came back to her, and she just didn’t have the gall.
So she had a mental conversation with him, instead.
She said something like, It’s so clear now. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.
He’d reply, It sounds ridiculous.
So she’d say, Alpine Nirvana? He always loved the mountains more than anything else. The connection is so obvious.
Right. It’s not at all implausible that your ex—who never gave you a hint that he did anything worse than lose too much money in backroom poker games—would become a kingpin of drugs, porn, and murder.
Okay, that part isn’t so obvious.
Plus, how would husband number three from Colorado have gotten involved with husband number four from DC?
The conversation stalled there, because in her head, he sounded bitter about her many marriages. She had to recalibrate, because this was her imaginary conversation, and his imaginary self had no call to be judging her and the choices she’d made.
Recalibration took a little time, because then she got defensive about those choices and went through a short period of self-justification. Four marriages didn’t make her capricious, or a slut. And it wasn’t like her abandonment issues were unique. When she was little, her mother called her “a handful” often enough to leave a mark and convince her that was why her father had left. When she’d met Joey, she subconsciously decided she wouldn’t be a handful anymore, so he wouldn’t leave her, too. Thus the chameleon act started. When he died, she told herself it hadn’t been his choice, so it wasn’t her fault. She’d repeated the pattern with Erik. By the time she met Chris, she’d grown a spine and told herself it was all right to develop her own interests. Boy, he’d shown her.
Their divorce only reinforced the idea that men left unless you conformed to their ways.
She hadn’t married Brian to heal herself from Chris’s rejection. She’d understood why being alone felt so wrong, and she’d married him because she loved him. At the time.
Anyway, she was in control of this imaginary conversation.
I met them both at the same party, remember? Brian was dating Chris’s sister at the time. He’d always said his partner was an old friend…
The memory arrested her and she stopped pacing to stare out the window, one hand toying with the butterfly pendant. Brian and Chris had been friends. How had she forgotten that? When she’d given Griff a list of Brian’s friends and contacts to investigate, how had she overlooked Chris?
It had been a long time ago, to be sure. Plus, she and Chris had only been married for six months, and she hadn’t seen any of his friends who weren’t living in Colorado. His sister had dumped Brian shortly after that New Year’s Eve party. Brian and Reese had both been amused by their tenuous prior connection after meeting again in DC, but by then she’d never wanted to think about Chris again.
Clearly, she hadn’t. She hated herself. All of this could have been prevented if she’d just remembered.
Laughter floated up from the street below, snaring her attention. The island’s one deputy stood on the opposite sidewalk, thumbs hooked in his belt, his back slouched. Behind him, a couple of ten-year-old boys tossed water balloons at a store window, then ran, exploding with laughter. The deputy didn’t notice the splash, not even the droplets that splattered his pants.
She sighed. She’d considered reporting Kimmie’s abduction. Even though her evidence was scant, they could check with Andrew to see if she’d been reported missing, and even pay a call to Smuggler Sam’s. But her casual inquiries about the island’s police force had garnered affectionate dismissal of the sheriff and his deputy. Apparently, they were fine for small incidents, but God forbid anything major happened on the island. If they did go talk to Chris, it would just put him on alert and maybe put Kimmie in even more danger.
Plus, a place like this would be immediately suspicious of a stranger making accusations about one of its citizens. Especially the rich guy who lived in the estate on the hill.
So what was the best way to get up there?
In the small stack of tourist pamphlets in her room, she discovered one of the island’s most popular attractions. From there, everything fell into place. She bought a bow and quiver at a small sporting-goods store and, dressed in the black clothes she’d bought, headed out a couple of hours after dark. Downtown was settling as stores closed and people finished late dinners in the restaurants, and the interior of the island was quiet.
Windy Dunes Stables was a fifteen-minute jog along a road bisecting the island. She didn’t see anyone along the way. She had originally considered just renting a black horse, but the issue of witnesses had made that as bad an idea as hiring a rickshaw to take her up to the house. It would have taken some convincing for the owner to let her keep the horse out at night, and the harder she worked to convince the woman, the more Reese would cement herself in the owner’s mind. The fewer people who knew she was here, the better.
She hoped the low crime rate would equal low security. Sure enough, when she arrived at the stables, there wasn’t even a gate across the entrance. After covering her light hair with a scarf, she jogged through the trees lining the driveway and sneaked into the barn.
She stopped at a stall containing a regal-looking black. The sign on the Dutch door said his name was Chevalier Noir—Black Knight. But the feed-and-water clipboard hanging on the inside wall said, “Sin.”
He was perfect.
She found tack and efficiently saddled the horse, who stood quietly, even letting her quickly pick his hooves without a lot of chuffing and shifting. Her heart pounded, pushing her to move faster as she listened hard for any sounds out of t
he ordinary. Guilt surged with every gush of adrenaline—stealing a horse was the worst thing she’d done yet. Borrowed, she corrected, pressing her face against the gorgeous beast’s neck and murmuring a promise to return him unharmed. She breathed in his warmth and the familiar scent of horseflesh and hay, hardened her heart, and unlatched the stall door. Sin’s reins firmly in one hand, her bow and quiver in the other, she opened the door—
And walked straight into a tall, hard body.
Fu-uck!
Before she could do more than mentally scream the curse, she recognized the man in front of her. If her hands hadn’t been full, she’d have punched him in the chest. Then she was immediately glad she couldn’t.
“Griff?” she whispered. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He eased her back into the stall and closed the door again. “I’d like to say ‘Saving you from yourself,’ but I know there’s no chance of that.”
“How did you—”
“Seriously? Do you really want to do this now?”
She stared up at him. He was right, she’d been there too long already, but she couldn’t respond, too lost in the joy of his presence. Her throat closed up and tears pricked her eyes, and far from wanting to hit him, she wanted to throw her arms around him and beg his forgiveness.
But apparently, that wasn’t how he interpreted her silence. After a second, he heaved an exasperated breath and answered all her questions at once, his voice barely more than a rumble inches from her ear.
“I found the island address in Missirian’s file. I beat you here by one flight, I think, and probably learned all the same things you did. No vehicles, piss-poor law enforcement, biggest house on the island owned by a guy everyone talks about but no one knows. Pure criminal kingpin stuff. Horses were the most logical way for you to get close to Smuggler Sam’s, so I came here.” His eyes glittered in the dim light from the security lamps. “How can I convince you to let this go? To call the FBI?”
A Kiss of Revenge (Entangled Ignite) Page 22