Authors: Sharon Calvin
“Hilary, go home. Joe, you can stay,” Stillman said and picked up his steaming mug. Joe would have Caitlyn’s address. And might even have a clue as to what the hell was going on with her.
Hilary smiled at the waitress. “I’ll have a cup of coffee. Decaf, please.” Her smile faltered when she looked at him. “I’m not leaving until I tell you what happened.” She tucked a length of hair behind her ear and looked around the diner before coming back to him with a little sigh. “I was thoughtless and even a little catty.”
Stillman caught the flash of a very large diamond and set his coffee down. He leaned forward and grabbed her hand. “Guess Dickless came through after all.”
Her face turned red and jerked her hand away. “Dickless” Donner, one of his father’s partners, had been sniffing around Hilary since a year or two after Stillman married her. The middle-aged surgeon had plenty of money and most of his hair. Hilary had been referring to him as her fiancé but without the ring, Stillman hadn’t been convinced it wasn’t all in her mind.
Hilary cast an embarrassed look at Joe. “Don’t be crude, Nicolas is a sweet man.”
Her pout appeared well rehearsed. What had possessed him to ever think he could be happy with such vanity?
“Excuse me for butting in on this tender moment, but I take it you’re not marrying Hilary? Again?” Joe asked.
“What?” Shit, was
that
what Caitlyn thought? “Hell no, I’m not marrying anybody.” Not unless he could convince a damn stubborn redhead they belonged together.
I love you, and would have made you beautiful babies.
Her whispered words came back with meaning now. Well, son of a bitch, all he had to do was tell her he wasn’t marrying Hilary? His gut relaxed for the first time in what felt like weeks.
“I think I might have said something—actually several somethings that I shouldn’t have.”
Hilary’d reverted to fidgeting. Their waitress returned with more coffee and verified no one else wanted to order food.
“All right. What did you say?” Stillman sat back and sipped from his mug, eyeing Hilary’s demeanor. She must have done something she was ashamed of. Rarely did she appear uncomfortable over her verbal barbs.
“I recognized the little plane Caitlyn was wearing as the same one on that music box you’d given to one of the nurses and kind of hinted that maybe it had something to do with Mile High Wings.”
“Shit.” Joe’s mug hit the table with a loud
thunk
.
Hilary jumped and blushed a deeper red. “I didn’t know it meant having sex in an airplane!”
Joe waved his hand as if to brush her discomfort away. “That wouldn’t have offended Queen B.” He drilled Stillman with a glare. “The idea she was just one of many would have.”
He glared back. “She’s not. She’s one of a kind.” When he’d heard that she’d salvaged that worthless little plane in the midst of a water ditching, he knew exactly how much it meant to her.
“The triage nurse lit into me after Caitlyn left.” Hilary held up her manicured hand, the one with the boulder on it, and turned it palm up. “Stillman, I truly did not mean to cause you any trouble. I didn’t know the music box on the nurses’ desk was meant for
Caitlyn
,” she practically wailed in an uncharacteristic display of emotion.
Stillman pulled the perfectly wrapped little box from his jacket pocket and set it on the table. “I may be able stitch a six-inch gash and not leave a scar, but when it comes to gift wrapping, I’m worse than a first-year med student. Our triage nurse did the honors for me.” Oddly enough, he believed Hilary’s version of what happened.
His breakfast arrived and he glanced at Joe. “Queeny’s not answering her cell phone. Wanna tell me where she lives so I can go by and deliver my little gift? And explain why the hell she’s not moving to Ala-damn-bama.”
Joe grinned. “I’ll do you one better if you know how to ride a motorcycle.”
Clearwater, FL,
Monday, 3 October, 2230 hours
Valerie sighed as the music shifted to a slow, bluesy song and Munson slid his arm around her waist to settle her more firmly against him. Dancing with him was pure pleasure. Or as close as she’d allowed herself to come in a long time.
Yasin had gone bar hopping with the younger Coasties while she and Munson drifted across the parking lot to a little jazz bar and restaurant. He’d bought her dinner. And she’d made up her mind to say yes if he asked her to spend the night in his bed.
“I’m sorry. This evening didn’t turn out the way I’d planned,” Munson said, his breath stirring the hair over her ear along with her blood.
She cocked her head to study his serious face as they continued to sway to the music. “You don’t hear me complaining.” Exactly what
had
he planned?
His mouth moved with a wry twist. “Your meeting with the much-lauded pilot lasted about five seconds.”
Valerie chuckled. Caitlyn Stone had exceeded her expectations. The statuesque redhead vibrated with a curious mixture of scrubbed girl-next-door beauty and sultry sex-goddess. Her crew, from adorably cute to devastatingly handsome, and all terribly young looking, gave the impression they’d take on a ship full of terrorists to protect her. From Val’s experience with sailors, that was more telling than any politically correct military record.
“She’s young and in love. And survived something few men, let alone women, have to face. So I say, go for it, girlfriend!”
Munson gave her a considering look. “You think she’s in love with the doctor?”
“After hearing Yasin’s comments about what happened on the island, and seeing her reaction to the reason he was working late? Yeah, it’s obvious,” she said with a snort. Only a man could be so dense.
His eyes darkened and his gaze drifted down to her mouth. She held her breath on a wish.
Yes, idiot, go for a kiss
.
“I want you to know, whatever does, or doesn’t happen between us, it in no way affects our working relationship.”
Oh, to hell with waiting. Valerie shifted to her toes and pressed her lips to his. He took the lead away from her, deepening the kiss with a little growl and just enough tongue to show he was serious.
He ended the kiss with the last wailing note of the saxophone. “I’ve wanted to do that since I saw you walk into your condo’s lobby. I have no business getting involved with you, but damned if I’m not already.”
“Good. Now tell me you’re not going to make me spend the night alone.” The boyish grin lit up his face and made her heart tap-dance.
“Honey, the one sure thing I’ve learned in my line of business is to take what I want, because second chances are few and far between. You just happen to be both.”
Valerie hooked her arm through his and headed to the door. “Your next good news better be that the hotel is only a block away.”
He opened the door for her but his blood-heating chuckle was cut short by the soft chime of his cell phone. He answered the call, keeping his right hand centered on the small of her back, as he urged her toward his rental car.
Their physical and emotional connection shattered when he said, “Fuck,” and halted in the middle of the parking lot. The FBI Agent-in-Charge was back in full force. Valerie silently mourned the change as fear eased closer.
“When?” His eyes rested on her for a second before he swept the parked cars as if searching for an enemy. “How the hell did they get to him?”
Valerie froze. Atwah had been executed. She felt it in her bones. In a federal detention center, surrounded by guards and security systems, Ali, or at least his hired gun, had eliminated his own brother. She hugged herself and searched the dark corners of the lot. A couple of cars were backing out of their parking spots, another, a black Mercedes two-seater, sat with the engine idling near the entrance to the Mexican cantina.
She trembled inside. Would he come after her? Damn, she hadn’t researched Ali as much as Atwah. But if he was the smarter—
The waiting Mercedes leaped forward with a throaty roar and Munson threw himself in front of her. Two explosive
pop
s followed, and then Valerie was falling under the dead weight of Special Agent Scott Munson.
Chapter Eighteen
Stillman grabbed the handle above the passenger door as Joe swung his truck out of the path of a small Mercedes bulleting out of the cantina parking lot.
“Turn on your lights, asshole!” Joe yelled his opinion at the departing vehicle.
A man was sprawled on the pavement and a woman in a white dress was struggling to pull him between two parked cars. “Shit. The asshole must have hit him.” Stillman had the door open before Joe had time to stop the truck. The woman was compounding the man’s potential injuries by dragging him without any neck or back support.
“Stop! You could be—”
Stillman found himself looking at the business end of a Glock. Automatically his hands came up and out in a placating gesture. “Honey, I’m a doctor. I don’t want to do anything but help.”
“Valerie, it’s Joe. And this is Dr. Stillman Gray. What the hell happened to Munson?”
The gun wavered as she looked from Stillman to Joe. “He was shot. Protecting me,” she choked out on a sob.
Stillman ignored the gun and immediately slipped into triage mode. He stripped off the man’s jacket and ripped open the bloody shirt while directing Joe to call 911. The gun clattered to the tarmac and the woman’s hands joined his peeling back material.
“I need a light,” Stillman yelled to Joe who was already talking on his cell phone. As near as he could make out, one small hole, about the size of his little finger, marked the entrance wound on the man’s right shoulder. There was no exit wound.
Joe crouched beside him with a flashlight held aloft. “Ambulance on the way, ETA five minutes. Val, any idea what this is about?”
Stillman continued stemming blood flow and assessing the damage while listening to the woman’s answer. Foreboding stomped its way through his gut. Scott Munson was the FBI agent who worked the hijacking case, Valerie the source of most their intel.
“He got a call telling him Atwah had been killed. It has to be his brother, Ali’s doing.” Her hands tensed then grabbed Stillman’s arm. “Where’s Caitlyn? If he’s bent on revenge, she could be his next target!”
Battle-hardened nerves kept Stillman from reacting outwardly to Valerie’s warning. His heart, however, took a direct hit. He cursed softly under his breath and shifted her hands to the folded shirt and pressed them both down tight. “Put your weight into holding this. Joe, make sure Munson keeps breathing. I need the keys to the truck and directions to Caitlyn’s.”
In less than a minute he was accelerating out of the parking lot past the incoming ambulance. He had a key to Caitlyn’s apartment and a gun in the center console. God help him if he was too late.
Clearwater, FL,
Monday, 3 October, 2300 hours
Caitlyn rolled over and punched her pillow with a vicious right hook. That damn woman not only stole her man, now she was stealing her sleep. She flopped onto her back with a frustrated sigh. Why couldn’t Stillman see Hilary was all wrong for him?
How could he have looked so damn surprised when she said she was leaving? Had he worked something out with Hilary so he could have both of them? She snorted and turned onto her side. No, Stillman might be a lot of things, but a sleaze he was not.
So why had she given in without a fight? If she loved him, why the hell had she made it so easy for Hilary? She rolled onto her stomach. Well, tomorrow she’d—Why wait till tomorrow? It wasn’t like she was getting any sleep now. She flipped onto her back again.
Her eyelids popped open, fueled by alarm. The room was completely dark. Her heart pounded out a warning from childhood—
monsters, monsters, monsters.
Her photocell-controlled night-light had battery backup in case of a power failure. She’d even switched to LEDs so she wouldn’t have to worry about a bulb burning out in her lifetime. She held her breath and listened, fighting the panic that slicked her with sweat. Someone had deliberately disconnected the light. She shifted her gaze to the digital clock on her nightstand without moving her head. No comforting blue numbers glowed back at her.
The power had been cut, as well.
The air felt charged. A whisper of movement was her only warning before a hand clamped over her mouth and a hard, cold object pressed against her temple.
“You will make no noise. You understand?”
She nodded and fought to contain the scream of terror building in her head.
Concentrate on details, Caity, the police would ask endless questions.
And it would keep her mind off all the ugly possibilities...
The hand went away. The gun did not. He wore no discernible cologne or soap, but the scent of a familiar powder... Her heart stuttered. Latex gloves. Which explained the rubbery feel of his hand over her mouth.
The bed shifted and her heart lunged out of her chest into her throat. She whimpered before her brain processed the consequence. The sound of the resulting slap shocked her as much as the hot sting to her cheek. She sucked in a deep breath and tasted blood. Son of a bitch, that
hurt
.
“No. Noise.” He didn’t sound angry or annoyed, just deadly.
Realization settled like a hard landing after a long tour of duty. The voice cadence and slight accent were both familiar, making her wish her brain would stop processing information. His speech pattern resembled Atwah’s and since she didn’t believe in coincidences, it meant he was the double-crossing brother. Or one of his paid stooges.
So what the hell did he want with her?
Keep him talking
. Good advice, assuming she ever got him to say more than two sentences in the first place.
“You are the pilot. The one who stole my bomb.”
Well, that was one way to look at it.
“You made a fool of my brother. You made a bigger fool of me.”
Great. He wanted to punish her for embarrassing him? She shifted slightly and the gun pressed harder. Her eyesight, and brain, had adjusted to the darkness. It wasn’t so encompassing after all; she could actually make out his shape. He appeared slight, like his brother. Of course the gun was a great equalizer. If she could get hers out of the nightstand she’d feel a lot more equal too.
“I believe the men you work with would feel obligated to come to your rescue, yes?”
No! She stilled, anticipating another slap before she realized she’d screamed in her head, not out loud. Nerve endings prickled and sweat soaked her sleep tee shirt. She held no macho illusions about being able to resist pain, she’d cave sooner or later, her only hope would be in trying to send some kind of warning when it came down to that. She shuddered at the thought of when she’d reach that point.
Damn, what she’d give to be wearing her flight boots with their steel tips.
“You will get up now. Slowly. Very carefully. Or I will shoot you like I did that other woman.”
Her heart rate ratcheted up.
What other woman?
The bed shifted as he stood. In the silence that followed she heard a
click
from the front room of her apartment. The man tensed, the gun at her temple pressing harder. Someone with a key had opened her front door.
Oh God, Joe had promised to return
Black Beauty
tonight. But why would he come into her apartment unannounced? She blinked rapidly, afraid she’d do something stupid. She’d been such a basket case when he’d driven her home, he probably didn’t want to disturb her. Would he leave the key on the table by the door?
Should she scream for help or would that just get them both killed? Her stomach twisted into a ball of indecision. What if this was her only opportunity for escape? The front door closed with another little
click
and Caitlyn sagged with a cruel mixture of relief and disappointment. He’d simply left the key in the entryway.
Her captor leaned over and whispered into her ear. “Do not make a sound. Do not move.” His dark form moved silently to the open bedroom door.
He was leaving her unguarded? Stunned by his arrogant stupidity, she didn’t move. Obviously he wasn’t used to American women. Once he left her room she’d retrieve her gun from the nightstand. His shadowy form crept through the doorway and into the short hallway. Caitlyn rolled off the bed and onto the floor without hesitation.
He had to have heard the shifting bedclothes but now she had the mattress between them. The drawer made a scraping sound and she winced. Her fingers closed around the cold metal of her nine-millimeter Beretta, quelling some of her fear.
She slid the loaded clip home and chambered a round with practiced ease. Raised in the South Carolina hills, she’d handled guns long before joining the Coast Guard. Her situation had shifted to her side. She was armed and, by God, she was dangerous.
A grunt and the sound of something—check, make that some
body
hitting the floor with a
thump
had her scrambling in a crab-walk toward the front room. A quick flip of the hall light switch confirmed the power was off. Something crashed and the sound of breaking glass propelled her to the living room at a run, her gun pointing up, safety off. She did not want to shoot Joe, or whoever her would-be rescuer was.
From the sounds, mostly grunts of pain and frustration, the two men were rolling around on the tile floor. Ambient light from her sliding glass balcony door provided enough illumination to make out two figures but not enough to identify her hero-in-the-making. Except she could see he was wearing lighter-colored clothes and had the smaller man pinned down.
“Stop! I have a gun—”
“Queeny, get the hell out of here!” Stillman’s voice came back strained. And pissed. He cursed and his head jerked back as if from a blow. Something heavy and metallic skittered across the floor.
Caitlyn crept closer to the two men as sirens wailed in the distance. More help was on the way. If she could get a clear shot...the men tumbled toward her, her captor on top. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” she shouted and stepped back with arms braced, both hands on the gun. She dropped to a crouch to get a clean center mass shot and hopefully avoid hitting Stillman while she was at it. A sickening
thud
followed by a hoarse grunt of pain could only be Stillman’s head getting bashed against the tile floor. The man on top reared back and Caitlyn exhaled, centering herself a fraction of a second before squeezing the trigger.
The resulting explosion of light and sound replayed like a mirror image with stuttered delay and oddly reduced volume. A fire ignited her left side and time froze. Her brain comprehended she’d been shot. Her ears buzzed from the loud noise, muffling Stillman’s angry roar.
Shit, shit, shit. Had she missed and hit him by mistake? Her gun wavered, its weight growing heavier with each passing millisecond. Did she have the strength to pull the trigger a second time? Before her fuzzy brain could translate thought to action, the man on top made a gurgling sound then crumpled in slow motion.
The room turned fuzzy, like the inside of a storm cloud, and the fire in her side intensified. Another loud sound made her jump, and she lost her balance, falling awkwardly away from the pain. It felt like someone was sticking a hot poker between her ribs, making the cold floor welcome relief. Stillman’s unique scent wrapped her in reassurance. She tried to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t respond. Her brain sent panicked signals her body ignored. If not for the escalating pain and dizzying movement surrounding her, she would have thought she’d passed out. As it was, she could only pray she would.
* * *
Stillman heaved the man’s twitching body off his chest as the front door crashed open. His ears still rang from Caitlyn’s cannon-shot only a few feet away. The muted cough of his assailant’s gun indicated he’d used a silencer. “Goddamnit, Queeny, why didn’t you—”
He saw her unmoving form. A bolt of panic arced through him. Jesus, she’d been hit. Ignoring a shout to freeze, he identified himself as a doctor and scrambled to Caitlyn’s side. Flashlight beams swept the room as more people poured in.
“Caitlyn, don’t you dare die on me,” Stillman growled at her lax face. He checked her pulse, rapid and too damn weak, before he ran both hands down her torso. Blood and her reflexive jerk identified the wound site. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry. Light, shit—”
Eyelids fluttered and she moaned and struggled to breathe. “I need a light, stat!” Why the hell did everybody get shot at night?
“How bad?” Joe asked, kneeling on Caitlyn’s far side holding a huge halogen spotlight on her bloodied T-shirt.
Stillman carefully peeled back the mangled cotton material. His whispered “Fuck,” came out involuntarily. The white beam revealed pale skin ravaged by a gory bloom of shattered rib and torn intercostal muscles. Her breathing produced frothy pink bubbles around her mouth and he swore again. “Punctured lung. Son of a fucking bitch, she’s deteriorating.”
“FBI and cops are here, but the ambulance is still en route,” Joe said.
Stillman checked Caitlyn’s pulse again. Let the cops deal with the man Caitlyn shot. His one and only priority was the woman whose blood coated his hands. The woman he loved.
Power came on followed by every light in the room. Seconds later EMTs clattered in with a folding gurney. Joe tried to pull Stillman back. “Let them take over, Doc. You’re too involved.”
Caitlyn’s hand flailed the air until he grabbed it. “I’m here,” he confirmed. She locked her fingers around his in a surprisingly strong grip. He leaned over her as the emergency team worked in tandem, inserting a saline line and slipping an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth while Joe supplied patient information.
“Queeny, I’m not leaving you.” He squeezed her hand and brushed his mouth over her fingers in a featherlight kiss. “I want those beautiful babies you promised me.”
Her eyes flickered open and a smile teased the corner of her mouth before falling slack behind the plastic oxygen cover. His heart shuddered before his brain kicked in. Her pulse, weak as it was, reassured him she was still alive. He kept her hand in his as the EMTs transferred her to the gurney and wheeled her out and down two flights of stairs. If the cops wanted his statement they could damn well follow him to the hospital.