Hostage At Crystal Manor

by Heather Graham

  The sun was going down, he realized. Night was coming again.

  Jason drew the canoe toward the shore and then leaped out. Nick did the same, helping to drag the canoe up on the shore.

  He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but not the pleasant cabin in the woods he and Kody saw as they burst through the last thick foliage on the trail.

  It wasn’t any kind of chickee. It was a log cabin, on high ground.

  Nick looked at Jason Tiger, who seemed amused.

  “There are a lot of houses out here. A lot on tribal lands. We’re not completely living in the past, you know. Hey, guys, if it were summer, there’s even an air conditioner. Everything here is run on a generator,” Jason told them.

  “Wow, so, there are a lot of these out here? For the Miccosukee and Seminole?” Kody asked.

  Jason laughed. “No. Actually, this one belongs to the United States government. A lot of drug traffic goes through here.”

  Jason had a key; he used it, letting them into the cabin. It was rustic, offering a sofa in worn leather, a group of chairs, a center stove and a few throw rugs.

  “There are bedrooms to the right and left. Hot showers are available—naturally, we ask you to conserve water. I have lots of coffee and power bars and other food.”

  “You live out here?” Kody asked him.

  “When I need to. When we’re watching the flow of illegal drugs through the area. I work with a newbie, Sophia Gray, and when she’s in residence, she uses the second bedroom. You’ll find clean clothing there, Miss Cameron. Anyway, I’ve been in touch with Special Agent Frasier and the police. We are actually on the edge of National Park land. You’re at a safe house. You’ll be fine, and we’ll have you out of here by morning,” Jason told Kody. “And now…”

  “I need to get back out there,” Nick said. “Find Vince first…and hope that I can find Floyd, as well.”

  “And Dillinger,” Kody said. “He’s still out there. He has to be stopped. I think that he really is crazy—dangerously crazy.”

  “Yes, and Dillinger,” Nick said. “And, yes, he is crazy. Functionally crazy, if you will, and that makes him very dangerous.” His tone softened as he added directions. “You stay here and obey anything Jason says, and stay safe.”

  “Of course,” Kody said.

  “Wait, this is backward. You need to watch over Miss Cameron,” Jason said. “I’ll see if I can find your friend, Vince, and the others.”

  “I can’t ask you to take on my case,” Nick said.

  “You have to ask me. I know these hammocks and waterways like the back of my hand. You don’t. I’ll find them.” When Nick was about to protest, he added, “I’m right, and you know that I’m right. I’m better out here than you are, no disrespect intended.”

  Nick was quiet for a moment and then lowered his head. “All right,” he said.

  “You’re still armed?” Jason asked Nick.

  Nick reached for the little holster at his back and the Glock there. “I am armed.”

  “All right, then. I’m going to head right back out. My superiors at the FBI know this place. We’re remote, but they’ll get here.”

  “I should go out with you—”

  “But you won’t,” Jason told him.

  Nick nodded. “You’re right. You’re far better for this job than me.”

  He felt Kody’s fingers slip around his arm. “I’m sorry. You could both go if it weren’t for me. Honestly, I know how to lock a door. I can watch out for myself here.”

  “No way. You’re a witness who can put Dillinger away forever,” Jason said.

  “He’s right. We can’t risk you.”

  “Great. Because I’m a witness,” Kody murmured.

  Jason smiled at them both. “You’re okay here for the moment. Take showers, relax. You were both amazing. Miss Cameron, you behaved selflessly, with great courage, and Special Agent Connolly, you’re the stuff that makes the Bureau the place to belong. So, take this time. Sit, breathe… Hey, there’s real coffee here.”

  “Thanks, Jason,” Nick murmured.

  Kody stepped over to Jason and took his hand, shaking it. “Thank you! And the child…the child is really all right?”

  “Yes. Thanks to you, they knew where to search. He’s safe and sound.”

  “I’m so glad,” Kody murmured.

  Jason nodded then and headed to the door. “Lock up,” he told Nick. “Not that I’m expecting you’ll have any company, but—”

  “You just never know,” Nick finished for Jason. He offered him a hand, as well. “Thank you, my friend.”

  “We’re all in this together,” Jason assured him.

  When he left, Nick locked the door.

  Kody was heading toward the kitchen. “Coffee!” she said. “Food.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s an agent. You’re an agent.” She spoke while searching the cabinets.

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t know him before?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s from here and you’re from here.”

  Nick laughed softly. “A lot of people are from here. But, yes—Jason and I went to college together,” he said.

  “It’s ironic, isn’t it, that I saw you in New York City? Never here,” she said.

  He grinned at that. “Millions of people live in this area. I don’t suppose it’s odd in any way that people from South Florida never met. It’s just odd that we wound up here together in this way after we did see each other in New York. I was probably a few years ahead of you in school. I went to Killian—and then on to the University of Florida. I was in Miami-Dade Homicide…and then the FBI,” Nick told her. “And, for the last ten months or so, I’ve been on the task force with Craig. For the last few weeks, I’ve been undercover as Barrow.”

  “Incredible,” she murmured.

  “Not really.”

  She stared at him a moment longer and then smiled. And he thought that she really was beautiful—a perfect ingénue for whatever play it was she was doing.

  She walked over to him.

  “Well, I’m alive, thanks to you,” she murmured.

  “It’s my job,” he said. “It never should have gone this far. I should have been able to stop Dillinger at the mansion. I should have—”

  He suddenly remembered the day she’d brushed by him at Finnegan’s. He knew then he would have liked to have met her. Now…

  They were safe—relatively safe, at any rate. They’d come far from Dillinger and his insanity. Jason Tiger was a great agent who knew this area and loved it, knew the good, the bad and the ugly of it, and would find and save Vince and Flynn if anyone could.

  He would have given so much to smile, think they were back, way back before any of this, imagine that they’d really met, gone out…that he could pull her into his arms, hold her, feel her, kiss her lips…

  But Nick was still an agent.

  He was still on duty.

  “Should have what?” she asked softly.

  “Should have been able to finish it all earlier,” he said softly.

  She still held the bag of coffee. He took it gently from her fingers and headed into the kitchen to measure it out. In no time, he heard the sound as it began to perc.

  She still stood in the living room of the cabin, looking out. He saw that she walked to the door to assure herself it was locked. She turned, probably aware that he was studying her.

  “Windows?” she asked with a grimace. “I’m usually not the paranoid type.”

  “They’ve got locks, I’m sure,” Nick said. He crossed the room to join her at the left window to check.

  It was impossible.

  They’d been crawling around in fetid swamp water, muck and more. Yet there was st
ill something sweet and alluring in her scent.

  She looked at him. Her face was close, so close. Her lips…so tempting.

  Get a grip! he told himself.

  “We should check them all,” she said.

  “That’s a plan. Then all we need fear is a raccoon coming down the chimney,” he said, grinning at her.

  They checked and double-checked one another, close and closer. He headed to each of the two bedrooms. Simple, rustic, charming, clean…

  Equipped with beds.

  “This is good, right?” Kody asked him, tugging at the left bedroom window. It was evidently Jason Tiger’s room. It was neat as a pin, but there were toiletries on the dresser and some folded clothes on the footrest.

  “Yeah.” Nick double-checked the window. “One more room,” he said.

  In the second room, the guest room, he could almost smell the scent of crisp, cool, cotton sheets.

  Kody checked a window; he walked over to her.

  How the hell could her hair still smell like some kind of subtle, sweet shampoo?

  “Good, right?” she asked.

  He inhaled the scent. “Yep, excellent.”

  “And you’re still armed?” she asked.

  “I am. Glock in the holster at the back of my belt.”

  “Then it’s good. It’s really all good. We aren’t in any danger.”

  Nick arched a brow.

  They weren’t in any danger?

  He was pretty sure he was in the worst danger he’d been in since he’d started on his undercover odyssey.

  Because she was danger.

  Because he was falling into love/lust/respect/ admiration…

  And he was an agent.

  And she was the bartending actress he was duty-bound to protect.

  And yet the mind could be a cruel beast at times. No matter what the circumstances, no matter what their danger, his position, her position, he couldn’t help but believe there was a future. And in that future they were together.

  Or was that just his mind teasing him?

  For the moment he needed to shape up and damn the taunting beast of a voice within him that made him picture her as she headed for the shower.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Clean!

  There was nothing like the feeling of being clean.

  Kody could have stayed in the shower forever, except, of course, she knew the water was being heated by a generator. Special Agent Nick Connolly certainly deserved his share of the water.

  And Vince was still out there, somewhere. Was he safe? He surely knew more about the Everglades than Dillinger, but just living in the area and knowing history and geography did not ensure survival. There were just too many pitfalls. Crocodilians, snakes, insects—and, of course, a madman running around with a gun.

  And what about Floyd?

  Floyd was a criminal but not a killer; he had never wanted to hurt them.

  She couldn’t help but be worried about them both.

  She had to believe that Jason Tiger would find Vince. Meanwhile, Vince was smart enough to watch out for sinkholes, gator holes and quicksand. He knew which snakes were harmful and which were not. He probably even had a sense of direction. He would head straight for the observation tower at Shark Valley—and the Tamiami Trail. He was going to be okay.

  Hair washed, flesh scrubbed, Kody emerged from the shower. A towel had been easy to find in the bathroom. She hesitated when she was dry, feeling as if she was somewhat of an invader as she headed to the dresser and found clothing that belonged to Jason Tiger’s “newbie” associate. “Forgive me,” she murmured aloud, finding panties and a bra and then a pair of jeans and a tailored cotton shirt.

  When she returned to the living room, Nick was sipping coffee at the little dining table that sat between the kitchen and the living room. He’d obviously showered; his hair was wet and slicked back. She couldn’t help but notice the definition of his muscles in a borrowed polo shirt and jeans. She met his eyes, so beyond blue, and she felt such a tug of attraction that she needed to remind herself they were still in a perilous position.

  And that Nick had been her captor—who had turned into her savior.

  There was surely a name for the confusion plaguing her!

  “Hey,” he said softly.

  “Hey.”

  “Feel better?”

  “I feel terrific,” she told him. “Clean. Strong. Okay—still worried.”

  “Jason will find Vince,” he assured her.

  She nodded and pulled out a chair to join him at the table. “What are you doing?” she asked him.

  He swept an arm out, indicating the maps on the table. “I’m following your lead. This map was created by a park ranger about ten years ago. Now, of course, mangrove islands pop up here and there, water washes away what was almost solid. You have your hardwood hammocks and you have areas where the hardwood hammocks almost collide with the limestone shelves. From what I’m seeing here and where we’ve been, I’m convinced that we were in the right place. Anthony Green’s still sat on a limestone shelf.”

  “Where we were today, I’m pretty sure,” Kody agreed.

  “Exactly. Well, on this map, the ranger—Howard Reece—also made note of the manmade structures he found, or the remnants thereof. Kody, you were right, I believe.” He paused and pointed out notations on the map. “There are the pilings for different chickee huts he had going there. Back quarter—that’s the one where Anthony Green did his bookkeeping. So, if you’re right, that’s where we’ll find the buried treasure.”

  “If it does exist,” she said.

  “I believe that it does.”

  “And you want to go find it—now?”

  He laughed softly. “Nope. I want to stay right here now. Stay right here until you’re picked up by my people and taken to safety. Then I want to help Jason Tiger and the forces we’ll get out here to find Vince and Floyd. And then, at some point, get the right people with the right equipment out here to see if we’re right or wrong.”

  She nodded and bit into her lower lip.

  He reached out, laying his hand over hers where it rested on the table. “I know that you’re worried. It will be okay. Jason will find Vince, and, I hope, Floyd.”

  “What if he can’t find them? What if he can’t find either of them?” Kody asked.

  “He will.” The conviction with which he spoke the words sank into her, giving her hope. “For now,” he said, “let’s find something to eat. There’s not a lot of food here, nothing fresh, but there are a lot of cans and, as Jason said, power bars.”

  “There’s soup,” Kody said, pointing to a shelf in the kitchen area.

  “Anything sounds good. Want me to cook for you?”

  “You mean open a can?”

  “Exactly.”

  Kody laughed. “Yes, I’d love you to open a can for me.”

  The both rose. Nick dug around for a can-opener. Kody found bowls, spoons and even napkins. She set the table.

  “Nice,” Nick told her.

  “Well, we want to be civilized, right?”

  “I don’t know. I could suck the stone-cold food out of a can right now, but, hey, you’re right. Heated is going to be better.”

  She smiled. It was an oddly domestic scene as they put their meal of soup and crackers together. Jason kept a hefty supply of bottled water at the cabin, and the water tasted delicious.

  “So, when you’re not playing the part of a thug and holding up historic properties, what are you doing?” Kody asked as she ate.

  “I’m with the same unit as Craig Frasier—criminal investigation,” Nick told her. “New York City is my home office. The man you know as Dillinger was carrying out a number of criminal activities in New York that included ext
ortion and murder. He served time. He should have served more time, after. The cops had arrested him again a few years ago on an armed robbery, but the one witness was found floating in the East River. Then he started to move south, so we followed his activities. And as I said, I was a natural to slide into the gang he was forming down here.”

  “And you like your work?” Kody asked. “I know that Craig likes his work and his office.”

  “I love what I do. It feels right,” he said. “What about you—what do you do when you’re not guarding the booth? Ah, yes! Acting. And you’re friends with Kevin Finnegan.” He was quiet for a minute. “Well, this is just rude, but what kind of friends?”

  She laughed. “Real friends. We’ve struggled together on a number of occasions. We met on the set of a long-running cop show that we both had a few short roles on.” She grinned. “He was the victim and I was the killer once in the same episode. And we’ve gone to some of the same workshops together. But, trust me, we were never anything but friends.”

  “Kevin is a good-looking, great guy,” Nick said.

  “That he is,” she agreed. “And it’s cool to have a friend like him for auditioning and heading out and trying to see what’s going on. We were both accepted to a really prestigious class once because we could call on one another right away and work together. We decided long ago that we’d never ruin what we had by dating or becoming friends with benefits, or anything like that.” She hesitated, flushing. That was way too much information, she told herself. “And, by the way, Kevin is in love. It’s even a secret from me, it’s such a hush-hush thing. I hope it works out for him. I do love him—as a friend.”

  “Nice,” he murmured.

  He was watching her, his eyes so intense she looked away uncomfortably.

  She rose uneasily, afraid it sounded as if she was determined he know she wasn’t involved with Kevin. She wandered closer to the stove and nervously poured more coffee into her cup. “So. What happens now? I mean, Jason Tiger has been in contact with Craig and the FBI and the local police, right? They’ll be out soon, right?”

  “They’ll be out soon,” he agreed. “We’re just in an area where there is no easy access. But they’ll get here. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? You have to be exhausted.”