Lethal Affair

by Jean Thomas

  Brenna watched Casey as he searched for a place to conceal the bottle. He finally settled on a break in the shelter’s framework.

  One of the upper bamboo crosspieces had tugged out of the socket in the upright that supported it. Casey squeezed the small bottle into the hollow end of the crosspiece, jamming it back into the socket, then tightening the connection with his fist, pounding the upright on its opposite side.

  “That ought to do it.”

  Brenna was suddenly aware the rain had stopped. Looking around, she saw mist rising from the jungle, heard the repeated calls of birds answering one another as they flashed from tree to tree, their plumage brilliant.

  She hated that this incredibly beautiful island was about to be violated by Marcus Bradley’s goons.

  “Come on, Brenna,” Casey urged, “we need to be gone before they pick up the trail.”

  “And our footprints. There was no way we could avoid leaving them in all that mud.”

  “We’ll have to try to do better this time. I don’t see any signs of a path leading from here to the top of the island, do you?”

  Brenna shook her head. “It looks like one was never worn or cut through.”

  “Then we do without.”

  She found the expression, “Easier said than done,” never more true in the struggle that followed. Casey led the way, weaving through thickets of bamboo, wading through palmettos, thrashing through curtains of vines while she kept close behind him, feeling guilty because he was doing the major work of forging a route for them.

  The only advantage of all this dense vegetation was the dead, fallen leaves and fronds that so thickly littered the forest floor, making it less likely they were leaving noticeable footprints in the damp earth.

  What progress they made was hampered at times by walls of impenetrable growth that forced them to detour left or right, searching for a way around or through the barriers. It was a slow advance but always up, steadily up. And all the while Brenna wondered where they were. How far, how close?

  She and Casey didn’t discuss this concern. There was nothing to be gained from that. All they could do was climb and keep on climbing.

  Her leg muscles ached, her breath grew shallower.

  Would they never reach the summit?

  Light years seemed to pass before Casey announced, “We’re there!”

  She didn’t need him telling her this. Nor, although the growth had thinned considerably, did she need to see it. The terrain had leveled off, which meant she could feel underfoot they had crested the mountain top.

  Brenna started to say something, but he put a hand on her arm, silencing her. “You hear anything behind us?”

  They both listened. She shook her head. “Nothing. I don’t even hear the birds now.”

  “Me either. That means they’re not close yet. We still have time. Have you caught your breath yet?”

  She nodded, keeping to herself how tired she was after their tough climb. She knew, however, from the way he looked at her that he sensed it. She also realized they had yet to find any safe place to hide, and he was still hoping for this.

  “Let’s go,” she insisted.

  They moved forward. Within yards, they left the last of the growth behind them. They had reached a flat, clear zone, but that didn’t last. A matter of less than a hundred yards more brought them to the sloping edge of a wide, deep basin.

  Brenna found herself looking down into a circular bowl whose bottom was entirely covered by a mass of lush vegetation.

  Casey close beside her was puzzled by the abrupt changes in the terrain. “What’s this all about?”

  “I think I have the explanation. We’re standing on the rim of the volcano that long ago created this island. And that down there—”

  “—is the ancient crater,” he finished for her, understanding the differences now.

  “Casey, the crater could offer us the perfect hiding place. Look how thick the growth is down there. The crater sides aren’t steep. We could scramble down there in seconds and lose ourselves in all that stuff.”

  He didn’t hesitate to veto her plan. “It’s a trap. If all three of them come after us with rifles, and figure out we’re down there, which eventually they would, all they’d have to do is spread out along the rim, come after us from different sides and close in on us.”

  She appreciated his objection. “Yes, but if we stay up here on the open rim...”

  “Yeah, we’re not going to do that. We’re going to follow the rim around to the other side and head down the opposite side of the mountain. And we’re going to try to do that before we end up being targets.”

  She fell into step beside him, asking herself whether she had enough energy left to go on the run again so soon, even if this time it was down instead of up. She didn’t worry Casey with this, however, as they followed the rim with as much speed as he must have thought her capable of at this point.

  When they reached the other side, it offered them a clear view across the crater to the place where they had started. They had left the spot empty behind them. It was no longer empty. The well-armed hunters had arrived. One of the three men shouted something, gesturing excitedly in the direction of Brenna and Casey.

  “We’ve been found, Rembrandt. Time to disappear.”

  Side by side, with Casey holding her hand, they fled from the rim, hurrying down the slope that descended the mountain. There was no time to search for any rabbit hole to a lava tube.

  Unlike the heavily forested route they had traveled on their ascent, this side of the mountain, except for sparse growth, was practically barren. The windward and leeward sides of the island, Brenna thought. One wet, the other dry. That meant there was no place for them to take cover. All they could do was try to keep ahead of their pursuers.

  Both she and Casey kept checking behind them. As of yet, the trio was not in sight. It was perhaps this vigilant action that made them unaware of what lay ahead of them.

  Without warning, the land suddenly dipped into a hollow. No time to detour around it. They plunged down into the depression, raced across its narrow floor and up the other side.

  Casey stopped when they reached the ridge. “Go on,” he urged her.

  She knew what he was doing. They were vulnerable here after losing vital moments in the hollow. He was placing himself between her and the enemy. Risking himself to protect her, damn him.

  She opened her mouth to oppose his intention, but he would have none of it. “We don’t have time for this. I’ll catch up with you. Just go!”

  She went, tearing down the long slope in front of her. There was grass here. Some of the rain must have reached this side of the island, because the grass was wet with it. It was then she made the mistake of looking over her shoulder for Casey.

  Losing her footing on the slick grass, she went down on her stomach. Before she could pick herself up, she was sliding down the incline like a sled on snow.

  When she managed to finally stop herself, Brenna found her head hanging over the sharp edge of a precipice and looking down into the sea far, far below her. The situation had her in a state of shock.

  * * *

  Brenna hadn’t permitted herself to feel any intense fear during their long flight. There had been neither time nor energy for it. But now she knew a genuine terror.

  Her natural response was to push herself away from the dangerous edge. Only that didn’t work. Her hands had ended up trapped under her own weight. Trying to free them resulted in both hands and arms getting caught up in the folds of the poncho.

  She was near panic when a voice above her commanded, “Stop fighting it. You’re making it worse.”

  Casey! Thank God he had arrived on the scene.

  “Here, let me help you.”

  She felt his strong hands on her ankles, dragging her away from the edge just far enough to safely turn her over on her back.

  “You really did it this time, Rembrandt. Got yourself so tangled up in that damn poncho it’s going to
take my knife to cut you out of it.”

  He’d been crouched down beside her. In order to reach the knife that, in its sheath, had worked around almost to the back of his thigh, he got to his feet.

  The sun had managed some minutes ago to finally break through the cloud cover. Its light flashed on the sharp, steel blade of the knife Casey removed from the sheath. A knife intended in that moment to rescue the woman with him, not as a weapon of attack. But that was how it was apparently perceived by one of the three figures that had topped the ridge of the hollow behind them.

  A rifle raised to a shoulder fired, its bang reverberating around the mountain. Brenna heard Casey curse in pain, watched him clutch his arm where blood was already seeping through the sleeve of his jacket.

  The impact of his being hit was powerful enough to send him staggering in a daze toward the edge of the precipice. He teetered there for a few seconds that seemed like forever to a horrified Brenna. Then, shaking his head as if struggling to clear it, unable to correct his footing, he leaned slowly forward, out into space.

  Poncho or not, she must have somehow managed at one point to flip back over on her stomach, raise herself on her knees and crawl forward. She was conscious of nothing but her howl of anguish, the long, loud “Nooooo!” she sent after Casey as he plunged down out of sight.

  Working her way in desperation through the flattened grass, she reached the spot where he had gone down, peered into the sea that had received him so hideously far below. She prayed for him to surface, to still be alive, but there was no sign of him. He had vanished, and she was in a despair as deep as those waters.

  A pair of large hands closed roughly over her shoulders, yanking her to her feet and swinging her around to face a burly figure with a long ponytail and tattoos covering both of his bare arms.

  Brenna choked out an angry “Take your hands off me!” as he began to pat her down.

  He ignored her command, finished his exam and reported to his two comrades, who had joined him, “She’s clean.”

  She fought her hands and arms free of the poncho, ready to lash out at all three of them. Her captor with the tattoos seemed amused by her attitude of defiance.

  “You try anything,” he warned her, nodding in the direction of the bearded man whose rifle was now resting loosely in the crook of his arm, “and Ion here won’t like it. Ion has a mean temper.”

  She didn’t care. Her safety no longer mattered. “Your Ion is a rotten coward. He cruelly shot a man who never had a chance to protect himself.”

  Presumably their leader, the first man spoke to the tall blond who had dogged Casey and her from the beginning. “Karl.”

  That and a jerk of his head at the spot where Casey fell was all Karl needed to understand. He came forward and knelt at the edge of the cliff. Catching her breath, Brenna watched him gaze down over the side. She hoped for something encouraging, but she didn’t get it.

  Blondie got to his feet, shaking his head. “Either Ion’s bullet killed him, or he drowned down there. Water looks deep, but with plenty of jagged rocks poking up. Maybe he struck one of those. Either way, there’s no sign of a body. What say we get out of here, Lew, and back to the boat?”

  “Not so fast. There’s still the matter of the well sample.” He confronted Brenna again. “It wasn’t on you. Where is it?”

  “Where do you think? It was in Casey’s pocket. Thanks to your buddy’s bullet, you’ll never have it now.”

  “Doesn’t matter. If it’s at the bottom, it’s no longer a threat. What counts now is that we still have you. And guess what? You’re going back to St. Sebastian with us. Got somebody there real anxious to see you again.”

  Marcus, she realized. She would face his Bradley wrath, of course. Not that she cared. Nor did she take any satisfaction from knowing that the water sample was safe where Casey had hidden it. Maybe one day it would matter, and if it wasn’t too late she would try to see it recovered and the promise to Zena King realized, but at the moment...

  She had dared to love him again, and now he was gone. This time for good, and all she had left was a terrible grief. How was she supposed to live with that?

  * * *

  He had survived for two reasons: the first being the luck that had dropped him into deep water instead of smashing his body against one of the sharp rocks that lifted their heads above the surface, like an army of scattered sentinels.

  The other reason he owed to his nylon jacket. Air had collected beneath it on his long plunge downward, expanding it sufficiently enough to cushion his contact with the water. Without it, he might have been submerged to such a depth that he could have drowned before fighting his way to the surface.

  But now that balloon was deflated, and he was out of advantages.

  Casey was in trouble, and he knew it. Felt it. His arm throbbed where the bullet had penetrated. Blood continued to slowly leak from the wound there. If he lost too much, there was the risk of passing out, sinking to the bottom in a state of unconsciousness.

  As it was, with only one good arm, he was having trouble staying afloat. The surf didn’t help. It was far from heavy, but strong enough to have immediately pinned him against the wall of the cliff. No beach here, no shallows either. Just the black cliff with its overhang blocking the head of the rock far above him.

  Casey searched its face, looking for— What? Some way to rescue himself when there was none? He refused to accept that. There had to be—

  That’s when he spotted it. Down there to his right, about twenty feet away. A ledge above the water. If he could manage to pull himself up onto it, he would be safe from drowning.

  The ledge was already occupied by a dead, gnarled tree that had grown out of the fractured rock decades ago, its trunk and limbs curling down over the edge.

  Hand over hand, he scraped his slow way along the cliff face, his legs moving just enough to maintain a state of vertical buoyancy. He felt stupid having lost the strength he’d always been so capable of demonstrating.

  But what strength did remain finally brought him directly below the ledge. He rested a moment. Then, raising his arms as far as he was able to reach, he managed to lock his fingers over the edge.

  It was no good. He would need more than his fingers to lift himself onto the ledge. Even if he could extend his arms high enough to have the full use of both hands, there was the problem of his wounded arm. It burned like hell. He doubted it would withstand any lasting exertion.

  His gaze cut away to the tree on his right. One of its thicker limbs descended a fair distance below the edge of the ledge. It looked stout enough to bear his weight. If he could climb aboard that limb, drag himself along its length, he might be able to swing onto the ledge.

  There was no way to know without trying.

  Positioning himself beneath the limb, he made a grab for it. His arms were able to wrap around it, but the injured one hurt like hell with the effort.

  He hated this weakness that came from the pain and loss of blood. The same weakness that had cost him his balance on top of the cliff.

  He willed himself to ignore the pain.

  His body, from years of training, took the strain of his clinging with every muscle to the limb. The dead tree did not. With a sudden tearing sound, the whole tree, roots and all, ripped away from the ledge. It came tumbling down, pitching Casey back into the sea.

  When he surfaced, the tree was floating beside him. He no longer had the option of the ledge, but he did have the tree. With his last remaining strength, he draped himself facedown over the mass. His final thought before he lost consciousness was of Brenna.

  When the tide turned, it took the tree and Casey with it out to sea. But he had no awareness of that. Nor did he realize, when he briefly regained consciousness again, that the island was no longer in sight. His fuzzy mind was only able to dwell on Brenna.

  Where was she now? With the enemy, of course. Enduring what? But he didn’t want to consider her being hurt in any way. The idea of it infuriated him. He
damned himself for not being there to protect her. He had failed her by falling over that cliff. A woman so important to him that...

  That was as far as his mind took him before it shut down again.

  It must have been hours later, with the tree still bobbing on gentle swells, that Casey became vaguely conscious of a pair of dark hands as gnarled as the tree lifting him from his driftwood raft, passing him to another pair of younger, waiting hands.

  Chapter 16

  White Rose Plantation. That was where they were taking her, not Marcus’s villa in Georgetown. Brenna didn’t have to ask them to realize that. She recognized the road they were traveling that passed through the dim tunnel of arching trees.

  She remembered being on this road before with Casey, and the uneasy feeling it had generated. Brenna hadn’t understood that feeling then, and she didn’t now. How could she have anticipated the road led to the old sugar plantation, and that her first sight of the place convinced her there was something bad connected with it?

  People claimed without evidence to sense things like that all the time. She hadn’t believed any of those claims. Not until she’d experienced the phenomenon herself.

  Brenna had never had a reason to imagine she would be a passenger in the green sedan, the vehicle she and Casey had referred to as the green demon. But this was where they had installed her, in the backseat with the burly Lew squeezed close on one side of her, the mean-tempered Ion on her other side and Karl at the wheel up front.

  None of them had spoken since leaving the harbor, where she’d been held on the power cruiser until this morning when the summons came. If they’d decided a long dose of silence would intimidate her, they could forget it. Brenna refused to be unnerved by any of these thugs.

  Emerging from the tunnel into bright light, they reached the gates of the plantation. Karl turned into the mouth of the drive and stopped. They waited while he got out of the car, unlocked the gates and swung them open.

  Brenna could see the great house in the distance at the end of the long, straight avenue leading to it. It still struck her as having a sinister look about it, but she wasn’t afraid of what might be waiting for her inside. She had lost her fear when she lost Casey. Without him, she simply no longer cared.