Chapter Thirteen
Nick shoved the car into Park in front of the hotel.
Heather reached for the door handle, but Nick grabbed her arm.
“Wait in the car. I’ll come around and open your door.”
“I assure you that’s not necessary. I don’t need a man to open my door for me.”
Nick’s mouth hardened into a thin line. Heather could tell he was irritated with her. That was her fault. She’d been sarcastic and argumentative all day. Then again, that was
his
fault for giving her false hopes last night about the two of them, then rejecting her and then insisting she had to go back to Saint Augustine in the morning while the rescue plan went forward without her.
“Good to know,” Nick said, his tone short and clipped. “But we aren’t on a date and I’m not playing the gentleman. I’m your bodyguard tonight, which means you sit in the car until I come around and get you out.”
He didn’t wait for her response.
She grabbed her purse, fuming that she had to wait like a child for him to open her door, but she followed his ridiculous order anyway. He scanned the area several times as he made his way around the hood of the car to her side.
His gun was in his right hand, pointing down to the ground as he opened her door.
Seeing that gun squelched Heather’s irritation. It reminded her just how serious everything was, and that she was still in danger. Nick was determined to protect her, no matter how she treated him.
Her shoulders slumped. She’d acted like a spoiled brat all day. She resolved to be polite the rest of the short time they had together. The man was going to risk his life for her tomorrow. The least she could do was to treat him with respect.
She got out of the car and Nick shut the door behind her. He waved for her to precede him up the walkway.
She started up the path.
A small pop sounded, followed by a buzzing noise as something flew through the air from the shrubs beside the hotel.
Nick raised his gun.
Too late.
He grunted, his face contorting with pain as his gun dropped out of his hand. He fell onto the pavement, convulsing.
Twin darts stuck out of his thighs, attached to a long, curly wire. He’d been hit with a Taser.
Heather drew a breath to scream, but her throat closed in shock as a slim figure stepped out from behind the shrubs, holding the Taser. Heather would have known that face anywhere. She saw it every morning when she looked in the mirror.
Lily.
* * *
T
HE
SPEEDBOAT
SLAPPED
against the water as it accelerated away from the dock. Heather held on to the railing to her left as she sat on the rear bench seat beside Nick. They were handcuffed together, and Nick’s right arm was cuffed to the railing to his right. Her sister sat about six feet in front of them with her back facing them, beside the man driving the boat—the same man who’d dumped Nick into the trunk of Lily’s car, and had then forced him and Heather into the boat at gunpoint. The man might be the muscle behind this abduction, but Lily was definitely the one calling all the shots.
As their speed increased, the ride leveled out. The nose of the boat rose out of the water and the boat practically flew out into the ocean. They weren’t running with lights on, but it wasn’t like they were going to hit anything. There was nothing and no one else out here this late at night. No one to report a suspicious, unlit boat flying across the ocean. No one to call the police and send help.
Heather clutched Nick’s hand. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
His fingers squeezed hers and he leaned down toward her. “We’re going to survive. We’ll worry about escape later. Do whatever your sister tells you to do. Don’t give her a reason to pull the trigger.”
Grief welled up inside Heather, nearly choking her. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. You were right all along. It was too dangerous. I put you in danger by being here. And all along my sister was only pretending to be abducted. She played me. And I don’t even know why. But you’re going to pay the price. They’re going to kill us. They’re going to take us out in the middle of the ocean and dump us.”
She eyed the dark water passing by them so fast. “There are sharks, lots of sharks, way out here. I read that somewhere.”
Nick squeezed her fingers again. “Take a breath, sweetheart. Try to calm down. I don’t think they’re going to dump us in the ocean. If they wanted us dead they could have shot us in the parking lot. Instead, they went to a lot of trouble getting us in the car, driving us to the dock and getting us in the boat. They have plans for us.”
She shivered. “What plans? Why is Lily doing this?”
“I have no idea. We’ll have to keep our wits about us and take advantage of any opportunities we get to escape. Just try to stay calm and pay attention to everything. You never know what detail could save our lives. Take slow, deep breaths before you hyperventilate and pass out.”
She took slow, deep breaths, but it wasn’t helping. Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt to even breathe. Her sweaty palm kept slipping off the railing.
“Lily is blocking my view of the instrument panel,” Nick whispered. “Can you see it?”
Heather leaned to the left. “I see some big, digital numbers. Why?”
“I need to know how fast we’re going so I can calculate our distance. What numbers do you see?”
She rattled off everything she could see, which wasn’t much. Most of the instrument panel was a blur from this distance.
“Good. That second number is the speed. Let me know if it changes.” He studied his watch and mumbled something under his breath, as if he was doing calculations. He looked up in the sky.
“What are you doing now?” Heather whispered.
“Figuring out which direction we’re going.” He leaned down close to her. “Find the Big Dipper. You know what that is?”
“Of course.” She looked up and found the collection of stars above them that looked like a cooking ladle. “There it is.”
Nick nodded. “If you mentally connect the two stars at the end of the ladle it forms a line that points to the North Star.”
“Oh, I see. Cool. So...we’re going south.”
“More or less. Now look for Orion’s Belt.” He watched Lily and the driver for a moment. Then he pointed up to the sky. “There, see those three stars?”
It took longer this time, but Heather finally saw what he was pointing at. “Yes. What does that tell us?”
He lowered his hand. “They form a line that’s roughly east-west. So we’re going—”
“Southwest, right?”
Nick smiled. “Right.” He looked at his watch again. “And if we’re maintaining a steady speed, we’re about thirty miles southwest of the dock where we boarded the boat. Keep an eye on that speed gauge.”
Heather leaned to the left. The numbers were the same. “How is this going to help us?”
He let out a deep sigh. “It won’t, unless we can get to a phone wherever we’re going, and unless Dante can do some detective work back in Key West and figure out which dock we took off from. I didn’t see any landmarks when they opened the trunk and pulled us out. But we were only in that trunk for about thirty minutes, so that limits the possibilities.” He shrugged. “It’s a long shot, but it might help.”
Heather tightened her fingers on his. “You’re kind of amazing. If anyone can get us out of this, you can.”
He shook his head, his mouth flattening. “I don’t know about that. But we’re about to put that to the test.”
“What do you mean?”
He pointed to a dark shadow on the horizon. “Because it looks like we’re about to reach our destination.”
The dark shape came closer and closer, revealing itself as an island, perhaps no more than a mile across from one end to the other. Of course, there was no way to know how deep it might be.
Nick’s hand tensed beneath Heather’s. She looked up at him in question, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring straight ahead, clenching his jaw, as the boat slowed and gently bumped against the dock.
The driver of the boat turned around and pointed his gun at them.
Lily dangled a small ring of keys in front of her before tossing them onto the bench between Nick and Heather. “Unlock your hand from the railing and toss me back the keys,” she told Nick.
“Lily,” Heather said. “Why are you doing this? I was worried sick about you, thinking you were being held against your will. I—”
Lily laughed, cutting her off. “Your concern for me was exactly what I was counting on. That’s why I drove up to Saint Augustine in that rattletrap car and acted like I was down on my luck. I wanted you to feel sorry for me and follow me down here to the Keys. But you were too worried about your precious job and your precious clients. I had to change my plan. It worked. I got you down here. But I’ll admit that my first attempt to grab you at Skeleton’s Misery was a bit pathetic.” She laughed. “I’ve got you now though. And thanks to your DEA boyfriend, I’m about to get everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I deserve.”
“It was you all along? Not Jose Gonzalez who was after me?”
Lily didn’t answer. She motioned with her gun at Nick.
He finished unlocking the cuffs from his right hand and let them drop against the railing. He turned to unlock the second set of cuffs that imprisoned his left wrist against Heather’s right one, but Lily shook her head.
“Toss me the keys,” she said.
He threw them to her. She caught them and shoved them into the pocket of her cutoff shorts.
“Come on.” She waved her hand toward the side of the boat. “Get out and go stand on the shore. We’ll get out behind you.”
“But I don’t understand,” Heather said. “Why are you—”
Nick squeezed Heather’s hand. She obeyed his unspoken warning and didn’t say anything else. He helped her step over the side of the boat. The stiffness in his posture as he walked beside her down the dock told her he was just as worried as she was.
Was Lily planning to leave them stranded on a deserted island, to let them die of exposure or starvation? Was she going to shoot them in the back as they stepped off the dock?
Or did she have something far worse planned?
* * *
L
ILY
HAD
SOMETHING
far worse planned.
Nick pulled Heather to a stop when their five-minute trek through the woods brought them into a clearing. Fifty yards ahead stood a concrete block structure, no bigger than a garden shed. A single light beside the open door cast a dim yellow glow across the clearing.
“Keep moving,” Lily called out from behind them.
“If we go in there,” Nick whispered, in a voice so low Heather almost couldn’t hear him, “we’re dead.”
“What do we do?” she whispered back.
A gunshot boomed behind them.
Heather screamed.
Nick dove to the ground, pulling her with him and covering her body with his. Her right arm was twisted painfully because of the handcuffs, but Nick still managed to block her from any harm.
When Heather looked up, she realized the bullet had hit the dirt just inches from where she’d been standing. Lily stepped toward them, stopping six feet away. She held the gun they’d taken from Nick, pointing it directly at him. The driver of the boat remained silent, but his gun, too, was aimed their way. Heather didn’t know which one of them had taken the shot, but from the dark look in her sister’s eyes, she wouldn’t be surprised if it had been Lily.
Lily’s lips curled back in a sneer. “Get up and get into that shed, or the next shot won’t be a warning.”
“Stall her,” Nick whispered. “Keep her talking.” He rose, pulling Heather up with him.
“Go on,” Lily said, her voice hard.
“You owe me an explanation.” Heather tried to sound far braver than she felt. She couldn’t seem to move past the fact that her own sister was holding a gun on her. “I did everything for you. I tried to help you. Gave you money, food, clothing. I was there for you, always.”
Lily let out a harsh laugh. “You were never there for me. You were the golden one, Daddy’s perfect little girl, the one who could do no wrong. You got everything. I got nothing. That ends today. Go on. Get in the shed.”
When Heather didn’t budge, Lily slowly moved her gun to point squarely at Nick. “I said, move.”
Nick pulled Heather with him toward the building.
“When we reach the door,” he whispered, “I’m going to smash the light. We’re going to run to the left, around the corner of the shed into the trees.” He spoke quickly, his words a low rumble in his chest.
They were twenty feet from the shed. Fifteen.
“When we run, stretch your handcuffed arm out behind you and I’ll keep mine as far right as I can to keep you directly in front of me. Remember, Heather, I’m the one wearing a Kevlar vest. I don’t want you in the line of fire. Do you understand?”
Ten feet.
“Heather?” he whispered, his voice low and urgent.
“I understand,” she whispered back.
Five feet.
“Get inside and shut the door behind you,” Lily called out. She didn’t sound close, like maybe she and the driver had stopped a good distance behind them.
They stepped to the doorway. Suddenly Nick slammed his fist into the carriage light, shattering the glass and plunging everything into darkness.
“No!” Lily screamed behind them.
A shot rang out. Dust flew up from the concrete wall next to Nick’s head. He yanked Heather to the left, half lifting her as he positioned himself between her and their pursuers. They slid around the corner of the building. Another shot boomed behind them. A pinging noise echoed through the trees to their left.
“Faster,” Nick urged, his whisper a harsh exhalation of breath near Heather’s ear.
They entered the woods on a well-worn path. Heather assumed Nick would steer her off the path so they could try to hide, but he didn’t, possibly because the foliage was so thick.
“Heather,” Lily called out from behind them. “This wasn’t the plan. Stop running or I’ll shoot!”
“Keep going,” Nick said. “Just a few more feet.”
At first Heather didn’t know what he meant. But suddenly they were out of the woods, running toward a massive structure, a rambling one-story house that seemed to go on forever. Nick must have seen the whitewashed sides of the house reflected in the moonlight, and that’s why he’d kept running down that path.