A Rare Chance

by Carla Neggers

  He heard the shot, felt the immediate, burning pain in his right shoulder as he slumped down. He swore, knowing he was going down.

  “Lizzie.”

  Cam crashed through the security gate that marked the start of Reading Point. He estimated he had a ten- or fifteen-minute head start on Gabriella and only hoped she wouldn’t bring her father with her.

  His mother had always told him the woman who got him would be the very last woman he expected.

  Gabriella Starr.

  He screeched into the parking area by the detached garage, pulled on the emergency brake, grabbed his gun from the glove compartment, and leapt out.

  “Darrow!”

  He shouted for Joshua Reading, for Lizzie Fairfax. Nothing subtle in his approach. Let them all know he was there. Let Joshua think twice before doing something stupid.

  He raced up the gravel path, bounded up the stairs to the sprawling house. He kicked open the side door, yelled some more. He ran through the living room. Where the hell was Joshua Reading? But nobody was home. He burst out onto the deck over the water.

  Out to the north of the point, he saw the yacht. An expensive cabin cruiser was anchored alongside it. A dinghy bobbed in the water close to shore, abandoned.

  And Gabriella Starr was scrambling over the rocks, right in the thick of the action.

  So much for his head start.

  Gabriella knelt on the rocks beside Pete Darrow, trying not to panic. He was bleeding from the shoulder, white-faced, struggling to sit up. In spite of his pain, his dark eyes focused on her, lucid and angry. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Saving your life, it looks like. How bad are you hurt?”

  “Bad enough. Hell. Never mind me. Lizzie—the yacht’s going to blow! Call the cops. No—wait, goddamnit!”

  But Gabriella was already racing over the rocks, sure-footed from growing up by the ocean, from her years doing just this sort of thing with Scag. She splashed into the incoming tide and grabbed one end of the abandoned dinghy, leaping into it. Using one oar, she pushed it off the water-covered rocks and out toward the yacht.

  She could see Darrow still struggling to come after her. He was badly injured. He needed medical attention. But she didn’t think he was in imminent danger of dying. Even with a bullet in his shoulder, he was trying to get himself to his feet and come after her.

  Sea gulls wheeled and cried overhead as the wind, already strong, picked up.

  Gabriella dipped the oars into the water, her shoulders still aching from paddling Lizzie’s kayak. But the dinghy was moving over the choppy water, and she kept rowing.

  There was no time to wait for the police, no time to find Cam.

  She couldn’t watch Lizzie Fairfax get blown to pieces.

  “She’s in the game room,” Darrow yelled to her, apparently resigned to Gabriella going out to the yacht. “She’s tied up. You should have a couple minutes. Joshua’ll want to get out of here first.”

  His next words were lost to the wind. Gabriella glanced behind her, making sure she was still rowing in the right direction. The yacht wasn’t far off. She could make it.

  She had to make it.

  Darrow was right, she was sure of it. Joshua would want to be somewhere else when the yacht blew, and not just for the sake of an alibi. He wouldn’t be able to stick around and watch. At his core, Joshua Reading was a coward. His arsenal wasn’t about courage. It was about cowardice and self-doubt, about trying to prove to himself he wasn’t what he knew he was.

  Her arms and shoulders throbbed, her lungs were bursting. But she didn’t slacken her pace. She centered herself, focused on her breathing, the position of her back, as if she were in a weightlifting class. She had the endurance. She had the strength. She could make it to the yacht.

  Should she have found Cam first before plunging ahead?

  Where the devil was he?

  A fresh dose of adrenaline surged through her so fast and hard it hurt. Joshua. He was armed and he’d already shot Pete Darrow and tied up Lizzie, and now he planned to blow her up. If he ran into Cam, he’d shoot him too.

  She shut off the thought, the near-overwhelming sense of loss. Stop. Focus. Do what you can do.

  Cam Yeager could handle himself. He was an experienced police detective. He knew he was dealing with a desperate, dangerous man and would respond accordingly.

  The dinghy bumped against the yacht, startling her. Gabriella worked it around to the ladder. She missed twice, losing an oar before finally grabbing hold of the ladder and swinging up onto it.

  The game room, Darrow had said. She’d been aboard the yacht a few times during her year with TJR Associates and knew her way around. She scrambled down through the galley, trying not to think about the boat exploding, disintegrating beneath her. She had time. She had to have time.

  She grabbed a knife from the galley and pushed into the game room.

  Lizzie had turned her chair over and was struggling, fighting to get free, sobbing, beyond panic.

  “Lizzie! Hold on, kiddo, I’ve got you.” Gabriella felt her knees go out from under her, stumbling as she dropped beside her friend. She started on the rope around Lizzie’s wrists, ignoring her clammy hands, her near-uncontrollable shaking. “Hang on, Lizzie. Just hang on. This won’t take two seconds.”

  Her eyes were wild.

  “I know about the bomb,” Gabriella said quickly, slicing through the twine, not worrying about nicking Lizzie or herself, just determined to get the job done. “We’ve got a few minutes.”

  She sounded so confident, but she had no idea how long they had.

  “The second I’ve got you free,” she said, “we’re going to run like hell and go over the side. Got it?”

  Lizzie nodded.

  Gabriella started on the ropes on Lizzie’s feet. Her hands free, Lizzie thrashed away at the rope around her middle, not bothering yet with the gag. First things first.

  One last slice of the knife and Lizzie was free. They started to run.

  Cam felt the explosion before he heard it.

  The first blast took out the middle of the yacht. The second virtually obliterated it. Pieces of it flew up into the sky. There was acrid smoke, fire, crackling and popping, and a couple of smaller explosions.

  He and Pete Darrow, bleeding badly, stared out at the water. Cam didn’t breathe. His throat was dry and aching. His eyes stung with the smoke drifting their way, with his own shock. Limbo. He was in limbo.

  They had to have gotten out. They had to have had enough time to get clear of the explosion, of the fire and the debris.

  Gabriella Starr and Lizzie Fairfax, friends since the age of eight. Builders of sand castles.

  “I’m going to kill Joshua,” Pete Darrow said in a dull, rasping voice.

  Cam said nothing. He knew how his friend felt.

  Darrow was already up on his feet, staggering over the rocks back toward Joshua Reading’s sprawling dream house.

  “Wait,” Cam said.

  Darrow didn’t bother looking around at him. “They’re gone, Cam. They’re gone, and I’m going to kill the bastard before he gets away.”

  Cam didn’t have it in him to stop him. He stared out at the water. Watched the burning, sinking, expensive yacht. Would he have felt something more than this dull emptiness if Gabriella had just been killed? Wouldn’t he know?

  A head popped up on the other side of the cabin cruiser, where there was a little fire and debris, the wind carrying them across the water in the other direction. Then came another head.

  Cam jumped to his feet, yelling and waving. Darrow would see them too. He’d know they were alive.

  But it might not stop him from killing Joshua Reading.

  Cam sloshed into the water, diving toward them. He ignored the cold. He crawl-stroked, using the cabin cruiser as a reference point. He could feel the heat of the burning yacht on his face, smell the choking black smoke.

  Someone out on the water, a neighbor downwind of Reading Point, must ha
ve heard the explosion, seen the smoke, the flames, and called the police. They’d catch up with Joshua. They’d get Darrow to a doctor.

  A wave rolled over him, but he surfaced quickly, swimming steadily, refocusing. He could taste the salt, feel the cold numbing him, weighing him down. Where were they? How far? Did they have the strength left to swim?

  He heard coughing, choking. Saw wet, honey-colored hair.

  Lizzie Fairfax rolled toward him, out of energy and sinking. He caught her by the waist.

  “Easy, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” he murmured.

  She gasped for air, gulping water, thrashing until she finally accepted that he had her. He swam with her toward the shore, testing the depth of the water. His toe touched a rock. He stood up, easing Lizzie into the tide.

  “Gabriella—you’ve got to help her.”

  Despite her weakness, Lizzie wriggled free, letting her body go with the tide until it threw her up on the rocks, where she collapsed.

  Cam refused to think. Refused to imagine the possibilities as he stood in the chest-deep water, feeling the current pulling at him, shivering with the cold, squinting against the sun. Gabriella…She had to be out there. She had to be alive.

  Then the tide slammed her into him as if that was just what it intended, and he caught her by the waist and held her to him. Felt her wet hair, her slim, ice-cold body. She was spitting seawater, purple, shaking with the cold and spent from the exertion of her mad dash from certain death.

  If Gabriella hadn’t been who she was, Lizzie Fairfax would be dead.

  “Joshua,” she mumbled as they fell together on the rocks. “We can’t let him get away.”

  And Cam was reminded that who Gabriella Starr was could be one exasperating and exhausting woman. “You are,” he said, “a relentless woman. Darrow’s gone after Joshua.”

  “But he’s hurt.”

  “He’ll get him, Gabriella. Trust me.”

  She nodded and managed a small, purple-lipped grin. “This might come as a surprise, Cam, but I do. I do trust you.”

  He grinned. “It’s about time.”

  Darrow eased down into the driver’s seat of Cam’s car, which was a hell of a lot more expensive than his own, and in better condition. The keys were in the ignition, and it started on the first try.

  Trust-fund cop, he thought.

  He drove with his left arm. Hardly felt the pain in his right shoulder. He would later, for sure. But he figured that since he wasn’t dead yet, he’d probably make it.

  Beside him on the seat, he had Lizzie’s journal and the Polaroids she’d taken of Joshua’s weapons.

  The journal he’d burn. The Polaroids he wouldn’t.

  He glanced in the rear-view mirror. Yeager was bounding down the gravel walk after him. Well, even Cam Yeager couldn’t outrun a car. Darrow gave it more gas. His eyelids were heavy with pain and fatigue.

  He drove through the smashed security gate, out onto the main road.

  He could hear sirens. Cops would be all over Reading Point. Ten to one Tony Scagliotti would find a way up there. But Joshua Reading was gone.

  Darrow pulled into the scenic turnaround, down off the main road.

  Lo and behold, he was right.

  Joshua Reading was jumping from his fancy sports car, parked behind a trio of white pines. He would have his escape route planned. Another car, another boat. Some way out of hot water.

  “Tut, tut,” Darrow muttered.

  He pulled alongside the sports car, not stopping quite in time to avoid hitting Joshua. He could have bounced the bastard into the Atlantic and been done with him, but he hit him just hard enough to knock the gun out of his hand.

  In the process, Joshua Reading went down on his ass.

  Darrow got out of Cam’s car. Because he was a trained cop and Joshua Reading was an egotistical moron, Darrow had no trouble beating him to the gun in the dirt. Even with a bullet in his shoulder. Even so pissed off he couldn’t think straight.

  “Just shows you what a stupid jerk you really are,” he said.

  Joshua rubbed his lip, bloodied when he fell. “Two hundred thousand. It’s yours if you let me go.”

  Darrow shook his head, sighing. Two hundred grand. It was a lot of money. He could buy himself a place in the islands, give his old man a few bucks to play the horses, his mother some money for that Rolex watch she’d always wanted. He could kiss Boston and his miserable apartment goodbye.

  He was surprised by how little he was tempted, now that the money was almost in his hand, damned near a reality.

  He guessed he liked the fantasy of it better.

  “You missed,” he told Joshua.

  The rich coward frowned, lowering his hand from his lip, already puffy where he’d bit it. “What?”

  “Lizzie. She made it off the boat. Gabriella rescued her.”

  Panic flickered in his gray, patrician eyes. “Three hundred grand. You can take the car too.”

  Darrow lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know, I kind of like my own car. Keeps me honest.”

  “You’re not honest. You’re a dirty cop.”

  “No,” Darrow said calmly, feeling the blood ooze down his shoulder. He had to finish this before he passed out and Joshua got his gun back and put a bullet in his head the way he could have back on the rocks. “I was an honest cop. I just let you think I was dirty so you’d believe you could control me. Which you couldn’t.”

  “Blackmail—”

  “I never did blackmail you, did I?”

  “You were tempted.”

  Darrow grinned. “So?”

  “A half million. I can get it in cash. I can—”

  “You can sit here,” Darrow said, suddenly feeling good, almost euphoric, “while I use Yeager’s car phone and dial up your house and have the cops come on down here and drag your ass to jail.”

  The cold wind out on Joshua Reading’s deck penetrated Gabriella’s drenched clothes, the seawater making them heavier and making moving even more difficult. She smelled of salt and seaweed and dead fish. She needed a spell in the Jacuzzi. A massage. A night with Cam Yeager. Two nights, she thought, feeling a little delirious.

  Lizzie stood beside her, stone-faced. The wind didn’t seem to bother her as she stared out at the water on the northern side of Reading Point.

  Her fiancé’s yacht had sunk. Debris floated on the water. Black smoke drifted up with the fair-weather clouds.

  The police had arrived in a scream of sirens. Cam had gone down to the parking area to greet them.

  “I have to know what happened to him,” Lizzie said.

  Gabriella knew she meant Joshua, not Pete Darrow. She nodded. “We’ll find out, Lizzie.”

  “He tried to kill me. I was going to marry him, and he tried to kill me.”

  The sound of footsteps drew Gabriella around, but Lizzie didn’t move.

  Titus Reading and Tony Scagliotti came up onto the deck. Titus looked haggard, tears shining in his eyes. Scag, leaning on his cane, caught Gabriella’s questioning look. “I called him after you left and read him the riot act. Hitched a ride with him up here. Been busy, I see.”

  In other words, her father had blabbed, telling Titus everything Gabriella had carefully withheld on the grounds it wasn’t her information to share. Scag would have no such compunctions.

  “I had no idea,” Titus said, his voice cracking. “I should have listened. He—my God, Joshua despises us both. I acted badly, Gabriella. I apologize.”

  “I’m sorry too, Titus. I—this hasn’t been easy for any of us.”

  He gave a small nod, gazing out at the place where the explosion had occurred. “I wanted to believe in him. I ignored the signs. I saw them, but I ignored them because I didn’t want to—” But he couldn’t go on, as his face contorted with the anguish of seeing his brother, finally, for what he was.

  “The police are searching the grounds for Reading and Darrow,” Scag told Gabriella quietly.

  The French doors
opened, and Cam emerged. For all that had happened, he looked upbeat. “Darrow called. He’s got Joshua down off the main road. Says he has Lizzie’s Polaroids too. Says Joshua got hold of the journal first and destroyed it.”

  Tears streamed down Titus Reading’s pale cheeks. “I can—may I go to him?”

  “He’s your brother,” Cam said, as if that explained it.

  Titus squared his shoulders and headed back down to the parking area.

  Lizzie continued staring vacantly out to sea. Gabriella eased beside her. “You okay?”

  “I will be,” she murmured. “Joshua—you don’t believe he destroyed my journal, do you?”

  Gabriella shook her head.

  “I think Pete did,” Lizzie said. “He’s—I don’t know, he’s a hard man to predict. I can’t…”

  She started to cry. Gabriella mumbled something comforting and innocuous, trying to communicate her confidence that Lizzie would triumph over this hurdle in her life. But Scag decided to butt in. “So Lizzie,” he said, “any lady slippers out here on this little peninsula?”

  Gabriella could have smacked him. “Scag! Geez, do you know what’s been going on here? Lizzie and I were nearly killed, and you’re yammering on about orchids!”

  He regarded her with undisguised impatience. “You look alive to me.”

  “We need time to recover.”

  “Recover? Recover from what? You got a little wet and cold, but you weren’t actually hurt.”

  “I meant emotionally, Scag. Lizzie and I need to recover from the trauma.”

  He snorted. Given his fifty-plus years of misadventures, his daughter and her best friend’s narrow escape from being blown to smithereens on a yacht was something to be taken in stride.

  But his incorrigibility brought a weak smile from Lizzie.

  Scag gave Gabriella a smug look, and he took Lizzie’s hand, asking her to point the way to the lady slippers before the cops swarmed in to question her.

  As they started down the side stairs, Gabriella became aware of Cam behind her and turned. He too was cold and wet, but he looked competent, hard-edged, unreasonably sexy, considering his ordeal.