Dark and Dangerous

by Jeanne Adams

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Contrary to popular belief, uniting is not a solitary occupation. It takes the support and love of family, friends, and fellow writers to get to the amazing point of publication. To that end, I thank my parents James and the late Ann Pickering with all my heart. You gave me a love of books, as well as abiding love and the unspoken knowledge that I could do anything to which I set my mind. To my wonderfully supportive sister Susan, you rock! To my brother John and his fiance Benn; and to my brother, David, and his family, thank you. Thank you as well to my dear stepmother Dr. Lorraine Clark and her family for their delightful support.

  To my wonderful husband Ralph, and my sons, there is absolutely no way I could have done any of this without you. I love, appreciate, and thank you for everything!

  I'm also deeply grateful for the joy of brilliant encouraging friends (Leah, Malena, Babo, Kaz, Neela, Mattie, Vas, and Susan) as well as fellow writers who have so long supported me. From my first critique group, led by the amazing Donna Gulick, through the Wicked Sisters (thanks Leah, Barb, Judi, and Terri!), to my current outstanding circle of dedicated writers, The Romance Bandits (http://RomanceBandits.blogspot.com): I celebrate you, and am blessed to have you in my life.

  To my superb editor Kate Duffy, thank you for your faith in me and in Dark and Dangerous.

  Chapter One

  The windchimes began to peal, a musical jangle. Dana had just set her book aside and turned out the bedside lights. Listening, she felt a twitch of intuition. For her, the tingle of unease was as good as a certified letter when it came to danger.

  There had been no breeze, not even the barest hint of wind when she'd let their dog, Shadow, out for the last time at eleven. The cool spring air, redolent with the scent of new growth, had been still.

  Getting out of bed, she flicked the television on for light. Tossing the remote on the bed, she walked to the inner hallway; continuing to listen, preparing to act.

  The clanging of the chimes picked up speed. Fools, she thought, even as her heart raced, and she realized what hovered outside her house.

  Shadow began to growl. Everything seemed to slow down, separate into moments. They had come for her, for her son. She'd been dreading this and yet expecting it.

  It had only been four hours since she'd sat with Xavier, reading from one of the Harry Potter books at bedtime. Now, she would have to wake him, to run.

  They'd had to scurry away in the night before, or leave with bare minutes of leeway, but then they'd had help. The FBI or WitSec—the witness security program—had been there.

  Donovan had found them again, and this time she was on her own.

  As scared as she was, the clangor of the bells almost made her laugh. Almost. For all her ex-husband's cunning, for all the expensive black-market military hardware he bought with his drug money, he didn't have anyone smart enough to think about those windchimes.

  Thank God.

  Warned by the wind. If that's not cosmic justice, I don't know what is. How soon he'd forgotten. He'd trained her well to take near-paranoid precautions. That hard-won expertise worked against him now and ensured she knew trouble had arrived.

  Being forewarned only helped her if she took action, she reminded herself, thinking furiously. There was no time to get to the van, and even if they did, the helicopter would be armed. They would be sitting ducks on the country roads. There was no time to go to the safe room in the basement, either.

  Donovan's men would be on the ground by now.

  She did have time to activate her other protective measures, pitiful though they were. Still growling, Shadow— one of her more traditional defenses—obviously sensed the peril and stood ready for her commands.

  "Roust your lazy asses! We're movin' out!" The shout reverberated through the old warehouse that served as the headquarters for Donovan Walker's assassination and retrieval team.

  Tonight was it, then. The adrenaline instantly pumped into his system. After months of training, it was time to get Dana Markham and her child. Finally, he would get what he needed to close the cage on Donovan Walker. Finally.

  Caine Bradley heard the discussion start outside his door, and an almost palpable tension sprang into the air. He tapped his keyboard, his fingers flying over the slim laptop in a blur. He hit send as Spike, the brawny thug who nominally ran their team, flung open the door to the Spartan room where Caine worked. The flick of a key returned a porn site to full screen.

  To show his complete disdain for Spike, Caine didn't even acknowledge the dramatic entrance.

  "You jacking off in here again, Pollack?" Spike growled, shooting a glance at the computer.

  Leaning back, Caine eyed the man who knew him as Pollack, not letting on that he'd just sent an email to his FBI counterpart that would end Spike's career. And maybe his life, if he didn't surrender when the trap was sprung.

  That pleasant thought made it easier to keep his cool. "You should try it, Spike," Caine replied laconically. "Might improve your disposition."

  "Put a lid on it, pretty boy. You impress the Boss with that wiseass chatter, but not me. Get your sorry ass in gear. We're a go."

  Caine set the laptop aside and rose from the cot. In less than two minutes, the computer would be useless, its hard drive wiped clean. Clad in black fatigue pants and boots, Caine stretched his upper torso, bending from side to side to loosen the coiled muscles in his shoulders. He couldn't help the nasty smirk that arose as he noted Spike's unspoken unease.

  Looming forward, he used his tall frame to his advantage, intimidating the shorter, bulkier man. He shifted his weight, and Spike recoiled. It was a mere half a step, but there was no erasing it. Caine's smirk turned to wolfish delight. The obvious shift in the power balance needed a verbal nudge as well.

  "Since you go for itty bitty titties on itty bitty bodies, I'd think a robust ride like that," Caine pointed at the lusty, buxom woman on-screen, "would be too much for you." Spike's predilection for little girls was one of the many reasons Caine hated him. He couldn't wait to see the horror on Spike's face when he realized who his nemesis really worked for ... ah, priceless.

  "Drop dead, Pollack," Spike snarled. As far as comebacks went, it was weak. Caine snickered to himself.

  "Same to ya, Spike. Hell has a spot waiting for you."

  Society called it wrong, but sometime soon Caine wanted to see Spike very, very dead. In lieu of that, he would settle for bruised, bleeding, and handcuffed. The mental image was so satisfying, he broke into a fullblown grin.

  The humor must have been even more menacing to Spike than anything else, because he hastily turned to go.

  "Quit stalling and get your fuckin' pansy-ass moving. We're due at the wharf in less than fifteen," Spike blustered to cover his retreat. He checked his watch and glared. "And counting."

  "I'm on it," Caine replied, without stirring.

  Although he stomped out, Spike never quite turned his back. That evidence of cowardice, along with the slammed door, had Caine shaking his head in both disgust and delight. He was a superb undercover operative because he didn't really care if he lived or died. The department shrink called it a death wish,
but Caine didn't want to die, he had too many karmic debts to pay. Of course, dying in the line of duty would pay many of them. So if that was the outcome, he was up for that too.

  The only regret he had was that pushing the buttons of pitiful, disgusting criminals like Spike was too easy and he'd gotten too good at it over the years. As a form of entertainment, it left a lot of room for improvement. There were times that he worried that he had come to enjoy it too much.

  The other factor was that one of these days, it was probably going to get him killed.

  Dismissing the possibility, he got to work. From nooks and crannies he pulled knives, a thin wire, several small boxes filled with miniature tools, and finally, from under the cot, a long, razor-edged Bowie knife.

  Within five minutes, he stood on the loading dock with three other men. They were armed and dressed in the same dark clothing. All of them, Caine included, had night vision goggles. Caine would bet his life, however, that none of his current companions knew just how well equipped he was.

  A glossy, midnight-hued Humvee arrived, and they piled in.

  "We really goin' this time, Spike?" one man asked. They'd been drilling, thorough military-style maneuvers, for this event. The big Boss wanted his son, failure was not an option.

  "Yeah, long as Pollack does the job taking the kid, this is it. Now shut your trap, I'm driving here."

  Caine crossed his arms and slouched in the seat, his mind working at a furious pace. As one of Donovan Walker's mercenary assassins, he had been designated for the recapture of their primary target—Donovan Walker, Jr., now known as Xavier Markham, the boss's son. For Caine, this assignment was the culmination of three years of undercover work for the FBI.

  So many things could go wrong. His contact, Tervain, might not receive the message and get Dana and Xavier to the safe house. His fellow mercenaries could screw the pooch and either kill the decoys or Dana Markham and the kid before he got in. The men would murder him if they believed he was a turncoat. The woman, if she survived, or the police, might shoot him if something else went awry.

  His sole mission, when it came to it, was to keep Donovan Walker, murderer, drug lord, and mob boss, from regaining possession of the two things he most wanted: his wife—preferably dead—and his only child.

  They rumbled over the dock to the waiting freighter. He saw the faint vibration in the hull shiver the tie ropes, which meant she was under power. No doubt once the team departed, the ship would too. No boat, no questions, no evidence—a classic Donovan Walker strategy.

  "Holy shit!" The man next to him jerked forward, craning for a better view.

  Following his gaze, Caine got the first nasty surprise of the night. His stomach sank when he spied the sleek military helicopter resting on the deck. Menacingly beautiful, the machine's matte paint absorbed the light. This was something neither he nor anyone in his organization had foreseen.

  His mission was well and truly screwed.

  "When he told us we'd have a shit-kickin' ride, I never expected no helicopter," the thug in front exclaimed. "Donovan rules, for sure."

  "Shuffle out, Pollack," his seatmate said, shooting him a quick elbow. Damn, he'd been caught staring like a green kid.

  Idiot.

  "Chill," he said, returning the elbow with interest as he scanned the docks. "You jump out of a vehicle and run for a ship you're gonna attract a bullet."

  "You'd know," came a voice from behind them. A high-pitched, almost boyish giggle accompanied the words. His seatmate's lip curled.

  "Let it go." His words blocked the other man's hasty retort. He tensed under Caine's restraining hand, but said nothing more.

  "The annoyance," as they called their accomplice in the rear jump seat, began a singsong chant as Caine resumed his scrutiny of the scene. "Walker rules, Walker rules." The noise cut off abruptly as Spike popped the driver's door open and jumped down. Caine released the breath he'd been holding. The man behind them was nuts, literally, but a hell of a disabler. His nimble, mad mind held the wiring diagrams of virtually every alarm system ever made. So far, no configuration had stymied him.

  The disembodied chant resumed. A fanatical follower, the annoyance had tattooed the drug lord's name into his forearm. In odd moments, Caine had caught him stroking the inked image, muttering over and over that he would do anything to serve. Anything.

  It creeped Caine out to think about it.

  "Fuckin' weasel." His seatmate vocalized Caine's line of thinking. Skill kept the annoyance alive. His crazy cackling was nerve-wracking, especially in close quarters. After the past few months shut up in the warehouse, they all wanted him as dead as Jimmy Hoffa.

  Spike returned and jerked the door open. "Move it. Time's a-wastin'."

  Caine dropped down from the vehicle's high seat, felt the vibration of the ship's engines through the soles of his boots. The wind slapped the water onto the pilings, and the ocean's tang teased his nostrils. The breeze ruffled his dark hair, reminding him to put on the black knit hat he had tucked in his hip pocket. He saw others doing the same as they made their way to the swaying gangway.

  "Party time," Spike said to the waiting captain as he led the group across the deck. Within minutes they were in the helicopter, and the pilot had the engines revving. Power thrummed in the air as the rotors circled. The go-ahead signal thumped on the machine's heavy hide, and they lifted off.

  Their target was two hundred miles inland. They would fly along North Carolina's Outer Banks, turning west over the scarcely populated border counties, to avoid the radar at Cherry Hill Air Station. Heading north, they'd cross the line into Virginia's heartland, well beyond range of the searching electronics at the naval base in Virginia Beach.

  Under the scope of military radar, the jet engines ate up the miles as the helicopter headed for the outskirts of Richmond. Caine visualized the route. He wished he'd known about the helicopter. There was no way, now, that his FBI colleagues would make it to Dana Markham's house in time to remove her and put decoys in place. He'd been sure it would be at least another two weeks, but had put an emergency plan together as well.

  With this, even the emergency plan was shot to hell. The timing, set for driving, would be skewed by at least four hours.

  Dana, formerly Mrs. Donovan Walker, and her son were on their own. As the city lights faded behind him, Caine thought, God help them.

  With no hesitation, Dana strode into her son's room, the dog padding at her side. She slipped a hand over his mouth before shaking his shoulder. They'd practiced midnight escapes, so once she woke him he'd know what to do. As he drew breath to scream, she whispered his name, forestalling it.

  "Xavier, he's come."

  "Outside?"

  "Whisper," she returned, mentally praising her astute ten-year-old while simultaneously praying for his safety. "It's a helicopter, running in silent mode. They'll probably have thermal imaging and sound detection on board, so if you talk in a normal voice it'll be picked up. Let's give 'em something to hear, exactly the way we've practiced. Tell me in a regular voice that you had a nightmare."

  "Mom. Hey. Must'a had a bad dream. Sorry to wake you."

  "You okay?" The play-acting was killing her.

  "Yeah, yeah."

  She leaned low. "Go to the hall bath, use it. On my word, lie on the floor and get as close to that cast iron tub as you can manage."

  "What—"

  "Just do it." She didn't want to tell him that bullets wouldn't go through cast iron the way they would sheet-rock. Besides, Donovan didn't want to hurt Xavier. On the other hand, he wanted her—the woman who'd sent him to jail—dead, so he could claim his heir.

  They rose together. She slid her arm around his waist and hugged him to her side.

  Sparing a moment, she cursed the day she'd married Donovan Walker. Nothing made her regret Xavier, but if only she hadn't told Donovan about the boy and then naively, foolishly believed in happily ever after.

  "Got to go to the bathroom," he said, right on cue.
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  "Okay, I'll wait and tuck you in."

  "Mom ..." She sensed his fear as he paused in the bathroom doorway.

  "I know, I know, you're a big boy. Don't tell me. I'm your mom. I get to do these things." And please, God, let me do them for a long time, she prayed. Smiling, she blew a kiss, and mouthed the words, "I love you, Xavier."

  Hardening her heart to the anguish she saw in his expression, she leaned down to press her face into Shadow's fur. The shepherd was trained in Schutzhund, German guard training. She whispered her orders in German.

  Shadow stiffened under her hands and, before she'd finished speaking, he'd angled his body between Xavier and the door. Ninety-five pounds of muscle, teeth, and power protected her child. In the glow of the nightlight, Xavier caressed the dog's ears, and she caught a glimpse of his countenance, white and strained.

  Turning away, she leaned on the wall. With a deep breath, she mustered her strength. Her strategy was sketchy, but there was no time to improve it. Dread stretched her nerves. Knowing every second counted, she hurried to the guest bedroom, opened the closet, and plucked two small remotes from the box she pulled off the shelf.

  There was no telling how many men he'd sent. Any minute now they'd move in. The helicopter couldn't come too close to the house, because of the trees. One man, then, would stay in the chopper. If it was a fourseater, she'd have three to deal with; a six-seater would mean four or five.

  Since her ex never wasted resources, her bet was four, which meant a trio on the ground. After all, in Donovan's mind, it was a woman and a kid. How hard could it be?

  She needed to go toward her bedroom to keep them guessing. If they had heat-seeking technology, they might wait until she went to the rear of the house. It would be their chance to kill her and not hit Xavier.

  Everything she'd learned taking advanced firearms courses and survival skills classes blurred through her mind, a refresher course on high-speed. If this, then that; the mentally projected scenarios changed like the devil's vacation slides.

  A shiver ran down her spine. Every trap she'd set would have to work perfectly to get three intruders. If she was lucky, the chopper pilot would bug out after the first explosion.