After all those years of being undercover, it felt marvelous to stand out.
She saw Valerie and Miles before they noticed her. They sat on a bench outside the restaurant, with no space between their bodies and practically none between their heads. She could see what Valerie loved about Miles, and was happy she’d been the one to introduce the high-flying executive to her best friend. Valerie said something that made Miles laugh, and with that closely cropped beard he’d grown a few years ago and his exotic black eyes, he looked a little piratelike and dashing. They made a gorgeous couple.
Miles reached over and grazed Val’s cheek with his knuckle as they gazed at each other like a couple of honeymooners.
“Break it up, lovebirds.”
Miles shot to his feet at the sight of Lucy, reaching out for an embrace. Then she turned to Valerie and hugged her twice as long. “You look beautiful, Val,” she whispered, pulling back to lovingly pat her friend’s porcelain check. “Happiness suits you.”
This was the first time in a few months that she’d seen Valerie. Miles kept her busy with entertaining friends and worldwide travel, and Lucy could see Val had blossomed in the domestic tranquility, so unlike the life on the edge she’d led for many years as a covert CIA agent.
Lucy had tried hard to get Valerie Brooks to join the Bullet Catchers; her expertise in electronics and communications was astounding. But then Lucy’d made the mistake of having a dinner party and inviting two people who were destined to be together, losing Valerie forever.
Lucy turned to include Dan and Max in the conversation. After introducing everyone, she said, “These two gentlemen have been trying to find you, Miles. When I discovered that, and why, I decided we should sit down and discuss this in person.”
“You discuss,” Valerie said with a wave. “I’m headed to the boutiques on Miracle Mile.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “What self-respecting former spy chooses shopping over threat assessment?”
Valerie laughed. “A rich one.”
Miles directed them to a private table in the restaurant. “It’s secure,” he assured them.
“We have run into a serious snag in the Kimball Parrish assignment,” she said, “and we need your help.”
Miles barely masked his horror as Lucy explained the situation to him. “So my staff, acting on behalf of the client, were trying to track you down for information. It appears Jessica is not safe. Not at all.”
“I suspected Parrish was a bastard,” Miles said softly. “But this exceeds my expectations. What do you need?”
“We need to fly into Key West. Are you capable of changing the weather?” she asked with a smile.
“No. But I’m on the board of Yellowstone, and I control the release of helicopters from the Metro-Net television station here. Get to WMFL in the next hour and you will have a helicopter and pilot waiting for you.”
“No need for a pilot. Max can fly a helicopter.” Lucy smiled like a satisfied cat and looked from Max to Dan, who already had his cell phone out to call Alex. “I told you he’s one of the good guys.”
Dan nodded, phone to ear, then he looked at it. “No signal in the rain.”
“Go in anyway,” Lucy instructed. “Alex will wait for you.”
Max raised a dubious eyebrow.
“He will,” Lucy assured him. He’d better.
Chapter
Sixteen
“H e thinks I’m in Key West buying a dildo.” Denise Rutledge spoke with such flatness that Alex wondered what had happened in this woman’s life to steal all her joy, all her dignity. She barely resembled the sex kitten he’d seen perform for the camera; she looked old, tired, and scared.
And wet, even though he’d given her his plastic poncho to wear. None of the shopkeepers or the lone hotel concierge on the tiny island wanted three soaking wet tourists in their places of business, so they’d ended up returning to the dock and sharing the little boat canopy while Denise told her story.
“How were you supposed to get over to Key West?” Jazz asked.
Denise wiped rainwater out of her eyes. “It looked like the weather was going to let up, so I could get on the launch. It leaves every ten minutes when it’s clear.”
Jazz took both of Denise’s hands in hers. “Are you sure she’s okay? Are you sure?” It was at least the fourth time she’d asked.
Denise nodded quickly. “For now. He put her back to sleep, but he’s not going to hurt her. Not until he gets what he wants on tape. Then…I don’t know. He didn’t like it that she tried to take him out with a coffee mug.”
Jazz looked at Alex, her eyes the color of unstoppable determination. “We have to get her, Alex.”
He nodded. It had taken ten minutes to convince her not to go crashing through Parrish’s front door without a plan or strategy. “But we don’t want to go in blind, or give him any indication we’re coming in. He’ll kill her. We’re getting backup.”
“When will they be here?”
“All the flights have been stopped due to weather. Lucy’s plane is grounded in Miami.” He looked at the steely sky and blew out a sharp breath at the sight of a private helicopter hovering over Key West. Not all the flights had been stopped. “I don’t know.”
“I still think we could surprise him,” Jazz insisted. “Or maybe break into the room where Jessica is sleeping.”
“He could be in there,” Denise said. “He goes in there to look at her a lot.”
“Jesus,” Jazz muttered. “The guy’s sick.”
Alex agreed. “Basically, we’re in a hostage situation. As soon as Dan and Max get here, we’ll do a perimeter and structure check, figure out how to distract him, and rescue her.”
“What could be more distracting than me showing up at his front door?” Jazz insisted. “I’ll knock on the door and you go to a back entrance—”
“There’s only one door in that house,” Denise interjected.
“Then you can climb into a window,” she continued, undaunted. “You get her and…and…”
“And what?” He scowled at her. “Take her away while he fills you with bullet holes? Are you out of your mind?”
“He’s going to miss me soon,” Denise interjected. “And she’s going to wake up in an hour or so. If he thinks something’s going on…” She gave Jazz a dire look. “I had no idea the man was so crazy. All I wanted to do was help your sister. Then he found out and threatened me.” Her voice cracked. “And my son.”
“How did a tag from my sister’s dress get in your house?”
Denise frowned at her. “That was her dress? Howie brought it over when he came to tell me to get down here. He told me it was wardrobe for this shoot. When I got here, Mr. Parrish said it was for Jessica to wear.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I really didn’t know who to trust. I just want to do whatever I have to do to get my son. I don’t care who I have to sleep with.”
She obviously didn’t care who had to die, either. Alex turned away to study the clouds. Clear, damn it.
“What will she feel like when she wakes up?” Jazz asked Denise. “Is she alert?”
“She doesn’t know what’s going on for about a half hour or so. She doesn’t have any memory of how she went to sleep, and she won’t remember what she did during that first hour or so. At least, that’s the way she’s been.”
“Does she know who she is?” Alex asked, running different rescue scenarios through his head. “Will she know why she’s there?”
“Not at first,” Denise told them. “He’s giving her liquid roofie or maybe GHB.”
Alex felt Jazz tense next to him.
“So she’s loose as a goose at first,” Denise continued. “She’d basically do anything you tell her, and he told me he just wants to shoot one scene. With her at a desk, like an anchor, you know. Then…with me.”
“With you?” Jazz asked. “Having sex?”
“And that dildo I don’t have.”
“I could do that,” Jazz said.
“What??
?? Alex jerked back and stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
She ignored him, her focus on Denise. “If you could distract him long enough for us to get to the room where Jessica is, we could switch her out.”
Alex felt his jaw drop. “No. Forget it, Jazz. It’s not happening.”
“Would you stop?” Her eyes flashed at him. “This is my sister’s life we’re talking about, and I am not hanging around while you wait for your macho buddies to show up and be heroes! If he thinks I’m Jessica, on drugs and at his mercy, he’s totally disarmed. I could be the one putting bullets through him. And you,” she punctuated the word with a finger to his chest, “could be the one whisking my sister to a hospital so they can pump that poison out of her body.”
“You’re soaking wet,” he told her, his mind whirring for arguments to stop her from this train wreck of an idea. “He’ll know you’re not her immediately. You’re putting your life in danger. You don’t know what you’re getting into.” He’d die if anything happened to her. “You can’t be armed if you’re naked.”
She turned to Denise. “What if you told him Jessica needed to shower to wake up a little bit? Could I be hiding in the bathroom, you bring her in, put my clothes on her and get her out to Alex? Then if I show up wet, it’s plausible. Is there even a chance we could pull that off?”
“No.” Alex squeezed her shoulder. “There is no chance.”
She pulled out from his grip and scorched him with a warning look. “Don’t do this, Alex. Don’t let your personal feelings get in the way.”
Too late for that. “How are you going to get into that house without being seen by him?”
“Actually,” Denise said slowly, “the house is built over stilts with an apartment at the bottom. If he was in the first floor apartment, where he plans to shoot this movie, you could probably sneak up to the balcony. She’s in the room next to the one with a balcony. There’s a bathroom in the hall.”
Alex wanted to slap the woman. Why was she plotting with Jazz? “You could get killed, too,” he told Denise.
She bit her lip and held his gaze. “I believe Jessica Adams is good for her word. She’s promised to get me custody of my son.”
Jazz took her hand again. “No matter what happens, Denise, you’ll get your son. I promise. I promise.”
Denise nodded in confirmation, and Jazz beamed triumphantly.
Alex couldn’t fight two women who were willing to die for their family; that trait was too ingrained in his blood.
“All right, ladies.” He looked from one to the other. “Let’s do it.”
Before Denise turned the switch to shut off the little golf cart, the door to the first floor apartment was flung open. Kimball Parrish looked pissed off enough to shoot someone. She hoped to hell it wasn’t her.
“Did you get it?” he asked.
Butterflies took off in her stomach. She was a sucky liar. She should have told them that, but then they might have counted her out. And this was her only chance of getting Grady back.
Climbing out of the cart to avoid looking right in his eyes, she said, “I can’t get to Key West, Mr. Parrish. None of the ferries are running in the rain. Honestly,” she added at the ugly look he gave her.
“Did you try the gift shop?”
She resisted the urge to laugh, a nervous habit she had when she was in trouble. “They had no sex toys. Sir.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of a loud motor on the water behind the house, then he pointed upstairs. “Go wake her up and get her dressed. I want to get this over with.”
With Jazz’s phone pressed against Denise’s belly, all she had to do was go upstairs and press one number to call Alex. He and Jazz were waiting behind the reeds on the beach.
She prayed to God this jerk didn’t want to come up and watch. “I’ll take care of everything, Mr. Parrish. Give me a few minutes to get her dressed and in makeup.”
“You don’t need makeup.”
But she did need time. “I’ll just make sure she looks good.”
“She doesn’t have to look good,” he barked.
“But she has to look…real.” Her voice cracked. “And so do I. Or nobody will think this is a real movie.”
He frowned, then waved her off. “Hurry up.”
Denise almost tripped up the wooden stairs, letting herself in with shaking hands. Wiping her palms on her jeans, she took a deep breath and ran through the kitchen toward the bedroom.
“Jessica!” she called in a loud whisper. “Are you awake yet?”
Her sneakers slid on the tile floor as she broke her run at the door to the bedroom, and she stopped her forward motion by seizing the doorknob. She twisted and flung open the door, her other hand digging for the phone. They didn’t have much—
Oh, fuck.
“She’s gone.” Alex spoke into his phone, but looked at Jazz.
Gone? “What do you mean, she’s gone?”
She peered through the stalks of beach grass and steady downpour to see the house. All of the windows were closed. She could see the balcony that they’d planned to climb, but she couldn’t quite make out the window to the right of it.
Alex spoke into the phone. “Are you sure he’s downstairs?”
Jazz ventured closer to the house to get a better look at that window, but Alex grabbed her poncho and pulled her back, warning her with a look.
“Calm down,” he said into the phone. “I can’t understand you.” He covered the phone, and whispered harshly. “She’s totally unglued. This isn’t going to work.”
“Tell her I’ll be right there.”
“Jazz, Jessica’s gone. We can find her on the ground. There’s no reason to go in that house.” He spoke to Denise. “Keep looking in the other rooms, see if you can find how she might have gotten out. Just press one again to call back.”
Jazz scanned the beach, the clumps of palms and oleanders around the yard, everything as green and thick and wet as a jungle, the house almost impossibly protected from the beach and the road. If Jessica got out, and she was truly drugged on GHB or rohypnol, then she could be anywhere. Lost, wondering, hurt. Or she could be in the downstairs rooms of the house, tied up, and being made to do unspeakable things.
“Alex,” she took his arm. “I’m going to check out the house.”
His black stare of disbelief damn near singed her. “Why?”
“Because she could be in there.”
He took a deep breath, and nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
“No.” She dug her heels deeper in the sand and squared her shoulders. “You look for her out here. It could be just as dangerous outside, even if he doesn’t know she’s gone. Denise said she’s naked, on drugs.” Jazz swallowed hard and willed him not to fight her. “She could wander into the ocean, the road. Anywhere.”
“You’re not going in there alone, Jazz.”
She squeezed his arm tighter. “Please, Alex. We have to split up to do this right.”
He searched her face, frowning, struggling with whatever he was thinking. Of course, his instinct was to protect her. But his expression was more conflicted than that.
“Alex…” She shook her head, then pulled the poncho over her head, shoving it at him as she welcomed the air and rain on her body. “Here. Jessica might need this.”
She took a step backward and pointed at him. “If my sister’s out here, you find her. If she’s in there, we’ll go through with the plan. I’ll deal with Parrish.”
She started into the reeds, but she hadn’t made it three steps before he grabbed her elbow and yanked her around. His eyes burned black and his mouth came down on hers so hard their teeth smacked. Hot and angry and fast, he kissed all the air out of her, leaving the taste of salty rainwater on her lips.
“And then,” he ground out, “you’ll deal with me.”
Alex’s chest tightened to a painful knot as he watched her hustle through the bushes, her camos performing the job they were designed to do. She never tu
rned back. Never gave him a wistful, tender good-bye. Never bothered to look the least bit scared or helpless or unsure of herself.
Why the hell did he love that about her? It was totally, utterly, completely counter to what he wanted from a woman.
He leaned forward to see her shimmy up the wooden railing to the balcony.
Make that what he thought he wanted in a woman.
He crouched in the tall grass, gripping the discarded poncho as he sneaked toward the house in the opposite direction. In a matter of seconds he had a clear shot of the downstairs apartment, the windows darkened, the door shut.
That prick Parrish was in there. Alex could take him down with one bullet. One kick to the door, one ambush, one dead media mogul. He wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to end it all.
Just as he took a step to the door, something white flashed in his peripheral vision. Turning, he squinted through the rain and trees. He heard a rustling, deep in a thicket of palmetto plants.
Moving silently, he approached, gun drawn.
And then he saw her. Huddled near the road, hiding behind a clump of pygmy palms, a soaking wet sheet wrapped around her. Despite the heat, she shivered.
Taking it slow, he approached her. Don’t run, Jessica. Don’t run from me.
“Jessica,” he said her name softly, tenderly.
She gasped as she looked up, a forlorn, bedraggled woman with dark shadows under her eyes and matted hair. She looked like a caged animal. Her eyes widened in fear and her attention dropped to the gun. Standing, she attempted to run, but the sheet caught on a palmetto branch and she stumbled, her gaze darting from the bush to him as she tugged at her meager cover-up.
He stashed the gun in his pants and held up two hands. “I’m not going to hurt you.”