Backrush

by Jana DeLeon

  “Then this shouldn’t take long.”

  Alayna said a silent prayer that they found something to give the FBI and headed into the bedroom. Until Rivera knew what he wanted was out of reach, her life would never be her own. And even worse, Bea’s would no longer be either, because Rivera wouldn’t hesitate to use her aunt to force Alayna to play ball if she ran. She was a sitting duck unless she could find whatever Rivera was looking for and get it to the FBI.

  “I put some photo albums on that bookcase,” she said. “As well as some pictures and a couple of keepsakes from the island and culinary school.”

  “So everything on the bookcase is yours?”

  “Everything except for the seashells and the turquoise vase. They were already here. I’ll take all the photos on the dresser out of the frames.”

  They went silently to work, only the sounds of shifting and disassembling items breaking the silence. After the third frame, Alayna realized she was holding her breath every time she removed the back and inspected every inch for something hidden. Finally, she’d gone through every picture in the room and she turned to look at Luke as he set a picture of her graduating from culinary school back on the shelf.

  “Everything is clear,” he said.

  “Yeah, for me too.”

  “Don’t give up hope just yet. This is just the first room.”

  “This place only has five rooms and one of them is the laundry room. Another is a bathroom just big enough for one person and a toothbrush. I don’t have much more personal stuff to search. The majority was here in the bedroom.”

  He walked over to her and gently kissed her on the lips. “If this angle doesn’t work, we’ll figure out a new one.”

  Alayna nodded, but it was hard to remain optimistic when so much was riding on something that might not even exist.

  “I guess the living room is next,” she said and headed out of the bedroom. “The pictures on the side tables are mine. And the small quilt. It belonged to my grandma. She passed before I was born, but I like having something that was hers.”

  He nodded. “What about the pillows and the paintings?”

  “No. Those are Bea’s.”

  They made quick work of the living room, then headed for the kitchen. Alayna looked around and shook her head.

  “I don’t know how to approach this,” she said. “I mean, everything besides the dishes and silverware is mine. But do we take a screwdriver to the blender? The mixer? Just in case something’s taped inside?”

  “I guess we should, just in case. I don’t suppose you have a magnifying glass, do you? That way I could see if the screws had ever been loosened and we wouldn’t have to open up anything.”

  She stared. “I’m not a detective. Nor am I that old. I’ve still got reading glasses to look forward to before I head for magnifying.”

  He smiled. “I think you still have a few years, but no worries. I have one over at my cottage.”

  “Why? You’re a SEAL. I assume you can see a target in the middle of a hurricane at five hundred feet.”

  “I can, but I have this old map that I’ve been trying to decipher, and it’s really deteriorated and has tiny print. I was trying to make some of it out.”

  “A map? Not like a treasure map.”

  “Maybe. I bought it off a guy when I was overseas. He claimed his great-great-grandfather was a whaler and had found the map in an old bottle.”

  “I hope you didn’t pay a lot, because that sounds like a line of bull.”

  “I had it authenticated. The paper anyway. It’s over two hundred years old.”

  “Really? Well, if you find a treasure, I’ll apologize for thinking you’ve been had.”

  He laughed. “Be right back. Lock the door behind me.”

  She turned the dead bolt after Luke left and then studied the contents of the kitchen. There was no way something was taped to her cookware or she would have noticed. And besides, whatever it was probably wouldn’t have held up to water and heat. Maybe she needed to think harder on this—apply logic to the situation. So what was the one thing that Warren would be sure she would never part with?

  Her knives.

  And he knew she washed them by hand. She went over to the stand and started going over every inch of the knives. Surely if he’d created a space in the wooden handles to hide a tiny drive, she would have noticed. And as she reviewed every square inch of the knives, she couldn’t find even the tiniest of flaws in the pristine wood surface.

  Then she locked on a dish towel hanging over the sink and she sucked in a breath.

  Her mother’s pot holder.

  She’d told Warren why she kept the old, frayed pot holder, so he knew that no matter what, the pot holder would always be in her kitchen and would never be used for its intended purpose. It was just there for the memories. She went to the drawer with dishrags and pulled it out. The cloth was worn almost bare in some places and some of the sequins were loose—others were missing entirely—but the stitching on the edges was still strong enough to hold the quilted pieces together.

  She ran the potholder between her fingers, trying to make out something that could be in between the layers of cloth. It wasn’t easy to do with all the sequins but then at one corner, she saw thread that was barely different from the rest. It was a tiny bit darker, and she’d bet anything that if she looked at it with the magnifying glass Luke had gone to get, she’d see that it wasn’t frayed like the original thread. Someone had cut that edge and re-stitched it. She grabbed her chef’s knife and used the razor-sharp end to carefully slice the thread from the corner. Something hard and small was inside, resting in between sequins where it blended right in.

  And that’s when the first gunshot rang out.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  She let go of the pot holder and knife and dropped to the ground behind the kitchen counter as glass from the patio doors exploded across the cottage. A giant rush of adrenaline coursed through her, making her momentarily dizzy, but when her mind cleared, it was only into panic.

  This was it. This was how it all ended, on the kitchen floor of Bea’s cottage.

  There was no way out of the kitchen except the front door and if she ran for it, she’d be out in the open. Anyone standing in the living room could take her out with ease, and the knife, now resting on the floor under her mother’s pot holder, was no use in a gunfight. Bea’s pistol was in the living room in an end table, but there was no way to retrieve it when the shooter was clearly coming into the house through the patio doors he’d just blown away. She cursed herself for not having the gun on her and worried about what had happened to Luke as the first round of gunfire had been farther away than her cottage. Were there two of them? Or had the killer taken care of Luke before he came after her?

  She heard footsteps on the broken glass, and her chest clenched so hard she couldn’t breathe. This was it—the nightmare she’d had ever since she’d learned about Warren’s crimes was coming true. And just when she’d been about to buy her way into freedom. She clenched her hands as bitter tears ran unbidden down her cheeks. Why hadn’t the FBI listened to her? If they hadn’t dismissed her worries, she’d be safe. Luke would be safe and now…

  “Give it to me.”

  A man’s voice sounded from the living room.

  “There’s some money in my purse,” she said. “Take it.”

  “That’s not what I’m here for and you know it. Give me what Patterson asked you to hold for him.”

  “I swear Warren didn’t give me anything,” she said.

  “Liar. You’re going to tell me where it is. The question is, do you want to die swiftly and with minimal pain or do you want me to draw this out? Because I’m good either way.”

  “Is that what you told Brad?”

  “Seems like sloppy work if the cops took it for a robbery. I’m not sloppy. When they find your body, they’ll know exactly what happened.”

  A wave of dizziness washed over her, and her vision blurred. He was g
oing to kill her no matter what. No way she was giving him what he wanted. She might die, but Rivera was not going to win.

  “You can believe me or not,” she said, “but I don’t have anything. Warren never confided in me. I knew nothing about his illegal activities, or I would have never taken investment capital from him.”

  “Maybe that’s true, or maybe you have it and don’t know. Either way, I’m not leaving until I get what I came for, and I’m not leaving any witnesses. So you can come out from behind that counter, or I’ll come to you. The end result is the same.”

  She heard a loud crack against the front door, and it flew open, banging against the wall. She whipped her head around as Agent Davies stepped into the cottage and fired over the counter. She heard the gasp from the other man as the bullet hit, the cry of pain, and then a thud as he hit the ground. Davies barely glanced at her before hurrying past, she assumed to ensure the other man was unable to retaliate. Luke rushed in behind Davies, blood covering one sleeve on his T-shirt, and dropped down beside her.

  He clutched her shoulders and looked over every square inch. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head as relief washed over her.

  “Take a deep breath,” Luke said. “You’re safe now.”

  * * *

  “Except you’re not,” Davies said.

  Alayna looked up to see the agent standing over both of them, his gun leveled at Luke. All the blood rushed from her head as she put everything together.

  There wasn’t an unknown mole in the FBI. Davies was the traitor.

  “You,” she gasped.

  “Take that pistol out of your boyfriend’s waistband and slide it across the floor,” Davies said. “No fast moves. You can’t aim and get off a shot before I pull the trigger.”

  Alayna looked at Luke, who gave her a slow nod.

  She reached for the gun tucked into his waistband and slowly pulled it out, then set it on the floor.

  “Now slide it this way,” Davies said.

  She reached to push the gun and deliberately faked losing her balance so that it slid across the floor and stopped a good ten feet from Davies. He gave it a frustrated look but since it was still closer to him than it was to Luke, he appeared only annoyed rather than concerned.

  “I assume that other guy worked for you?” Alayna asked. “Is he an FBI agent too?”

  Davies laughed. “Not hardly. Mateo was good at his job but a little too unpredictable. Since my other two attempts to get what I’m looking for didn’t go as planned, I figured I better attend to the last stop myself. Now, hand over the drive.”

  “I already told your hired killer that I don’t have it,” Alayna said.

  “I don’t believe you,” Davies said. “You’re a smart woman…maybe a little too smart for your own good. You might not have known that Patterson left something with you when you fled New York, but I have no doubt you not only figured it out but located the prize. So do I have to put a bullet in him, or are you going to cough it up?”

  “You’re going to put a bullet in him anyway,” Alayna said.

  Davies smiled. “Maybe. Maybe not. Things are heating up for me at the FBI, and I’m afraid I might have drawn the wrong sort of attention. The contents of that drive will set me up for ten lifetimes, and I already have a way out of the country. Maybe I’ll be so happy to get what I’ve been looking for all this time that I’ll just let you live your sad little lives on this sandbar.”

  Alayna stared at Davies, his creepy smile making her skin crawl. She didn’t believe for a minute he was going to leave her and Luke alive. Even if he got out of the country, he had to know Luke’s background. The last thing Davies wanted was a SEAL coming after him the rest of his life.

  “Okay. I’ll get it,” she said.

  She leaned forward to rise and pushed the pot holder with the knife into Luke’s knee as she rose. He glanced down as the knife connected with his leg and then looked back at her, their eyes meeting. He understood. They had to take a chance, and the knife was the only weapon Luke had within reach. Even if Luke could only create a distraction, Alayna might have time to retrieve Bea’s pistol. She walked slowly toward Davies, hands in the air.

  “It’s in my purse,” she said. “In the living room.”

  “No sudden moves or I shoot the boyfriend,” Davies said as she walked into the living room. “Show me the purse.”

  She lifted the handbag off the end table. It was too small to hold anything but the tiniest of guns, so no real threat to Davies.

  “Good,” Davies said. “Now put it back on the table and reach in with only one hand, keeping the other in the air, and pull out the drive.”

  She pulled open the flap of the purse and reached in with her right hand. Her cell phone was the first thing she came to and she pulled it out far enough to punch in her code and turn on the recording app. They might die here but at the very least, she was leaving the police with no doubt as to who the bad guy was.

  “What’s taking so long?” Davies asked, growing agitated.

  “It’s in a zipped pocket,” Alayna said. “That’s not easy to do with one hand. You’re the one who took Warren, aren’t you? It was never Rivera.”

  “Like I said,” Davies said, “you’re too smart for your own good.”

  “One of your own men got killed. That doesn’t bother you?”

  “It was an unfortunate situation. Only Rivera’s men were supposed to go down in the exchange, but the rookie made a mistake and paid for it.”

  “What I don’t understand is why you killed Brad. Didn’t Warren tell you where the drive was?”

  Davies’s expression flashed with annoyance. “Patterson refused to tell—and my guys got a little overzealous. Things went too far and then getting the information out of Patterson wasn’t an option.”

  She cringed, knowing that Warren had met a far more horrible fate than a lifetime in prison and said a silent prayer for his soul since he hadn’t sent Davies directly to her doorstep. She reached inside the pocket and pulled out a small drive and held it up for him to see.

  Davies smiled.

  “Leave the drive on the table and come this way,” Davies said. “Then you and your boyfriend can head into the afterlife together.”

  The joy at locking eyes on the drive was Davies’s undoing. Before Alayna even realized what was happening, Luke flung her knife at Davies, and it embedded right in his neck. He screamed and dropped his gun as he stumbled backward, clutching his neck. Blood gushed through his fingers, and he stared at them in disbelief that turned to horror before he collapsed onto the floor.

  Luke had kicked Davies’s gun away as soon as he’d dropped it, and he now stood over the agent, staring down with a level of hatred and disgust that was only matched by what Alayna herself felt. Then relief coursed through her and she grabbed the back of the couch to keep her balance. Before this moment, everything had been played out in slow motion. Every excruciating second had seemed like an eternity. But suddenly, it all rushed in like the tide.

  But this time, she was clear of the break.

  “Are you all right?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah, I think. Just overwhelmed.”

  She walked into the kitchen, skirting Davies’s legs, and stood next to Luke.

  “He’s dead, right?”

  “Definitely. That is a really good knife. Perfect balance.”

  Alayna looked down at her knife, protruding from Davies’s throat and frowned. “I suppose we have to leave it there.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll clean and disinfect it with medical grade cleaner as soon as the cops release it. But right now, we have a bigger problem.”

  “We need to call the police.”

  “And lawyers. You have a dead mercenary in your living room that ballistics will show was killed by Davies’s gun, and a knife in Davies’s jugular with only my prints and yours on it.”

  She sucked in a breath. “It will look like Rivera sent the mercenary and Davies saved us. Then we
killed Davies.”

  He nodded. “Unless the FBI was already onto him, like he insinuated, they’re not going to accept our word that Davies was dirty. They’ll start digging into everything, but we have to hope that he left a trail somewhere. We need to prepare for an uphill battle.”

  Alayna stared at him then threw her arms in the air and spun around. “My phone!”

  She ran to the living room and grabbed her phone, then hurried back to the kitchen to show a clearly confused Luke the display. “I turned on the recorder when I reached into my purse. That’s what took so long, not the zipper. I figured that at least if we died, someone would check my phone and they’d know it was Davies that did it.”

  Luke’s jaw dropped. “That’s why you asked him those questions.”

  She nodded. “I had to get him to admit to at least some of it so that they’d have a place to start.”

  Luke grabbed her in a hug and spun her around. “You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met.”

  She laughed as he put her down. “Stop. The recorder is still on.”

  “Good. Then hold it up and make sure all of this is clear—I love you, Alayna Scott. From the moment I met you, I knew there was something different between us. Something bigger than either one of us. I want to stay on the island with you and watch you open your restaurant. I want to eat dinner with you every night, and I promise to do the dishes. You’re the last thing I want to see before I close my eyes at night and the first thing I want to see when I open them in the morning.”

  Alayna’s heart was beating so hard she thought it would jump out of her chest. This was it. This was what real love felt like. Long-lasting love. Love that was bigger than life or death.

  “I love you, too,” she said.

  He drew her into a kiss so passionate that all of the tension left in her body drained away so quickly that it left her light-headed. Thank goodness, his strong arms were wrapped around her to keep her safe and steady. When he released her, she turned off the recorder.