The low tone of his voice smoothed her ragged-edged nerves. Deep breaths calmed her, and she managed a wobbly smile. “Some undercover agent I am, falling apart on a mission.”
“You had cause. No harm done.”
She cocked her head, intrigued by his insight. “You knew about the guilt reflex. How’d you get to be so smart about domestic abuse?”
He kissed her forehead and released her. “I did a little research after you told me … about Gabe. I’m not a total wipeout on the computer.”
He’d investigated abuse because he cared about her. Sensitive, intuitive and totally denying both. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He ruffled her hair, letting his hand linger a little too long to be strictly playful. “I’ll go rustle up something for lunch.”
She watched him disappear below and accepted what her heart already knew. She’d moved past the barrier of her self-imposed rules, beyond friendship and caring. Her heart hiccupped with a shock wave of realization.
Between them was a chemistry that set her on fire. A longing for connection in every way possible. A comfortable warmth that could turn to jagged need with a touch or a look. A magical fluttering in her heart and in her stomach. But she wouldn’t utter the word, even to herself.
Heart thundering and knees liquifying, she sank onto a deck chair. How did this happen? How could she fall for Simon? Simon who ran from relationships. And she who wouldn’t allow herself to be trapped again.
Just sex between friends, she’d thought two days ago. No strings, no commitment.
But that was when real danger to her heart seemed remote. If they became intimate again now, she wouldn’t have the strength to fight her feelings for him. Her heart and her emotions were still too brittle, too fragile. She pressed both hands to her chest in an effort to calm her racing heart.
Two years ago, his rejection had forced her away from a walk on the wild side with Simon. If she wanted to survive, she had to walk away again.
***
At dusk, Simon found Janna sitting cross-legged on the swim platform and staring toward Roszca’s dock. The setting sun silhouetting her slim form made her skin seem to glow.
Man, he had it bad. The woman was making him a poetry freak. Or maybe he was just tired. Tired of sucking up to his enemy. Tired of playing his hoodlum role. And tired of not letting anyone in — especially Janna.
Enough of that. She was plotting something after hours on the computer. Her long silences, muttered words and furrowed brow meant her geek brain was onto something.
“Gold doubloon for your thoughts,” he said, joining her on the platform.
“Whoa. You reading my mind?” She nodded toward Roszca’s yacht at the island’s dock. “Look beyond Prowler there, to that point of the shore beyond.”
He scanned the shoreline, only a dark blob against the sunset’s glare. Small forms winged up from the point and vanished into the coming night. “I see it. You’ve done some snorkeling over there.”
“There’s a ledge just above the water level. And a cave beneath it partly concealed by overhanging plants.”
“Bats,” he said, recognizing the winged silhouettes rising from the point. His shoulders shook with an involuntary shudder. “Those were bats I saw flying out.”
“I watched them the other night and went to investigate the next time I swam. I believe it’s the entrance to one of the old pirate tunnels.”
He opened his mouth to argue with her, then closed it again. All that time she’d spent researching on the computer. If anybody could find the pirate tunnels, it was Janna. “Argh, me hearty, tell me more. How do you know it’s more than a shallow cave?”
She grinned, warming to her topic. “I found geological reports on the Internet. Old surveys of this island show that it’s similar to Jamaica. Jamaica is riddled with limestone caves. Some are horizontal, tunnels scraped out by changing sea levels. A sea-carved cave would logically open onto the water.”
He pictured her venturing inside the black hole and shuddered again. “How far inside have you gone?”
“I didn’t try. It’s dark even at noon, and I didn’t want to enter alone. The whole island is no more than two miles long. If that tunnel reaches into Roszca’s compound, it must be no more than half a mile, maybe less. Will you go with me?”
He scraped back his hair. “I set that up when I said a tunnel was the only way to get to Yelena.”
“I have tools to make sure the cave’s not booby-trapped or bugged. You can figure out a plan to rescue her. You’ve done some spelunking, haven’t you?”
“You got me. Upstate in Maryland near my cabin. There are lots of sinkholes and caves in those foothills. But you gotta know I hate bats. I hate the freaking things.”
“The bats will be gone if we go at night.”
He saw the commitment and hope shining in her gaze, and his heart melted. How could he deny her? She’d asked him to make love to help her heal. He saw compassion in her determination to free another woman from abuse, but maybe it was also a track to healing. The way things were going, rolling up the arms broker with a bogus boat race was in doubt.
Then a different possibility glimmered in his mind. A possibility that involved Yelena. Janna wouldn’t understand, and his wild idea might not work anyway. The cave might lead nowhere. If it did, Roszca probably had it blocked. But for her, he’d give it a shot.
He smoothed her hair with one hand, then lifted her chin. “We don’t have much to work with on this yacht, but I’ll see if I can put some equipment together. If we find a usable tunnel, I’ll think on a plan. Whatever we do means exceeding our orders. And involving a civilian. Breaking more rules, you copy?”
Topsy-turvy. Little Miss Rule Book was asking him to break more rules. He’d broken his own, getting involved with her beyond friendship. And damn if her sexy eyes and sexy brain weren’t tempting him to do it again.
A bright smile lifted her lips. “Thank you, Simon. Tonight then, so Roszca’s goons can’t see us. There’s no time to waste.” Her soft voice slipped into his bloodstream and dived to his groin.
Time, a scarce commodity. “Tonight,” he agreed, aware he meant more than caving and plotting a rescue.
***
Janna was careful to avoid splashing as she led Simon to the cave entrance, a shallow, black eyebrow of an arch. The lighted dial of her watch read ten-thirty. They’d waited awhile after the patrol boat’s return before swimming from the Horizon using fins and their snorkel masks.
“Damn, it’s as dark as that New York bar,” Simon said as he helped her climb into the opening. His voice reverberated in an eerie echo.
“And smells a thousand times worse.” Janna wrinkled her nose. The black cavity emitted the combined stench of guano, moldy seaweed and unidentifiable filth. “Ugh. The tides here are too shallow to wash it clean.”
She pulled off her fins and snorkel equipment and put them on the cave floor. Then she opened her waterproof knapsack by feel and dug out her headlamp and water sandals. She slipped the straps of her lamp on her head. The cone of light projecting before her cheered her immediately.
A second later, Simon’s lamp illuminated. He crouched beside her as he removed his fins and mask.
“If I’d known we’d be caving, I’d have brought equipment. Caves are cold, even in the tropics. Hey, but guano between our toes might warm our feet.” He shrugged into his pack. “Okay, Q, let’s see where this baby leads.”
His cocky attitude banished her incipient dread. Simon always made her feel better, as though she could do anything. One of the things she… No, she wasn’t going there. No warm and fuzzy feelings. No relationship trap. No more broken rules. A pang clutched her chest.
She rotated her head to move the lamp. The cavity was indeed tunnel-shaped. Inside, the rocky walls arched high enough that they could stand bent over.
In addition to a lamp and sandals, Simon’s pack contained what he’d put togeth
er for cave gear. He fished out a small compass and examined it under his headlamp. “Looks like we’re heading north. Minerals in the rock could skew the reading. No telling how deep the tunnel goes either. Wish we had some way to measure distance.”
“Or a roll of string like in the mythical labyrinth. We can’t get too lost on a small island.”
“Unless the cave goes under the sea.”
She hadn’t considered the cave going deep. Before she could reconsider, a movement ahead caught her eye. Dark wings materialized out of the tunnel’s fathomless maw. The tiny brown bat zigzagged to avoid them as it streaked by.
Simon jumped aside and slipped. He sat down hard on the rocky floor. “Damn flying rodent,” was the mildest phrase he muttered as he pushed to his feet.
She pinched her lips together to keep from laughing. “Poor Simon. I don’t know who was more scared — you or the bat. The little guy just wanted to get out.”
“He’s damned late. Aren’t they supposed to go out as soon as it’s dark?” He rubbed his behind, and his hand came away covered with guano. He glared at it.
“Apparently not.” There were twenty-one species of bats on these islands, but mentioning that bit of research didn’t seem wise at the moment.
As they moved on, he wiped his filthy hand on the side of his swim trunks. He shuddered.
In spite of the tragic losses in his life, he always projected strength and stoicism. Allowing her to see his fear meant he trusted her. That realization kindled more unwanted inner warmth against the tunnel’s chilly dampness. She shook her head at her weakness for him.
A few feet farther, her light beam caught on small creatures on the cave floor. She gasped and stumbled backward.
“It’s okay,” he said, holding out a hand. Moisture seeped from the limestone above, forming lumpy structures of minerals on the floor. “Only stalagmites. Bet they’re more scared than you.”
“Touché.” Her pulse slowed from warp speed to merely fifty knots. “A trick of the light. They looked grotesque, like slimy cave creatures.”
He twirled an invisible mustache. “Argh. Or the horrible ghost of a tortured pirate.”
She swatted at him, but he cackled a maniacal laugh and hustled ahead out of reach. “Now we’re even.”
The tunnel bored into the island in a more or less straight course. As they went deeper into the heart of the earth, the temperature dropped. They hadn’t room in their small packs for shirts or jackets.
Shivering, she rubbed her arms. Simon did the same up ahead.
They descended steadily, walking slowly on the wet rock, made slipperier with occasional bat droppings. Finally, the tunnel floor began to climb. The only sounds were their footfalls, echoing the crunch of gravel underneath.
Janna checked her watch. “Ten minutes. We’ve been in here ten minutes.”
“A hell of a cave, Q. We’ve inched along. This tunnel just might reach all the way.” He sounded more positive than earlier, downright jaunty.
Tears stung her eyes. Maybe they’d be able to help save Yelena. Getting inside and back out and even persuading the frightened woman to go with them weren’t insurmountable problems. Just difficult ones to puzzle out later. She trusted Simon to devise a strategy.
He stopped so suddenly ahead of her that she ran into his back. He snapped on the light and waved it ahead. “Something up there.”
She peered around his shoulder. “Oh, no.”
Two equally black, yawning passages diverged before them.
He lifted one shoulder. “As Yogi Berra said, ‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it.’ ”
She edged closer to his warmth and strength. Sharing body heat wasn’t a bad way to banish the chills. “Very funny, but what does your compass say?”
His brow crimped, he studied the dial. “Looks like the main tunnel’s meandered west too far. Let’s try the right fork.”
As they proceeded in the new direction, the rocky ceiling lowered until they were trudging ahead bent over.
“Smell’s worse in here,” he said.
“The guano fumes are making my eyes water,” she said. “All that ammonia. No wonder you dislike bats.”
Over the next few feet, the tunnel walls and ceiling expanded out of their lamps’ reach, forming a cavern room.
Suddenly a black, whirring cloud descended toward them.
Chapter 20
DAMN! SIMON DIVED to the cave floor, pulling Janna with him. “Down! Bats.”
The creatures objected to the invasion with a chorus of high-pitched squeaks. Wings brushed his back and stirred a noxious breeze as the flapping cloud rushed past toward the distant cave opening.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, but he’d reacted more to protect Janna than out of his irrational fear. At least he told himself that. The fleeing bats had stirred up an awful stink, but they were gone. Thank God.
Both headlamps had fallen off. One lay at a crazy angle beside them in inch-thick dung. He couldn’t see Janna’s face, but he felt the tension in her body.
Beneath him, she lay as rigid as the rock under her back. He felt the racing tattoo of her heart against his chest, the too-rapid gasp of shallow breaths. She hadn’t shown fear earlier — not of the cave itself or the bat that had, um, surprised him. When she started pushing at his chest and whimpering, he knew. He’d trapped her. He’d revived her old fears. The last thing he ever wanted to do.
He’d known a horse that had been terrified of blankets because some idiot snapped one at him as a colt. The trainer needed buckets of TLC and patience to desensitize that horse. With Janna, humor was what the doctor ordered. He rolled to the side and freed her.
Gasping, she leaped to her feet. She stood trembling, her hands fisted.
Letting her stand over him and get her bearings, he sat up and dusted his hands together. “In other circumstances, sweetheart, having your hot body beneath me in that painted-on one-piece would jump-start my hormones. But a bed of guano-covered limestone is not my idea of a turn-on.”
The fallen headlamp shined enough light that he could see when her shoulders relaxed and she eased from fight-or-flight mode. Her lips curved in a small, wavering smile. “Mine, neither.” She bent and retrieved her light.
Simon found his lamp against the cave wall. “Busted.” He held up the useless light, its wires dangling. “Sorry I jumped you, but the bats…” His skin twitched as if the ugly beasts were crawling all over him, and he shuddered.
“No, you were right. That was too many bats for me too. Ick, my back feels worse than the time my cousins buried me in the sand.” She pivoted to shine her light around the cavern.
“Hey, over there!” He urged her to the right.
On that side of the cavern, they found rotted staves of a wooden barrel and more boards with metal straps attached.
“An old chest,” she said. “Pirate booty was stored here on Isla Alta after all.”
He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Long gone. Too bad.” Looks like this is a dead end. Let’s try the other passage.”
“The compass must’ve thrown us off. As you said.”
Arm in arm to share the lamp’s illumination and their body heat, they trudged back to the fork and headed down the left passage. That tunnel had a higher ceiling, but moisture dripped from everywhere. Guano and mineral slime plastered their skin and belongings. Now they were wet too. Cold seeped into their bones, and they shivered as they picked their way over the slippery rock floor.
The reek of bat guano diminished the farther they got from the cavern room, but a new odor began to permeate the stale air. Metallic and sweet, yet sharp and nauseating. Simon breathed through his mouth, but it didn’t help much.
Up ahead, Janna’s light reflected on metal. A flat metal plate in a heavy wooden door. Her bug detector was dormant — no blinking lights, no hum.
“No electronics?” he whispered, afraid that someone on the other side could hear.
Simon spotted something ahead that he didn’t like. A firm hand on her upper arm stopped her. “Not another step. Let’s take it slow. Shine your lamp on the floor there.” He pointed to a black area five feet in front of the door.
As they approached, the black area was revealed as a hole. His heart stuttered, then sprinted at the image of Janna’s body lying broken at the bottom.
“I could’ve fallen in there. Oh, Simon!”
“You didn’t. We’re okay.” He squatted beside the stygian opening. “Hand me the lamp, would you?”
“Here you go.” She knelt beside him as he aimed the beam downward.
“It’s like a well,” he said. “Something’s there.”
He peered downward. The faint beam flickered across something white. An arm in a white jacket came into view. A leg in dark trousers. The head of a dark-skinned man bent at an unnatural angle.
Janna gasped and sat back.
“He’s dead. It’s the Jamaican chef,” Simon said, ice-edged horror sawing at his nerves. “I saw him the other day. He could’ve been dead since last night.”
“Oh, the poor man.” Her voice wavered. “Roszca killed him because dinner was late?”
“Or had him killed.” He uttered a harsh laugh. “I doubt he does his own dirty work.”
“Yelena. We have to get Yelena out.” She clutched at his arm. “I know Roszca divorced two wives, but I bet he beat them too. His level of violence is escalating. I know the signs. Simon, Yelena could die.”
He patted her hand on his arm, then smoothed back her hair at her temples. With the single light aimed away from her, he couldn’t see into her eyes, but knew they were wide with fear and worry. She’d been through hell and back. She was wet and cold and plastered with bat dung, but he was the only one who’d complained. A hell of a woman. More than a lug like him deserved. And now she wanted to throw herself in the lion’s den to save a woman she’d met only once.
“Q, take a gander at that door. There’s no handle of any kind. No lock on this side. Not even hinges. How do you figure we get through without blasting it open?” He hated telling her, but rescue looked less possible than ever.
Dark Rules (The DARK Files Book 3) Page 16