In the Dark (17 page)

Silently, he moved in that direction.

The door to her cottage was open.

Alex had run like a Key deer from the other cottage and, without even thinking about it, had come here.

Because David would be here.

The front door was ajar.

She hesitated, found a piece of downed coconut and threw it toward the open doorway. Nothing happened.

Cautiously, she made her way to the door. She peered inside. No one. Logic told her that once he’d heard the bullets, David would have run to her assistance.

She entered her cottage, thinking desperately about what she might have that could serve as a weapon. The best she could come up with was a scuba knife.

She kept most of her equipment at the marina, but there were a few things here.

She raced into her bedroom, anxious to pull open the drawer where she kept odds and ends of extra equipment, reminding herself to keep quiet in case she had been followed. But she was in such a hurry that she jerked the entire dresser.

Perfumes and colognes jiggled, then started to topple over. She reached out to stop them from crashing to the floor and instead knocked them all to the floor with the sweep of her hand.

The sound seemed deafening.

She swore, returning attention to the drawer, but then something caught the corner of her eye.

She paused, looking at the pile of broken ceramics and glass.

The little dolphin had broken, and she could see that a piece of folded paper had been hidden inside the bottom of the ceramic creature.

Squatting down, she retrieved it.

Ordinary copy paper.

But as she opened it, she realized just what had been copied. A map. The original had been very old, and there was an X on it, and next to that, three words:
The Anne Marie.

She stared at it numbly for a second, then remembered the day when she had found her things out of order. Someone must have hidden the map that day. Returning her mind to her predicament. Rising, she opened the drawer, heedless now of making noise. She found the knife she had been seeking and quickly belted it around her calf.

Then she heard a noise as someone came stealthily toward the front of the house.

Once again, she made a quick escape through a bedroom window.

David burst into the bedroom of Ally’s cottage, speargun aimed.

But no one was there.

He immediately noticed the open window and the punched-out screen lying on the floor.

Silently, he left the bedroom, then the house, and hurried on toward Alex’s place.

Now the door was wide open. Cautiously, he entered.

He hurried through the cottage.

This time, it was her own bedroom window that was open. A punched-out screen lay mangled on the floor.

He heard a shot.

The sound had come from the area of the Tiki Hut.

He raced from the house and toward the lagoons.

“Stop, Alex. Stop!”

She had simply run when she left her place. Away from the front door. Her steps had brought her to the la goons and the Tiki Hut. She made it to the lagoon on the outskirts of the Tiki Hut, which was little more than a pile of rubble now. She spared a moment’s gratitude that she hadn’t spent the night under the bar after all.

The voice calling to her gave her pause.

It was John Seymore. And she knew he had a gun.

She turned, and he was there, closing in on her.

“Wait for me,” he said. But as she stared at him, another man burst from the trees.

It was Hank Adamson. And he, too, was armed.

“Alex, it’s all right!” Adamson called out. “I’ve got him covered. Seymore, put down the gun or I’ll shoot you.”

“Alex, let him shoot me,” John said. “Get the hell away from him.”

“Alex, don’t be an idiot. Don’t run,” Hank Adamson insisted.

At that moment, David burst from the foliage, his speargun raised. “Alex, get the hell away from here!” David roared, but then he paused, seeing the situation.

“Hey, David,” Hank Adamson called. “I’ve got him!”

“Yeah, I see that,” David said. For a moment his eyes met hers. Then they turned toward the lagoon before meeting hers again. She realized that he was telling her to escape. Shania had helped her once. The dolphin would surely take her away again.

But she didn’t dare move.

“Yeah, you’ve got him, all right,” David said, walk
ing to Seymore’s side. “Hank, where’s Jay?” he asked. “It’s all right, Alex. It’s okay…Hank has got this guy covered.”

She knew from his eyes that he didn’t mean it.

But how was he so sure that John Seymore wasn’t the bad guy?

“Hank, where’s Jay?” David repeated.

“This guy must have gotten him during the night,” Hank said, indicating John.

And then Alex knew. Amazingly, David looked dead calm, and earnest, as if he were falling for every word Hank Adamson said. He was gambling again, she realized. Bluffing. In a game where the stakes were life or death.

His life.

She could see what he was doing. He was going to go for Hank Adamson and take the chance of being shot. He was risking John Seymore’s life, as well, but she could see in that man’s eyes that he was willing to take the risk. The guy was for real.

“Now!” David shouted.

His spear flashed in the brilliant morning sunlight that had followed the storm.

John Seymore made a dive for her, and they crashed into the lagoon together.

As they pitched below the surface of the water, Alex was aware of the bullet ripping through it next to them. She heard the concussion as another shot was fired.

In the depths of the lagoon, the bullets harmlessly pierced the bottom. She and Seymore kicked their way back to the surface. Heads bobbed around them. Dolphin heads. Her charges were about to go after John.

“No, no…it’s all right!” She quickly gave them a
signal, then ignored both them and John Seymore as she kicked furiously to reach the shore.

Two men were down.

“Careful!” John was right behind her, holding her back when she would have rushed forward.

He walked ahead of her.

Hank Adamson, speared through the ribs, was on top. Blood gushed from his wound.

“David!”

She shrieked his name, falling to the ground, trying to reach him as John Seymore lifted Hank Adamson’s bleeding form.

“David!”

He opened his eyes.

“David, are you hurt? Are you shot?”

“Alex,” he said softly, and his voice sounded like a croak.

“Don’t you die, you bastard!” she cried. “I love you, David. I was an idiot, a scared idiot. Don’t you dare die on me now!”

He smiled, then pushed himself entirely free of Hank Adamson and the pile of leaves and branches that had cushioned them both when they fell. He got to his feet.

“She loves me,” he told John Seymore, smiling.

Seymore laughed.

Alex couldn’t help it. She threw a punch at David’s shoulder. “That doesn’t mean I could live with you,” she told him furiously.

“Actually, we have another worry before we get to that,” David said, looking at John. “We’ve got to find Jay. And pray that help gets here soon, or we’ll lose Len for certain.”

They found Jay near where Alex had stumbled into him the night before. He was groaning, obviously alive. From the doorway, they could see him starting to rise. When he heard them, he went flat and silent once again.

“It’s all right, Jay,” Alex said, racing to his side. “It’s over.”

He sat up, holding his head, fear still in his eyes as he looked at them.

“It was Hank,” he said, as if still amazed. “It was Hank…all along.”

“We know,” Alex told him.

“Len?”

“He’s alive. We have to get him to a hospital as soon as possible,” John said.

“Thank God,” Jay breathed. He looked at them all.
“Hank,”
he repeated. “How did you figure it out?”

John looked at David. “How
did
you figure it out?”

Alex stared at David, as well.

David shrugged. “Two things. Seth Granger was killed. The man with the money, and Hank would fit into that category. That meant it had to be someone who didn’t need money or backing. Someone who meant to get what he could, then get out.”

“You said two things,” John Seymore told him.

David stared at John. “Gut instinct,” he said at last. He angled his head to one side for a moment, listening, and said, “There’s a launch coming. Thank God. Nigel Thompson can take over from here.”

S
he hurried along the trail. She knew she was being pursued, but now, the knowledge brought a smile to her face.

They would be alone. Finally, after all the trauma, all the hours.

Still, there was something she had to do first.

Hank Adamson wasn’t dead; he, like Jay and Len, had been taken aboard a helicopter and airlifted to Jackson Memorial in Miami. All three men were expected to make a full recovery.

It was chillingly clear that the reporter had intended to use the storm as cover to kill them all, Alex last, so that he could find out what she knew by saving one victim for the end and pretending he would let him live if she would just talk.

He would never have believed that she didn’t know anything. Until the end, of course. Before Nigel arrived,
she had given the map to David, then smiled in relief when he had turned it over to Nigel Thompson.

She didn’t give a damn about the whereabouts of the
Anne Marie
. And even if David did, people were still more important to him than any treasure.

She reached the first platform, and fed Katy, Sabra and Jamie-Boy, aware she was being watched.

As she sat down at the next platform, David, who had come after her, sat down beside her. “I have to butt in here,” he told her. “I owe Shania, too. I owe her everything. Do you mind?”

Alex shook her head, and watched him for a moment as he fed and touched every dolphin, talking to them all, giving Shania special care.

“You know,” she said softly, “I was jealous of Alicia, but I’m truly sorry that she’s dead.”

“So am I.” He looked at her. “You were wrong, though, to be jealous. We never had an affair.”

“She was just so…perfect for you,” Alex said.

“No, she wasn’t. I was always in love with you.
You
were perfect for me. I was an ass. I didn’t show it. You loved your training, I loved the sea. I didn’t know how selfish I had gotten.”

“Well, since we’re still married,” she mused, “I guess we’ll just have to learn how to compromise.”

“Alex?”

“What?”

“I lied,” he admitted. “I saw you with Seymore, and I had to think of something. Because this much is true. I love you, more than anything on earth, with every bit of my heart, my soul, and my being.”

“You lied to me?” she said.

He shook his head, looking at her. “Alex, I’ve learned
to never, ever take someone you love for granted. We can compromise. I don’t need to be in on the find of the century. For me,” he added softly, “
you
are the find of the century. Any century. Don’t throw us away again, please.”

“David, that’s lovely. Really lovely. But are you saying we’re not still married? That’s what you lied about?”

“Forgive me. I didn’t know what else to do. Well?”

She smiled. “Actually, I’m thinking that we should be remarried here. Right here. By the lagoons. A small ceremony, with just our closest friends here. I mean, we did the big-wedding thing already.”

He gazed at her, slowly giving her a deep, rueful grin.

Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

There are people in our lives we encounter who make their marks. Those who leave some indelible influence on who and what we will become. But if we’re really lucky, there are those whose presence in our lives makes a difference that goes so much deeper than the skin that our life would not have been what it was destined to be without them. This book is dedicated to one such person with whom I have had the pleasure of love and laughter and the overwhelming sorrow of loss and grief.

To my baby brother, John Brashier.
You are my soul’s twin.
Never forget how very much I love you.

wrote her first story at age nine and her first romance at thirteen. It wasn’t until she spent three years working for the military behind the Iron Curtain and within the confining political walls of Berlin, Germany, that she realized her true calling. A five-year stint with NASA on the space shuttle program reinforced her love of the endless possibilities within her grasp as a storyteller. A collision course between suspense and romance was set. Debra has been writing romantic suspense and action-packed romantic thrillers since. Visit her at www.DebraWebb.com or write to her at P.O. Box 4889, Huntsville, AL 35815.

F
inished.

With a satisfied sigh, Dr. Elizabeth Cameron surveyed the careful sutures and the prepatterned blocks of tissue she had harvested from inconspicuous donor sites. For this patient the best sites available had been her fore arms and thighs which had miraculously escaped injury.

The tailored blocks of harvested tissue, comprised of skin, fat and blood vessels, were tediously inset into the face like pieces of a puzzle and circulation to the area immediately restored by delicate attachment to the facial artery.

Lastly, the newly defined tissue was sculpted to look, feel and behave like normal facial skin, with scars hidden in the facial planes. In a few weeks this patient would resume normal activities and no one out side her immediate family and friends would ever have to know
that she had scarcely survived a fiery car crash that had literally melted a good portion of her youthful Miss Massachusetts face.

She would reach her twenty-first birth day next month with a face that looked identical to the one that had won her numerous accolades and trophies. More important, the young woman who had slipped into severe clinical depression and who had feared her life was over would now have a second chance.

“She’s perfect, Doctor.”

Elizabeth acknowledged her colleague’s praise with a quick nod and stepped back from the operating table. With one final glance she took stock of the situation. The patient was stable. All was as it should be. “Finish up for me, Dr. Jeffrey,” she told her senior surgical resident.

Pride welled in her chest as she watched a moment while her team completed the final preparations for transporting the patient to recovery. Yes, she had performed the surgery, but the whole team had been involved from day one, beginning with the complete, computerized facial analysis. This victory had been achieved by the entire team, not just one person. A team Elizabeth had hand picked over the past three years.

In the scrub room she stripped off her bloody gloves, surgical gown and mask, then cleaned her eye glasses. She’d tried adjusting to contacts, but just couldn’t manage the transition. Sticking to the old reliables hadn’t failed her yet. She was probably the only doctor in the hospital who still preferred to do a number of things the old-fashioned way. Like working with a certain team day in and day out. She’d worked with Jeffrey long enough now that they could anticipate each other’s moves and
needs ahead of time. It worked. She liked sticking with what worked.

Exhaustion clawed at her. The muscles of her shoulders quivered with fatigue, the good kind. This one had been a long, arduous journey for both patient and surgical team. Weeks ago the initial preparations had begun, including forming a mold of a right ear to use in building a replacement for the one the patient had lost in the accident. The size and symmetry had worked out beautifully.

No matter how pains takingly Elizabeth and her team prepared, she wasn’t fully satisfied until she saw the completed work…until the patient was rolled to recovery. The time required to heal varied, but in a couple of weeks the swelling would lessen, the red lines would fade. And the new face would bloom like a rose in the sun’s light, as close to nature’s work as man could come.

As Elizabeth started for the exit, intent on going straight home and crashing for a couple of hours, the rest of the team poured into the scrub room, high-fives and cheers of elation rumbling through the group. Elizabeth smiled. She had her self a hell of a team here. They were the best, each topping his or her field of expertise, and they were good folks, lacking the usual “ego” that often haunted the specialized medical profession.

“Excellent work, boys and girls,” she called to the highly trained professionals who were quickly regressing to more adolescent behavior as the adrenaline high peaked and then drained away. “See you in two weeks.”

Elizabeth pushed through the doors and into the long, white sterile corridor, still smiling as the ruckus followed her into the strictly enforced quiet zone. She in
haled deeply of the medicinal smells, the familiar scents comforting, relaxing. This place was her real home. She spent far more time here than in side the four walls of the little brown stone on which she made a monthly mortgage payment. Not really a good thing, she had begun to see. She didn’t like the slightly cynical, fiercely focused person she was turning into.

A change was definitely in order.

Two weeks.

She hadn’t taken that much time off since—

She banished the memory before it latched on to her thoughts. No way was she going to dredge up that painful past. Two months had elapsed. She clenched her jaw and paused at the bank of elevators. Giving the call button a quick stab, she waited, her impatience mounting with each passing second. She loved her work, was fully devoted to it. But she desperately needed this time to get away, to put the past behind her once and for all. She had to move on. Regain her perspective…her balance.

The elevator doors slid open and Elizabeth produced a smile for the nurses who exited. Al most three o’clock in the afternoon, shift change. The nurses and residents on duty would brief those arriving for second shift on the status of their patients. Orders would be reviewed and the flow of patient care would continue without interruption.

Dr. Jeffrey would stay with her patient for a time and issue the final orders. There was nothing for Elizabeth to worry about. She boarded the elevator and relaxed against the far wall. Her eyes closed as she considered the cruise she’d booked just last week. A snap decision, something she never, ever did. Her secretary had insisted she could not spend her time off at home or loitering around her office. Which, in retrospect, Elizabeth had to
admit was an excellent idea. Hanging around the house or office, organizing books and files or personal items that were already in perfect order, would not be in her best interest. The last thing she needed in her life was more order.

Making a quick stop at the second-floor staff lounge to pick up her sweater and purse, more good byes were exchanged with coworkers who couldn’t believe she was actually going to take a vacation. Elizabeth shook her head in self-deprecation. She really had lost any sense of balance. Work was all she had, it seemed, and every one had taken notice. One way or another she intended to change that sad fact.

Hurrying through Georgetown University Medical Center’s expansive lobby, she made her way to the exit that led to the employee parking garage. She could already see her self driving across the District, escaping everything. As much as she loved D.C., she needed to get away, to mingle with the opposite sex. To start something new and fresh. To put
him
out of her mind for ever. He was gone. Dead. He’d died in some foreign country, location unspecified, of unnatural causes probably, the manner also unspecified. His body had not been recovered, at least, as far as she knew. He was simply gone. He wouldn’t be showing up at her door in the middle of the night with an unexpected forty-eight-hour furlough he wanted to spend only with her.

Stolen moments. That was all she and Special Agent David Maddox had really ever shared. But then, that was what happened when one fell in love with a CIA agent. Covert operations, classified missions, need-to-know. All familiar terms.

Too familiar, she realized as she hesitated mid stride on the lower level of the parking garage, her gaze land
ing on her white Lexus—or more specifically on the two well-dressed men waiting next to the classy automobile.

One man she recognized instantly as Craig Dawson, her CIA handler. All valuable CIA as sets had handlers. It was some sort of rule. He’d replaced David when their relationship had gotten personal. There were times when Elizabeth wondered if that change in the dynamics of the interaction between them had ultimately caused David’s death. His work had seemed so much safer when he’d been her handler.

Stop it, she ordered. Thinking about the past was destructive. She knew it. The counselor the Agency had insisted she see after David’s death had said the same. Face forward, focus on the future.

Her new motto.

Time to move on.

If only her past would stop interfering.

What did Agent Dawson want today of all days? Annoyance lined her brow. When ever he showed up like this it could only mean a ripple in her agenda. She couldn’t change her current plans. It had taken too long for her to work up the courage and enthusiasm to make them.

Her irritation mounting unreasonably, her attention shifted slightly. To the man standing next to Dawson. Another secret agent, no doubt. The guy could have been a car bon copy of Dawson from the neck down, great suit, navy in color, spit and polished black leather shoes. The only characteristics that differentiated the two were age and hair color.

Well, okay, that was an exaggeration, the two looked nothing alike. Dawson was fifty or so, distinguished-looking, with a sparkling personality. He’d never per
formed field duty for the CIA, was more the “office” type. The other guy looked younger, late-thirties maybe, handsome in a rugged sort of way, and his expression resembled that of a slick gangster. At least what she could see of it with him wearing those dark shades. The five o’clock shadow on his lean jaw didn’t help. Her gaze lingered there a moment longer. Something about his profile…his mouth seemed familiar.

She rarely forgot a face, and this one made her nervous. She looked away, settling her gaze back on Dawson and the kind of familiarity she could trust. Maybe she had run into the other man before. But that didn’t seem likely since her dealings with the CIA had always come through David or Agent Dawson, discounting her rare command performance with the director him self. A frown nagged at her brow. It was doubtful that she knew the other man, yet something about him seriously intimidated her. Not a good thing in a CIA agent, to her way of thinking.

But then, what did she know? She was only a part-time volunteer agent whose existence was strictly off any official records. And she hadn’t even been subjected to the training program. Calling herself an agent was a stretch. She actually had no dealings what so ever with the CIA other than performing the occasional professional service for which she refused to accept pay. To date, she had provided new faces for more than a dozen deep-cover operatives. It was the least she could do for her country—why would she allow payment for services rendered? Elizabeth saw it as her patriotic duty. The covert sideline was her one secret…her one departure from the dull routine of being Dr. Elizabeth Cameron.

“Dr. Cameron,” Dawson said when she made no
move to come closer, “the director would like to see you.”

Elizabeth hiked her purse strap a little farther up her shoulder and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m going on vacation, Agent Dawson,” she said firmly as she ordered her feet to move to ward her car. It was her car, after all; he couldn’t keep her from getting in it and driving away. At least she didn’t think he could.

“The meeting will only take a few minutes, ma’am,” Dawson assured quietly while his cohort stood by, ominously silent, doing the
intimidation
thing.

She considered asking Craig if he was training a new recruit or if he’d worried that he might need backup for bringing her in. But she doubted he’d get the joke. She wouldn’t have gotten it either until about a week ago. That’s when she’d made her decision. The decision to put some spontaneity into her life. She was sick of being plain old quiet, reserved Elizabeth who never varied her routine. Who stuck with what worked and avoided personal risk at all cost. She got out of bed at the same time every morning, showered, readied for work and ate a vitamin-enhanced meal bar on the way to the office. After ten or twelve hours at the office and/or hospital, she worked out at the fitness center and went home, took a relaxing hot bath and fell into bed utterly exhausted.

Same thing, day in and day out.

She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d gone to a movie much less had a simple dinner date.

But no more.

Still, she had an obligation to the CIA. She’d promised to help out when they needed her. Right now might be inconvenient but it was her duty to at least listen to what they needed. Growing up a military brat had taught her two things if nothing else: always guard your feel
ings and never, ever forget those who risk their lives for your freedom. Guarding her feelings was a hard-learned skill, the knowledge gained from moving every two to three years and having to fit in someplace new. The other—well, patriotism was simply something every good American should practice.

“All right,” she relented to Mr. Dawson’s obvious relief. “I’ll see him, for a few minutes only.” She held up a hand when Dawson would have moved to ward the dark sedan parked next to her car. “Any thing else he needs will have to wait until I get back from my cruise,” she said just to be sure he fully grasped the situation. “Even doctors take vacations.”

“I understand, ma’am,” Dawson confirmed with a pleas ant smile. But something about the smirk on the other man’s face gave her pause. Did he know her? She just couldn’t shake that vague sense of recognition. Maybe he was privy to what the director wanted and already knew she was in for a battle if she wanted this vacation to happen.

She was still a private citizen. She accepted no money for her work and she had never refused the Agency’s requests. But this time she just might.

Elizabeth settled into the back seat of the dark sedan and Dawson closed her door before sliding behind the steering wheel. The other man took the front passenger seat, snapped the safety belt into place and stared straight ahead. Elizabeth was glad he hadn’t opted to sit in back with her. She didn’t like the guy. He made her feel threatened on some level. A frown inched its way across her fore head. She had to admit that he was the first Agency staff member she’d met who actually looked like one of the guys depicted in the movies. Thick, dark
hair slicked back. Concealing eyewear, flinty profile. She shivered, then pushed the silly notion away.