“I’m bringing my wife here,” Steadman said.
The talk of romance prompted Kate to check her watch. She’d expected to hear from Nick by now. His private plane had landed in Honolulu at 4 P.M., and he was supposed to text her after he’d settled in at the beach house. But that was nearly three hours ago and there was still no word.
She hadn’t seen Nick since Las Vegas, but they’d stayed in touch by text while she’d led the dismantling of Trace’s operation for the FBI. This trip to Hawaii was their first chance to properly celebrate the success of their mission beyond the one unforgettable, sleepless night they’d had together, and they were both looking forward to it. So why had he suddenly gone silent?
Kate sent him a text: Do you want me to bring you some ribs?
Over the next twenty minutes, she ate some more ribs, had a Diet Coke, and checked her phone again about a dozen times. But still no reply.
Kate looked up from her phone and saw her father regarding her with concern. She tilted her head toward the parking lot. The two of them got up, said their goodbyes to the others, and met at her rented Jeep.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m supposed to get together with Nick tonight at a house on Kailua Beach. But I should have heard from him hours ago. I’m going over there now, and I could use some backup.”
“I think you can fend off Nick’s advances on your own,” Jake said.
“That’s not the trouble I’m worried about.”
“Did you pack an extra gun?”
“Of course,” she said. “You can never have too many weapons.”
Jake smiled. “I raised you right.”
—
Kate and Jake parked two blocks away from the house and approached it from the beach so they wouldn’t be seen in case Nick was being watched by a law enforcement agency or by one of his many enemies.
They stayed close to the ocean-side property lines of the homes, which were spaced widely apart from their neighbors and separated from the beach by patios, pools, and lush landscaping. The shadows cast by the trees and hedges were the only cover that Kate and Jake had on the otherwise open moonlit beach.
It was a perfect tropical night. A warm breeze with a rich, floral scent rustled the tall, slender palms and seemed to move in time with the gentle surf. But it wasn’t relaxing Kate. Her heart was racing, jacked up with a shot of pre-combat adrenaline. Her instincts were warning her. She glanced at her father to see if he was feeling it, too, but all she sensed from his posture was reluctance.
“Are you sure you need me?” Jake said. “Maybe Nick just wants to surprise you.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Kate said. “Keep your eyes open.”
She led the way. Tiki torches illuminated the path from the beach to the backyard, where dozens of candles framed the lap pool, the water covered with flower petals. The house was dark and the shutters were closed on the windows. A gas-fed fire was burning in a lava-stone campfire pit, casting flickering light on a wide-pillowed hammock that was strung between two palms.
“It looks like Nick has a romantic evening planned,” Jake said, and started back down the path. “You two have fun.”
“Wait,” Kate said. She spotted a bottle of champagne sitting in an ice bucket within arm’s reach of the hammock. She glanced in the bucket and immediately drew her Glock.
“Your sister’s right,” Jake said. “You really are afraid of intimacy.”
“That’s a five-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of tepid water and the candles around the pool are melted,” Kate said. “What does that tell you?”
Jake pulled his gun out from under his untucked shirt. “That the evening was supposed to get started hours ago but something got in Nick’s way.”
Kate moved quick and low to the dark house, her father close behind her, and they flanked the French doors. She reached out with one hand, gripped the door handle, and tested it. The door was unlocked. Jake moved a few steps away from the wall, took a firing stance at a slight angle from Kate, and nodded to her that he was ready.
She opened the door and crept inside in a crouch, ready to shoot at anything that moved in the darkness. Nothing did. But she’d heard shards of glass crunch under her feet and a couch was overturned in front of her. That worried her. So she took the risk of standing up, hitting the light switch on the wall, and making herself a target.
What she saw almost brought her to her knees again. The glass coffee table was shattered and the jagged shards on the bleached-wood floor were splattered with blood. A body had hit the glass. From there, her eyes were drawn to a wide smear of blood that ran from the wrought-iron legs of the coffee table all the way to the front door. There’d been a fight and a body had been dragged outside. Was it Nick? Had he been hurt? Or was he dead?
Jake hurried in behind her and went into the kitchen, methodically moving through the room.
“Clear,” he yelled when he got to the other side.
That snapped her out of it. She went across the living room to the entry hall, then into a bedroom, peering under the bed, in the closets, and the adjoining bathroom.
“Clear,” she yelled.
Together, Kate and Jake swept the entire house, room by room, until they were sure that there was nobody else there. They ended up in the master bedroom, where Nick’s clothes were hanging in the closet above his empty suitcase.
“We know he made it here alive,” Kate said.
“There is no reason to think he didn’t leave here alive, too.”
“You saw the living room,” she said. “You saw the blood. A body was dragged out.”
“That doesn’t mean it was his,” Jake said.
She holstered her gun, went back to the entry hall, and cracked open the shutters to look out the front window. Nick’s rented Ferrari was parked in the driveway.
“Who did this?” Jake asked. “How did they know he was here?”
“We stayed here before,” Kate said. “Maybe he was spotted by one of Alika’s gang or by the Yakuza.”
“There are no signs of forced entry,” Jake said. “His attacker could have been someone he knew.”
“Or Nick left the doors unlocked for me so whoever it was just walked right in.” Kate surveyed the damage in the living room. “I think Nick was outside, setting things up, and when he came back in, they attacked him…and he was either seriously wounded or killed.”
“Or he fought back, escaped, and whoever his adversaries were dragged away their casualties.”
“Nick’s car is still outside.”
“All that means is that he didn’t have his keys and had to flee on foot.”
“If Nick escaped, he would have contacted me already.”
“Unless he’s still running, or he’s unconscious in the bushes or on the beach somewhere, or he’s in an ambulance right now, on his way to the hospital,” Jake said. “It’s too early to tell what happened or where he is.”
“Or if he’s still alive.”
“You can’t assume the worst. You’ve got to assume that he’s alive and that he needs you.”
“I need him.” Kate turned away from her father so he wouldn’t see the tears welling in her eyes.
“I know you do.”
“I will find Nick, wherever he is, alive or dead and make whoever did this pay. Nothing will stop me.”
“Us.” Jake put his arm around her.
“Us,” she said.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We’d like to thank Chuck Knief, Kay Chan, Sam Barer, Kathryn O’Keeffe, D. P. Lyle, Winz Tam, Jim Clemente, Doug Stone, and especially Jim Kochel for sharing their specialized knowledge with us.
BY JANET EVANOVICH
THE FOX AND O’HARE NOVELS WITH LEE GOLDBERG
The Heist
The Chase
The Job
The Scam
THE STEPHANIE PLUM NOVELS
One for the Money
Two for the Dough
Three to Get Deadly
Four to Score
High Five
Hot Six
Seven Up
Hard Eight
To the Nines
Ten Big Ones
Eleven on Top
Twelve Sharp
Lean Mean Thirteen
Fearless Fourteen
Finger Lickin’ Fifteen
Sizzling Sixteen
Smokin’ Seventeen
Explosive Eighteen
Notorious Nineteen
Takedown Twenty
Top Secret Twenty-One
THE BETWEEN THE NUMBERS STORIES
Visions of Sugar Plums
Plum Lovin’
Plum Lucky
Plum Spooky
THE LIZZY AND DIESEL NOVELS
Wicked Appetite
Wicked Business
Wicked Charms (with Phoef Sutton)
THE ALEXANDRA BARNABY NOVELS
Metro Girl
Motor Mouth
Troublemaker (graphic novel)
NONFICTION
How I Write
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JANET EVANOVICH is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Stephanie Plum series, the Fox and O’Hare series, the Lizzy and Diesel series, the Alexandra Barnaby novels and Troublemaker graphic novel, and How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author.
evanovich.com
Facebook.com/JanetEvanovich
@JanetEvanovich
LEE GOLDBERG is a screenwriter, TV producer, and the author of several books, including King City, The Walk, and the bestselling Monk series of mysteries. He has earned two Edgar Award nominations and was the 2012 recipient of the Poirot Award for Malice Domestic.
leegoldberg.com
Facebook.com/AuthorLeeGoldberg
@LeeGoldberg
Janet Evanovich, The Scam
(Series: Fox and O'Hare # 4)
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends