Leaving Jake to do his thing, Isiah turned back to Beni as Alexis handed her a towel she’d dug up from somewhere. “Is there anything we can do?” he asked.
Beni folded the towel and placed it over his shirt as she shook her head. “No, she likely needs surgery, and she definitely needs blood. All we can do is what we’re doing until we get somewhere with medical facilities.”
“We’ve been granted permission,” Jake said then, without warning, he gunned the engines and they headed toward the navy vessel. The ride was a little bumpy, but blessedly short and less than ten minutes later, they were pulling into the on ship berth—the captain of the boat having opened the gate for them so they could pull directly into the hull.
Crew swarmed them as Jake killed the engines. Three helped tie them off and four jumped aboard with a stretcher.
“I should have known it was you all. Really, we have to stop meeting this way,” came a voice from a catwalk above them. Isiah looked up as Beni worked with the four navy crew to get Rosen on the stretcher. A woman leaned over the railing, her curly hair falling in front of her face. She wore shorts and her long, very bare, legs, stood out in stark contrast to the navy uniforms around them.
“Sugar, I told you once and I’ll tell you again, I’ll meet you anywhere, any time,” Jake called back.
“Almost dead CIA agent, McMullen,” Alexis muttered, as the four crew lifted the stretcher and maneuvered Rosen off the boat. A doctor rushed onto the deck and he and Beni immediately put their heads together as they followed the crewmen to the medical berth.
“You say that now McMullen, but you were saying something altogether different at Lola’s three months ago,” the mystery woman said. Jake opened his mouth, no doubt to defend himself, but she spoke over him. “Hey, Alexis. I’d ask how you’re doing, but you’re soaking wet and cold enough that I can see your nipples from here. And since you also arrived with a half-dead woman, I’m guessing you’re not doing so hot. Here.” She unzipped her sweatshirt and tossed it down.
“Nia, good to see you,” Alexis said, donning the sweatshirt. It rarely got cold enough in the Caribbean for a sweatshirt, but no doubt parts of the ship were air-conditioned. “This is Isiah Clarke, by the way. Isiah, that’s Doctor Nia Lewis, she’s the head of the Marine Research Center, though what she’s doing on a Navy boat I have no idea.”
Nia waggled her eyebrows and jerked her head toward the group of mostly male crewmen still loitering around. “Not doing as much as I’d hoped.”
“She’s basically a brilliant doctor but the social equivalent of Jake. It’s kind of scary how alike they are,” Alexis said to him as a crew member helped her from the boat.
“You need a wingman?” Jake called up. “You and me, we could hit the canteen together. You know, stir some shit up.”
Nia chuckled, then started heading toward the stairs that would lead her down to them. “I’ve been on this boat for six weeks and have more or less stirred as much as I can, but maybe I’ll take you up on that when we’re back on shore. I hear Lola’s has a new cocktail.”
“Jesus, I’m never going to live that down, am I?” Jake asked, stepping up behind him and Alexis. Going from thinking he’d lost Alexis to listening to pre-pubescent chatter, was giving Isiah a headache.
Doctor Lewis stopped at the bottom of the stairs as they approached. When he, Alexis, and Jake stood before her, she looked closely at each of them. She might be joking around with Jake, but the concern in her hazel eyes was very real.
“No, you’re not ever going to live it down. Not as long as I’m around to tell the tale,” she said, tipping her head to brush a kiss on his cheek. She gave Alexis a quick hug then reached out to shake his hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, Isiah Clarke. Now, why don’t I take you all to the captain and you can tell him everything he thinks he needs to know.”
“You can take us to the captain,” Alexis said. “But we have some calls we need to make before we answer any questions. The man who shot Agent Rosen and tried to kill me is still out there. And I suspect my boss is going to want to stop him.”
Alexis climbed the stairs behind Jake and Nia, Isiah following. They were halfway up when something brushed her hand. Glancing down, Isiah held his phone out.
“You need to call Yael. Or text. Or let her know you’re okay somehow.”
She hadn’t given Yael much thought since she’d gone overboard and she appreciated his reminder that there were a few people who would be worried about her. Taking the unlocked phone, she dashed off a quick text to Yael then handed the phone back to Isiah just as Jake’s buzzed in his pocket.
Pulling it out, Jake answered as they hit the upper deck and started toward the captain’s bridge. “Alexis is fine. Rosen’s been shot.” He swiveled and mouthed “Shah,” to her as he listened to whatever their director was saying.
If Alexis hadn’t been watching so closely, she would have missed the slight tensing of Jake’s shoulders and the way his free hand jerked into a loose fist. “Yeah, we’re thirty seconds from the captain’s bridge, we’ll dial into the comms as soon as we’re there.”
He hung up and, with a nudge, urged Nia to walk faster. Nia glanced back and whatever she must have seen on Jake’s face was enough to get her to all but jog the last twenty feet.
“You left your phone on the boat,” Jake said, over his shoulder as they followed Nia. “Damian and Dominic are airborne and following the signal. Shah sent the channel, we can listen in.”
They entered the captain’s bridge—the command center—as Jake finished talking and without taking a breath, he told the captain what they needed. Fifteen seconds later, a crew member had dialed in and the sounds of a helicopter filled the room.
“We’ve got our eyes on him,” came Damian’s voice. Alexis didn’t bother to hide the small smile that flitted on her lips—looks like Damian and Dominic got their helicopter ride after all.
“We’re passing into British air space now,” came a woman’s voice that Alexis didn’t recognize and who she assumed must be the pilot.
“We’ve been cleared. Continue as ordered,” Shah responded.
For a few minutes, no one spoke and nothing but the sound of the helicopter and the wind filled the room. Then Dominic spoke. “They appear to be heading toward a private island south of Cooper Island.”
“Evanston, identify the island” the captain ordered.
“On it, sir,” the crew member responded. Alexis glanced over to see a young man pulling up a map. It would be interesting to know who the island belonged to and what, if any, ties they had to Mariston, but for now, her most pressing concern was the safety of Damian and Dominic.
“There’s a large house,” Damian reported. “And what looks like a boathouse. I don’t see any way other than by boat to get off the island, so if he goes to ground, we’ll have him cornered. Any chance we can get some assistance from our colonizing neighbors?”
“Let’s keep the political commentary to a minimum, Rodriguez,” Shah said. “I’m calling it in—”
But the rest of Shah’s statement was lost as the sound of an explosion rocketed over the radio.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Rodriguez! Burel!” Shah barked, the strain in her voice coming through loud and clear. Jake looked over and met Alexis’s gaze. Alexis had never met anyone in her life who could flip from charming and goofy to deadly serious as quickly as Jake, and as their eyes stayed locked, she all but felt the intensity pouring off him. He was not going to lose two teammates today. It was a ridiculous thought—sitting where they were, there was literally nothing she or Jake could do about what might be happening to Damian and Dominic. But if his force of will alone could accomplish the feat, could protect their teammates, then they’d be as safe as the day was long.
Suddenly, Damian’s voice crackled across the comms speaker. “Holy fuck. What the hell was that?”
Alexis let out a long, controlled breath. If Damian was talking—and asking a
question—then he, and the others, were likely okay.
“After almost getting blown up with Charlotte in February, I would think you’d be able to recognize a bomb when one goes off,” came Dominic’s smart ass reply. “I mean, I know you probably didn’t get much action as a Ranger—”
“Fuck off, Burel. You okay, Shorty?” Damian asked.
“Caught me a little by surprise, but we’re all in one piece,” the pilot answered.
“I need a status report, boys,” Shah demanded, and Alexis had the errant thought that Sunita Shah was probably the only person who could get away with calling Dominic and Damian “boys.”
“The boat entered the boathouse and as soon as it was inside, the entire building blew,” Damian reported.
“Any chance Mariston survived?”
“Not a chance,” came Damian and Dominic’s simultaneous reply.
“Care to elaborate?” Shah asked.
“Uh, not really, but we’ll take some pictures. Right now, I think I see his leg floating in the debris,” Damian answered.
That was an image Alexis did not need to elaborate on.
“Right,” Shah said. “Take some images, document the scene the best you can, then get back to Tildas. I’ll call my colleagues in the BVI, they’ll probably want to take over and frankly, with Mariston gone, I won’t mind if they do.”
“Roger that,” Dominic confirmed.
“You think the owner of the island is involved?” Isiah said quiet enough that only she could hear.
She lifted a shoulder. “Hard to say at this point, but we’ll look into it. At least we still have Rosen,” she added. Hopefully.
“What did I miss?” Beni said from the door to the bridge.
Alexis, Isiah, and Jake all looked up at the sound of her voice.
“Looks like someone died. Or maybe I shouldn’t joke about that. No one died, right?”
“Just Mariston and the pilot of the boat,” Jake said. “Dominic and Damian are fine.”
Beni let out an audible exhale. “Well, unfortunately, so did Rosen.”
Alexis shouldn’t have been surprised—Rosen had taken a bullet to the stomach from close range. But even so, disappointment at losing the investigative lead—if not the life—rolled through her. “Damn,” she muttered.
“We did everything we could, but she’d lost too much blood, and there was too much internal damage. But yes, I agree with your assessment, Lex.”
“Anyone else find it interesting that Mariston, who was supposed to be bringing Rosen with him, was killed in a bomb?” Jake asked.
“Fucking, Nik Balraj,” Beni muttered. The four of them had all gathered in a tight circle. Alexis knew the navel crew was watching them, but they kept their voices down.
“For such a punky looking guy, he’s caused a lot of damage,” Jake said. It was true, Balraj did not look like your typical gun-for-hire. He was five foot six, probably weighed no more than a hundred twenty pounds, and was missing a few teeth.
“We don’t know it was him,” Alexis said. Beni and Jake both shot her a look. She rolled her eyes. “Well someone had to at least say that. I didn’t have to mean it.”
“With Rosen gone, are we shit out of luck in terms of finding out her—or Balraj’s—connection to the Summit?” Isiah asked. “I know it’s not my job and believe me, I plan to give up this ‘consulting’ gig,” he said, making air quotes, “as soon as we dock on Tildas. But I don’t like the idea of an explosives expert for hire wandering around the Virgin Islands.”
“You’re not alone in that,” Alexis said, then she smiled. “We’ll look into the owner of the island and see if there is a connection to Calloway. But when it comes to both Rosen and Balraj, we haven’t lost everything. We still have an ace up our sleeve. An ace by the name of Serena. Or The Gentleman, if you prefer.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alexis looked up as Dominic let out what could only be called a war cry. Charlotte was on top of Damian’s shoulders, and Nia was on Dominic’s and the four were playing Chicken in Alexis’s pool. A game made much more interesting by the addition of George, Allie, and Howdy, who wiggled and swam between the pairs in full on doggy bliss.
Her gaze drifted to Beni, who was standing at the table that held all the food for their impromptu potluck. She had a glass of juice in her hand and looked to be contemplating which dessert to select. Alexis smiled when she slid one of each onto her plate.
“I don’t know what you do to these wings…” Jake said to Isiah before taking another bite of one of many wings loaded onto his plate. When he finished chewing, he skewered Alexis with a look. “I cannot believe you kept a gem like The Shack a secret from all of us for so long.”
Alexis shook her head at Jake as she reached for Isiah’s hand. “You can read, McMullen. There are reviews and even blogs written about it. Including one particular blog that specifically covers those wings.”
“There is?” Isiah turned toward her, surprised.
There was more than one, but Alexis knew he wasn’t too into reading reviews of his restaurant. Or even caring too much about social media in general. He just liked running a bar that served good food and good drink to good people. Well, to mostly good people—Mariston had been a patron, but that was something no one mentioned.
“There is,” she confirmed. “It’s very complimentary. You should tell your mom.” After all, it was his mom’s recipe. He smiled back at her.
It had been two days since they’d returned to Tildas. Rosen’s body had been sent back to her family for burial and the details of what had happened that day were kept intentionally fuzzy in the official reports. No one on their team, including Shah, was interested in painting Rosen a hero for saving Alexis, but neither did they want to divulge her true reason for being in the Caribbean in the first place. Rosen hadn’t been working alone and the fewer people who knew that they knew about her activities, the easier it would be to keep investigating them.
Thank god they had Serena on their side, now. Not that she hadn’t ever not been on their side, but she and Shah had agreed to stick to the original deal—Shah would provide Serena with any information they came across regarding the trafficking ring and in exchange, Serena would continue to feed any intel to the team that she learned about either Rosen or Calloway.
But that still left the question of Nik Balraj and his tie—if any—to the Summit.
As if answering a summons, Alexis’s new phone vibrated with an incoming message. Unlocking the device, she read the short note sent from an address she didn’t know and would probably never see again.
“FYI, had a little chat with Nik yesterday. Three weeks ago, he was sent an email asking if he could supply certain items to someone on Tildas Island next May. He didn’t like that someone he didn’t know had contacted him, so he looked into it and found that the date was during the Summit. He said that after his last encounter on Tildas Island, he had no interest in being anywhere near there, especially not when security would be tightest. He never responded to the email. When a follow up was sent three days later, he deleted his account and is now, (except for our conversation), pretending he never saw either email in the first place. Maybe he isn’t as dumb as I thought.”
At the bottom of the message was an email address, presumably the one that sent the original message to Balraj. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but at least it appeared that they wouldn’t have to worry about their favorite explosives expert during the Summit. That was something, wasn’t it?
“Good news?” Isiah asked, leaning over and dropping a kiss on her shoulder. Red lay on the couch on his other side, her head resting on his lap. She opened an eye at his movement then snuggled back down when his free hand came to rest on her neck.
She held the screen up for him to read.
“I’ll send this to Shah and start digging into the email address,” she said, once he’d finished.
“Tomorrow,” Isiah gestured to their guests with a subtle motion of his head.
<
br /> “Fine,” she said on a mock sigh, then laughed as Red rolled over with a grunt of pleasure. “You know, Howdy was going to be my first foster fail, but now I’m thinking it might be Red. I think she’s pretty bonded to you.”
“Wouldn’t that make her my foster fail?” Isiah pointed out, his eyes alight with mischief, but she knew he was fully grasping what she was saying.
Alexis tried to look serious as they discussed this serious subject, though she couldn’t help but be lighthearted. She knew where she and Isiah were headed—as a couple, as partners—and it felt more right than she ever thought it would.
“You and Red are a bonded pair. Since I have no intention of letting you go, that means she comes, too. Luckily, I have the room.”
The smile that had been playing on Isiah’s lips widened. “You’re not letting me go?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “Definitely not.”
“I like the sound of that,” he said, then he leaned over and covered her lips with his. In the background, Alexis could hear Jake complaining about the PDA, but she ignored him.
When Isiah ended the kiss, he only pulled back far enough to look into her eyes. “What do you think about putting both our names on Red’s adoption papers?”
THE END
Did you enjoy Alexis’ and Isiah’s story?
Have you read Damian’s and Charlotte’s story in A FIERY WHISPER already? If not, read on to find an extract on the following pages.
Did you know that we first meet Damian & Charlotte in my award-winning Windsor Series? They make their first appearance in book 2, THESE SORROWS WE SEE.
The complete Windsor Series is available with Kindle Unlimited.
Also by Tamsen Schultz
The Windsor Series
Night Deception Page 24