Betrayed

by Rebecca York

  Their lives meant something to him. Too bad he couldn’t say the same thing for Elena’s brother. From what he’d seen of the sorry-assed guy, he was a user who didn’t give a damn about anyone but himself.

  Which brought Shane’s thoughts back to his own ex-wife. Probably, she’d never really loved him. Probably, she’d seen him as glamorous and a good catch. But before long, she’d started stepping out on him when she thought he wouldn’t find out. On an intellectual level, he knew all women weren’t like her. But it was hard to trust one of them again. He’d let down his guard with Elena last night. It looked like that had been a mistake.

  He knew she was looking at him, waiting for him to decide what to do. He turned toward the main house, scanning the facade. So far, it appeared that no one was home. But there was no use taking chances.

  “I want to make a phone call,” he said. “Go outside—where I can see you through the window. But not on the side where you can be seen from the pool deck.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “If I wanted you to know my business, I’d let you stay inside,” he clipped out.

  He watched resignation bloom on her face. “Okay,” she whispered.

  Turning, she exited the guesthouse. Staying on the side away from the mansion, she stood where he could see her, staring in through the window.

  He kept his gaze on her as he crossed to the phone, picked it up, and made a call.

  The man on the other end of the line picked up on the first ring.

  “Glad I caught you.”

  “Shane?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Basically.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. Can you pick me and Elena up?”

  “Of course. Tell me where you are.”

  ***

  Elena waited outside, watching Shane punch in a phone number. She tried to imagine whom he was calling. And why. Was he going to turn her over to Lincoln Kinkead? Or maybe he was calling someone at Rockfort Security, the company where he actually worked.

  She thought about that as she watched him—just as he was watching her. She saw he was waiting for someone to answer. Then she saw when the person on the other end of the line picked up. She could tell he was relieved to have gotten through, and she tried to decide what that meant. Was someone coming down here to get them? Or were they going to another meeting point? Their car was back at the safe house—unless the police had taken it away—but she didn’t think they’d go back there to get it, not after the thugs had found the location.

  Her tension mounted as she watched him talking. Luckily, the call was short. Shane hung up the phone and motioned for her to come back into the house.

  She didn’t like the speculative look on his face as he studied her. She wanted to ask, “Now what?” but she kept the question to herself. What she truly wanted was for him to put his arms around her and pull her close. She wanted to know that she hadn’t totally messed up their relationship by sneaking out to make the phone call, but she couldn’t say any of that. And she had to wonder at her own motivation.

  She’d trusted him with her emotions enough to make love with him. But she hadn’t trusted him with her fears about her brother. That made an interesting contrast.

  She saw him cross to the kitchen area and start opening cabinets and the full-sized refrigerator. He found a carton of milk, opened it, and made a face before putting it back. Instead he gestured toward several cans of soft drinks. “The milk’s bad, but these should be okay.”

  She took a Coke, popped the top, and took a few swallows while he took several boxes out of the cabinet. Cookies and crackers.

  She munched on some, watching him do the same.

  “We’ll go back to the boat and get rid of the evidence that we were there. Of course, the owners might wonder where some of their clothes went,” he muttered under his breath, “unless they’ve got so many that they won’t miss them.”

  Again, she wanted to ask who he had called, but she kept the question locked behind her lips.

  After their unorthodox breakfast, he wiped down any surfaces they might have touched. Then he closed the window where they’d both entered. Finally, they exited through the side door, and he led the way back to the boat, where he started straightening up the bed. “Get your clothes,” he ordered.

  She retrieved them from the bathroom and brought them to the cabin.

  Shane held out a plastic bag. “Put them in here.”

  When she’d finished, he added his clothing from the night before, then gave her a long look. “Are you going to get into trouble if I leave you for a few minutes?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then stay here while I deep-six these.”

  She watched him get off the boat, pick up some rocks from the shoreline, and put them in with the clothing. After making some holes in the bag, he went down to the end of the dock, slung the bag around in a circle to give it momentum, and threw it far into the water, where it quickly sank below the surface.

  When he returned, he looked at his watch, which was apparently still functioning after their late-night swim. “Still too early to leave.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Away from here.”

  “Shane…”

  “Yeah?”

  The look on his face made it clear that he didn’t want to have a conversation with her. Instead, he sat down and picked up a fishing magazine from the table in the main cabin and began reading it.

  She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to explain what she’d been thinking. But he looked so closed up that she couldn’t get any words out.

  Seeing him deliberately ignoring her made her stomach clench, but she struggled to keep her own expression neutral as she took a seat opposite him and tried to focus on one of the gossip magazines there. When she found herself reading the same page over and over, she gave up and looked at the ads.

  Chapter 18

  Jerome Weller tossed restlessly in his bed. Finally, he heaved himself up and staggered to the window where he looked out at the early morning scene. He had not slept well, for obvious reasons. When he’d first said he could deliver the S&D information to an interested buyer, the project had seemed easy. He’d only had to study the personnel files and zero in on Arnold Blake.

  Blake had been a spectacular failure.

  Yesterday everything had been on track again. But now he thought he had only a fifty-fifty chance of getting that information. And if he didn’t? Unfortunately, he’d made it sound like he could deliver, and he’d already taken a down payment. What would the buyer do if he thought he was being stiffed? Jerome tried not to think about that eventuality.

  Instead he pictured Alesandro Reyes downstairs in the torture room. The guy was in bad shape because Jerome had taken out his frustrations on the weakling. And when this was over, Alesandro was going to be dead. Jerome was going to make sure he didn’t end up the same way. He’d been thinking that if he had to, he could take his money and disappear. He’d always known it might come to that one day, and he already had several false identities set up. It was only a matter of putting those plans in motion. But if he could avoid leaving the comfortable surroundings he’d cultivated for so long, he was going to do that.

  He took his time showering, shaving, and picking the shirt and slacks he wanted to wear. When he was a kid, most of his clothing had been handed down from his older brother. When he went off on his own, he’d vowed that he’d only have new clothing—and the best that money could buy. In this case, shirts, slacks, and jackets from a London tailor who had his measurements on file.

  Finally, he was satisfied with his appearance, but he was too edgy to eat any breakfast, only coffee with heavy cream and a lot of sugar—his favorite way to drink it. Taken that way, it was a
lmost like candy, but he barely tasted it this morning. Setting down the mug, he went out in the garden and walked the pebble paths of the boxwood maze.

  Around nine, he finally got the call he’d been hoping for.

  “We know where Gallagher and Reyes are holed up.”

  “Spit it out,” he demanded.

  “They’re on an estate a couple of miles down the river from where we lost them.”

  “And they’re not going to slip out of your grasp again, right?”

  “Right,” the man on the other end of the line said, his voice firm.

  “You’d better hope so,” Jerome said, knowing he was transferring some of his own anxiety to the caller.

  ***

  Shane tried to read the magazine he’d picked up, but his attention kept swinging back to Elena. She was slumped in her seat looking miserable. If this had been a normal situation, he would have pulled her into his lap and cuddled her against his chest while he stroked his hand through her hair.

  Lord, she’d been so sweet and giving in bed. Could a woman fake such tender emotions? He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to make himself vulnerable to her again.

  She might look miserable, but she was the one who had gotten herself into trouble. Repeatedly. Well, he amended that assessment. The hostage situation hadn’t been her fault. Unless there was something going on there that he didn’t know about.

  He checked the time again. He hated sitting here with nothing to do—with a woman he didn’t trust as far as he could throw her, if you wanted to use a cliché. If he hit her with a bunch of questions, could he get the truth out of her? Or was that a waste of time?

  He shuffled his feet, wanting to get moving. It would be a good idea to check out the area where they were being picked up to see if there was adequate cover—in case they ran into trouble. After that, he could walk back to the safe house and see if he could find any evidence of who had been there.

  And while he was there, he could get some gun oil and work on his weapon to make sure it wouldn’t give him any problems. But he couldn’t do any of that because he had no idea what the woman sitting across from him would do while he was gone.

  When he saw that she was looking at him, he dragged in a breath and let it out. “If you want to take a shower, go ahead,” he said.

  “Can I?”

  “Yeah. We never did get that river water off.” And you can’t get off the boat without my knowing it, he added silently.

  She stood up, glancing at him as she walked by, then disappeared from the room, and he heard water running in the head. She was back in twenty minutes, wearing the same clothes, her hair towel-dried.

  “If I shower, will you run off?” he asked.

  “I’ll be here.”

  He wasn’t sure how much mischief she could get into while he was getting cleaned up, but he took a two-minute shower, then wrapped a towel around his waist and looked into the main lounge, relieved that she was sitting where he’d left her.

  Satisfied that she hadn’t run out on him, he went back to the cabin where they’d spent the night and pulled a windbreaker and a pair of jeans out of the drawer under the bunk. The jeans had a tight waistband, suitable for carrying his Sig. And the jacket would cover the weapon. He donned the jeans and put the sweatpants back, then returned to the main lounge, where Elena gave him an anxious look.

  “We’re going to wipe this place down, then get out of here,” he said.

  “Every page of the magazines?”

  “We can take them.”

  After they wiped the surfaces they’d touched, he said, “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Not far,” he answered, unwilling to share even the smallest amount of information with her. With the magazines tucked under one arm, he exited the boat.

  She had to be curious about who was picking them up, but she simply followed him off the boat, up the pier, and along the road. He didn’t walk on the crunchy gravel but stuck to the woods at one side, and she did the same, staying in back of him as he wove his way through the trees and around brambles.

  In the woods, he tossed the magazines into a swampy area and pushed them out of sight with a stick.

  As they approached the highway, he picked a spot well in the shadows that would give him cover.

  ***

  Elena stayed close to Shane, silent and cooperative. Apparently the meeting place was close to the main road. But she still didn’t know who was coming for them. Maybe it was one of the men he worked with at Rockfort Security. She and Shane had apparently arrived early. Or maybe their ride was taking longer than expected to get here. After about twenty minutes, she saw a gray SUV pull off the highway and turn onto the access road to the estate.

  Her heart started to pound because she thought she recognized the vehicle. That must mean it didn’t belong to one of the other men in the security company.

  “Who did you call?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She gulped. “Are you sure this is someone you trust?”

  “Yeah.”

  When he started to step out from the trees, she put a hand on his arm.

  “Don’t.”

  He turned toward her questioningly. “Why not?”

  She gave him a pleading look. “I have a bad feeling.”

  “You mean—like maybe you’re going to jail?”

  “No. It has nothing to do with me.”

  Again he only answered with a snorting sound. The feeling of dread increased when she saw the man who got out of the car.

  It was Bert Iverson, who had been assistant security chief at S&D when she’d arrived and who hadn’t tried for the head job when Ted Winston retired. She’d never liked Iverson, and she didn’t trust him. She couldn’t explain why, but she’d had that impression the whole time she’d been at the company. If she had to put a label on his behavior, he came across as sneaky. And he had shown up unannounced a lot of times when she was working late. Of course, maybe that was standard operating procedure for a security guy. She might even say the same about Shane.

  “Wait,” she whispered.

  Shane spared her a glance. “Why?”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Yeah, he was probably on your case.” He answered carelessly, as though he didn’t credit her judgment. And really, he was right in making the assessment. He’d worked with Iverson, and she’d had only cursory contact with the man. Before she could say anything else, Shane stepped out from behind the tree where he was hiding.

  Chapter 19

  Elena’s nerves tingled as she kept her gaze on the assistant security chief. His arm twitched, and she saw him pull a gun. Because she’d been ready for some kind of duplicity, she pushed Shane to the side. And because he wasn’t expecting an attack from the rear, or anywhere else, he lost his balance. As he went down, a bullet thunked into the tree where he’d been standing moments earlier.

  Knowing he needed time to recover from the tumble, Elena shouted, “Over here.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Iverson growled as the gun swung toward her. More bullets thunked into the tree, but she had already ducked to safety.

  Meanwhile, Shane rolled back into the shadows as two more bullets hit the ground where he’d been lying.

  He found his footing and scrambled up.

  “Come on.” He led them farther into the underbrush, back toward the river.

  There were no more shots from Iverson, but she heard him moving through the woods. When they came to a duck blind, Shane stopped.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “How did you know?”

  She turned a hand palm up. “I’ve always had a bad feeling about him. I can’t explain it.”

  “He was always friendly to me. He showed me the ropes at S&D. I thought he was relieved not to take on the top sec
urity position.”

  “I guess that was part of his job. Or his jobs.”

  “Yeah.”

  There was no more time for conversation. Iverson was coming through the underbrush, trying not to make any noise. But it was impossible to move silently through the woods, especially since he obviously wasn’t alone. He’d brought backup, and other men were spreading out, covering more territory.

  Elena tensed for a confrontation. Then something totally unexpected happened. She heard a shot—followed by a man’s shrill cry. It was Iverson. “Jesus. What the hell are you doing?”

  “You did the first part of your job,” another voice said. “Thanks for finding Gallagher and the woman. Too bad you couldn’t finish him off.”

  A sick feeling rose in her throat as she heard another shot.

  “They…”

  “Killed him,” Shane finished. “Which gives you a good idea of what kind of men we’re dealing with. But I think we already knew.”

  She knew something else, too. They intended to kill Shane, but not her. They wanted her alive because they thought she knew where the SIM card was, although she didn’t, not anymore, because Shane had hidden it. But she was sure they would never believe that. If they captured her, they’d try to torture the information out of her—the way they were torturing her brother.

  When she drew in a sharp breath, Shane cupped a hand over her shoulder. “Yeah.” The one word told her that he’d followed her logic.

  She could ask him where he’d hidden the card, but she wasn’t going to do it. Right now, it seemed better if she didn’t know. Of course, that left her brother in danger, but since the phone call this morning, she was determined not to do anything that would make Shane think she’d been part of a plan to steal from S&D.

  She moved closer to him, watching the woods and listening for the sound of footsteps coming toward them.

  “What are we going to do?” she whispered.