“Nothing you need to worry about,” he answered.
Isiah didn’t let go of his arm. A beat passed, then two. “I’m not so sure. Who’s that woman? She seems kind of out of it.”
Mariston let out a deep sigh. “Let it go.”
“Oh, now I really can’t. We both served, man. You know I can’t walk away if I think someone needs to be protected and by the looks of it—and your sketchy attitude—that woman needs my protection.”
Alexis moved away from Isiah, not far, but far enough that if either he or she needed to draw a weapon, they wouldn’t be in each other’s way. She also positioned herself closer to the boat in case she needed to jump in—she hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but it was always good to have options.
“Remember, you made me do this. I have a timetable I need to stick to and don’t have time for this,” Mariston said before he withdrew a small pistol with a silencer on it from his pocket.
Alexis didn’t have to fake her startled inhale. She’d counted on him being armed. But it was the silencer that threw her.
“Whoa.” Isiah held his hands up, palms out. “I didn’t mean anything, just, well, Zoe and I will be going.”
“You know I can’t do that now.” And to his credit, Mariston did sound disappointed. “Your girlfriend comes with me.”
“Like hell, she does,” Isiah said.
“Look, Clarke. I can shoot you and her and be in that boat and on my way before your bodies hit the ground. I don’t want to kill either one of you—it will draw too much attention to me to have you die here, but I will if you don’t leave me any choice.”
“How can you think I’ll just let you take her?”
“Because if you don’t, you’ll both die.”
“Take me, then,” Isiah said.
Mariston chuckled. “No way in hell am I going to get on a boat with you. But if I take your little socialite girlfriend and you don’t send anyone after me, I promise you can pick her up in two hours on Jost Van Dyke.”
“In what shape?” Alexis asked, cutting off whatever Isiah was about to say.
“Zoe,” Isiah admonished.
Mariston inclined his head. “It’s a fair question. I promise you’ll be dropped off on Jost unharmed, other than any discomfort you might feel from the boat ride. I take it you can swim?”
She nodded.
“Good, because there are no docks on Jost.”
“I know,” she snapped back.
“Zoe,” Isiah said.
She hated the look on Isiah’s face, hated knowing what she was doing to him, but she had faith in her team, and in Yael, who, for good or bad, would always know where she was.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, holding his gaze.
“You can’t think you’ll get away with this?” Isiah said to Mariston.
Mariston shrugged. “By the time you pick little Zoe up, I’ll be long gone. You’re welcome to try and find me, of course, but it will be a waste of time. Let her go quietly now and we can all forget this ever happened.”
“Isiah?” Alexis drew his attention back to her. “Tell Yael. She’ll know what to do.” She’d told him in Honduras that Yael had ways of tracking her, she hoped he remembered now.
“I don’t like it.” His fists clenched at his sides. She didn’t much like it either, but it was the choice she had if she wanted to be able to live with her conscience.
She took a deep breath and thought of her team. She thought of Yael and of that day, all those years ago when she’d been rescued by the kidnap and ransom team. But today wasn’t anything like that day. She was no longer that child, she had more people who had her back than ever before, and they were better prepared.
“I’ve been here before,” she reminded him quietly. “I’ll be fine.”
And before he could protest any further, she stepped into the boat.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thinking of Damian and Charlotte, Alexis eyed the low railing of the boat as she took the seat Mariston directed her to. Less than five months ago, Nik Balraj had tied her friends to the metal railing that ran atop the side of his boat and taken them as part of a plot to blow them up.
Back then, the team hadn’t been prepared for Balraj’s boat abduction, but they’d learned their lesson. Now they had an FBI boat as well as a network of people whose boats they could leverage depending on which marina they needed to depart from.
Grateful that Mariston didn’t seem inclined to tie her up, Alexis turned her attention to the retreating shore. Isiah still stood on the dock watching, but judging by the way he moved, he was already on the phone to either Yael or her teammates.
Between Isiah’s motivation, Yael’s ability to track her, and her teammate’s skills, Alexis wasn’t sure how things would go down, but she was confident she’d be fine.
Hopefully.
Mariston eyed her as his accomplice opened the throttle when they left the bay. He stood like a man at ease on a boat, feet apart, leaning casually against the back of the passenger seat, his gun still in his right hand. She supposed it wasn’t quite as important to tie her and Rosen up when Mariston could keep an eye on them while someone else navigated. That, and it might have drawn attention to him—or taken too much of his time—had he done so while at the dock.
“Your boyfriend’s not going to give me any trouble, is he?” Mariston asked.
Alexis stared for a moment, then she looked away and shrugged. “We just met. He’s not my boyfriend, but he is a good guy. I don’t know him well enough to know what he might do, but he might do something.”
“You better hope that that something is just show up on Jost in two hours to pick you up.”
She darted a look at Mariston. “Believe me, I am.”
He studied her for another moment, then looked to Rosen. Alexis took the opportunity to wiggle her phone out of her back pocket, and, under the guise of tugging her shorts down a little bit, she slipped it under the seat cushion. She didn’t want Mariston to notice she had the device and take it away from her.
She weighed the idea of engaging with him, of asking him about Rosen, but in the end, she opted for silence. She already knew what Rosen had done and what Mariston had planned for her. Alexis just wanted to know who his buyer was, and that was information he wasn’t likely to share.
Both she and Mariston looked up as a boat swung by them a hundred yards away. Mariston straightened, but when it continued toward Hemmeleigh, some of the tension left his body and he returned his gaze to the open ocean. Alexis almost smiled. He had no idea that that boat contained a world of hurt for him. She recognized both it and the people in it—Jake and Beni were on their way to pick up Isiah. She didn’t know where Damian and Dominic were or what their part of the plan was, but she wouldn’t be at all surprised if they showed up in a helicopter.
The thought of them hanging from a chopper made her smile.
Which drew Mariston’s attention. He didn’t say anything, just narrowed his eyes at her. In response, she raised her face to the sun and let her eyelids drift almost closed.
“Did you know your boyfriend is a former SEAL?” Mariston asked. She lowered her head and looked at him, surprised that he was the one striking up a conversation.
She shook her head. “I knew he was in the service, but not a SEAL.” She had no interest in letting Mariston in on how well she and Isiah knew each other. “Is that why you didn’t want to take him on the boat? How do you know him?” She already knew the answer to the second question, and she could guess the answer to the first.
Mariston shrugged, much as she had done earlier, as his gaze swept across the open water. It was a beautiful day and there were several boats out. “Yeah, seemed like a better idea to take you than him. I really don’t want to kill anyone if I don’t have to, and he seemed the sort to try and get all heroic and shit. I’ve been into his bar a few times. I don’t know him well, but I know him enough.”
“So, you live on Tildas?” She didn’t think she’d g
et any useful information talking with him, but she may as well pass the time.
“Sometimes. I make my way around the Caribbean, depending on the charters I have.”
She’d thought he ran his own charter business, based on what Isiah had said, but it sounded like he was more likely crew, which gave him the freedom to move around and pick up work wherever he wanted.
“What’s up with her?” Alexis asked with a jerk of her head toward Rosen. The agent sat clutching the railing on the opposite side of the boat, her face turned to the wind.
“She stole from someone I’ve done some work with. He wanted to talk to her so I’m bringing her to him.” Mariston’s answer was surprisingly straightforward, if not quite the full story.
“He’s not going to hurt her, is he? I mean, can’t he just turn her in?”
Mariston almost chuckled at that. “I don’t know what he’s going to do with her, but no, the kind of theft we’re talking about isn’t one you can bring the cops into.”
He was watching her closely as he spoke and so she responded as he’d expect. She widened her eyes, darted them to Rosen, then to his gun, and mouthed a silent “O”.
Alexis held her tongue for what she thought was the appropriate amount of time for Mariston to think her horror had shifted to curiosity. “So is she drugged or something? Or just, you know, slow?” She’d seen the effects of Rohypnol, and whatever Rosen had been given seemed to have a touch of the same effects—at least on her mind. But it had a completely different effect on the body. Unlike Rohypnol, Rosen seemed in full, though maybe slightly sluggish, control of her body.
“Or something,” Mariston side-stepping her question. Alexis let her attention stay with Rosen as the psychologist in her sorted through the options. Maybe some kind of Rohypnol-like drug mixed with a barbiturate. Whatever it was, she didn’t like the effect it was having on Rosen. Again, not that she had much sympathy for the woman, but if the drug was out on the streets and available, it wasn’t hard to conjure up a hundred uses of it that weren’t good.
Mariston suddenly jerked straight, startling Alexis. His attention focused over her shoulder. “I should have fucking known.”
She didn’t have to turn to know what had caught his attention, but it would be expected of her and so she did. Sure enough, a couple hundred yards away was the boat carrying Jake, Beni, and now, presumably, Isiah as well, although she couldn’t see him from where she sat.
“I really wish he hadn’t done that,” Mariston said. When Alexis turned back around, his eyes were narrowed on her.
She was pretty sure that until this point, he’d only been contemplating killing her. But now the choice had been taken from him. In some ways, she questioned her teammates’ decision to make their presence known, but she also recognized that at this moment, they might have different information than she had.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. She had her weapon, but his was already drawn, and there was no way she could get to hers before he got a shot off.
“I need to slow your boyfriend down. I don’t want to kill you, and I’ll try not to, but hell, we’re in a boat so all I can do is my best. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
As Mariston raised his arm, Alexis rose with him. She didn’t have much time to analyze the situation, although, in the back of her mind, she recognized that hitting the water at the speed they were going could also kill her. Even so, she’d rather hit the water uninjured than with a bullet in her. And so she did the only thing she could think of, she bent her knees and launched herself over the low railing.
Just as a powerful punch hit her in the stomach, taking her under.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Never in Isiah’s life had his stomach pitched like it did when Alexis hit the water. He hadn’t heard the shot—thanks to the silencer—but he’d recognized the motion the Mariston had made and that had been enough.
“Faster, Jake.” Isiah strained forward as if he could add speed to the boat by willing it.
Jake and Beni were talking about something, but he ignored them, focusing only on the water. He also tried to ignore all the voices in his head telling him how unlikely it would be to survive a shot at close range or a tumble into the ocean at the speed Mariston and his accomplice had been traveling. Instead, he focused on scanning the water’s surface, looking for any sign of Alexis’s head bobbing up.
“Come on, Alexis,” he pleaded quietly. Or at least he thought he’d been quiet, but when Beni’s hand curled over his shoulder, he realized he must have spoken loud enough to be heard over the roar of the motors.
“There!” Jake said, pointing, even as he made a subtle adjustment to their direction. Isiah’s gaze tracked Jake’s finger and he squinted against the glare as he tried to spot what Jake had seen.
There was nothing but the blue of the Caribbean stretching out before him. “Where?” he demanded, shouting over the engines.
Jake didn’t say anything, but he throttled back their speed ever so slightly and pointed again.
And then Isiah saw it. Alexis’s head and the top of her shoulders hovering above the waterline. He wasn’t too macho to admit that the phrase “sick with relief” suddenly made a lot of sense. The only thing that kept him from completely losing it was the fact she wasn’t yet back in his arms.
“Pull up slow, McMullen.” The command was a logical one, but twenty feet away from Alexis, streaks of ruddy red-brown started to cloud the normally clear blue water, and Isiah couldn’t get to her fast enough.
“Jake,” he managed to choke out.
“I see it, Clarke.”
Yes, they all saw it. Blood. Blood in the water. And it was everywhere.
“Alexis!” Isiah called as Jake inched closer. “Are you hurt?” he demanded. As he spoke, he scanned both Alexis and the area around her, looking for any sign that she needed him in the water. They weren’t far, but Jake could still get them closer to where she treaded water faster than if he swam to her.
“I’m okay,” she called back, her breath sounding labored. “The blood’s not mine.”
That’s when he noticed Alexis wasn’t alone. He’d seen Angela Rosen go over the edge with Alexis, but hadn’t given her much thought. He didn’t care if she lived or died, but judging by the way Alexis was holding Rosen in a lifeguard-hold, she cared.
“She’s been shot,” Alexis said when they were close enough to hear. Alexis’s hair was plastered to her face and she used her free hand—the one not holding Rosen above water—to swipe it out of the way. It did little good when a small swell washed over her, leaving her sputtering and her hair back where it had been.
“She came out of nowhere,” Alexis said as they pulled up beside her, and Jake held the boat steady in a subtle combination of forward and reversals of the engines.
Blood pooled in the water around the two women and without a thought, Isiah stripped his shirt off and dived in. Jake may have been raised on the water, but as a former SEAL, he was no slouch.
“Throw the preserver,” he yelled to Beni as he reached for Rosen. “You okay?” he asked Alexis as he relieved her of Rosen’s dead weight.
“I’ll be bruised and sore tomorrow from the fall,” Alexis managed to say as they bobbed up and down—even on a smooth day there were always a few small waves and swells on the open ocean. “But I’m okay. She jumped in front of the bullet. I didn’t even know that she was aware of what was going on. I still don’t know, but she did. She took the hit and sent us both over the edge.”
“Up,” he ordered with a jerk of his head toward the boat when Beni tossed the preserver to Alexis then lowered a short, metal ladder. There was no back deck on a boat built for speed so getting Rosen up wasn’t going to be a gentle endeavor, but he wanted Alexis on the boat first. He wanted to be sure she was okay, and then he’d carry the unconscious Rosen up the ladder himself. He had no idea if she was alive or dead—there was a lot of blood, but water had a tendency to spread so it was possible there was less t
han appeared. Still, he did give a thought to sharks as he watched Alexis climbed the five rungs and step into the boat. They didn’t have Great Whites in the Caribbean, but they did have a few aggressive ones he’d rather not encounter.
“What can we do?” Alexis asked, leaning over the railing. Her shirt was plastered to her body and if he wasn’t mistaken, she had some seaweed in her hair. But seeing her looking down on him, unharmed, was one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen. And no doubt she’d kick his ass if she knew that’s what was going through his mind at this particular moment.
“Just stay back. And maybe see if there’s a medic kit on the boat. If she’s alive, she’s going to need care.”
As he spoke, he maneuvered Rosen into a fireman’s hold—not the best for someone who’d been shot, but it was the easiest way to carry her—and quickly climbed the ladder.
Easing Rosen down onto the deck, he could see where the bullet had struck her, or maybe where it had exited. To the left of her belly button was a small round hole in her blood-soaked shirt.
“There’s a pulse,” Beni said. “But we need to get her to care quickly.” As she spoke, she began striping Rosen of her clothes, tearing them indiscriminately so as to get a better look at the wound.
“The boat ride is going to be rough on her,” Isiah said, handing Beni the shirt he’d taken off before diving in. She folded it and pressed it against the wound.
“What boat is that?” Alexis asked.
Isiah looked up to see what Alexis was pointing at. It was a large, grey, military-looking boat about a half-mile away. There weren’t any big bases in the region, but both the US and the British had a navy presence in the area.
Jake consulted an instrument on the panel before answering. “Navy research vessel,” he called out.
That was something Isiah was very familiar with. “They’ll have a medical berth on board. Maybe even a doctor. Jake, call it in and confirm. If they do, ask for permission to board and give them our status.”
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