Stillman stuck his head through the copilot’s open door. “Need any help? Hey, careful, you’re going to—”
“Don’t. Say. Another. Word,” she spat out. Anger whipped through her like a summer storm pushed by a West Texas high. She pulled a length of colored wire from the panel and snipped it with wire cutters, imagining it was Joe’s neck. Anger felt good for a change. It sent fear and sadness scrambling for cover.
Stillman settled into the left seat and remained silent. Well, at least one man knew when to keep his mouth shut. She used the back of her hand to push damp hair escaping her ponytail off her forehead. Even with the doors open, the cockpit felt like a goddamned sauna.
He cleared his throat. “I like your shirt.”
Caught off guard, she glanced down. And laughed. The ancient pink tank top didn’t do much to hide her favorite black bra’s lacy design. She’d unzipped the one-piece flight suit, slipped off the top half and tied the arms around her waist. “Only because you can see through it.”
The cotton was thin with age, shrunk too tight and short to be decent, but she kept it in an emergency grab bag that she stashed in the helo. Her just-in-case assortment included underwear, tampons and an odd shirt or two.
She forced a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. “He’s wrong,” she finally said. She carefully dumped the trashed pieces of circuit boards and wads of snarled wire into a plastic bag. Maybe Joe-the-traitor could scavenge some of the components.
“I agree.”
She jerked her head around, smacking herself with the end of her ponytail. “You do?”
He nodded and casually poked at the cracked panel where bullets had splintered the plastic. “Yeah. Think about it. Who shot Ryan?”
He turned intense blue eyes on her and instead of drowning in them, they buoyed her up. Remembered images, sounds and smells assaulted her senses and her heart bounced with the answer. “The hijacker that was injured!” She lunged across the center console and threw her arms around his neck. “Yes! He couldn’t have been the agent. He wouldn’t have risked killing Ryan.”
Giddy, she kissed him, first in gratitude, then because he tasted so good. And finally, simply because she couldn’t stop herself.
He seemed to feel the same way, since his tongue joined hers in a happy dance. Soon his hand found its way to her breast and she nipped his bottom lip, savoring his rumbling growl. She climbed to her knees so she could get closer, discarded the idea of trying to straddle him and settled for some serious, breath-stealing, hair-mussing, panty-dampening kisses.
“Caitlyn,” he murmured and worked his delectable mouth along her jaw and down her neck.
A shiver met his hot tongue somewhere along her collarbone. Even the burn of day-old beard felt good. God, had she really just whimpered?
He lifted his head and focused midnight-blue eyes on her. “Queeny, if we don’t stop now, I’m going to say to hell with any onlookers and take you right here.”
She rested her forehead against his. “Not fair. I’m engulfed in a lust-induced haze and you’re able to think.” One more kiss couldn’t hurt.
A minute, or maybe an hour later Joe’s voice broke them apart.
“All right, kids, do I need to get the hose out?” He stood on Caitlyn’s side of the helo with his hand on the open door. “If your goal was to convince Atwah you’re lovers, you succeeded. He’s over there talking to Yasin now.” He added, “You gave him quite an eyeful,” under his breath, but loud enough for Caitlyn to hear.
She glanced at the hijacker then turned in her seat to look at her mechanic, crew member and friend. “You have a problem with my behavior?” She couldn’t decide if she was still pissed over his scaring her about Yasin’s true identity or not.
He squinted across the helo’s interior at Stillman before settling on her. “No, of course not. I just don’t want you to get hurt in the process.”
Caitlyn spoke to Stillman without looking away from Joe. “Stillman, could you take a hike? I need a little one-on-one here.”
“Sure, I’ll go harass our captors.” He ran his hand down her arm, hesitating over the bruise Atwah had left on her bicep, before he stepped out of the helicopter. His simple gesture over her injury spread comforting warmth through her chest. She sighed. They all were stressed and dealing with the unknown as best they could.
Buzzing insects and the incessant cry of an osprey filled the decidedly uncomfortable human silence. Caitlyn scooted sideways so she faced Joe, her booted feet dangling out the door. “All right, what’s going on? This isn’t your normal irreverent self.”
Joe dropped his gaze to the ground then exhaled loudly. He rubbed knuckles along his jaw, the rough blond stubble looking golden in the morning sunlight. “I know. It’s this.” He motioned to their surroundings.
As loyal as Ryan, Joe was one of the most private crew members she’d ever had reporting to her. He could be obstinate and his opinions old-fashioned, but he’d always supported her, even when he disagreed.
“You mean you don’t care for your roommates or our hosts?” Maybe if she kept it light, he’d open up a little and let her in.
That brought a corner of his mouth up briefly. Think, Caity, what would cause unflappable Joe to become so cranky? The answer jumped up and smacked her between the eyes. Oh God, how could she be so dense? Joe had been talking to his ex-wife right before the alarm had gone off and they’d scrambled on the mission that ultimately had brought them all here.
“Is it Tyler? Was that what Claudia called you about yesterday?” Caitlyn reached out and took Joe’s callused square hand in hers and tugged him forward. He doted on his son, had been devastated when his ex moved to another state, limiting the amount of time he could spend with the eleven-year-old.
His throat worked and he suddenly seemed intent on inspecting the rotors above their heads. It took a moment for Caitlyn to realize he was fighting back tears. If he lost it in front of her, he’d laugh it off. If he lost it front of her and Stillman and the hijackers, she feared the embarrassment would permanently damage their relationship.
“Hey, this is off the record. Just between friends, no rank involved, okay?” she said softly. “What did Claudia call about?”
He almost squeezed the feeling out of her hand. “She’s out of remission and wants to move back in with me.” He swallowed hard. “I told her I didn’t know if I could do it.” He made an ugly sound and shook his head. “Hell, I could die here. Then what would happen to Tyler? We don’t have family we can count on. He’d end up with strangers.”
She dug her nails into his hand. “Don’t you dare say such a thing. No one on my team is going to die.”
Joe choked out a laugh. “The queen has spoken?” He scraped his boot against the concrete, his face still averted. “She wants Tyler to get used to me again. Before she—before she has to go into the hospital.”
His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper and he pulled away, crossing his arms and tucking his hands in his armpits. “She doesn’t want him to remember her at the end, when the pain becomes unmanageable.”
Caitlyn’s heart wept for him and the little boy about to lose his mommy. She grabbed his T-shirt and tugged him into her arms. He stiffened before relaxing into her, his head resting on her shoulder.
“Remember, I said I’d help. When Claudia was first diagnosed? That hasn’t changed,” she whispered in his ear. She squeezed tightly before releasing him. “You know me and kids.” She forced her lips to curve up and tapped her fist lightly on his whiskered chin. “Just can’t seem to get enough of them.”
Joe inhaled deeply. A real smile broke out and the clouds in his eyes cleared. “You made a hell of an impression on him that day with Fly Baby.”
He glanced toward Stillman and the hijacker as if making sure they hadn’t been watching. “All right, enough of this touchy-feely sh
it.” He stepped back, distancing himself from the emotion and signaling an end to their intimate talk.
“I’ll show you touchy-feely.” Caitlyn kicked her boot out playfully and he bent forward, cupping both hands over his privates.
“Queen B, you’re getting slow. Must be all that frustration building up in your bloodstream,” he said with a smirk. A mischievous look swept the last vestiges of worry from his face and he dug his hand in a pocket of his flight suit.
He’d also stripped off the top half and tied the arms around his waist, their informal uniform of the day. And now he held his closed fist out to her. “Open your hand.”
She squinted at him. “Why?”
“Hey, don’t you trust me?”
Shit. That was sneaky. She held her breath, then thrust her hand out, palm up and open. And widened her eyes when he released assorted packets of condoms onto it.
“I swiped Ryan’s stash and added mine.” The irreverent twinkle was back in full force. “I’m thinking we need to conserve water, so maybe you could share your shower with a friend. And since I’m such a light sleeper, I’m gonna wear my foam earplugs to bed tonight.”
He reached over her shoulder and tugged her ponytail. “You just might have hooked yourself a keeper this time.”
A keeper? Caitlyn sat in Fly Baby and eyed Stillman across the clearing where he stood talking to Yasin and Joe. Moments before, a cell phone call had sent an agitated Atwah away in a torrent of foreign-sounding invectives.
She rubbed her aching head and looked at the fistful of condoms. Then chuckled as heat spread up her chest to inflame her face. What the hell. She’d regretted not taking advantage of him on their first date. Why risk fate by not grabbing what she wanted while she had the chance?
Her gaze found Stillman again and her heart did a perfect whipstall. She closed her hand over the packets. In the shower, huh? Her nipples tightened and sweat trickled between her breasts. Oh yeah, she really needed a shower.
First Joe, then Stillman cast quick glances her way. She shifted in her seat. Surely Joe wasn’t indulging in locker-room gossip...no, that wasn’t his style. She shoved the half-dozen condoms into a zippered pocket and hopped out of Fly Baby. The best way to find out what was going on was to go ask.
Mindful of her see-through tank top, she grabbed a spare extra-large T-shirt from her grab bag behind the pilot’s seat, and slipped it on. She shivered despite the tropical heat. Atwah’s brutal killing of her would-be attacker was too damn fresh in her mind to ignore.
“We need to rig some kind of winch to pull her landing gear out of the muck,” Joe was saying to Yasin as she approached.
Stormy looks aimed her way led her to believe they’d been talking about something else entirely. Joe refused to look her in the eye, confirming something was off. A muscle ticked in his tightly clenched jaw. Whatever it was he wasn’t happy about it.
“What’s up? Why the long faces?” She stood between Joe and Stillman. Only Yasin seemed relaxed. He shrugged and gave her a vacant smile. Okay, something was going on and they didn’t want to share. How very male.
Stillman shifted slightly, putting space between them. “Just trying to figure out how to move the Jayhawk back onto the landing pad,” he said and appeared to study the problem with a frown.
Caitlyn turned and eyed the leaning helicopter. “Why bother? The rotors are clear. She’ll come loose when we power up.”
Hello, couldn’t they have come up with a better cover story than that? “Okay, boys, what’s really going on here? Does it have something to do with Atwah’s phone call?”
Bingo. Guilty silence built a little wall around the three conspirators. She folded her arms across her chest. “Did I miss the little memo that went around saying to keep the redhead in the dark? Come on, spill it.” She directed her last demand at Yasin.
His mouth quirked up. “No, there was no memo. The only thing I heard from Atwah’s side of the conversation was he’s not getting his replacements.” His sleepy brown eyes crinkled at the corners. “I think maybe the FBI has put pressure on some of his contacts. Now the rats are scurrying for cover.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” She fisted hands on hips and narrowed her eyes at Joe and Stillman’s closed expressions. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
Yasin shrugged again. “It sounded like the bomb delivery was cancelled. Now you’ll have to pick it up on your way to the drop site.”
“O-kay. Wasn’t that what you wanted me to do? Take Atwah and the bomb someplace safe?” Why did navigating this conversation seem like flying in fog with a partial panel? Radar said the path was clear but there was always that possibility for a mistake and mistakes were what got people killed.
Stillman put his hand on her shoulder, its weight and warmth distracting her from Yasin’s explanation. “That was the worst-case scenario. We’d hoped to capture both Atwah and the bomb here without endangering you or your helo. Now we have to make sure he doesn’t pull any more surprises.”
Crunching footfalls on gravel broke the ensuing silence and they looked at the path leading to the house. Atwah stomped out of the trees, his expression deadly. The torrent of foreign words left no doubt that he was not a happy hijacker slash terrorist.
Yasin immediately hunched his shoulders to his ears and lowered his eyes subserviently. The gun he’d held loosely at his side came up to cover his “prisoners.” And he answered Atwah in a higher-pitched voice that quivered. The transformation was complete when he scowled at Stillman and barked out in heavily accented English, “Finish work. Now!”
Caitlyn stepped back, watching as Atwah continued to snarl at the smaller man. Stillman’s fingers tightened on her shoulder, urging her away, and she realized he understood at least some of the exchange. Suddenly Atwah cuffed Yasin, sending him to his knees.
Stillman grabbed Caitlyn’s arm before she charged forward. “Stay out of it,” he said with his mouth against her ear. “Don’t worry about Yasin. He knows what he’s doing.” As he talked he dragged her away from the still-rampaging Atwah.
“What’s he saying?”
“I’m not sure. Something about slaughtering a cow. He’s not making sense or my language skills don’t include his regional dialect.”
Chapter Eight
Jacksonville, FL,
Thursday, 22 September, 1145 hours
Valerie rattled off a list of action items to her administrative assistant as she stalked from the conference room to her corner office. A dull ache edged its way further into her already throbbing head. She didn’t have time for a migraine, not when she needed to find a place to stay. She wasn’t going to wait for some fanatic to show up at her door. At least now the FBI was taking her mystery caller seriously, even if they still had her pegged as a slightly crazed know-it-all.
She sent her admin scurrying to type her notes and closed the door to her office. Sunlight glinting off the St. John’s Waterway didn’t give her any pleasure today; it just added to the growing pain behind her eyes. A button tap drew the vertical blinds closed with a little whir, dimming the office to an acceptable cool gray.
Her desk phone buzzed softly, indicating a call on her private outside line. She looked at the caller ID and her pulse skittered. Blocked. God, had he traced her to her office? She grabbed the handset on the third ring. “Hello?”
“I don’t want to scare you, but you shouldn’t return to your condo,” Scott Munson’s deep voice said.
Coffee and the plain bagel she’d grabbed between her seven and eight-thirty meetings threatened to mar her immaculate desktop with an unscheduled return. Valerie closed her eyes and willed the migraine, and accompanying nausea, to take a number. “What happened?”
“Nothing new. But given how simple it was for me to find where you live, I don’t think you should chance having this nutcas
e track you down.”
He was lying. She couldn’t say how she knew, but she did. Her mind spun with all the possible scenarios. She tried to swallow, her mouth and throat arguing about the direction of the flow. Down, not up, damn it.
She took a deep breath. “The building has excellent security. The guards are extremely conscientious and there are video cameras everywhere.”
That was one of the reasons she lived there.
“Except one of my agents is sitting in your living room as we speak.”
Sweat greased her palms and her stomach rolled over. “What?”
“Ms. Wooten, I sent an agent over to your condo to see how effective your security is. It’s good, and would probably dissuade the average burglar. But I have good reason to suspect the people we’re dealing with are better than that.
“If you need assistance in finding a place to stay I’ll see to it,” he continued as if he hadn’t just destroyed her already-shaky confidence.
“Can’t I just stay in a hotel?” God, was she supposed to go to a safe house like a battered woman or witness to a Mob hit?
“Certainly. But I would strongly suggest you register under a different name. And pay with cash.”
Valerie swallowed the rising panic. She’d weathered worse situations. Like the first six weeks after her husband’s death and the subsequent shake-up of the shipping business she’d inherited.
She took down Munson’s cell phone number and agreed to let him know when she checked in to a hotel. After replacing the handset, she buzzed her admin, requesting a new cell phone, a Diet Coke, and a clear afternoon schedule.
Valerie rubbed burning eyes and rummaged through her desk drawer looking for medication. No use pretending otherwise, the migraine was here to stay and she had too much to do. Drugged out was better than being flat on her back in a dark room for the next eight to ten hours.
If Special Agent Scott Munson thought she’d simply go into hiding he was sorely mistaken. She hadn’t become the head of an international company by running from trouble. She had more than a few shady contacts from paying attention to her father’s and husband’s business in the seamier parts of the world, including Miami.
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