She was too surprised to do more than stare up at him as he carried her into the house.
Mark followed behind. He stopped just inside the kitchen, flipping on the lights, but Nick continued on into the living room with Heather.
“Um, Nick, I can walk. You can put me down.”
He didn’t bother answering and he didn’t put her down. He used his shoulder to flip on the hall light and carried her all the way to the end into what must have been the master bedroom, based on the expansive size of the room. He kicked the door shut behind them and stopped beside the bed.
His brows were a dark, angry slash as he glared at her. The tightness around the corners of his eyes and the way he clenched his jaw told her she might be in as much trouble now as she had been back at the bar.
“Put me down.” She tried to sound braver than she felt. The last time she’d seen him like this, he’d slapped her in handcuffs. She wasn’t sure what to expect. She squirmed in his arms, anxious to get away from him.
He suddenly released her. She dropped to the bed and hadn’t even stopped bouncing on the mattress before he came down on top of her.
The shock of his warm body pressed against hers had her mouth going dry. For a moment they just stared at each other. His body was rigid. His Adam’s apple worked in his throat several times, as if he was struggling for words. Heat flooded through Heather, tightening her stomach. She was appalled that she was getting turned on, because it was quite obvious Nick wasn’t suffering from the same affliction.
He looked as if he wanted to strangle her.
She didn’t have to ask him why. She already knew. He was still furious that she’d jeopardized his career back at that nightclub in Saint Augustine and that she’d gotten him mixed up in this mess tonight. Although, really, it wasn’t her fault. And he wasn’t supposed to be here anyway. Was he? Actually, if she looked at it that way, he really didn’t have a right to be angry at all. If anyone should be angry it was her, because he hadn’t adequately warned her about the dangers. He should have tried harder to get her to
not
go along with Rickloff’s plan. And just as soon as Nick quit glaring at her, she’d find the courage to tell him so.
“You could have been killed tonight.” His voice shook.
Heather blinked in surprise.
That’s
why he was upset? “You were
worried
about me?”
“Hell, yes, I was worried about you. You shouldn’t have agreed to Rickloff’s plan. I told you I didn’t trust him, and you still insisted on plowing ahead. I’m on suspension. I’m supposed to be sitting at my house in my favorite recliner, which—I might add—is a hell of a lot more fun than being shot at. What do you think would have happened tonight if I hadn’t disobeyed orders and come down here to keep an eye on you?”
She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have survived the night without him, but she didn’t think it was a good idea to say that out loud. He was already shaking, and from the tension in his body against hers, she guessed he was still fighting his own battle not to throttle her.
She swallowed hard. “I...ah...don’t really know.”
His mouth thinned and his eyes flashed. He shook his head and rolled off her to sit on the side of the bed, as if he couldn’t stand to look at her anymore.
Heather scrambled up on her knees beside him, searching for the words that would ease his temper. She remembered he’d found humor in her thanking him repeatedly back in the car. She cleared her throat. “Thank you, again, Nick. Really. Thank you, a hundred times.”
He closed his eyes briefly, still shaking his head.
She tried again. “I’m...ah...really grateful you aren’t sitting at home in your comfortable recliner.”
He shot her an irritated look.
She sighed and straightened her legs, sitting on the edge of the mattress beside him. “Are you going to tell me how you ended up coming to our rescue? It sounded like you and Mark know each other, and that he was expecting you tonight.”
He let out a long, deep breath. “When you refused my help, Rafe and I dug around and pulled some strings to get some information. When I found out that Mark was the agent you’d be working with down here, I contacted him. He and I used to work together out of the Fort Lauderdale office. He kept me posted on where you two were going to be. I rented this house because it was near enough to your motel and the bar to be useful, but far enough away and remote enough that it made a good hiding place if it came to that.”
He twisted around to meet her gaze. “I borrowed a fast car in case I needed to make a quick getaway. Then I followed you two as closely as I could manage without being too obvious. I figured something was wrong when I never once ran into any other agents. If Rickloff was backing you up the way he was supposed to, someone should have challenged me earlier in the evening for keeping tabs on you two. No one ever did.”
Heather scrambled off the bed and stood facing him. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t there be any backup? Rickloff’s goal was to catch Gonzalez or some of his men when they swapped Lily for the cocaine.”
He cocked a brow. “Rickloff’s
goal
is to catch Gonzalez. Period. You’re a pawn, and so is your sister. Don’t forget that.”
She wasn’t sure she bought Nick’s cynical version of what had happened. Surely a high-ranking DEA agent like Rickloff wouldn’t be so cavalier with the safety of two civilians just so he could catch a drug dealer. There had to be another explanation for what had happened tonight.
“Why do you think Gonzalez didn’t show?” she asked.
“Oh, I think he probably did. He just didn’t let anyone see him. He would have come there to point you out to his men.”
“What? Wait. What do you mean? We were there waiting to meet with him. We had the cocaine... Oh, my gosh. The cocaine! We lost it. If we don’t have that cocaine we don’t have anything to trade for Lily. What will we—”
He grabbed her arms. “Don’t you get it yet? If Gonzalez was planning on a trade, he’d have shown himself. Tonight wasn’t about a trade. Gonzalez set this meeting up for an entirely different reason.”
“What reason is that?”
“He wanted you to come to Key West.”
“But...I don’t...” She twisted her fingers together in confusion. “Why would he want that?”
“For exactly the reason Rickloff said in the meeting yesterday. Gonzalez cares about Lily. He doesn’t want to lose her. But he’s a powerful man who maintains that power because people are afraid of him. If word gets around, and it will—it always does—that his mistress and her sister lost his drugs, or that either of them is helping the DEA, he’ll lose face. He can’t afford that. So he has to come up with an alternate plan. He wants to figure out how to save face in front of his men, but still keep Lily.”
Heather nodded, trying to follow his reasoning. “Okay. And he cares about my sister, so hurting her is the last thing he’ll do, right?”
“Based on the information I gathered last night and earlier today from my informants here in the Keys, yes. I think he really cares about her and he’ll do whatever he can to protect her, as long as it doesn’t mean giving up his reputation of power in front of his men.”
Relief loosened the tightness in her chest. “Thank God. That means Lily is okay.”
He stared at her for a long minute. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through yet if you think things are going well here. Rickloff didn’t back you up, even though he thought Gonzalez or his thugs would meet you at the bar. What does that tell you?”
She blinked in surprise as things started clicking together in her mind. “Rickloff is working for Gonzalez?”
He smiled, looking mildly amused at her conclusion. “No, I don’t think so. From what Mark told me on the phone last night, Rickloff has an ego the size of the state of Florida. He’s not the type to be at the beck and call of a drug dealer. He’d consider it beneath him. I believe he really does want to put Gonzalez in prison, partly to make the streets safer, but mainly because that would catapult his career to a higher level. At the least, he’d get a promotion. And if he has political aspirations, which Mark assures me Rickloff does, putting someone like Gonzalez away could be the perfect platform to put him in office.”
“But Mark and I could have been killed.”
He closed his eyes, his forehead wrinkling as if he were in pain. “Yes, you could have.” When he looked at her again, there was tenderness in his eyes that reminded her of how he used to look at her.
Before.
“We’ll stay here tonight,” he said. “I’ll call the Key West DEA office and bring the special agent in charge, Dante Messina, up to speed on what’s going on. He can run interference with the police about the shooting back in town, in case anyone called it in. Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you to meet him and we’ll get this all sorted out.”
He gently pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Try not to worry. Dante is far more reasonable than Rickloff. I’ve worked with him quite a bit this past year while on assignment down here. And I promise you I’ll do everything I can to find your sister. Okay?”
She blew out a shaky breath. “Okay. I just hope she’s—”
Red and blue lights suddenly lit up the room, flashing against the thin blinds covering the only window. Nick lifted Heather out of his way and ran to the window. She followed him, but he frowned at her and pushed her back as he lifted one of the slats to look out.
She caught a glimpse of a police car sitting in the driveway, pulled all the way up to the garage door. Both car doors opened and two policemen got out.
“I guess you were right,” she said. “Someone in town must have reported the shooting and given a description of your car to the police.”
Nick dropped the blinds back in place, shaking his head. “If they’re the police, how did they find us?”
“Your car—”
“Is in the garage. They couldn’t have seen it. And there aren’t any other houses for miles around. That’s why I chose this location. No one could have seen me pull the car into the garage.”
Her fingernails bit into her palms. “So what are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is that I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe they’re real cops, maybe they aren’t. Maybe someone saw us when we made the turn down this road. They thought the cracked windshield looked suspicious so they called it in. Then again, maybe not.”
He started to reach for the phone attached to his belt when a door slammed somewhere in the house.
His eyes widened. “Mark. No, damn it.” He rushed around Heather and strode to the door. “Stay here.” He hurried into the hallway, firmly closing the door behind him.
Heather couldn’t resist a quick peek through the blinds. The slamming door must have been Mark going out front, because he was now standing on the walkway talking to the two police officers. Heather clutched her hand to her throat, fervently hoping Nick’s worries about the policemen were unfounded.
One of the policemen suddenly drew his gun and pointed it at Mark’s chest. A gunshot rang out. Mark flipped backward onto the lawn.
Heather screamed. The policemen swiveled toward her, looking right at her.
She dropped the blind and flattened herself against the wall.
Oh, no, Mark. No, no, no.
Where was Nick? Was he already outside? Were they going to shoot him next?
Oh, no, please.
Muffled footsteps sounded through the house.
Heather clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from making any noise. Was that Nick? Or someone else?
Oh, God. Please let Nick be okay.
The footsteps pounded down the hallway, closer, closer. If that was Nick, wouldn’t he have called out to warn her?
Heather whirled around. Nowhere to hide. She ran toward the door and lunged for the vase on the dresser as the door flew open. She swung the vase like a bat, aiming at her attacker’s head.
The man’s arm jerked up. The vase thunked against his forearm and fell to the floor, exploding into a dozen pieces.
Heather shoved at him and tried to escape through the doorway.
An iron grip clamped around her wrist and brought her up short.
“Heather, it’s me,” Nick’s harsh whisper sounded near her ear. He flipped off the light switch, plunging the room into darkness.
She sagged against him, wrapping her arms around his waist, hugging him. “Nick, oh, my gosh. You’re okay. They shot Mark. I thought you were outside, too, that they were going to shoot you.”
“The men who shot Mark had disappeared by the time I made it to the front door.” His voice was still a harsh whisper, as if he was afraid of making much noise. “They could be anywhere. We’ve got to get out of here.”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down the hall toward the main room, forcing her to run to keep up with his long strides. He must have flipped the lights out when he ran to get her because the entire house was dark except for the moonlight filtering through the French doors off the back of the main room and through the skylights overhead.
“Can’t we just grab Mark, get in the car and get out of here?” Heather whispered.
He peered out through the glass panes in one of the back doors. “The police car is blocking the garage. I can’t get the car out.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Shade the screen to help conceal the light,” he whispered.
She did as he said. “What are you doing?”
“Calling for backup.” He pressed a button on the screen.
A soft “pfftt” sound echoed through the room. One of the glass panes in the French door next to them exploded.
Heather let out a startled yelp.
Nick pushed her down onto the floor. He aimed his gun toward the front of the house and fired off three quick shots. He shoved his phone in his pocket and threw open the door behind them.
“Come on.” He grabbed Heather’s wrist.
They took off running, with Nick pushing her ahead of him, using his body to block any attack from behind.
“What are we going to do?” Heather called back to him.
“Get to the woods,” he said. “We’ll use the trees for cover. I’ll try to hold them off until we can get help.”
They practically flew across the soft grass toward the woods behind the house.