Someone Safe

“Perhaps you remember him now?” he asked calmly. She could feel his erection now. Pressing against her abdomen.

She found herself nodding. Give him what he wants. Appear to go along. Survive.

“See. Isn’t that easier? You have twenty-four hours to return what doesn’t belong to you.”

She numbly nodded again.

“There was a Customs man at your place. What did he want?”

He’d been watching her even then, knew Nick had been there. When she tried to speak, her voice shook. “He wanted to… He asked about flights.”

His fingers continued their play. “You wouldn’t be stupid enough to lie to me, would you?”

She swallowed. “No. I wouldn’t—”

“I didn’t think so. And it better stay that way. Return what doesn’t belong to you and you’ll live.” He leaned down until his mouth was next to her ear. “Play games, talk to Customs or the police, the only thing you’ll be good for is shark bait.”

He abruptly shoved her down into the corner. She cowered on the cold concrete.

Pulling her blouse together, she felt for buttons with stiff fingers; finding none, she tied it together. She could feel him standing over her. Clasping her arms, she fought to control the sharp shudders that came endlessly, one after the other.

When enough minutes had stretched, soundless and expectant—when she had finally convinced herself she was wrong about her attacker still being there—she felt the first glimmer of relief and reached for the burlap still covering her head.

His low chuckle stopped her in midmotion.

He’d been watching her cringe like some beaten animal at his feet. Anger twisted in her.

She left the blindfold in place, but pushed her way up the wall until she stood unsteadily. “You won’t kill me. We both know it. Not until Binelli gets what he wants.”

He laughed. “Don’t go thinking you’re too smart, Kelly. Or I’ll be forced to finish what I’ve started here.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you sick bastard?”

He stepped closer. “No. I’d love it.”

At his words, Kelly took a sharp breath. She listened to the crunch of his footsteps as he walked away.

With the first heave, Kelly ripped off the hood. Doubled over, she emptied her stomach in the corner. She scraped at the dampness on her cheeks, wobbled back a step, then, straightening, dragged her fingers through her sweaty hair. She tested her bruised cheekbone.

Binelli? Who in the hell was Binelli? Why did her attacker think she knew him when she’d never even heard the name before?

She grappled to make any sense out of what had happened, but no matter how she turned it, she was in deep trouble. The kind where people ended up dead.

She’d been right all along. Nick’s showing up tonight hadn’t been by chance. He’d been after something. She couldn’t even begin to figure out what was going on, but she was sure Nick already knew what the attack had been all about.

She stood there in indecision. She needed to move. But where? Going to the police would be a waste of time. They couldn’t help her. They’d fill out a report. Send someone out to gather evidence, including the vomit. In the meantime, she’d be like a blind woman. She didn’t known what her attacker looked like. He could walk up to her in broad daylight on the street, in a crowd, or anywhere, and kill her.

Who was Binelli?

Taking a sharp breath, she bent forward, pushing hard against her abdomen, the panic so sharp it felt as if a knife were being driven between her ribs. When she finally managed to straighten again, sweat poured from her.

If she wanted to live, she needed answers.

And the only one likely to have them was Nick.

THERE WERE NO LIGHTS ON inside the hotel, most tourists having fled the intense heat of July and the threat of hurricane season. The air was heavy and hot and suffocating; the moon, nearly full and high in the sky, was bright enough to throw sharp shadows beneath the trees.

A hunter’s moon.

Kelly circled the long, low-slung structure until she spotted a single room off by itself where the drapes were drawn.

She approached carefully. If there had been anywhere else for her to go for the answers, anyone else for her to turn to, she wouldn’t have come here.

After looking nervously over her shoulder, the memory of her attacker’s warning to stay clear of Nick still prominent in her mind, she tapped lightly.

“Nick, open up. It’s Kelly.”

Nothing. Not even the sound of someone moving around inside. She rapped again, this time with more force.

Then, when there was no answer, with desperation.

The panic she’d barely kept under control broke loose inside her and she pounded harder. Had he lied about where he was staying?

And, if he wasn’t here, what was she going to do? Where would she go? Who could she turn to?

“It’s a little late for social calls.”

Though the slow drawl of Nick’s words had barely broken the night’s silence, she jumped.

As she spun to face him, her hand climbed to her throat, remained there.

He leaned against a pillar not more than five feet away, his stance seemingly as lazy as his voice. And yet, even with the distance between them, she could feel the tension in his body, the sharp interest in his gaze.

He wore the jeans he’d had on earlier and a dark shirt, which hung from his shoulders unbuttoned and untucked. As her glance swept down to his bare feet, she hesitated on the automatic he held in front of him, the barrel currently pointed at the concrete.

He thumbed on the safety before palming the piece.

“I would have figured this was the last place you’d show up tonight, Kel.” He arched a brow. “Or any night, for that matter.”

She shut her eyes briefly, forcing her thoughts into some semblance of order, and was thankful for the deeper shadows of the covered walkway. She didn’t want him to see just how terrified, how desperate she was feeling.

Hugging the green hooded jacket she’d pulled on over her ruined blouse, she looked down, the shakes still wracking her body. “I want some answers.”

As he closed the distance between them, Nick watched for signs of a weapon, but saw none. A satchel weighted her left shoulder, a good spot to conceal a gun, but she seemed barely to notice it hanging there. Her hair was windblown around her face.

Stopping in front of her, he couldn’t seem to stop his fingers from lifting a strand of it, testing its texture, getting closer to her than she wanted him to be. Invading her space.

He realized he’d forgotten just how short she was. Maybe five-four at most and a hundred and ten pounds of hard muscle and flowing curves. Soft skin. An appealing package if you could ignore her taste in business partners.

“What kind of answers are you looking for?”

As he tucked the hair behind her ear, he saw the scrape on the side of her neck. Or was it a burn of some sort? “What’s this?”

When he tried to touch her, she jerked away, covered the area with her hand.

“Nothing,” she said and met his gaze.

It worried him that the usual directness was oddly absent, her pupils appearing overdilated. As if she were on something.

Nick felt his nerves take a little joyride on him. He needed to be damned careful. It had been after leaving her hangar tonight that someone had tried to resurface the local roads with his hide. Either she’d made a phone call after he’d left or she was being watched and whoever was doing the watching had followed him.

“Kelly?”

She looked up at him. “I want… I need to know the real reason you came to see me. No more games,” she added.

Without answering, he reached around her and turned the doorknob. He sensed her withdrawal as he once more got too close. “Let’s take this conversation inside. Where we can talk without any interruptions.”

She remained where she was, her arms locked around her body, across the jacket. Out on the water, it might have been needed, but why continue to wear the coat? Especially zipped up tight as it was now?

Unless she was hiding something beneath.

“Inside is safer.” Without waiting for her agreement, he shoved the door wide and, simply by advancing, forced her backward.

All of the rooms had been furnished pretty much the same. Inexpensive hotel furniture from the eighties, worn terrazzo floors, cotton spreads. A refrigerator in one corner.

“You wouldn’t have brought any surprises with you?” he asked as he kicked the door shut and slid the Glock into the holster concealed beneath his shirt. “Maybe in that bag of yours?”

He stripped the satchel off her shoulder and tossed it toward the bed, heard it land on the mattress. “I need to check you for a weapon.”

“There’s no need—”

“We can make this fast and easy, or difficult. It’s your choice. But I don’t plan to have a gun stuck in my face twice in one night.”

Making a sound somewhere between disbelief and disgust, she held her arms away from her sides.

He patted her down, his hands moving over her quickly, efficiently, finding those areas where concealment of an automatic weapon might be possible. He could feel her rebelling when he checked the area between and below her breasts, then lower.

Touching her in the nearly dark room, even in the rapid, fluid motion of a professional body search, even with the possibility someone might bust through the door behind him, brought back memories of the last night they’d spent together. His hands had done a hell of a lot more in Key West. And, yet, he recalled how, at the time, it hadn’t been nearly enough. Another of his regrets, he realized, and tossed it into the basket with the rest of them. One of these days, he was going to run out of room.

Nick stepped back abruptly. After dragging a small dresser in front of the door, he picked up the satchel and grabbed Kelly loosely by the upper arm. “Should I expect company?”

“Like who?”

The edge of irritation and impatience in her voice sounded more like the woman who had confronted him with a gun earlier that night. Moments ago outside, he’d thought he’d sensed something far different, something he hadn’t been able to identify. And, because he couldn’t, it had worried him. “Maybe you brought a few friends along.”

“I think I would remember if I had.”

“But would you tell me?”

He wasn’t surprised when she ignored the question.

“Next door,” he ordered, ushering her toward the connecting opening.

After twisting the lock and shoving a straightback chair under the knob, he crossed to the window. He didn’t like it. Kelly showing up like this. First the hit-and-run attempt and now Kelly’s nocturnal visit.

What did it mean? Who wanted him dead? No one from the States had known where he was going or what his intentions were. As far as Myron knew, he was taking a few weeks off to get his head straightened out.

“Stay there,” Nick ordered when she tried to follow. As she sank onto the bed, he briefly scanned the stretch of lawn ending at the incline to the beach below, then dropped the satchel at his feet and stooped next to it. He used one hand to do a rough search. Finding no weapon, he tossed it on the closest bed. “You packed light tonight.”

She retrieved the bag. “Did you really expect to find a gun in there?”

“Call me cautious.”

Something Ake hadn’t been on that final night. Which was only one aspect of his murder that worried Nick. How had the killer managed to get close enough on a wide-open rooftop to put two well-placed bullets in Ake’s skull? Nick didn’t like any of the possibilities that came to mind.

He again looked out the window. If trouble came, it would be from out there. “You wanted to talk, so have at it.”

“Why are you over here? Out of your jurisdiction?”

“Vacation.” He glanced at her and added, “To do some scuba diving.”

In obvious impatience at his answer, she shoved a hand through her hair. She glanced away briefly, maybe in indecision, then met his gaze again, her lips thinned.

“You expect me to believe that? That you just happened to run into Ben tonight over at Gilroy’s—a meeting Ben says never took place? That you decided to stop by the hangar for the sake of old times?” She took a sharp breath. “The old times weren’t that good, Nick. In fact, I could have gone my whole life without ever laying eyes on you again.”

She tightened her arms across her. “So can we just cut to the chase here? What is it you’re after? What is it you think I’m involved in?”

“Come off it, Kelly. Wasn’t it you who said no more games?”

“Who is Binelli?”

His expression hardened. “The innocent act won’t play this time. I may have bought it seven years ago, but I know better this time. Tell me, what are the chances of an innocent citizen’s name coming up twice in connection to the same type of crime?”

She remained in the shadows. “You think I’m smuggling again.”

“If you came here hoping to convince me you’re not laundering Binelli’s drug money, you’re wasting your breath.” He glanced out the window again.

“Laundering drug money? You’re wrong, Nick, about me, about my being involved with anyone named Binelli. As wrong as you were about everything seven years ago.”

He turned and faced her. “Do I need to remind you that your father’s prints were on the two remaining crates we found in the storeroom that morning, on the guns inside them?”

“Do I need to remind you that, except for the prints, except for the word of a weapons dealer who had previously perjured himself on the stand, the evidence was circumstantial? Photos of me and Dad with Aidan. He’d been a guest in our house for years. Not often, maybe, but he still stopped around to talk about old times, about flying. God, Nick, they grew up together.”

“On the streets of Belfast. Where they both lost family.”

“Dad hated war, violence of any kind.”

“Yet he welcomed a man with known terrorist connections into his home. Invited a man who supplied weapons that killed and maimed to sit at his table.”

“You sat there, too. He trusted you just as he did Aidan. Look how wrong he was about you. You betrayed the friendship in every conceivable way.”

“Are you suggesting he didn’t know about Aidan?”

She let out a sharp breath. “I don’t know. Maybe he did. Perhaps he turned a blind eye to Aidan’s connections. He never discussed Aidan with me. But my father can’t defend himself, can he? He never got the chance.”

“No, he didn’t. But does an innocent man hang himself? Leave a note admitting to a crime he didn’t commit? In that same note, exonerate his daughter? I’m sorry for what he did, but he was guilty.”

“And me? Because I didn’t hang myself. Does that mean I wasn’t guilty? Is that why you guys didn’t charge me?”

Nick rubbed his face. Had she been guilty then? Had she known what her father was doing? It was a question he’d wrestled with for the past seven years. And as far as the reason Kelly hadn’t been indicted, it had been a judgment call made by prosecutors. There had been no direct evidence linking Kelly to the guns. And they’d thought that selling nineteen-year-old Kelly as a desperate gun runner with connections to a terrorist organization to a jury would be a real uphill battle. One they might not win.

“Nick?”

“You’d do better to worry about the present, Kelly. If you want to talk, really talk, I’ll listen. I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

“Just as you did in New Jersey?” She picked up the satchel from where she’d laid it on the bed, and then hesitated. In the dimness, he couldn’t read her eyes. “Maybe you’ve forgotten how it was, Nick. How you left me in that holding cell. How you walked away without ever once looking back.

“I had just watched my father be cut down from that rafter.” She took a deep breath, met his gaze again. “I thought I was in love with you back then. It was your arms I turned to, your arms I wanted locked around me. Until that moment, I trusted you. Even when I learned who you really were. What you were. I don’t think I’ll make the same mistake twice,” she offered and, without waiting, crossed to the door.

“Kelly?”

She stopped, her hand already on the knob.

“Be careful. Binelli plays by his own rules.” Nick didn’t know why he felt it necessary to offer the warning. Maybe because he knew the people she’d chosen to associate with, was worried she might not know the full extent of what they were capable of.

“I already got a taste of it tonight.” Turning, she unzipped her jacket, pulled it wide.

Confronted with the torn and bloodied blouse, Nick hauled her forward into the moonlight coming through the window. What he’d thought was a burn or scrape on the side of her neck, what she’d been careful to conceal from him by the hooded collar of her jacket, he now recognized as the work of a knife. Though it wasn’t, the cut in the area of her collarbone had bled enough to look serious. He didn’t miss the pattern some scum had drawn on her bra. All wounds easily concealed beneath clothing. Her attacker obviously had some practice at terrorizing women.

“Who did this?”

“We didn’t exactly get around to formal introductions.”

“Why did it happen?”

“Why? Because Binelli thinks I have something that belongs to him?”

Kelly stepped free of his grasp, rezipped the jacket as he moved back half a step. “I don’t suppose it matters that I have never set eyes on Binelli.”

“And that’s why some of Binelli’s muscle messed you up? Because you don’t know the man?”

“If I knew what was going on, I wouldn’t have wasted my time coming here, would I?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, his tone hard-edged. “With your back plastered to the wall, I might look like your best hope.”

Something, maybe indecision about his next move, made him look out the window at that moment.

A man sprinted across the lawn. A second followed.

Busy watching the two, he hadn’t seen Kelly reaching for the door again until it was almost too late. He grabbed her before she could get it open. “Don’t go out there. You’re safer with me. For now.”

She tried to shake free of his hold, but he only tightened his grip on her upper arm. “Damn it! Listen to me. There are two men outside watching the room next door.”

“I don’t think I was followed. I was careful.”

“Which means it’s me they’re after.”

“Why would they be after you?”

“Doesn’t really matter, does it? The outcome will be the same. For both of us.”

“I was warned not to contact you or the police.”

He stared outside again. “So why did you come to me, Kelly, and not the police?”

“The police wouldn’t be able to protect me, not against someone like Binelli. And they’d only have questions. You, on the other hand, have answers.”

“None you’ll like.” He pushed her back into the shadows next to the wall, out of harm’s way, then flicked off the automatic’s safety.

“Hell of a first night of vacation, don’t you think?” he added as he took up a position next to the window.

Nick watched the shadows of two men sweep past. He didn’t question the decision to take Kelly along, told himself it was because she just might be able to provide him with some of the answers he needed. But he knew better.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“Boat.”

Nick eased forward and, as he watched, one of the men rolled around in a smooth, practiced motion and kicked in the door to the adjoining room. Furniture thudded and banged. Nick’s attention shot to the connecting door between the two rooms as a solid blow landed against it.

He checked back outside to where the second man stood guard. He needed him to follow his partner inside. Otherwise, they were as good as trapped.

Another kick landed against the connecting door. He could hear the jamb splinter.

“Be ready for anything,” Nick said between gritted teeth, but didn’t look in Kelly’s direction.

The chair under the knob exploded across the room.

The second man followed the first in.

Nick ripped the front door open, grabbed Kelly and shoved her outside ahead of him.

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