“What is it?”
“What pictures?”
Birds fluttered in the nearby brush. Gabriella could hear the waves, smell the salt of the bay, feel the cold penetrate her fleece pullover. Lizzie’s mortification had turned to fear. Gabriella could feel that too.
“In the package, there was another envelope.”
Gabriella shook her head. “Scag must not have seen it.”
“Oh God.”
Gabriella didn’t make a sound. “It’s true, isn’t it? Joshua’s a gun nut. He’s got his own arsenal of illegal weapons.”
Lizzie was visibly shaken, trembling. “Joshua—I stumbled on his gun collection—it was frightening.” She breathed in, regaining some measure of control, but her body was rigid as she tried to stop shaking. “I don’t know how or why he started collecting weapons, but they’re—you should see them. There’s nothing there he could possibly need for self-defense or hunting purposes.”
“He didn’t show it to you himself?”
“No, I stumbled on it on my own.” She gave Gabriella a wan smile. “I wonder if he planned to give me the grand tour on our honeymoon. Well, who knows. When I saw all these crates, I couldn’t resist, and I opened a few. I guess that’s when it really hit me that I had to get out. I couldn’t continue lying to myself. I took pictures of everything I could find. I didn’t know what Joshua would do if I tried to leave. Maybe I should have just taken the pictures to the police.” Unable to go on, she paused, gulping for air. “But I didn’t, and now Darrow must have them.”
“Hell,” Gabriella said. “Well, at least it’s Darrow who has them and not Joshua. There’s a good chance he’ll make Joshua pay to keep him quiet.”
“Oh God.”
“Cam told me—”
“Who’s Cam?”
Gabriella sighed, realizing how badly she and Lizzie needed to talk. “I’ll explain on our way back.”
Before they started back toward the boat, Lizzie reached out a hand toward Gabriella, just as if they were back in the third grade. “I’m glad you’re here. Thanks.”
“You’ve been there for me.”
Lizzie shrugged, looking up at the clear, beautiful sky. Finally, she looked back to Gabriella, squaring her shoulders as if preparing herself to face a firing squad. “Let’s go. I’m ready.”
“We can take my boat and come back for the kayak and your gear later,” Gabriella said, relieved to be acting, making plans. “I left a message for Cam—Cam Yeager, Pete Darrow’s ex-partner.”
“You mean Governor Yeager’s son?”
Leave it to Lizzie to know. “There’s a lot I need to tell you about him, but suffice it to say he’s not going to be happy with either one of us, primarily me. But we can trust him.”
They emerged from the tangle of brush, coming to the decrepit dock and the bright pink kayak.
But Mark and his parents’ speedboat were gone, and in their place was the TJR Associates cabin cruiser.
Lizzie touched Gabriella’s arm. “It’s Darrow.”
He glanced down at them, perched in his captain’s seat, 007 on a rescue mission. He grinned. “Hello, ladies.”
Chapter
Sixteen
Darrow got Lizzie on board first because he figured that concentrating on getting her safe and sound would keep him from drowning Gabriella Starr. Christ, what a pest. Leave it to her to beat him out there. She was next on board. He repeated he had no intention of hurting them, which he didn’t—not that he wasn’t tempted—but they’d damned well better cooperate. Blind obedience, however, wasn’t in Gabriella’s makeup. He could see her hesitating about climbing up into the boat with him.
Lizzie leaned over the side toward her friend. “My kayak—I don’t want to leave it. Someone will see it and steal it.”
“Uh-uh,” Darrow said. “I’m not dragging some stupid kayak on board. We’re out of here.”
“I’ll get it,” Gabriella offered.
“No, goddamnit, get up here.”
But she was already moving, ignoring him. Too late, Darrow realized Lizzie didn’t give a damn about her kayak. She’d just been distracting him, providing a diversion for Gabriella to make her escape. Instead of grabbing the lightweight plastic kayak, she darted into the brush and evergreens, disappearing within seconds.
Darrow swore. “How far do you think you’ll get on a goddamned deserted island?” he yelled.
“You can’t go after her,” Lizzie said beside him, smug.
He glared at her. “Why the hell not?”
“Because you can’t leave me here alone with the boat. I know how to operate it. I’ll take it and leave you here.” Her green eyes, at least, had come alive. “I don’t see you paddling back to Boston in a kayak.”
He didn’t, either. He should have gotten out here sooner. He should have paid closer attention to the final entry in Lizzie’s journal. Obviously Gabriella had. But, luckily, he’d followed her out to visit her old man and then back to Boston and the yacht club, where she’d talked the kid into taking her out. Ex-detective that he was, Darrow had figured out what she was up to. He’d grabbed the TJR Associates boat and headed out into the harbor.
“Gabriella’s no threat to you,” Lizzie said. “She doesn’t know anything. I haven’t told her about Joshua’s illegal weapons. There’s no phone here, no radio, nothing. We’ll be well on our way before she can even begin to come after us. The kayak is slow, and the water’s choppy.”
“All right, all right.” Darrow regarded Lizzie with fresh appreciation. She looked pale, skinny, in need of a hot shower and a manicure, but still beautiful, and more determined than he’d seen. She did have some backbone. “Payback time, huh?”
“Let’s just go, okay?”
He looked back out at the island, squinting as if that would help his gaze penetrate the thick brush. He couldn’t see anything, hear anything. Gabriella Starr might have beamed herself to another planet. He wondered how long it’d take him to track her down. Ten minutes? An hour? Two hours?
Yeager could have her. He sighed. “Yeah, might as well head on out.”
Lizzie lost her balance in her relief, half collapsing against him. He steadied her. She’d definitely lost a few pounds. But touching her didn’t do him any good. She tilted her chin up at him. He liked this plucky side of her. He watched her slender throat as she swallowed. “Joshua…” She paused, swallowing again, as if her throat was too tight and dry to talk. “Joshua deserves to be blackmailed.”
“It’s against the law, you know.”
She nodded. “I didn’t say it was right. I said he deserves it.”
“What Joshua doesn’t deserve,” Darrow said, “is you, Lizzie Fairfax.”
Without waiting for her response, he headed for the wheel. He’d leave Gabriella Starr to Lizzie’s pink kayak.
An old friend of Cam’s with the MDC police took him out onto the water. Cam had tried to explain that the woman they were chasing could be in serious trouble or she could just be following some hare-brained lead based on wild orchids and her and her crazy father’s equally loony imagination. He hadn’t bothered trying to make sense of Scag’s message. Gabriella, Lizzie Fairfax, harbor islands were all he needed to know. He didn’t care about journal entries or lady slippers and any of the colors they came in.
His friend, Al, had likewise wanted the basics. Names, descriptions, possible whereabouts, did they need backup, did they need to put out an alert.
He swore under his breath, pointing out ahead of their speedboat. “That her?”
Cam squinted against the bright sun, not feeling the cold wind, the cold spray of the water.
A shocking-pink plastic kayak was moving haphazardly in their direction, bouncing over the choppy waves. A dark-haired woman was paddling furiously.
“Hell,” he said, “it has to be her.”
Al thrust a pair of binoculars in his hands. Cam put them to his eyes and focused.
Her hair was blowing every which way, her jaw se
t, her arms and shoulders moving in the specific rhythm peculiar to kayaking. She looked as if she more or less knew what she was doing. Then again, that wouldn’t make any difference. Gabriella Starr would brazen her way through just about anything.
“Hell of a goddamned day to be out in a kayak,” Al muttered.
“Can you pull up without capsizing her?”
He looked at Cam. “Sure you want me to? These idiots in sea kayaks—Christ, it’s a wonder more people aren’t killed. Damned things remind me of giant bottles of laundry detergent.”
“On an ordinary day, Al, she’d be all yours.”
“Yeah.”
He was a consummate professional, and no matter how great the temptation, he wouldn’t deliberately dunk a member of the public he was sworn to protect. But Cam doubted Gabriella was out on the water just for the thrill of it.
Using his skill and experience, Al pulled alongside the kayak. Gabriella managed to keep the thing from rolling. She seemed grateful—even eager—to be plucked from the harbor, which wasn’t like her at all. Cam felt a stab of fear. What had happened?
Then she saw him, her dark eyes alert and on the case. “You got Scag’s message?”
Al glanced at him. “Scag?”
“It’s a long story, Al.”
“Yeah. Figured you’d end up with some live wire. A kayaker. Hell. Well, you pull her out. I’ll get her boat.”
Cam would just as soon have grabbed hold of a porcupine. She was scratched, dirty, wet, in a hurry, enraged, scared. “Your buddy Pete Darrow has Lizzie.”
It was all Cam needed to hear. He caught her around the middle, remembering the feel of her soft, silky skin under his palms just hours ago, and hauled her aboard, dumping her unceremoniously on her butt. She caught her breath while he helped Al get the kayak on board—it was awkward but couldn’t have weighed more than twenty pounds—and they got moving.
Over the roar of the engine, Gabriella gave him a brief outline of what had happened on Pettit Island. She turned her eyes, huge and tired and scared, to him. “Lizzie took pictures of Joshua’s weapons collection. They were in her package. Darrow must have them.”
Cam nodded grimly, taking in her words—and the obvious conclusion. If Darrow hadn’t blackmailed Joshua Reading with Lizzie’s journal and photos yet, he would at the very least be sorely tempted.
“Did Pete threaten her?” Cam asked.
“No.”
“And Joshua—do you know where he is?”
She shook her head, and he could see her trying to stay within herself, not jump ahead, concentrate on what she could do now, what she knew now. Her years with Scag had had their effect; she wouldn’t fall apart in a crisis. “We should find him first.”
“Before going after Pete and Lizzie?”
“Yes. I—” She squeezed her eyes half shut, thinking it through. “Darrow’s not going to hurt her.”
Cam wished he could be as sure. But he wasn’t. Not anymore. “He hurt your father, Gabriella.”
“That was different. It wasn’t Lizzie. He—look, he could have come after me. But he didn’t. Not because he gave a damn about hurting me but because Lizzie didn’t want him to. She appealed to his better nature. I don’t know, I think he’s half in love with her.”
“Darrow?”
“Sure. There were passages in her journal about different encounters they had. I don’t know, but reading them I got the feeling there might be some kind of meeting of the minds or something between them. Some bond. He had to know what was going on between her and Joshua. I think he’s sympathetic.” She paused, pushing her lips up, then nodded once, supremely confident. “Yep. I’m right. He won’t want to cause her any additional pain. We need to go after Joshua.”
Cam scowled. “What do you mean, ‘I’m right’? This is all speculation. You don’t have any facts, any evidence, to back up this theory of yours.”
“Trust me, Cam. I know these things.”
Trust her. Like hell. He’d just plucked her out of goddamned Boston Harbor.
Al dumped them off at the MDC police dock. Cam thought about asking him to keep an eye out for the TJR Associates cruiser, but he decided it might just do more harm than good. He didn’t want to panic Darrow, and he and Lizzie were probably long gone anyway. And maybe Gabriella was right and there was no need.
He had his car waiting. Gabriella jumped into the passenger seat, but he was under no illusions that he’d be giving her any orders. This was going to be a team effort. Her eyes, her stance, her arms folded across her breasts—everything about her told him that was the way it was going to be.
Cam gritted his teeth. She knew “these things” all right. If she was so damned smart, how come she didn’t have a clue that he was in love with her?
Because he was. That was the hard, cold, unmistakable truth. He glanced over at her. She was a smart MBA type who negotiated multimillion-dollar deals and lived in a pricey Back Bay condo. And she was Tony Scagliotti’s daughter, a woman who’d taken on orchid poachers and crocodiles.
No, falling in love with her made no sense. She smelled like a sea bog. She was as big a know-it-all as Cam had ever met. She was reckless and impulsive when it suited her and even when it didn’t. She was gorgeous, she was sexy, she was stubborn, and whether it made sense or not, he was in love with her.
Darrow, he warned himself. Focus on Darrow.
If they threatened his security—his freedom—he’d hurt Lizzie and he’d hurt Joshua. It wouldn’t matter how bad he felt about doing it. If he was backed into a corner, if it was the pragmatic and expedient thing to do, he’d do it. He had the brass ring in his grasp. He wasn’t letting go.
Unless his better instincts took over. Unless the man Pete Darrow had been reared his head again.
“We should try Titus first,” Gabriella said.
He’d expected the “we” but figured it was his duty to call her on it. “We?”
She gave him a small, cocky, Tony Scagliotti smile. “I’ve decided it’s in my best interests—and Lizzie’s—to permit you to tag along.”
Cam could have throttled her. But he could see the worry behind her cockiness, and he knew that pointing out who was the ex-cop and who was the orchid-loving corporate type would only make her mad. Right now she had enough on her mind.
“Okay,” he said, “we’ll try Titus first.”
“You should have trusted me,” Pete Darrow said as he steered the cruiser north, toward Reading Point. Lizzie stayed close beside him, shivering in the wind. “I might have been able to help you.”
She raised her chin haughtily, the classy woman from Beacon Hill who wasn’t going to grovel. “Would you? You work for Joshua. You’re paid to protect him.”
“So?”
She didn’t smile. Her face was still pale, her expression grave. In all her little-girl fantasies of her future, Darrow would bet she’d never envisioned racing up the coastline with the likes of him. “You’re going to blackmail him, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“He’ll kill you if you try. I’m not exaggerating. I know him. He’ll put a bomb under your bed or something like that. He’ll find a way to blame someone else, even you.”
Darrow supposed it was possible. He had just never worried about getting killed. He took precautions, then let fate take its course. “Joshua likes the idea of being a killer. I don’t think he can deal with the reality of it. So yeah, I agree if he does kill me, he won’t stick around for the show.”
He cut his eyes over to Lizzie, her shoulders hunched against the unrelenting wind. “He hates your pal Gabriella, you know. He tell you that? Doesn’t like her influence on his big brother. Also, he asked her out and she turned him down.”
Lizzie shuddered. “Thank God Gabriella didn’t fall for him. She wouldn’t, though. He’s not her type. I’m the one who falls for false knights in shining armor.”
“You two,” Darrow said. Gabriella Starr, he thought, had fallen for Cam Yeager.
; “She said you have my journal.”
Her voice was quiet as she attempted to be matter-of-fact, but Darrow could hear the undertone of humiliation. He was silent.
“Did you read it?” Lizzie asked quietly.
“Yep.”
She shut her eyes, just for a few seconds. “I suppose your years as a police detective have inured you to such things.”
“No,” he said. He didn’t know why he was bothering to explain. His years as a detective were over. “You’re a professional and you react like one, but you never get inured to the kinds of things people who think they’re in love do to each other. The psychological abuse can be as ugly as—even uglier than—the physical abuse.”
Her expression softened. “You’ve seen worse than Joshua and me, haven’t you?”
“You can’t compare your situation with anyone else’s.”
She nodded. “I don’t know if Gabriella and I can ever be the same again. She read my journal. Scag had made a copy.” Her shoulders rose up, then slumped down. “Well, I can’t undo what’s done.”
“She did right by you, Lizzie. She hid your journal, just like you asked. She came out to the island to find you. She did okay.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I know.”
“Gutsy broad,” Darrow said. “You, too.”
“Not me.”
“In your own way, yeah, sure. Knowing what you know about Joshua, what went on between you, and you still had the guts to get those pictures of his little arsenal, give him the slip.”
“I should have gone to the police.”
“Yeah, probably. But maybe you would have once you could sort things out.”
“If I’d put my journal and the pictures in a safe-deposit box…” She shook her head, as if putting herself back in that day she’d decided to bolt, the logic of it. “But it would have been too complicated. I didn’t know if you were following me. I couldn’t risk having you or Joshua catch me. It seemed easier to sneak to the airport. But then I realized I couldn’t leave them in the locker, in case something happened to me.”
“So you called Gabriella.”
A Rare Chance Page 26