by Jo Leigh
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him nothing. I swear. I said I don’t know, ’cause I don’t.”
Jazz gave him the once-over. “Watch your step, Charlie. It’s a big ocean out there.”
Charlie went out on the deck, staring at that ocean and planning how when Jazz wasn’t looking, he’d be the one to go swimming. Next time he wouldn’t tell Jazz a damn thing. He’d show them. Stupid rat bastards. Soon as he got home, he was gonna go to Len Taub’s off-track parlor. Screw Ed. Screw Jazz.
TATE WASN’T SURE what to do. It wasn’t easy watching Michael pace, so angry the vein on his forehead throbbed. But he also seemed to be working something out, at least from the bits and snatches of his mumbles that she caught.
Today was the first time she’d looked at Charlie. Jazz had brought them everything since that day she’d learned that Charlie and Michael were brothers. It had been upsetting, seeing them together, at least at first, but then, watching their interaction after spending so much time with Michael…she knew that she’d been right to believe him.
Michael might be good at his intelligence work, but he wasn’t Olivier. He couldn’t have made up his rage at Charlie. God, they were so different. Like night and day.
She decided she wasn’t going to say a word. Let Michael pace, let him swear and plot and plan. While he was occupied, she took one of the sandwiches from the tray Charlie had brought, then she went to the bed and got the notebook she’d asked for two days ago.
It wasn’t anything special, just an unlined notepad, but it was better than writing on the walls. Jazz had been reluctant to give it to her, too. Why, she had no idea. Who was going to see it? A passing sailfish?
Anyway, she curled her legs underneath her, got the pillow behind her back and turned to a new blank page.
“Dear Sara,” she wrote, remembering where she’d left off. “Jazz brought a bunch of shopping bags into the room, then left us to sort through them. I was thrilled to find underwear—although, jeez, the slime-ball had gotten the most revealing things he could find. I swear, it looked more like he’d shopped at Frederick’s of Hollywood than Victoria’s Secret. Michael didn’t seem to mind, but he played it cool.
“There’s simply no way to forget why we’re here. It’s not a pleasure cruise, and there’s no beach party waiting for us in Grand Cayman.
“I’m just grateful Michael is with me. He thinks he’s failed, that he’s responsible for what’s happened. I can’t agree. It wasn’t his fault he had Charlie for a brother. But I can’t seem to make Michael stop worrying about it and save his strength for when we dock.
“Personally, Sara, I think the real truth is that this whole thing was my fault. And before you say it, yes, I think Dr. Bay was more than idiotic. What I mean…You know the old saying ‘You reap what you sow’? Well, I’ve been ‘sowing’ being kidnapped since Lisa. I know it makes sense that I was obsessed, but I didn’t do near enough to get myself out of that insidious loop.
“I was given tremendous gifts and I squandered them to live in the land of what-if. No more. I am here, today. I am with Michael and he is with me. Together, we’re strong. Even me.
“I—”
He sat in front of her, making her pen jolt like a lightning bolt up the page. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
She hid her gasp as he said the words, his face showing her that it wasn’t an idle threat. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? He got you kidnapped, Tate. He stole from me and he’s probably going to get me killed. If I don’t do something about it, we’ll both die, and it’ll be because of Charlie.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter that he did all this. You can’t kill him. He’s your brother.”
“Not anymore.”
“He’ll always be your brother.”
Michael stood up again. “No. I’ve done everything I could to help him. I’ve bailed him out of jail, I’ve given him money for his bookies, I’ve spent thousands putting him in rehab. He just wants more and more, and I have no more to give.”
“Still—”
“Tate, if it was just me, I could see cutting him a little slack, although it wouldn’t be for him but for my father. But to put you here? No. It’s over. It stops. Now.”
“I understand. I really do. But you’ll have to live with whatever choice you make.”
He smiled at her with a tenderness that made her melt. “I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. Period. Now are you going to keep writing in that journal or are you going to take my mind off the rest of the universe?”
“Oh, you want to play charades?”
“Ha. You’re funny.” He slipped the notebook from her fingers and tossed it to the floor. The pen was dispatched next.
Then it got really interesting.
SHE SLEPT AS HE TORE a couple of pages from her notebook and found the pen where he’d tossed it hours before. The longer they remained on the boat, the more he worried that he’d never get her home.
The whole reason he’d come up with the idea of the Cayman bank was to give himself time. But had that backfired? Were there so many armed men on the boat that he couldn’t take them?
The fact that he even thought that bothered him more than he could admit. Last year, would he have hesitated? Would he have given this motley crew a second thought?
He could take Martini and Jazz. As long as he knew where they were and no one jumped him from behind, there was no contest. But there were other people on board, and he had no idea where they would be at any given time.
He hadn’t been a complete slouch. At night, when Tate was asleep, he’d done something in the way of recon. He’d only been out of their cabin twice, but he’d gotten a lot of information on both silent trips.
The first, he’d gotten a damn good idea about the saloon and the outer perimeter of the boat. He drew what he remembered now in a diagram that would help him put together the pieces he hadn’t seen.
Charlie and Jazz had been asleep that night, the night before last. Charlie, snoring. Neither had stirred as he’d walked past them, and it had been harder than hell not to take the gun from Jazz’s splayed hand and shoot him beyond recognition.
He’d held himself back. He might have been outside the cabin, but the boat was still mostly unknown. With Tate so vulnerable, he had to make sure. If he’d been killed, her chances for survival were slim. So he’d inched around quiet as a mouse as he’d used the full moon to check for possibilities.
Last night hadn’t gone quite as well.
He’d made it halfway to the cockpit when Ed had come up from below. For what felt like an hour Michael had stowed himself in a ridiculously narrow gulley behind a couch. He’d learned nothing except that Ed Martini liked to cuss at televised sports.
When he finally got a chance to get back to the room, his leg had cramped and he’d missed being caught by a quarter of a second.
Tate had slept through it all, which was what he’d wanted.
He couldn’t be sure when they’d reach Grand Cayman, but both of them had to be ready, starting tomorrow. He had to have plans made, with contingencies. The one he hated the most was where they would take Tate away, off the boat, alone.
She thought she was ready. That she could handle it. He knew better.
He finished the rudimentary diagram of the boat, but he knew if there was a cache of weapons on board, they would be below and they’d be under lock and key. But if he had a gun, any kind of gun, their chances of surviving this would be a lot better.
He turned to the bed. She looked beautiful with her hair in a halo on the pillow. Odd, a woman of such privilege and she never complained about the living conditions. He knew, far too well, all the things that made her life so different from regular folks’. She had a cadre of beauticians, aestheticians, nail people, wax people, makeup people who came to the penthouse on a steady schedule. He didn’t know what half
of them did except make her look great.
Aside from her looks, she had maids, cooks, him. She never had to get her hands dirty. Someone was always there to clean up her messes.
She looked better here, though. He’d never even known her hair was wavy. Or that she really liked peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
As he watched her sleep, he let himself think about after. Once they were back in New York, on her turf. Would she be embarrassed by the fact that she’d slept with her bodyguard? Would she pretend nothing had ever happened? Would he?
It wasn’t as if they would ever be anything. Not a couple, that’s for sure. William would have heart failure if such a thing were even suggested. Too bad. He’d liked her from the start, and being with her in this cramped cabin for all this time had just proved he’d been right in his earliest assessments.
Tate was an unusual woman, and not just because of her social standing. One thing he’d seen in his travels was that the children of the truly rich didn’t understand the rest of the world. They made noises about helping out the disenfranchised or the handicapped, whatever, but it was all posing. They lived in rarefied air, and those who weren’t like them were as foreign as Martians.
Tate was the exception to the rule. She’d never made him feel as if he were the help. Not intentionally, anyway. Hell, she hadn’t even wanted to admit how badly he’d bungled things with her, even though his mistakes might cost her her life.
So what was a man supposed to do with a woman like that? Save her, that’s what. Make damn sure she had the opportunity to find out what life would be like without her fear of being kidnapped overshadowing everything.
He had to find those weapons. Now.
15
THE FBI AGENT’S NAME was Webber, Nick Webber, and he called Sara at four in the afternoon on the ninth day. “We might have something.”
“Go on.”
“We think it might be her purse. There’s no ID, but there’s a GPS tracker sewn into the lining. The security people said that’s where Caulfield hid his trackers.”
“I’ll know if it’s hers,” Sara said. “But let’s meet somewhere. I don’t want Mr. Baxter to know.”
“Fine.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In Jersey, by the GW Bridge.”
“That could mean anything. They could have her anywhere.”
“It’ll help to know if this is her bag.”
“Give me twenty minutes and meet me at Sarabeth’s. You know where that is?”
“Yes.”
“Twenty minutes.” Sara hung up the phone, her heart so heavy she could barely breathe. Was this all they were to have of Tate? A purse washed up from the East River? Was Tate in that murky water right now with the punctured tires and the polluted fish?
William was withering away before her eyes. He wouldn’t eat, and the only sleep he got was drug induced. She’d taken her fair share of tranquilizers, too.
How long was she supposed to hang on? She wanted to believe so badly. So when was the cutoff? Ten days? Twenty? Or were they always supposed to feel that jolt when the phone rang? A year, two years, what did it matter? A purse was not proof. It was simply a purse.
THE DOOR HAD BEEN unlocked for a good thirty seconds, but Michael didn’t turn the knob. He pressed his ear against the door, trying to decide whether the noise he heard was just the television—which was on all the time, as far as he could tell—or actual conversation.
At one-twenty in the morning, he couldn’t imagine who’d be chatting. Those first few days they’d made a point to keep themselves awake, guns at the ready, especially after his first attempt at escape. But the last couple of nights Jazz and Charlie had both been sound asleep and not even the louder-than-loud commercials from the satellite system had made them budge.
He couldn’t tell whether tonight would be an exception, so he opened the door. Not wide—Jesus, no—but just enough so he could let his eye adjust to the light as he peered through the gap.
He didn’t see Jazz, but there was Charlie, leaning back in the big man’s favorite leather chair, mouth agape, snoring like a freight train. Even now, after everything, Michael’s first instinct was to get Charlie out of that chair. If Ed saw him there…
It was just so goddamn typical. Charlie would never change. If Michael could figure out a way to get him out of this mess, it wouldn’t matter because there would be the next mess and the one after that. It made him sad—but not sad enough to forgive. That wasn’t going to happen.
Another few seconds of absolute stillness, then he opened the door another inch. Still no Jazz. Surely they wouldn’t leave Charlie on guard duty by himself? No one was that stupid.
Someone else had to be there. Or in the head or maybe getting something to eat in the galley. Whatever, it meant that tonight Michael wasn’t going to make it below. He wasn’t going to get a weapon, at least not yet.
He closed the door, locking it behind him, then debated the wisdom of getting into bed. Tate was hard to resist, but he wanted to check back in an hour to see if he could make it out. An hour of either sleep or something better wouldn’t be prudent. He’d get too sleepy. Too satisfied.
“Are you just going to stand there all night?”
Tate’s whisper scared the crap out of him, making him glad for the darkness. “What are you doing up?”
“Watching you be superspy. Like last night. And the night before.”
He grinned as he headed to the bunk. “It’s not nice to fool superspies.”
“Hey, you’re not the only one who can do that stealthy stuff. What’s the matter? Someone’s up?”
“I only saw Charlie. But they’d never leave him on his own. I’ll check again in a while.”
“Hmm,” she said, scooting over as he sat on the edge of the bed. “How long is a while?”
He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “It would be wonderful to climb in with you, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. We’re getting too close to Grand Cayman, and either I get a decent layout of this boat or—”
“Or what?”
“Nothing. I’ll get it. But I need to stay alert.”
“I can do that, too.”
“You should get some sleep.”
“Because I lead such an active life? The only thing we do here that burns up calories is sex, and if you don’t want to do that—”
“Who said I don’t want to?”
She sighed. “I know. So what happens once we get there?”
“Ed’s going to take you off the boat. You’ll have to go with him to the bank.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be taking care of business here. You don’t have to worry about that.”
She sat up, then leaned across him to turn on the light. She had on a T-shirt, which she wore most nights, and he wondered whether if they hadn’t been afraid of Jazz barging in, she would have slept naked.
The thought of her long body next to his…Hell, they’d never get any rest.
Squinting against the light, she still managed to give him her “you’re-in-trouble-now-mister” look. “I’ll ask again. What about you?”
“There are things I can do once we’re docked, once they can’t use you as a shield.”
“Like killing people.”
“If necessary.”
“Including Charlie.”
“If necessary.”
“They have weapons.”
“I do, too.”
“Where?”
He shrugged, wanting to reassure her as well as instill her with confidence. He wasn’t sure he could do both. “I’ve been in a lot of situations where it looked as if I didn’t stand a chance.”
“But—”
He put his arm around her shoulder and situated them both more comfortably on the bed. “Let’s talk about you for a while, okay? There are some things I want you to practice here, while we’re alone, before you hit the bank.”
“Like breathing? Not passing ou
t?”
He shook his head. “You’re going to be fine. You’ve been amazing, and there’s no reason that shouldn’t continue.”
“Except that I won’t be with you.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She looked into his eyes. “Are you kidding? Of course it matters. You’re the only reason I’m not completely comatose. Or dead.”
“You may have gotten some confidence with me nearby, but you’ve done so much on your own. You don’t even break a sweat when they bring in the food.”
“I do so.”
“It doesn’t show.”
She sighed. “Not that much has changed, Michael. We’re living in a bubble here where it’s easy to pretend. But once I have to leave this room…If you’re counting on me, you’d better rethink things.”
“Don’t worry about it. The plan is only viable if you think it’ll work. There are too many unknowns to get too specific.”
“Well, let’s hear what it is. If I don’t pass out now, then maybe I won’t pass out in the bank.”
AT TWO-FORTY, MICHAEL came back to the room. There was enough light from the porthole for her to see the foray hadn’t been terrific.
“What happened?”
He came to the edge of the bed, stripping as he walked. His T-shirt hit the floor along with the jeans they’d bought him in Florida, leaving him in his skivvies. “Charlie lied again.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. I thought I was home-free, everyone accounted for, and was just about to pick the lock where I’m sure the weapons are stored when that cabin boy he talked about—the one who was supposed to clean up—came walking out of the head. He’s monster-size. Thank God he flushed or I’d have been very damaged.”
“I’m very grateful you’re not damaged.” She threw the covers back and patted the bed. “But now you need to get some sleep.”
“Let me get washed up. Don’t move.”
By the time he’d finished brushing his teeth she’d worked herself into a small frenzy of worry. “You can’t do this anymore,” she said as he crawled in next to her. “It’s too dangerous.”