Dominic’s heartbeat accelerated as he considered telling Jose to entertain himself and taking Paloma back upstairs to his bed, then he discarded the thought. Instead, he slipped a hand beneath the weight of her hair.
“Paloma, my love, there is someone I want you to meet.”
Kelly nodded as he led her into the salon. It wasn’t until the man on the sofa looked up that she realized today she would die. The last time she’d seen this man, he’d been on his way to prison.
“Madre di Dios!” Jose said, and jumped to his feet.
Kelly tensed, then sighed. There was nowhere to run, and even if there had been, there was no time to do it. Besides, she knew not to let them see her fear.
“Well, well,” she drawled. “Jose! Long time no see.”
Dominic frowned. “What is going on here? You two know each other?”
“We should,” Kelly said. “I helped put him in prison.”
Dominic’s lips went slack. “What are you saying?”
Jose started to smile. “So…chica…now the shoe is on the other foot, no?”
“You still stink,” Kelly said, bracing herself for the blow. The fist to her gut doubled her over.
Dominic cursed with dismay and grabbed Jose’s arm.
“Talk to me now, or I swear to God I will kill you myself,” he said.
“Somebody played you for a fool. She’s DEA.”
Dominic flinched, his eyes widening and his nostrils flaring as he stared at her in disbelief.
“No,” he muttered. “I do not believe this.”
Kelly pulled herself upright, then lifted her chin, unwilling to let them see her fear.
“As much as I hate to admit it,” she said. “Old Joe is right.”
Using the American version of his name made Jose flush with anger. He grabbed her hair and yanked, pulling her head backward and exposing the tender vulnerability of her neck.
“Let me kill her,” he begged. “She cost me three years of my life. Please, Dom…give her to me.”
“No,” Dominic said, and slapped Jose’s hand away, then curled his fingers around Kelly’s neck. “Why?” Dominic asked. “Why are you here?”
“Had to use some vacation time or lose it,” Kelly said.
Dominic slapped her, as if brushing a fly from his sleeve, then turned and shouted. The sound reverberated throughout the entire downstairs.
“Miguel! Come here now!”
Seconds later, a stocky Latino with a pockmarked face and a ponytail hanging halfway down his back came running into the room. It wasn’t often that Dominic behaved in such a manner, but when he did, they all knew someone had made a mistake.
“Sí, Patron, how can I help you?”
Dominic pointed at Kelly. “You brought this woman into my organization.”
Miguel started to sweat. “But no, Patron…you are the one who hired her to come to this lab.”
Dominic pulled out his gun and shot him where he stood. At the sound, a half-dozen men came running with guns drawn.
“Get him out of here,” Dominic snarled.
Fearing they might be next, they did as he asked without question.
Then Dominic turned to Kelly. “So, puta, you think you can take me down?”
Kelly smiled.
It wasn’t the reaction Dominic expected. Suddenly realization dawned. His stupid brother-in-law. He should have killed him years ago.
“It was Ponce, wasn’t it?”
“Who’s Ponce?” Kelly asked.
Dominic slapped her again.
“Please, Dom…let me kill her,” Jose begged.
Dominic stared at her for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes, I will let you kill her…but not until I know what information she’s already told…and to who.” He pointed toward the back of the house. “Go find Esteban. Tell him to get the chopper ready. It’s such a fine day, I think we’ll fly to the coast and take the boat out on the water. I have a hunger to see Galveston…maybe do some fishing in the beautiful waters of the bay.”
Jose started to smile. Now he understood. Torture was a noisy business, and screams were easily lost in the vastness of the ocean.
Kelly stifled a shudder as she held herself erect.
“Better bring along some Dramamine. I have a tendency toward motion sickness.”
Dominic smirked at her. “You should not worry about getting seasick. Before I am through with you, you will wish you were dead.”
Kelly made herself smile. “Don’t any of you assholes have new material? That’s what all the bad guys say.”
Dominic doubled up his fist and hit her on the chin. She went down without a sound.
“Now, miss smart-mouth, what do you have to say about that?”
Kelly woke up with the sun in her face again. She thought it was the second, or maybe the third, day on Ortega’s boat. As she had predicted, she’d been seasick—so seasick that the beatings he had administered had been ineffectual. She’d thrown up on his pants and his shoes, and once on the front of his shirt. Ironically, it was Kelly’s misery that was keeping her alive.
Now she was awake again. She lay without moving or opening her eyes, wanting them to think she was still unconscious, even though her stomach had finally settled. It took a few moments for her to realize the boat was at anchor and the sea was relatively calm. Fear spiked. If she couldn’t get sick, she would probably get dead.
God help me out of this…please!
Footsteps sounded aft. She wanted to turn around and look but was unwilling to face her devil. A seagull squawked from somewhere overhead; then she heard another, then another, as the sound of flapping wings broke the stillness of the air. As she listened, another familiar sound penetrated her consciousness, but one more distant than the birds. It was the sound of waves upon the shore. But what shore—and how far away was it? If only she knew where Ortega had anchored the boat.
“She’s awake.”
That was Jose Garza. Kelly recognized his voice and moaned, wishing for that familiar lurch in her stomach that would signal another outpouring of bile, but nothing stirred.
“If she pukes on me again, I will kill her where she lies.”
That voice belonged to Dominic Ortega. Silently, Kelly started to pray.
Pain shattered her concentration as the toe of a boot connected with her ribs. She moaned and tried to roll over, only to find one of her wrists had been tied to the deck.
“Sit up, bitch.”
Kelly opened her eyes. Dominic was leaning over her with the blade of a knife held to her throat.
“Then untie me,” she mumbled.
Dominic frowned, then motioned to Jose, who quickly released her.
Kelly sat up slowly, testing her equilibrium against the gentle rocking of the boat. She looked up just in time to see Ortega’s fist coming at her. She turned, trying to miss the blow, and in doing so, caused it to land at the back of her head, rather than the side of her jaw. The blow was teeth-jarring, as was the pain that shot through her head as his ring cut through her flesh.
She fell backward from the impact, then rolled onto her side. As she did, the image of her mother’s face flashed through her mind. Her mother had been dead for almost nine years. Maybe this was God’s way of preparing her for her own “crossing” into another life. Then Ortega’s fingers fisted in her hair.
“Who is your contact?” he growled. “What have you told him?”
Kelly rolled over onto her back, her eyes blazing with anger and hate.
“You’re crazier than you look if you think I’m going to tell you anything,” Kelly muttered. “For once, be a man and just get this over with.”
Ortega sneered. “I’ll show you a man.” He began to unbuckle his belt.
“If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,” Kelly said, then stifled a groan when Jose ran the blade of his knife along the bottoms of both her feet.
Her dismissal of his manhood fueled Ortega’s hate even more. He moved closer, ready
to take her there on the deck, when someone shouted from below.
It was the first time Kelly had ever felt relief on hearing someone shout “Fire!”
Dominic spun abruptly, telling Jose to guard her, and bolted toward the door leading below deck.
Jose grinned as he straddled her legs, then ran a hand down the front of his fly, as if promising Kelly that he was next.
But that didn’t scare her. In fact, his presence was almost a gift, because for the moment they were alone. As if on cue, he leaned down, reaching for the bodice of her dress. He grabbed it and pulled, ripping it away. Now, except for a pair of panties, she was completely nude. His mouth went slack as his gaze slid to the lushness of her breasts.
In that moment Kelly pulled her legs up against her belly, then kicked, driving the bones of his nose into his brain with the heel of her right foot. Jose Garza was dead before he hit the deck.
Kelly rolled to her feet and grabbed the knife from his hand just as a gun-toting guard came running up the steps. She kicked again, taking satisfaction in the sound of breaking bone as his head suddenly lolled on a broken neck.
With only moments to spare, she checked the horizon, then stared in disbelief. Unless she was dreaming, what she was seeing was the skyline of Galveston.
Before she could react, she heard someone coming back up the steps. Whatever had been on fire down below had obviously been dealt with. When she saw Dominic appear, she tensed. He saw the bodies of the two men on the deck and reached for his gun. Kelly threw the knife before his gun cleared his belt. It hit with a solid, sickening thud, piercing Ortega’s chest and burying itself up to the hilt. The last thing she saw before going over the side was the disbelief on his face.
The water enfolded her, wrapping her in the cold wet arms of freedom. Even if Ortega was dead, it didn’t mean she was safe. There were still men on the boat, and they had the guns, not her.
Then she thought of the anchor chain and dived under the hull. If it hadn’t been for the buoyancy of the water, she would never have been able to tangle the anchor chain through the blades of the propeller. Almost out of breath, and afraid of what was waiting up above, she kicked off from beneath the boat and began to swim, surfacing only after she’d put some distance between herself and her captors.
She looked back only once when she broke the surface of the water. Men were running about the deck with cell phones at their ears, while others were leaning over the side, looking for her. Just then a shout went up as someone saw her. She took a deep breath and was going back under when she heard the captain trying to start up the engine. The propellers sheared instantly, leaving them dead in the water.
It was the only break Kelly was going to get. She surfaced again a few moments later, took one last look toward the west to get her bearings and began to swim.
There wasn’t enough electricity to make Texas comfortable in July. And for that reason Texas Ranger Quinn McCord had opted to use up some mandatory leave by fishing at the Galveston beach. It wasn’t any cooler there, but it was wet, and the cove where he was fishing was, for the moment, unusually quiet.
He kept thinking of his partner, Frank Hardy, and how much he would have enjoyed being here. Frank liked to fish. Quinn didn’t. But today Quinn was fishing for Frank, because last week Frank had been murdered. Four months from retirement, Frank Hardy had walked into a bar to meet Quinn, then died at his feet. Of course the bullet in his back had helped matters along. Quinn’s reaction had been to put a third eye on the forehead of the scum-sucking back-shooter and ask questions later. Thus the reason for his mandatory leave and the still-brewing anger in his gut.
He picked up a chunk of fish from the bucket near his feet and worked it onto the hook, then cast into the surf. The odor emanating from the bucket, as well as from his hands, set his teeth on edge. It was only Tuesday, with six days remaining in his week of R and R. He wasn’t sure, but he might just go mad from the lassitude.
A stiff and unexpected breeze suddenly lifted the Texas Rangers baseball cap from his head and sent it rolling across the sand. He dropped the fishing rod and gave chase, retrieving it moments later. It wasn’t until after he’d knocked off the sand and was turning around that he realized someone was coming out of the surf.
He settled the cap back on his head and readjusted his sunglasses as he continued to watch. He didn’t know when he became aware that it was a woman, but he knew to the second when he realized she wasn’t wearing any clothes. It was right before the breath in his lungs somehow sank into his belly, then did a one-eighty flop. He tried to tell himself the reaction was from lack of breakfast and not his self-imposed moratorium on sex, but it was a hard sell. Except for a pair of thin, filmy panties that had gone transparent when wet, she was as naked as the day she’d been born. And, like the flesh and blood man that he was, he stood in silent appreciation of the sight, thinking how Frank would have loved to be standing beside him right now.
He tossed around the thought of a polite retreat and then ignored it. If she wanted to skinny-dip on a public beach, then she couldn’t be the bashful type, so he watched, admiring the length of bare leg emerging from the receding water, and unconsciously took a step forward.
Quinn saw her freeze as she caught the movement of his body. Swiftly, she turned to face him. It was then that he saw her panic, at the same time that he saw the blood trickling down from her hairline. The cop in him took over as he realized she hadn’t gone skinny-dipping after all. He started toward her, and as he did, she took a tentative step backward.
At that point, Quinn stopped.
Uncertain how to proceed without frightening her more than she already was, he lifted his hand then called out.
“Lady…are you all right?”
She staggered on her feet, then squinted, as if trying to adjust her vision to the man before her.
“Mel? Mel Gibson?”
Quinn frowned. “No, ma’am. I’m sure no Mel Gibson.”
“Could have fooled me,” she said, then looked over her shoulder and then back at him, as if debating with herself as to whether to face the devil she knew or the one she did not. Something seemed to settle her decision as she turned her back to the water and began coming toward him. Before she’d gone a yard, she began to stumble.
Quinn cursed beneath his breath and bolted toward her, catching her as she went to her knees. Her long dark hair was plastered to her shoulders in ribbons, and her skin was as cold as ice. It seemed strange, considering the heat of the day, and he feared she was going into shock. He kept reminding himself that he’d sworn to uphold the law, not break it, and wondered if there was a catch and release rule for mermaids on this beach.
“I think I need help,” she mumbled, and started to shake.
It was then that he saw the scratches and cuts on her arms and belly, and a large and fading bruise on the right side of her face. Whatever had been happening to her hadn’t happened all at once. It looked as if someone had been beating the hell out of her for the better part of a week.
Waves broke against Quinn’s legs as he scooped her into his arms and started wading out of the surf toward shore. He headed toward his truck, her head lolling limply against his shoulder as he went. Moments later, he slid her into the passenger side of the seat and then reached across her, retrieving his cell phone from the console.
At that point the woman opened her eyes, saw the phone in his hand and grabbed his wrist with surprising force. Her teeth were chattering and her lips were blue, but her voice was surprisingly firm.
“Hey, Mel…what are you doing?”
“Calling an ambulance and then the police.”
She shuddered, then took a deep breath, not knowing how far Ortega’s power might reach, she opted for staying out of public. Maybe they’d think she drowned.
“If you do, they’ll find me. If they find me, I’m dead.”
“Who?” Quinn asked. “Who’s after you?”
She pointed back toward the ocean, then sl
umped forward.
Quinn grabbed her again, just in time to keep her from banging her head on the dash of his truck. With a heartfelt sigh of frustration, he settled her into the seat, then took off his T-shirt and covered her nudity as best he could.
Now what? he wondered. Don’t let who find her? Was she one of the good guys or one of the bad ones? Just because she was beautiful and naked didn’t mean she was innocent. He wasn’t sure what to do.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered, then looked out at the horizon, wondering what—or who—she’d been looking for.
She moaned, and it was enough to drag him out of indecision. He glanced at her one last time, then went to retrieve his things. Leaving the bait bucket on the shore, he folded up his lawn chair and grabbed his gear, then loaded everything into the truck.
The woman was still lying motionless inside the cab. Her stillness was beginning to concern him even more than what she’d said. Making sure she was safely inside, he shut the door. By the time he slid beneath the wheel and started the engine, he’d made up his mind to trust her. Every instinct he had told him he was probably making a mistake by not notifying the authorities, but he kept remembering the fear in her eyes when she’d looked back at the sea.
Then he reminded himself that he was a Texas Ranger, so technically, the authorities had been notified. He just needed to get her warm and dry, and her wounds tended. After that, he might get the answers to his questions.
Satisfied that he’d worked out the immediate details, he began to back away from the beach toward the access road. When the tires hit firm ground, he turned the vehicle around and headed toward his motel.
He was so busy watching the woman and the traffic that he almost didn’t see the sleek cigarette boat paralleling the shore. But when he glanced up in the rearview mirror and saw sunlight catch on the windshield of the boat, his heart skipped a beat. It didn’t have to mean anything. There were plenty of boaters, but this one was going slow—too slow—as if searching for something or someone. He looked again and saw a trio of men standing on the deck with binoculars, searching the coastline. When the skin on the back of his neck suddenly crawled, he laid a protective hand on her shoulder and stomped on the gas.
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