Windswept (15 page)

They scaled the hill and looked left. Nothing but deserted road, with an endless brown-green carpet of cactus and scrub thrown over the hills.

They looked right. More of the same.

For getting away from prying eyes, the place was perfect. For getting back to town, however…

“Uh-huh,” Mia nodded into the phone in her second call to Meredith of the morning, trying to track Stanley down. “When? This morning? Where?”

From the sounds of it, Stanley wasn’t that easy to find.

“What?” Mia yelped.

“What did Meredith say?” he asked when she finally hung up.

“She said a couple of cruise ships came in, and the noise from all those tourists made Stanley and Brenda move to a quieter hotel on the north end of the island.”

“That’s good, right? It’s closer to here.”

“Close,” Mia murmured. “But maybe not close enough.” She trotted out into the middle of the deserted road and looked around, waiting for a miracle ride. “When Meredith asked the hotel in town about Stanley, you know what they said?”

“What?”

She paused, then shook her head. “They said, ‘What a popular guy! Two men were just here looking for him.’”

His heart thumped harder in his chest. “They could be any two men.”

She nodded. “Could be. But if they’re the wrong two men…”

He looked left, then right. “Then we need to make tracks.”

Easier said than done, because they were in the middle of nowhere with no transportation. He had no backup, no badge, no jurisdiction.

Mia set off at a trot, and he fell into step beside her. Because that was the other thing: he had no choice.

“Thank you!” Mia waved as the pickup drove off.

“Thanks!” Ryan echoed. A damn good thing that sheepish-looking couple in a rental had come by when they had, looking like they’d had a memorable night under the stars, or they’d never have made it to the hotel in time.

In time for what, he wasn’t quite sure, only that he had the foreboding sense of a loudly ticking clock. They had to get to Stanley’s footage before anyone else did.

Mia dusted her shirt off and swiped at his back. “Gotta look like we belong here,” she murmured, nodding to the hotel.

It was an upmarket, four-story place perched on a solitary hill with a view of the ocean so big it reminded him how small Bonaire really was. Twenty-four miles long and only a couple wide didn’t leave a lot of space — or time — to outwit the bad guys.

“Let’s go.” He nodded toward the entrance. “Act like you belong here.”

Which Mia could easily pull off, because she was the type who could fit in anywhere in the world, from seedy backpacker joints to luxury hotels.

He grabbed her hand. “Make like we’re honeymooners, okay?”

Her eyes went wide, and his blood warmed up at the idea. Him and her coming to a place like this, not to save their asses but to celebrate forever.

His fingers tightened around hers, and then he shook his head.
Focus, Hayes. Focus.

“We’re honeymooners about to mix up our room number.”

“We’re what?”

“Just follow my lead,” he said, trying to act like he knew exactly what he was doing. Which was a stretch, because no job he’d ever worked involved sneaking into hotel rooms. “What room did Meredith say?”

“413.”

He stuck on what he hoped was a goofy honeymooner grin as they entered the cool lobby and approached the front desk. The key to 413 was dangling on a hook, which meant Stanley and Brenda were out diving or eating or, knowing Stanley, filming Brenda diving or eating. Which suited Ryan just fine, because it was easier this way. They’d go in, grab the video, and then head back to town to give it to the police. Not exactly proper procedure, but with a ticking clock, he had to improvise.

Of course, video would only help if Stanley actually managed to capture a shred of evidence, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. And if all those bridges he had been accumulating were lining up one behind the other, well, he’d just have to do his best.

Luckily, there were several couples checking out and only one overwhelmed clerk working the front desk.

“Room 413, please,” he said.

And just like that, he had Stanley’s key in his hand.

“Easy,” he whispered as they walked to the elevator, trying not to run.

“Right,” Mia murmured. He could feel the shake in her hand. “Easy.”

There was no one in the hallway of the fourth floor, so letting themselves into the room was easy, too. The bed was unmade and a suitcase stood propped open against a wall, overflowing with discarded clothing. The sliding door to the balcony was open, and the curtains danced on a light breeze. Strewn across the desk were half a dozen memory cards beside a laptop. From the looks of it, Stanley had been replaying his footage last night.

Mia picked up an unmarked memory card and examined it. “God, which one is it?”

He stuck one into the computer — thank goodness Stanley was one of those leave-the-laptop-on-at-all-times guys — and clicked on the picture file.

Mia ran a finger along the thumbnails, studying the dates.

“Too early,” he said. “Next one.”

“Jesus, Stanley takes a lot of footage,” Mia grimaced.

“Let’s just hope he keeps the camera out of the bedroom.” Because Stanley and Brenda in bed together, he really didn’t need to see.

“Next,” Mia said, handing him another.

They tried the next one and the next and the next.

“Bingo.” Most of the files dated from the day before. He clicked on one after another, trying to find the right time.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, and they both jerked their heads up. He held his breath. Mia went stiff as a tree.

The footsteps thumped past the door and carried straight on down the hall.

Whew. The curtain to the balcony flickered, chuckling at how jumpy they were.

He bent back over the screen.
Focus…

“That was the morning dive,” Mia murmured, nodding him on.

He skipped through what seemed to be at least an hour of lunch footage and a walk down the town streets, all in double time, and skipped forward some more.

“There!” Mia pointed.

He played the video in regular time, watching the dive group file onto the launch past a grinning Lucky, a jovial Hans, and a breezy Mia. Saw a brief glimpse of himself, hidden in the hoodie, keeping a low profile for as long as he could.

Mia stiffened next to him. God, what had he been thinking, surprising her out of nowhere like that?

“…the past twenty-six years,” Hans said in the video. “Which makes us…how much older than you?”

It was weird, watching yesterday play out in front of his eyes. A yesterday that felt a lifetime ago.

The Mia beside him was silent and serious; the Mia on the video was perky and upbeat. “Younger, Hans,” she answered Hans. “Your business is younger than me by two years.”

“There — look!” Mia — real-time Mia — jabbed a finger at the screen.

He caught a bare hint of movement in the background, and then it was gone.

“Back it up,” she urged.

He rewound it a few seconds and kept his finger over the Pause button this time.

“Your business is younger than me—”

He stopped it there, because there was an aluminum dive launch in the background with one man standing at the stern and another in the water. The shot was too blurry to make anything out, so he nudged the footage forward, frame by frame, until he got one that was a little clearer.

“Him,” Mia muttered, watching a guy in full dive kit reach up for something the second man handed down.

Then the camera jerked away, and he let the scene play on.

“As for me…” Hans winked in the video. “I was born in Holland a long, long time ago, but I swear I’ll die on Bonaire! Just not anytime soon, I hope!”

He watched Mia step sideways through the camera view, saying, “And our last guest today…”

Pausing the video on the moment when he was about to catch Mia totally, unfairly off guard — God, what an idiot — was the last thing he wanted to do, but the camera had the diver in the upper right corner of the frame again, so he had no choice.

The diver strapped a bulky bag to his body and swam away from the launch as the other watched.

“Full wetsuit,” Mia murmured, watching the screen. “Diving alone.”

He nodded at a pink splotch on the hull. “What’s that logo on the boat?”

“I don’t know—”

Something scratched at the hotel room door, and both of them froze.

The doorknob jiggled.

After a pregnant pause, it jiggled again. Not the firm turn of the rightful occupant but a secretive try. Mia glanced at him with a wild expression that said,
Oh, shit.

She scurried to the peephole of the door and immediately spun back to him, making wild chopping motions with her hands.

“Not Stanley and Brenda?” he whispered as she tiptoed back over.

The scratching at the door continued. Someone playing with the lock.

Mia shook her head. “Two guys. Oh, God! Hurry!”

He ejected the card from the laptop, grabbed her hand, and raced for the balcony.

“Now what?” Mia cried, looking out at a dead end, four stories over a very hard fall.

There was an audible click as the door lock was sprung. Mia gasped, and Ryan flattened her against the outer wall, out of sight of whoever it was entering the room.

The men who’d tried to kill her — twice — yesterday. She was sure of it. She leaned over the railing and eyed the long drop.

If the hotel had been one of those blocky new constructions where the balconies wrapped all the way around, it would have been easy to scurry away. But this was an elegant place with small, wrought-iron balconies that stuck out like tiny diving boards separated by wide gaps of very thin air.

“Shh!” Ryan hummed in her ear.

Shh
was all very well, but they had to get the hell away, because she could hear heavy footsteps clomping across the room and the door to the hallway click shut.

“There!” a low voice growled.

A clicking noise ensued: the shuffle of memory cards on the table.

If the two men were thorough in their search, they’d ransack the room and peek out onto the balcony, too. It was only a question of time. She and Ryan had to get away, and soon. But how?

She leaned farther over the railing and immediately felt sick. Not so much from the height as the utter lack of options. The next balcony seemed miles away, and the one underneath them was filled with deck chairs, a table, and not-quite-empty glasses of champagne. Not even a cat could make a clean, quiet landing there.

Ryan’s hard shoulder leaned against hers as he took in the same view.

“That way.” She nodded toward the neighboring balcony and threw a leg over the rail.

So easy to decide; so hard to do. Mia eased her body weight over the rail and clung to it for her life. It was a long, long way down to the stone terrace below, where silverware clinked from the last guests eating breakfast.

An angry mutter came from within the room, along with the dull skid of a memory card tossed across the table. Time was running out.

If there’d ever been an unnecessary comment made in the world, it was the one Ryan uttered next.

“Careful!”

Like she would leap from balcony to balcony in any other way.

The railing was nearly flush with the edge of the balcony, giving her about half an inch to perch on before she leaped. Mia eyed the distance. Took a deep breath. Wondered when she’d last told her mother she loved her.

And jumped.

The air seemed awfully thin in the long second she spent clinging to nothing but hope. Then her knee slammed into metal and her hands clawed and her shoulders flew forward and she was hanging on for dear life. Ryan thunked into the railing beside her with a low grunt, and the two of them clung to the side of the safety rail you never want to see, looking at each other.

“Nothing to it,” she tried and climbed into the right side of the balcony.

Which hadn’t really gained her much more than a wildly accelerating heart rate, because the door to that hotel room was locked. As wide as the gap to Stanley’s balcony had seemed when she was jumping, it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough if the two men came out armed and trigger-happy.

“Go! Go!” Ryan hissed, already climbing over the rail to jump to the next balcony.

Mia climbed after him, hoping the second time would be easier. She looked down. Looked across. Touched her bruised knee. Gulped.

No, it wasn’t easier. Not one bit.

But she did it anyway, and crashed against the railing in exactly the same way, except for two things. This time, she smashed her right shin. And this time, just as she was ready to exhale, the inch of ledge crumbled under her and she fell.

There was a sickening jolt and a harsh scrape as her legs dropped from under her. Then it was just her and way too much space and limbs that flailed like a cartoon character’s. Her shoulders screamed in their sockets when she came to a jarring stop, gripping the wrought iron for her life.

Time slowed as she swung from the lowest part of the rail, suspended by one hand, four stories up.

“Mia!”

She looked up and found Ryan bug-eyed and white, reaching for her free hand. God, his eyes were green. God, his hand was big. God, his legs were long—

He hauled her up and squeezed her to his side.

“Jesus,” he whispered.

But whispering was kind of pointless now, because they’d made enough noise to draw a shout from Stanley’s room.

Ryan half shoved, half lifted her over the rail. She yanked at the sliding doors. Locked. God, did the hotel guests actually predict someone would come jumping from rail to rail to break into their rooms?

She contemplated smashing the glass, but Ryan pointed to the next balcony one level down.

“Are you nuts?” she hissed.

Voices sounded from Stanley’s balcony.

“We need to get off this floor!”

“Hey!” someone barked from Stanley’s balcony. Not the voice of the maid or Stanley, that was for sure.