Maybe she would go in and get the mail, she thought. It wasn’t her job, but she enjoyed it so did it anyway. It had only been a couple of days since she’d been in to the small post office window in the back of the general store, but there likely were some things for the crew. Nick in particular had a loving wife who constantly sent him whatever she thought would feel like a bit of home to him.
She decided to go, hoping the drive might clear her head. She checked to see if anyone needed anything. Everyone except Draven, that is; she felt better if she simply avoided him altogether. It had been difficult to approach him on the beach. And not just because every time she saw him all those awful memories flooded back. It was also because this was a setting for love, for romance, and the very idea made her uncomfortable.
She took one of the pickup trucks that wasn’t needed at the moment. When she started it, the radio came on to a Caribbean station out of Belize City. The music was upbeat and she left it on, thinking it might help lift her spirits. By the time she pulled out onto the main road, she was already feeling better.
Chapter 9
“Seen Grace?”
The man on the grader shook his head. “Not in the last hour or so.”
Draven felt an odd sort of pressure building inside him. This was the third person he’d asked who hadn’t seen Grace for too long for his comfort. He’d checked the trailer, and her motor home, and everywhere work was going on, all the places she would usually be. Nothing. It was out of character for her, and any change in routine right now made him edgy.
Not that she had to check in with him anytime she went somewhere. She’d left the site before, for this errand or that, and he hadn’t known. But she’d not been gone this long before.
Nor, he thought suddenly, had it bothered him. Not like this, anyway. But right now her simply being out of sight was bothering him. And he wasn’t sure why.
So, figure it out, he told himself. And his own thought reminded him of what else he needed to figure out, what Grace had said to him on the beach.
He set off to check the perimeter, as he did often during the day. He did his best thinking off by himself, and right now he had the feeling his best thinking was what he needed.
“I’ve told Sergeant Espinoza he must go after el mercader, but he has not done anything. I begin to wonder why,” Mayor Remington said, wringing his hands.
“I’m sure you have,” Grace said.
“I cannot tell you how upset I am, that this man is on my island to begin with, let alone that he is interfering with your work.”
Interfering wasn’t the word she’d use, not after that too-near miss with Chuck, but she didn’t say so. It also wasn’t “his” island; Redstone owned from the border of the airstrip site south. But again she said nothing. The man was obviously upset, and she didn’t want to make it worse.
He had flagged her down as she was walking through the grocery store to the post office window at the back. He looked as if he’d been wadding up what hair he had, and his shirt was damp with sweat. Of course, why he would wear a rayon shirt in this climate was beyond her.
But she knew he was genuinely concerned, so when he asked she told him, yes, they’d had more incidents since he’d last heard, but nothing recent. Redstone Security, she told him, had taken care of that.
“You’re certain? El mercader is very clever.”
“Redstone Security is the best,” she told him. And Draven is the one who made it that way. “I’m not worried any longer, so don’t you worry.”
She felt a little ridiculous, reassuring the mayor, but it was true. She felt the project was much safer now. Draven had seen to that.
“Good,” he said. “This airstrip will be a good thing for my island.”
“Redstone will be good for your island,” she promised.
She managed to break free of him then, and continued back to pick up the mail. The clerk, a friendly woman named Yvette, greeted her cheerfully, and said, yes, they had some mail waiting. While the woman gathered it up Grace asked about her granddaughter, always guaranteed to bring on an excited stream of chatter and a display of the latest photographs. She responded enthusiastically, exclaimed appropriately, which wasn’t difficult; the child was a little beauty with huge, dark eyes.
Coming had been a good idea, Grace decided as she walked back to the truck with the armful of mail. She felt much better now, just getting away for a while. Although she was a little concerned about Sergeant Espinoza after what the mayor had said. She’d have to mention it to Draven.
She got into the truck and set the mail beside her. She started the engine and quickly rolled down the windows to let the heat that had built escape. After she fastened her seat belt, she checked the box addressed to Nick before starting out, to make sure it was secure on the seat.
She smiled, wondering what his wife had sent this time. There were always magazines from home, which Nick handed off to his eager co-workers, usually some home baked cookies—he wasn’t quite so generous with those—and a selection of miscellaneous things that often had more than one crew member sighing for home.
Funny, people came to this tropical place from far away, thought of it as paradise and were reluctant to leave. But her crew was homesick. It was different being here for work, she supposed. And being away from family always took a toll. She’d seen more than one marriage crumble under the strain of constant travel. Including her own.
Of course, that had been only one of the problems she and Russell had had. He hadn’t liked her choice of careers, either. Although he never actually said it, she suspected he’d wished she was in a more traditionally feminine field. And he had continually sniped at Redstone, in the manner of a person trying to raise himself up by tearing down better people.
But the most critical problem had always been the simple fact that he no longer wanted to be a father. Or Marly’s father, she amended, not that it made any difference. His indifference to the girl who tried so hard to win his approval, who was still trying even in the face of his total rejection, hurt Grace more than anything Russell could ever do to Grace herself.
She smothered a sigh; this was old, worn ground and there was no point in going over it again. With an odd little start she realized that this could be credited to Draven as well; since the sabotage had started she’d been too distracted by that to spare even a thought for her ex. Until now.
She pondered this as she drove back to the site. So much had changed since Draven had come here. Just like it had the first time he’d come into her life.
Sometimes she wondered just how accurately she remembered that day. She’d spent so much time trying not to, but some images seemed inescapable. And one of them was Draven’s face when he’d told her what he was going to do. She hadn’t realized until much later how unusual that was, for him to show any emotion at all.
He certainly didn’t now, she thought. She could never be sure what he was really thinking. Not that it mattered, of course, but—
The truck backfired. The loud crack made her jump. That must have made her jerk the wheel, because the truck suddenly careened sideways.
No, not a backfire. A blowout. A tire.
She barely had time to realize it before, with a sickening lurch, the truck began to roll. The slope wasn’t steep, but it was enough. Her seat belt dug into her as the passenger side hit the ground. Side. Top. Other side.
And in that moment she remembered the lagoon at the bottom of the slope.
There was no sign of any disturbance along the perimeter, but Draven kept walking.
What would you do if you were on the other side? Grace had asked.
What would he do? If, say, this airstrip was being built by the drug lord, and his assignment was to stop it by whatever means necessary? And so far, attacks on the project hadn’t worked? What would he do?
He stopped dead in his tracks. His stomach plummeted. He should have realized this long ago. It was the final vicious piece of evidence that proved he was past i
t, that he shouldn’t be here at all. There was no excuse for this not occurring to him until now.
He knew exactly what he’d do next if he was that guy on the other side. He’d go after the one person whose removal would bring everything to a halt.
He’d go after Grace.
He headed back to the work site at a run, leaping shrubbery and fallen trees. The trailer was still empty, and there was no sign she’d been back here. He started looking for Nick. If anybody on the crew knew where she was, he should. Unfortunately he was also sometimes hard to find. Being a typical Redstone employee, he ran every piece of machinery there was, wherever and whenever it was needed and the regular operator wasn’t available.
He was heading for the compactor he’d last seen Nick running when he caught a glimpse of Marly sitting beside the native plants she was supposed to have finished sorting so the replanting could start. He changed directions abruptly and headed that way.
“Where’s your mother?” he asked when she looked up as he got within a few feet.
“I. D. K. and I. D. C.”
Her tone was immediately recognizable as sarcastic, but it took him a split second to translate the verbal shorthand into “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Exasperation at her shot through him.
“No time for your moods. Where is she?”
She looked startled by his words, or the fierceness of them. “How should I know? She’s the one who keeps me on a leash, not the other way around.”
Draven knelt down to get on her level, well knowing the effect his stare had on people when he wanted it to. And he wanted it to now.
“When you’re being a bitch, you should be on a leash.”
The girl’s eyes widened and she drew back. And then she met his gaze and paled. She wasn’t too young to see it, he thought, that thing in his eyes that made people far more dangerous than this girl quail. He supposed he shouldn’t use it on a child, but this was too important. He’d use whatever he had to use.
He asked again, in a deadly quiet voice. “Where is she?”
“She…might have gone to get the mail. In town.”
He stood, and turned to go without a word. Then he looked back, not sure why he felt the need to try again to get through to this child.
“While you’re sitting there, maybe you should think hard about what your life would really be like without her.”
He caught up with Nick. The man confirmed what Marly had said, that the last thing he’d heard under discussion was a trip to town for the mail.
“But that was well over an hour ago. If she went, she should have been back by now.” Unlike Marly, Nick was quick to pick up on Draven’s growing tension. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Just my gut,” Draven said.
“You think she’s in trouble?”
Draven hesitated. He wasn’t one for involving civilians in his work. But if Grace had been gone for an hour on an errand that should have taken fifteen minutes, there was only one answer to Nick’s question. And it might take more than one person to logistically handle.
“Possible,” he said.
Before he could say any more Nick was off the machine and pulling off his work gloves.
“Let’s go,” he said, and headed toward the area where the auxiliary vehicles were parked.
When they were in the last pickup truck, before he started the engine, Nick looked at Draven.
“You got some kind of weapon?”
“Yes.”
Nick studied him for a moment, and Draven wondered if he’d deduced that was why he was driving, so that Draven could keep his hands free.
Nick left it at that, to Draven’s relief, and they started to move.
If the cay had traffic cops they would surely have been after Nick on this run. Draven was glad; it saved him from having to ask the man to step on it.
“We see Yvette first?” Nick asked at the edge of town.
“Post office?”
“Such as it is,” he answered.
“Look for the truck first, then there.”
Nick nodded. They drove the main street, checked the few side streets, with no luck. Nick glanced at Draven, who nodded to indicate the post office was next.
Draven followed as Nick led the way through the small store that seemed to carry everything from produce to hammers. The woman behind the counter in the back smiled as they reached the window, and said hello to Nick.
“Hi, Yvette,” the man said. “You seen Ms. O’Conner?”
“Grace? She was just here this afternoon.”
“When?” Draven asked, only aware of the tension in his voice when he saw the woman frown.
“Just after lunch. Maybe…one?”
Damn, Draven thought. Definitely over an hour ago.
“Did she say where she was going?” Nick asked the woman.
“No. I thought she was going right back.” She smiled at him. “She had picked up your package, and said she knew you’d be anxious to get it.”
Nick at least remembered to thank the woman; Draven was already halfway to the door.
The size of Matola City was an advantage in this case; Draven took one side of the main street and instructed Nick to take the other. Within half an hour they’d hit every open business and service, only to come up empty. No one else seemed to have seen Grace.
“Now what?” Nick asked.
Draven felt a qualm as the man looked at him for the solution. He was used to this. It was who he was. Redstone people looked to him for answers to things like this. When the darker side of real life intruded into their world, it was John Draven they turned to for help. But in this instant, at this moment, he didn’t know what to do.
Never in his adult life had he felt like this. In the service, or with Redstone. No matter what the situation, he’d always been able to do. Something.
It’s finally happened, he thought. He’d shut down completely. Just as he’d feared. Just as he’d expected.
He’d just never expected it to be at a time when he desperately didn’t want it to happen. That’s what he’d been trying to avoid by quitting.
“What should we do?” Nick asked.
Draven’s stomach clenched, the only response from a gut that was usually utterly reliable in coming up with strategy. Something. Anything.
If your gut’s silent, use your head, he ordered himself. Draw on experience. He had enough of that. What would he normally do in this situation?
“Backtrack,” he said. “Trace her route.”
Nick nodded as if Draven had come up with the best possible plan. He trailed after Nick as he headed back to their vehicle, feeling as if he were doing it because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Draven sat in the passenger seat, thinking he’d never felt so much like exactly that, a passenger. He was no longer the man in charge, no longer the go-to guy. He’d known it was coming. And perhaps he should have known that when it hit, it would be at the worst possible time. He should have—
“I think I see something.”
He looked up as the truck slowed down.
“Over there,” Nick said, pointing.
Draven looked. He saw what the man meant, the disturbance in the dirt at the edge of the road.
“Stop,” he said.
Before the truck had stopped rolling he was out and heading for the place Nick had spotted.
Tire tracks. There were tire tracks on the shoulder. Tracks that showed every evidence of a skid. And just over the lip of the road he could see the tops of shrubs that had been bent, twisted, smashed.
His breath jammed in his throat. He had to force himself to take that last step to look down the slope. Force himself, because he knew what he was going to see at the bottom of the slope. And when he got there, he saw it.
The truck Grace had been driving.
Upside down.
Cab under water.
Draven heard a shout just before he hit the water. He ignored it. He was focused only on that u
pended truck, as he had been throughout his mad, crashing race down the slope. It didn’t matter that logic told him it had happened too long ago. It didn’t matter that logic told him if she was inside, she was dead. After all, she’d been written off before and had survived.
He was at the truck in seconds; the water wasn’t deep, but it was deep enough to drown in. It was also murky. Unlike the water of the sea, the lagoon water was stationary enough for various plant organisms to flourish. He got to the cab. It had dug into the silty bottom a few inches. On some level his mind was registering that the silt had had time to settle, but he refused to let the significance of that in.
He grabbed the sill of the window and pulled himself down, trying not to stir up the bottom and cloud the waters. He knew the moment he got even with the portion left exposed that he’d never be able to get inside. He couldn’t even be sure Grace could have gotten out.
He didn’t want to look but knew he had to. He had to.
The cab was empty.
“Now you just hold on there,” Nick said, grabbing Grace’s arm and pulling her back from the water’s edge. “That boy can hold his breath a mighty long time.”
“But—”
“No sense in you going back in there, not when you’re lucky to have gotten out.”
“It’s not that deep,” she said. “If the truck hadn’t rolled upside down, I would barely have gotten wet.”
“Then you don’t need to worry about him, do you?” Nick said, nodding toward the water.
Grace opened her mouth, stopped and frowned at him. “That was sneaky.”
Nick grinned. “Yes, wasn’t it? I—Ah, there he is.”
Her head snapped around just in time to see Draven’s head pop up, and hear him take in a gulp of air. The kind he hadn’t needed diving to the sunken inflatable the other day. He hadn’t been down that much longer, but obviously he’d used more of the air he’d stored in his lungs.
He got to where he could stand up in waist-deep water, lifting his arms to slick his dripping hair back and clear the salty water from his eyes. Grace stared at him, thinking all those wet T-shirt contests over the years had been held for the wrong gender. Her fingers curled into her palms.
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