Protector (18 page)

He tipped his cards by the corner for a peek. “Are you going to talk or play?”

Still a man of few words. Somehow understanding the bit of his personality that transcended any cover story reassured her. “Did they teach you about casinos in basic training or super spy school?”

Chuck paused, thumbing his cards.

Jolynn rested her chin on her palm, ignoring her hand on the table. “Is there some rule against you talking to me?”

He tapped the deck, his eyes growing pensive. “I picked up some tips here and there. My mom dated a blackjack dealer before she died. Not many kids get to play Go Fish with a professional cardsharp. And later on, the nuns at the orphanage enjoyed some poker to break up the monotony of too much Bingo.” Suddenly, he bolted from his chair. “They really need to do something about the air conditioner.”

Sweeping a broad path around Jolynn, Chuck crossed to the bedside table. He snatched the phone off the receiver, listened, then tapped the base.

His silence held a new air, a tension she might have missed days prior but understood all too well now.

“What—”

Chuck stopped beside Jolynn, pressing a finger to her lips for silence. He yanked his shirt back over his head. “Why don’t you deal the next one,” he said in a voice a touch louder than normal. “I need to make a quick trip to the head.”

Chuck transformed back into the man by the river, the professional at the safe house. Every inch of him hummed with restrained energy, leashed power.

He wrapped his fingers around the grip of his gun and nudged the door open. Chuck pivoted to the doorway, body tight as if poised for a second confrontation. Peering out, he tensed.

Where was the guard? Jolynn hunched down in her seat.

Chuck crooked his elbow, pulling his gun up and ready.
He took a deep breath and spun into the hall. His arm dropped to his side, and he stepped back into the room.

Jolynn relaxed, already growing weary with his cops and robbers drama. “Where’ s—”

Chuck shook his head. Jolynn frowned, looking past him.

Two pops echoed down the corridor. With a knowledge Jolynn wished she didn’t possess, she recognized the sound from the shooting by the river. Another gunshot, closer. A scream. A shout of pain.

In a snap, Chuck locked the door and shoved a dresser in front. He spun back to her fast, dropped the floppy hat onto her head, and shoved her purse into her arms.

He held out his hand, brown eyes cold as stony onyx. “We’re going out the window. Now.”

Jolynn knew she only had a second to decide what to do. And the decision wasn’t even tough. Someone had tried to break into her room. She’d been shot at on the beach. Her dad ran with a dangerous crowd. All that combined was more than enough reason for her to have some serious concerns for her safety.

She looked at the pad of paper still resting on the table.
I’m sorry.
The choice of who to stick with was a no-brainer.

Jolynn reached for Chuck, prepared to follow him out a second-story window.

Focus narrowed, Chuck let training and instincts take over. He raced to the window to look out at the street below. The balcony was only one story up. Provided there weren’t more goons waiting for them below, he could lower Jolynn down and jump.

Walking out the door didn’t sound appealing. A look had shown him the guard lay slumped on the floor beside his chair. His eyes stared wide, unblinking, dead, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. God only knew what had happened to Nuñez and the OSI agent downstairs. A howling sense of fury raged through him along with a flashback to his time in captivity. For days, he’d sat beaten and half-conscious in his cell, listening to the screams of someone else a wall away, the captors shouting questions. It was almost worse when the noise stopped and he realized that faceless prisoner, a brother-in-arms he would never meet, was likely dead.

Cold sweat popped
along his back. He couldn’t think about those voices then or his friends downstairs now. He would call in the crisis as soon as he had Jolynn out.

A thump rattled the door. A boot most likely. He yanked Jolynn to the side because undoubtedly soon—

Bullets tore through the wood frame.

He threw back the shutters and yanked open the window. Fingers linked with hers, Chuck shoved her out onto the small Juliet balcony. “I’m right behind you. If we get separated, call the number inside the waistband of your skirt and ask for Rex.”

The colonel would take care of her if worse came to worst. Chuck kept his 9 mm aimed at the door. The frame loosened, the dresser inching with every shove.

He turned to help Jolynn only to find she’d already swung a leg over the rail. Before he could so much as clasp her wrist, she launched herself toward the sidewalk.

Atta girl. Admiration for her spunk kicked through him as he grasped the rail. Up and over, he landed sure-footed beside her. Above, he heard the bedroom door crash in.

Hooking an arm around her waist, he hauled her through the walled courtyard and out onto the street. He snagged Jolynn’s hat from her tight grip and clamped it over her bold red hair.

He eased his gun into the holster just before they rushed into a cluster of tourists scurrying away with wide eyes.

“Focus forward,” he ducked toward her ear to whisper, pointing to a historic church with the pretended interest of a normal sightseer. “Don’t look back and keep smiling like you’re having fun.”

Men in cop uniforms and dark suits flocked from three different side streets, rushing past toward the house.

She tugged his hand. “Shouldn’t we talk to the cops?”

“Can’t
afford to trust them. We’re on our own for now.” He didn’t know who’d compromised their locale and wasn’t sure how far he could trust the other safe houses.

He weighed the option of stealing a car, which would then have cops everywhere on the lookout for that particular vehicle. Or he could risk retrieving the Fiat parked two more blocks away, tucked out of sight for just such an emergency. Hopefully, he would get a better sense when he scoured the area along the way.

But that would also necessitate leaving the safety of the crowd, making them easier to track.

He tugged her purse from her shoulder. “I need this for a second.”

“Okay”—she passed it over—“but why?”

“
Shhh
, not now.” He fished inside the bottomless pit, pushing aside her wallet, lip gloss, even a thumb drive for crying out loud before he finally found… the casino coin he’d given her the night they’d met. He surreptitiously dropped it in a fruit vendor’s cart.

Her eyes went wide with realization, then disillusioned acceptance. Her eyes squeezed tight for a second with her sigh.

He tugged her along. “We don’t have time for that now. Come on.”

Gasping alongside him, Jolynn stumbled on a crack in the pavement. “Where are we going?”

Chuck lowered his mouth to hers. “Not now.” He brushed his lips against hers before pulling back to flash a smile at a tourist next to them. “Newlyweds,” Chuck said, putting on a thick Jersey accent. “Come on, babe.”

“I’m right witcha, lover boy.” Her Northern accent surprised him.

Her quick kiss scorched him.

He slipped an arm around Jolynn’s shoulders, pulling her close to his side as he peeled away from the group and ducked into a side street. At the end of the road, the Fiat sat safe and sound under a portico covered in vines. He scanned the alleyway. Not deserted. Just everyday traffic. A lady hanging out her laundry. A man taking out trash who made him think of Nuñez. But he couldn’t afford to let concerns distract him. Keeping Jolynn alive had to be his primary goal, double down, just as Nuñez would do if their positions were reversed.

Easing down the street cautiously, he watched, studied. The young couple pushing the baby carriage gave him pause until he saw an infant truly rested in the rickety pram.

Now or never.

He approached the car, tucking Jolynn beside him. “Hold on, babe,” he said in his Jersey accent, “I’ve just gotta find de spare key.”

He knelt beside the car, running his hand in the wheel well while checking the undercarriage for bombs. A quick search in the trunk and under the hood was all the time he could waste and as sure as he could be.

And to buy them more time to think, he rewired the GPS to send faulty coordinates.

As a last precaution, he said, “Stand over there while I back this baby out.”

If the car blew when he started it, at least she would be alive. She could call Rex Scanlon.

He slid the key in the ignition… The Fiat’s engine purred to life like a happy kitten. He threw open the passenger door and started down the road before Jolynn could finish buckling.

Jolynn panted, clasping her side. “Should we call your friend Rex?”

“Soon.”

“Why not now?”

“
Calling him from here is a last resort. How do I know which line is secure, who’s listening? Someone sold us out back there, and until I know who, we’re laying low.”

He slammed the car in gear, flooring it out of the neighborhood and mapping out in his mind the best route to the nearest ferry to the mainland.

*  *  *

Alone on the
Fortuna
’s upper deck’s jogging track, Rex Scanlon pounded out his seventh mile while staring over at the watery abyss. A handful of late-nighters milled about below, but he was alone up here with his rage. Waves slapped the side of the cruise ship, leaving Sicily behind for their next port of call, Olympia, Greece.

Departing without Chuck went against everything he believed in as a serviceman. As a commander.

He leaned into the hard night wind tearing across the Med, hammering his feet into the ground, punishing his body. He’d made Chuck take on this mission and now things had gone to hell. Chuck had already been through too much, had insisted his edge was gone. Why hadn’t they— hadn’t he— listened rather than being so damn sure this wounded captain just needed to get back in the game?

His breathing grew ragged and he knew his running form was falling apart. His concentration was screwed. But he couldn’t make himself stop running, biting back the urge to growl out his frustration. After hours at the computers with Berg, contacting every intelligence ally agency, they still had nothing.

There were too many brick walls. He’d finally decided to come up here and air out his brain in hopes that he could
make some sense out of who’d shot at Chuck by the water. And most puzzling, how he’d just fallen off the face of the earth after leaving the safe house.

A fluttery cloud of white snagged his attention and he almost stumbled. Slowing, he narrowed his focus… and found Livia leaning against the railing wearing a whispery white dress. Hell. How long had she been there? If she’d been an assassin, he would already be dead. And he wasn’t any good to Chuck if he stopped breathing.

He leaned over to grab his knees, gasping. “What are you doing out here so late?”

“I just finished my last set.” Her husky voice carried on the breeze.

“You shouldn’t be walking around alone.”

“I am not alone. You are here,” she pointed out. “Where is our mutual friend? Because I’m not buying the story that he got fired.”

And wasn’t that the million-dollar question? He sank to the deck, sitting, tugging her to sit beside him. “I don’t have any idea where he is.” He forced his breathing to steady. “He and Jolynn Taylor got off the ship in Sicily and didn’t get back on.”

Livia’s coal dark eyes went wide, a rail light glinting off her sleek black hair. “Then why hasn’t there been an alert issued?”

Last scan of the ship showed there weren’t any bugs up here, part of why he gravitated to the track. “We tapped into their computers. Messed with the manifests so it appears they decided not to come back on board. They’re officially signed off rather than missing. We need the right people looking for them and not the wrong people finding them.”

“I am so sorry.” Her soft hand slid over his. “I know you must be frantic.”

“He’s your friend, too.”
He squeezed her fingers lightly, only just realizing he hadn’t let go and no one was watching. They had no need to perform. Still, he didn’t pull away.

“That he is.” Her voice quivered.

She’d spent a lot of days visiting Chuck during his recovery. There had been a time when Rex wondered if a relationship was growing between the two. But he knew now, they were genuinely just good friends. His arm slid around her shoulders, and he pulled her to his side. Her soft curves fit too perfectly against him, kicking his heart rate back up as if he were tackling the eighth mile.

Her head fell to rest on his shoulder, the scent of Mediterranean herbs and flowers drifting upward. “How do you live this way? Always having to worry so intensely for the people you care about?”

“It comes with the territory,” he answered without hesitation. “Am I supposed to say the job’s too hard? Let somebody else make the sacrifice?”

Livia looked up at him, smiling, her lips full and tempting. “You are quite a man, Rex Scanlon. Your wife was a very lucky woman.”