Betrayed

Chapter 15

Turning, Shane charged into the safe-house office and looked at the monitor.

Elena followed him. “What’s happening?”

“We’ve got company.”

“How?”

He kept his gaze fixed on her. “I’d like to know. Did you have something on you that would lead them to us?”

“No,” she said in a shaky voice, then more firmly, “No. I mean, what would it be?”

Scenarios spun through his mind as he strode to the control panel and clicked off the alarm, then crossed the room and did the same with the lamps he’d turned on, plunging the room into darkness. It sure hadn’t taken long for the bad guys to arrive. It looked like they’d come down from Rockville right behind him and Elena. A nasty thought struck him. What if the thugs had put a transponder on his car—just in case? If he managed to get Elena out of town, they’d know exactly where the two of them had gone. That scenario made as much sense as anything else.

The kitchen held a lot more than food preparation equipment and dishes. He hurried back and took a pair of night-vision goggles from a drawer. With them in hand, he killed the lights, then crossed the darkened room to the side of the window. When he looked out, he could see men coming up from the road, slipping through the tall grass and shrubbery, and silently advancing on the house.

“I see five men out there.”

She closed her hand over his arm. “This is my fault. Let me help.”

“It’s not your fault,” he answered automatically.

“It is. And maybe I can get us out of it.”

“How? You’re not going to give them that SIM card.”

“No.” Her alternative suggestion came so fast that he knew she’d been trying to come up with a plan.

“I could go out and pretend to surrender. While they’re focused on me, you could circle around in back of them.”

He thought about the dangerous plan for a couple of seconds. If he didn’t care about her, it was a reasonable approach. Instead, he said, “No.”

“Why not?”

“You could get killed or captured.”

“I could anyway.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “Yeah. But you’ve got a better chance of getting away if you stick with me.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Get out the back and head for the river.” He looked at her purse. “Leave that here.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know how those guys got here. They didn’t follow directly behind us. I was checking for a tail, but your brother could have put a transponder in your purse. Was he alone with it at any time?”

“When I was changing my clothes.” She swallowed hard and laid the pocketbook on the counter. “I wasn’t thinking about anything like that.”

He went back and took a remote controller from the drawer where he’d gotten the goggles. At the side window again, he noted the position of the invaders, then pointed the device toward the front yard and pushed several buttons. Along the driveway and across the lawn, small explosions erupted.

“Surprise,” he muttered as he saw rocks and dirt fly into the air, along with one of the men who had been too close to one of the detonation points. He came down hard, while the other invaders ducked for cover in the tall grass and shrubbery.

Shane didn’t wait to find out how many of the bad guys he’d put out of commission. At this point, his goal was to slow them down enough to give himself and Elena a little more time to get the hell out of there.

He pulled his gun as he hustled her to the back of the house. There was no back door as such, but a large window had been designed to serve the same purpose. He looked out, sweeping the gun in a semicircle, not sure if any of the thugs had circled the house. In the moonlight, he saw no one.

“Looks like we’re okay, but wait until I make sure it’s safe,” he whispered as he pulled up the sash. He exited quickly, waiting for a bullet to slam into him, but apparently nobody had covered this side of the house, perhaps because there was no back door. After dropping a couple of feet to the ground, he turned and motioned for her to follow. Elena climbed out, wavering on her feet as she hit the ground. He caught her in his arms and steadied her.

He moved to the corner of the house, then pushed the buttons on the controller again—creating more explosions in the yard, this time on the back side of the property. He didn’t shoot because that would alert the men that he and Elena were out of the house.

As he waited for rocks and dirt to stop falling, he heard cursing, then low voices discussing what to do. The men didn’t know if he had more charges planted and where they were. In fact, there weren’t any more hidden land mines between them and the invaders.

While the invaders were regrouping, he led Elena down the path to the dock.

There was another gate where the pier met the land. He opened it, then closed it behind them as she followed him down the dock to a waiting speedboat.

He ushered her across the gap between the dock and the boat. “Get down.”

As she crouched in the rocking craft, he untied the mooring line, then moved to the front of the vessel and pressed the starter. The motor sprang to life, and they pulled away from the pier. But more shots came from the bank and also from out on the water.

Too bad. Apparently the attackers had been ready for an escape attempt from the rear of the property and had gotten at least one boat into position before mounting the attack on the safe house.

“We can’t get away,” Elena gasped as she saw the other boat closing on them with more speed than their own craft could muster.

“Can you swim?” Shane asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then. We’re going into the water,” he said. “Head for the left shoreline, where we came from.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll head the boat across the river. If we’re lucky, they’ll think we kept going, crashed into the bank, and got out on that side.”

He slowed the boat’s speed. “Go.”

Without any argument, she did as he asked, sliding over the side into the water. As soon as she was off the craft, he increased the speed again, heading for the far shore. When he was halfway across the river, he bailed out, hitting the water hard as the boat continued its wild ride through the dark water. Hopefully it wasn’t going to crash into anyone out for a midnight cruise.

Clear of the boat, he dove and swam underwater for several yards, then came up and struck out for the shore opposite where the boat had been headed.

He could hear more than one group of searchers in the water, circling around and shouting to each other. One craft followed the speedboat and the other stayed in position near where he’d gone over the side, ready to shoot if the men spotted him.

Diving again, he continued for the shore where they’d come from. When he surfaced, he didn’t see Elena, and he couldn’t call out to her. Maybe he wasn’t going to find her.

That thought make his chest tighten painfully. After taking Arnold Blake’s phone out of his pocket and dropping it toward the bottom in the river, he kept swimming toward the bank, following the same method of keeping mostly underwater. Finally his feet touched the muddy bottom, and he crouched low as he waded ashore.

Elena had learned to swim at the neighborhood pool when she was in grade school. It was another skill she’d thought of as “American.” But now she was thankful she’d insisted on lessons.

She ducked below the surface, striking out for the shore where they’d come from. When she needed air, she surfaced, looking around for the men who had come after them. It seemed like the chase had passed her by, but she was still cautious as she made for the edge of the river. When her feet finally touched the bottom, she crouched low, staying near the surface of the water, moving along the shoreline, and wondering where Shane was going to come up. Teeth gritted, she struggled to stay calm.

But that was difficult when she considered Shane’s dangerous maneuver. And the men chasing them. Men who had shown they would shoot first and ask questions later.

When her brother had come to her, he’d said he was in trouble. At the time, she hadn’t really understood how much trouble. She’d thought he might be exaggerating his predicament. Now she knew that the truth was far worse than she could have imagined. Alesandro was in a terrible spot, and she had to figure out how to help him—without betraying Shane. She’d put him in the middle of her problems, and she had to help him break free. Or them, actually, because she couldn’t kid herself. She was way out of her league.

Frustrated, Shane searched the water’s edge. Elena had bailed out first. Hopefully she had already reached the shore, but which way would she go? Downstream made sense because it was easier to move in that direction, and he didn’t think she’d head back toward the safe house that had only offered the illusion of safety.

“Good move coming down here,” he muttered to himself. He’d thought that putting distance between them and S&D would buy them some time. It hadn’t, and now they were in the river.

He looked back, seeing the boats in the water searching for him and Elena. Sometimes he still heard voices, but not close enough for him to make out what they were saying.

Trying to get out of their range, he kept heading downstream, keeping to the shoreline. Sometimes it was reinforced with barriers of large rocks to hold the soil in place. And sometimes there were marshy areas with cattails and other reeds.

Then he heard a low-pitched voice coming from a patch of marsh. He stopped short, turning in that direction.

“Shane.”

His name floated toward him from out of the reeds.

“Elena,” he answered, relief flooding through him as he changed directions and sloshed toward her. When she came out of the foliage, looking bedraggled but unharmed, he reached her and folded her in his arms. The air was mild, but he felt her shivering and stroked his hands up and down her back, trying to reassure her.

She’d done what he’d asked without question. And to tell the truth, he hadn’t known how it was going to come out. He kept his hold on her.

“Are you all right?” they both asked.

“Yes,” they both answered.

“I was worried about you,” she murmured.

“Same.”

“What are we going to do?” she whispered.

He eased away from her and looked around. “We can’t spend the night in the water.”

“Is it safe to get out? Won’t they come down the shore looking for us?”

“First, the explosions and the firefight at the safe house would have attracted attention. There are probably police all over the area now. Which means the bad guys will get out of here. And if they do stay on the river, they’ll find that the shore is lined with multimillion-dollar estates. They’d have to come onto private property to follow us. And if they did, they’d probably get shot.”

“Isn’t the same true for us?”

“Not if we do it right.”

He waded into the reeds and looked toward the nearest mansion. A few lights were on, which he hoped would discourage the goons from approaching. At the same time, he was hoping that the house was actually vacant, and the lights were set on a timer.

He came back to Elena and motioned for her to follow him along the water’s edge.

A hundred yards farther on, he found what he was looking for, a dock where a large cabin cruiser was moored.

“Wait here,” he whispered.

She huddled in the water by the edge of the pier while he climbed out. He looked around for signs that he was being followed or that anyone in the house had spotted them. When he saw and heard no one, he climbed a ladder onto the horizontal planks, staying low as he crossed to the cabin cruiser and climbed onto the long back deck lined with bench seating. At the far end was a custom-made brown tarp with snaps closing the entrance to the interior. He figured it wouldn’t be closed from the outside if someone was in there.

Still, he was cautious about entering. After pulling a couple of the snaps open, he stuck his head and shoulder inside, waiting for his vision to adjust to the moonlight coming through the windows. Inside was a spacious and comfortable cabin with teak paneling and leather sofas. If it was any indication of the level of luxury in the house, these people were quite well off. And hopefully rich enough to use this property as a vacation escape, not a permanent residence. He saw stairs at the far end of the room, which he assumed led to staterooms.

Ducking back out, he returned to the dock and looked around again to make sure nobody was watching. After several moments, he returned to the ladder where he found Elena still standing in the water, shivering as she wrapped her arms around her shoulder.

“Come on. And stay low when you get up here.”

When he gestured toward the ladder, she climbed up, and he led her toward the yacht, then onto the rear deck. After they were both on board, he crossed to the tarp where he opened more of the snaps.

“Go in.”

“Is this okay?”

He repressed a laugh. “You mean are we trespassing? Yeah, but that’s the least of our worries.”

She ducked through the opening, and he followed, pulling the tarp closed behind him and securing it with an interior hook at the top right edge.

“I can’t see much,” she murmured.

“We can’t turn on any lights. We’ll have to wait for our eyes to adjust. There’s some moonlight coming in through the window.”

He waited until he could see a little, then walked around her to the companionway, taking the stairs carefully in the dark. He felt his way along the narrow passage to one of the cabins and called softly. “Come on, and watch the stairs. They’re steep.”

The windows let in more light down here, and he looked around the small cabin, seeing a wide bunk with storage drawers underneath. He began opening them and found various items of clothing.

When he heard Elena come in behind him, he looked up. She was trying to keep her teeth from chattering and not succeeding very well.

“We need to get out of our wet clothes. There’s stuff we can wear in here. Nothing that fits well, but it will do.”

He rummaged through the items and found T-shirts and sweatpants for both of them.

“We passed a head on the way down the hall.”

“A what?”

“That’s what they call a bathroom on a boat. You can change in there,” he said, handing her a set of clothing.

When she took them from him and turned back the way she’d come, he watched her leave, thinking that he hadn’t planned to spend the night in the same room with her—and certainly not in such close quarters. There were other staterooms on the craft, but he didn’t want to be separated from her now. For a lot of reasons.

He was trying to protect her, and at the same time, he didn’t entirely trust her. After all, she’d gone into S&D to take something that didn’t belong to her. On the other hand, she’d brought it to him. And then she’d offered to grab the bad guys’ attention while he circled around in back of them. All that had to count for a lot, he told himself.

Max and Jack had stayed in the office, hoping for a call from Shane. When he failed to check in, they got out their statewide police scanner. It was all routine stuff, until they caught excited chatter about explosions and a firefight in St. Stephens on the Eastern Shore.

Max gave Jack a long look as he turned up the volume.

“That’s where one of our safe houses is located,” Jack said. “I’m betting that Shane went down there with Elena Reyes. He probably thought they’d be out of the line of fire, but it looks like they ran into trouble.”

Jack’s expression hardened. “And I don’t think we can do anything about it.”

“From the police chatter, I think he got away,” Max said. “At least there was nobody on the property.”

“Or the bad guys scooped them up,” Jack added in a low voice.

“Let’s assume he got away,” Max said. “Too bad we have no idea where he went after that.”

“And if we go down there and get stopped by the cops, we’re going to have to answer a bunch of questions.” He got out his cell phone and stared at the blank screen, willing their partner to call—like that was going to do any good.

Elena retraced her steps, looking along the hallway and finding the bathroom that Shane had mentioned.

She slipped inside and started to close the door. But that left her in total darkness, so she cracked the door again and began tugging at her wet clothing, the blouse and slacks she’d put on for her trip to S&D earlier in the evening.

Quickly she pulled the wet blouse off. Her bra was wet too, and she unhooked it, which left her naked from the waist up. The cold had contracted her nipples, and she looked down at them before reaching for a towel on the rack and drying off the upper part of her body. She thought about taking a shower, but the river water seemed okay.

When her torso was dry, she pulled on the T-shirt, which was a size too big for her. Then she slicked off her wet slacks, panties, and sandals and dried her bottom half before pulling on the sweatpants. When she got the pants on, she pushed up the legs, then draped her wet clothing over the shower rod.

It felt weird to be wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants with nothing underneath. Trying not to think about that, she turned to get a look at herself in the mirror. The room was too dark to see much, but she used the towel to dry her hair as best she could, then finger-combed it back from her face, thinking that what she looked like when she was escaping from trained killers shouldn’t matter. But apparently she wasn’t strictly using logic.

Conflicting emotions surged through her. She wanted reassurance that everything was going to be all right. And at the same time, she wanted Shane to know that the current danger had made her admit that her feelings for him ran deep—as deep as she’d suspected.

Which left her where—exactly? She’d been taught all her life that good girls waited for marriage to sleep with a man. Now she thought that was asking too much, given the circumstances. She and Shane had almost gotten killed. Maybe they still would.

Back at her apartment with Alesandro, she’d told herself she had no future with Shane. Probably that was still true, but they had now. She focused on that thought as she returned to the stateroom.

When she didn’t see Shane there, she went stock-still.

Then she heard footsteps behind her and turned.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“Setting up an alarm system. If anyone tries to come through the tarp, they’re going to ring the bell I hung there.”

“Okay. Good.”

He gestured toward one of the windows. “It’s a tight squeeze, but we can get out that way.”

She nodded, switching her attention back to him. He had put on the other pair of sweatpants, but he was standing bare-chested at the side of the room, wiping off his gun with another T-shirt.

Probably he’d gotten rid of his wet briefs, the same way she’d discarded her own bra and panties. Knowing she shouldn’t be thinking about his underwear or her own, she focused on the gun.

“Will that fire now?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“But you don’t know?”

“I can’t be sure, but it will be more reliable when it dries off.”

She came up behind him, trying not to think too much about what she was intending to do. She’d tried to turn herself into a real American woman. And in many ways she’d succeeded. But a lot of her mother’s values had stuck, which meant she didn’t have a lot of experience with men, the way most women her age would. And what her father had taught her about the value of a son versus a daughter wasn’t exactly reassuring.

Maybe Papa had thought he wasn’t broadcasting his preferences, but the way he favored her brother had been obvious to her. Alesandro had picked up on it, too, and had always acted superior, even when he’d come to her demanding that she find what Arnold Blake had stolen. Both her father and her brother had little regard for the person she was. But Shane had seemed different from the first. She’d been attracted to him, and she hadn’t known where that attraction was leading. Or she knew what she wanted, but she wasn’t sure he had the same goals.

But if you stuck to the moment, she was surer of his feelings. At the end of their date, he’d aroused her with his kiss. Then later he’d saved her life, because she had no doubt that those men intended to kill her after they found out where Blake had hidden the information they wanted. Just the way they’d killed him. Maybe that was what they were planning for her brother after they got what they wanted.

She didn’t want to think about that now. She wanted to focus on the man in front of her. She’d had a vivid dream of making love to him. The dream had embarrassed her when she’d seen him the next day, and she’d tried to deny what she felt for him. Not tonight. At the safe house he’d held her in his arms. That had to mean something. Now she was alone with him after their perilous escape, and she was going to take advantage of that.

“Shane?”

When he turned to face her, she reached for him, pulling him close. She felt him go very still.

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I almost went too far with you earlier in the car. Well, not in the car, exactly. I was thinking about taking you in to your apartment.”

The frank words shocked her, but she managed to laugh.

“If you had, we would have stumbled over my brother, and we could have prevented a lot of chasing around.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier. He wasn’t going to tell me why he was there.”

“But you would have seen from his face that something was going on, and you would have gotten him to admit what it was.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“You’re very persuasive.”

She heard him swallow. “You’ve just had a bad experience, and you’re reacting.”

She kept her voice low. “And you’re trying to protect me from myself.”

Although she was clasping him to her, he kept his hands at his sides. His voice sounded gritty when he said, “I’m trying not to do the wrong thing.”

She didn’t let herself examine that too closely, even though she was rather sure she knew what he thought was wrong, under these circumstances.

Instead she said, “Maybe the bad experience has let me admit what I truly want.”