Secret Assignment

by Paula Graves

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Shannon headed upstairs to get ready for the trip to Terrebonne, wondering if any of them was ever going to be okay again.

  * * *

  GIDEON WAS GOING to miss piloting the Lorelei. He’d run a boat in his earlier days as a teenager growing up on the South Carolina coast, a fishing boat his uncle had owned before the economy turned sour and he’d lost the vessel to the bank. Uncle Phil had taken him in after the murder, the only family member willing to take in the angry, hostile teenager Gideon had been at the time.

  After so many years away from the sea when he’d come to recuperate on Nightshade Island, he’d been a rusty sailor, but General Ross had been a patient teacher, using trips on the Lorelei as an incentive for Gideon to work hard to overcome the weakening effects of his shrapnel injuries and get back on his feet.

  “You look at home behind the wheel.”

  He looked at Shannon, who sat next to him in the pilothouse. She was looking at him with curious brown eyes. “I used to pilot my uncle’s fishing boat when I was a teenager. Some of my favorite memories.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Fort Fremont in South Carolina. North of Hilton Head.”

  She smiled. “Went to Hilton Head with some girlfriends when I was nineteen. My dad worried the whole time I was away—first big trip without chaperones.”

  “Did you get in trouble?”

  “I didn’t,” she said with a grin. “I didn’t want to have to call home for help and risk the lecture. Mostly I just bummed around the beach, played a little volleyball, flirted with hot marines on leave from Parris Island.” She slanted a look at him. “Who knows, maybe we met years ago.”

  He smiled. “I was probably already in Afghanistan by then. I’m a bit older than you.”

  “Not so much older,” she murmured.

  Heat swirled instantly between them, fueled by Shannon’s smoldering gaze and his own vivid imagination, placing her on Coligny Beach in a little green bikini, showing off miles and miles of long, toned legs.

  “What will you do when this is over?” she asked, her tone serious, although her eyes continued to suggest all sorts of delicious possibilities.

  “When it’s time to leave the island?”

  She nodded.

  He hadn’t planned for anything in particular. Maybe he’d been as unwilling to think about the end of his life on the island as Lydia had been. The reality of time passing weighed heavily on him suddenly, a ball of lead sitting in the center of his chest.

  “I guess I could go back to South Carolina,” he said, thinking about the life he’d left behind there. His uncle was dead now, the last of his close family. He had some cousins on both sides of the family, but he knew few of them and had never been close to any. His uncle had died a bachelor, childless and penniless. “I suppose there’s work to be had on the shrimp boats or fishing boats. Or maybe I’ll look into age limits for joining the local police force.”

  “Is that something you’d like to do? Police work, I mean.”

  He thought about it. The investigative work would be interesting. He wasn’t sure about the long hours of tedious patrol that would be required of him before he ever reached the level of investigator. Not to mention, it was entirely possible that, at thirty-four, he would be considered too old to be a prospect for any local cop shop.

  “I don’t know if I have the patience to be a rookie,” he admitted.

  “There’s always security work.”

  He glanced at her. She was still looking at him with those sweet, sizzling brown eyes. He wanted her so much at that moment that he wasn’t sure they’d ever make it to shore. Only the thought of Lydia’s safety and their own important mission kept him from grabbing her hand and taking her down to the cabin this very minute.

  What had she just said? Something about security work.

  It took a second to follow the path her question laid out for him. “Security work as in, working for a security company?”

  She blushed a little. “We’re a growing company. Jesse started small and conservative so that he’d have means—and room—to expand. We’ve added several new agents recently and we’re looking to hire more.”

  “But do you really need an old leatherneck? I mean, we must be a dime a dozen.” The thought of going home with her when this was all done was too tempting to contemplate. He’d learned a long time ago that something that sounded too good to be true almost always turned out to be a disaster.

  He’d been giving a lot of thought to the things they’d talked about the night before. He’d been worrying so long about the monster inside him that he’d lost sight of how many years he’d gone keeping it in check. Maybe that was the real difference between him and his father. His father had let stress and anger and a bone-deep meanness turn him into a killer. Gideon had honed his self-control and self-discipline until he could channel anger into constructive rather than destructive actions.

  But even if he never turned out to be the beast he’d feared so many years, he wasn’t much of a good bet for a relationship, either. What did he have to offer Shannon? He didn’t even know what he wanted to do with his life. Maybe they should enjoy what was left of the time they had together for what it was and not try to shape it into something that would ultimately end in hurt feelings and broken hearts.

  Hell, they didn’t even know if they were going to survive the next couple of days, did they?

  “I’ll think about it,” he said carefully, looking away.

  When he dared another quick glance at her, she was no longer looking in his direction. Her delicate profile was pointing toward the mainland, where the shoreline grew closer and closer as the Hatteras cut through the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

  The plan required them to go to lunch at Margo’s Diner, where the talk would be about Shannon leaving town, her work complete. As expected, Margo wasn’t shy about expressing her sorrow to see Shannon go. She passed along congratulations to Shannon’s cousin J.D. and his new wife, Natalie, from about half the town as well, although Gideon suspected many of those well-wishers had merely responded to Margo’s passing along of news with a simple “How nice.”

  “I can’t believe that in a few weeks, there will no longer be a Stafford on Nightshade Island after all these years.” Margo shook her head.

  “Me, either,” Gideon murmured, his heart sinking a little.

  “Lydia’s not going to be that far away from where I live,” Shannon said with a smile. “Less than thirty minutes. I hope we’ll stay in touch.”

  Gideon felt Shannon’s gaze but didn’t let himself return it. If she wanted to make the idea of working for her brother’s company more tempting, she was doing a fine job. He had begun to think of Lydia Ross as family, virtually the only family he had anymore. He liked Lydia. Liked listening to her stories and her jokes. Liked their comfortable silences, their moments of quiet communion.

  He liked that she somehow managed to look at him as if she were really seeing him for who he was rather than the man whose continued life had come at the price of her son’s.

  “I hope that doesn’t mean we’re losing you, too, handsome,” Margo said with a flirtatious smile.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” he admitted. “Not sure what jobs there are around here for an old Carolina beach bum like me.”

  Shannon cleared her throat.

  “You’re about as far from a beach bum as they get around these parts, marine,” Margo said with a laugh.

  He managed a grin. “Maybe so, but I don’t have a platoon to lead around here, Margo. And I hear the Coopers ran the last of the terrorists out of town last year.”

  Unfortunately, a new set of vermin had taken their place. It might well be up to him and Shannon to run them out this time.

  “I’ll be right back,” Shannon said, heading for the restrooms at the back of the restaurant. Gideon told himself not to watch her go, but he couldn’t seem to drag his eyes from her curvy backside as s
he walked away on those long legs of hers, a relentless, impossible temptation.

  Shannon disappeared into the restroom, and Gideon looked away with a sigh of frustration.

  “You need to talk that girl into gettin’ her brother to hire you, marine,” Margo said softly.

  “Her brother might have something to say about that.”

  “Like ‘hell, yeah’?”

  He smiled at her irrepressible matchmaking streak. “I’m not sure the Coopers will find me quite as irresistible as you do, gorgeous.”

  Margo beamed with pleasure at the compliment. “Maybe they’ll like how sweet you are to that girl. Or how much you obviously think of her.” She bent a little closer. “And I’m bettin’ a big, strappin’ fellow like you is pretty good to have around in a fight.”

  Gideon hoped she was right. He’d spent a lot of years training to be damn good in a fight. And he and Shannon might be on the verge of finding out just how good he really was.

  Five minutes clicked past on the clock, and Shannon didn’t come back from the restroom. Gideon’s low-level unease began to blossom into full-blown anxiety. He looked at Margo, who had just come back from taking an order and was writing it up for the chef. “Shouldn’t she be back by now?”

  Margo looked surprised. “Want me to go check on her?”

  “Would you?”

  Margo pinned the order to the caddy by the kitchen door on her way to the bathrooms. The look on her face when she came back a few seconds later made Gideon’s gut tighten to a hard knot.

  “She’s gone. The window in the bathroom’s open.” Margo held out her hand. “And I found this on the floor beneath the window.”

  Gideon looked down at her hand. On her palm lay Shannon’s small silver watch, the stretch band snapped in half. And across the cracked crystal, there was a dark red smear of blood.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Her head hurt like hell, but at least she was still alive. She couldn’t tell exactly where she was, unfortunately, other than somewhere inside a cramped, dark and stiflingly hot space.

  Quelling a sudden rush of panic, Shannon wriggled until she could get her hands on something solid beneath her body. The rough, nubby texture of carpet rasped against her fingertips, and beneath that, the hard outline of a spare tire well. She was in a car trunk.

  The panic clawed its way back.

  The car didn’t seem to be moving. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. She couldn’t remember much about what had happened between walking into the women’s bathroom at Margo’s and waking up in the trunk. She had no idea how much time had passed. The only thing she knew for sure, deep in her trembling gut, was that whoever had taken her hostage had no intention of letting her go alive.

  The ache in her head was easing, reassuring her that she probably didn’t have a closed head injury. She couldn’t even be sure she had been hit on the head—the pain seemed to be internal rather than external. Maybe she’d been chloroformed. Or injected with something. Either would explain her general groggy feeling at the moment.

  She fought against the urge to close her eyes and go back to the dreamless darkness from which she’d just emerged. Wherever she was, she was running out of time to get out safely. No time for slumber.

  Focus. You’ve had the training. What would a Cooper Security operative do in this situation?

  First, figure out how she was bound.

  Both hands and ankles were secured together by something hard and biting. Her hands were behind her back, the stress on her shoulders making them ache. By bending her wrists inward, she managed to touch her bindings with a couple of fingers. Hard plastic with ridges—flex cuffs. Better than metal cuffs at least, but still a bear to get out of.

  She’d do better if she could get her hands around to the front, although thinking about the contortion required to do so made her head swim. She took a deep breath, trying to relax as much as possible, and tucked her knees up as close to her chest as she could in the cramped space. Her joints protested, making her wonder just how long she’d been lying immobile and contorted in this car trunk. Had more time passed than she believed?

  Her shoulders felt stretched to the limit, but she managed to swing her arms forward, under her tucked up legs, until they were in front of her body instead of behind. She went limp for a few seconds afterward, letting her aching joints relax.

  The pain subsided and she felt instantly more in control.

  Had they thought to search her? Her GLOCK was gone—that was a given. But would they have thought to pat her down for other weapons?

  She kept a small folding utility knife with her at all times. That wasn’t a Cooper Security thing—her father had given all his kids utility knives as safety tools. Her particular version had a couple of flat blades, a saw blade and bottle and can opener blades. The saw should work on the flex cuffs, if her captors hadn’t thought to look for weapons beyond her pistol.

  She didn’t keep the knife in a pocket, fortunately. She usually kept it tucked in her bra, snug against her skin where it wouldn’t be seen. That particular trick was a Cooper Security thing—her sister Megan had taught her the wisdom of that hiding place. “You ever get grabbed by bad guys, the bra’s the last place they’ll think to look, unless they’re looking to rape you. Then you got more problems than where you hide your knife.”

  She found the lump of the knife still there in her bra, tucked below her right breast. She released a soft breath of relief.

  But before she could do anything, she heard the scrape of metal on metal, surprisingly loud in the darkness. A moment later, gray light flooded the area where she lay, blocked by a dark silhouette.

  She blinked, her eyelids straining, against her will, to shut out the light.

  She fought to keep them open, willed her eyes to adjust to the light more quickly. The dark silhouette remained where it was, looking down at her, until she started to make out more details.

  Male. Dressed in all black, a knit balaclava covering the lower half of his face. A narrow oval of skin and eyes showed above the knit mask, revealing hooded hazel eyes and thick, sandy-brown eyebrows. She didn’t recognize him, but there was little chance he was anyone other than one of the men Damon was working with.

  “Look at you. You been busy,” the man said with a flat Midwestern twang. “Got yourself all untwisted.”

  “My shoulders were aching,” she retorted.

  “No matter. You’re not going anywhere anyway.”

  She didn’t struggle when he reached into the car trunk and roughly grabbed the flex cuffs, using them to pull her up to a sitting position.

  A second man came around the car and stood behind Midwest. Dressed in identical clothing, the only identifying features she could make out beneath the black mask were broad, high cheekbones, narrow eyes and the bridge of a straight nose. His skin color was ruddier than Midwest’s, with a scattering of freckles across that straight nose. He didn’t speak.

  “Help me get her out,” Midwest ordered.

  She tried to remember what Margo had told her about the four men from the Azimut yacht. Damon, she knew already. And she’d described the man named Leo as a handsome charmer with blue eyes. Neither of these men fit that description. Damon had told them the fifth man, the yacht’s pilot, was African-American as well.

  So these two must be Raymond and Craig. Raymond was little, Margo had said. Craig was big and tall. The silent guy was definitely big and tall, and she supposed that under the ski cap, Raymond’s hair might need a cut.

  So, Raymond and Craig. Raymond was the one Gideon believed held a grudge against him. She’d have to remember that—not let him think there was any particular connection between the two of them. No need to invite more difficulties when she was in a bad place already.

  “What do you want with me?” she asked.

  Craig grabbed her around her hips, hauling her out of the trunk and down to the ground. He held on to her, enclosing both her wrists in the palm of his big hand. He must b
e the muscle, Shannon thought, wincing at the sheer strength of his grip.

  It was raining now, a slow drizzle that created a false twilight of drab gray. They were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on most sides by thick, piney woods, dotted in places with big, old hardwoods draped by silvery Spanish moss. The ground was soft beneath her feet, the air around her smelling of swamp. The car that had been her prison was an older model four-door Buick Regal. Black, with dark red interior. She memorized that image as well.

  “Into the shack.” Raymond nodded toward a small one-story cabin constructed of weathered gray pine. It looked rickety and old, and she had grave doubts about the rusty tin roof’s ability to keep out the rain.

  “We’re not waiting for L—” Craig began to ask.

  “Shut up!” Raymond snapped. “Just keep your mouth shut.”

  Craig’s grip on Shannon’s wrists tightened painfully, and she felt the tremble of barely chained violence in his hand.

  “Where are we?” she asked aloud.

  Raymond just gave her a withering look. “Don’t worry about that, brown eyes. Shut up and do what we tell you. No questions.”

  She did as he said, knowing confrontation, however satisfying she might find it personally, would get her nowhere. The less she appeared to be a threat to them, the more they’d drop their guard, giving her a better chance to escape.

  She did have one more question she decided to ask, however, thinking this might possibly be an answer they’d be willing to give. She waited until Craig settled her inside the shack and hooked her ankle cuffs to a chain set into the wall. She almost smiled at the criminal lack of forethought in that act. They apparently did see her as an easy mark.

  It made her wonder how much they knew about her identity. She assumed they knew her name, probably even where she worked. Cooper Security might have given them pause—until they found out she was a computer geek who worked in IT, not as a field operative.

  Please underestimate me, she pleaded silently.