Perfect Strangers (46 page)

His blue eyes held hers as he said, ‘Again.’

Josh was pushed back into the pool. He fought harder this time, churning the blue water into a white froth, but gradually his movements became slower, less urgent.

‘You’re killing him!’ yelled Sophie. ‘Let him up!’

‘Tell me what I want to know,’ said Sergei.

‘I
can’t
,’ she said, tears streaming down her face. ‘I wish I could, but I can’t. We’ve told you everything we know. You
have
to believe me.’

Sergei gazed at her for a moment longer, then gave the slightest shake of his head.

‘Get rid of them,’ he said.

Suddenly it went dark. For a moment Sophie was disorientated, then she felt the material on her face and realised a bag had been put over her head. Her arms were forced behind her back and her wrists bound with thin rope.

‘Please, don’t!’ she cried.

Then she heard a voice very close to her ear, deep and accented.

‘Speak or struggle again, I will cut your throat. Nod if you understand.’

She nodded.

Helpless and terrified, Sophie was roughly lifted, half carried, half marched, along a path. She had no idea where Josh was, or whether he was being taken to a similar fate. Frozen with terror, her mind sought out a happier, calmer place and she found herself thinking of her father, the last time he had taken her out on
Iona
, just before he died. Although it had been a sad time for her dad, Sophie had loved that day out on the river, just the two of them, laughing and talking. Even then, Peter had still been full of his plans to get away, dreaming of that castle on a desert island just like he always had.
I hope you’re there now, Daddy
, she thought, her tears soaking into the rough fabric covering her face.

Suddenly there was a thunk and a sliding noise, then Sophie felt herself lifted and pushed down as an engine kicked into life. Of course, she was in the back of a van: she could smell the oil and feel the vibrations through the floor.

‘Hello?’ she said tentatively, remembering the threat about speaking. ‘Is anyone—’ She cried out as something heavy was thrown on top of her. It rolled and slithered to one side, then she heard a gasp and a cough: Josh! Her heart leapt – he was alive! She felt a small sliver of hope as she heard the van doors slam and the vehicle began to move. Perhaps they were being taken somewhere else for questioning.
Don’t be so bloody stupid
, she scolded herself. They were taking them somewhere else, yes. But for disposal, not questioning. Sergei wasn’t so stupid that he’d kill someone on his own property, but then he wouldn’t want them running to the police screaming about torture either.
If it were me, I’d dump us in the sea
, her mind thought crazily. But another, more steady voice also spoke in her head.
Fight back, Sophie
, it said.
Don’t let them win
.

‘Josh,’ she whispered. ‘Josh, can you hear me?’

She was rewarded with a spate of coughing and she moved towards the sound.

‘Where are you?’ she said desperately.

‘Where do you’ –
cough, cough
– ‘think I am?’

She shook the bag off her head. In the dim light of the van, she could see Josh lying curled on his side, shivering uncontrollably. He was wet and cold and probably in shock. A black bag was over his head and his hands were tied in front of him.

She crawled over, gripped the bag between her teeth and pulled it over his hair.

‘Finally,’ coughed Josh.

Sophie smiled in the dark, despite herself.

‘What do you think they’re going to do with us?’ she asked.

Josh stiffened as another wave of coughing seized him.

‘I dunno,’ he said at length. ‘But I doubt they’re taking us to the movies.’

They lay there on the floor, listening to the engine. They weren’t making many turns: were they on the highway? Heading out of town? Sophie couldn’t even tell if they had been driving for five minutes or twenty. All she could do was lie there watching yellow lights from the crack in the door sweep across the roof of the van.

A single tear rolled down her cheek and Josh shuffled up closer to her.

‘Don’t cry,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll get through this.’

‘It’s slowing,’ she said, her body tensing again. ‘We’re turning off the road. What are they doing?’

Suddenly the rear doors opened and Sophie was grabbed by the arm by one of Sergei’s men and yanked out of the van. She was sent sprawling on to a dirt road, scraping her knees and the palms of her hands, still bound with rope. There was another thud and a groan as Josh landed next to her.

Her stomach clenched with fear.
This is it
, she thought, feeling faint with terror. They were going to kill them. She looked at Josh and knew she just wanted to be held by him, to die with him. The Russian towered over them. She closed her eyes, her heart hammering, a faint groan escaping from her lips. Then she heard footsteps walking away from them, and the slam of a door. She opened her eyes and saw the van skid off, its wheels sending a shower of gravel into her eyes.

‘Josh!’ she yelled, scrambling to her feet and blinking in the setting sunlight as she watched the tail lights of the van disappear towards the horizon. Relief almost knocked her to the ground again.

She wriggled her wrists around. The binding had not been put on tightly and she managed to get one hand free, then the other. She ran over to Josh and unfastened the rope around his wrists.

He took her in his arms and she started weeping.

Josh held her like that for a long time as she cried, stroking her hair, murmuring softly, ‘It’s okay, we’re safe, we’re safe now.’

Right then, she only cared that she was alive and in Josh’s arms.

Finally she pulled away from him and looked around. They were in swampland, possibly not too far away from the sea, as she could still smell the salt in the air and gulls circled overhead.

Up ahead, they could see the yellow street lights of what looked like a main road. Josh stumbled and groaned, holding his side, and Sophie put her arm around him, supporting him.

‘So what now?’ she said.

Josh nodded towards the road. ‘We should get back to Miami,’ he said firmly. ‘I wouldn’t want to be around here when it gets dark. It would be pretty lame if we survived Sergei and then got mauled by the gators.’

41

She could barely remember how they got back to the motel in Coconut Grove. Unable to reach Lana by phone, they had stumbled along the road, getting more and more anxious as the sun began to set, until finally a pick-up truck had stopped when Sophie stuck her thumb out to hitch a lift.

She had never been more glad to see a hotel room. She double-locked the door, smiling grimly at the futility of it, and went to get some towels from the bathroom. Soaking one in warm water, she wiped the blood from Josh’s face, then carefully pulled off his still wet shirt, wrapped another towel around his shoulders and dried his hair.

‘TLC,’ she whispered.

‘I need to get beaten up more often,’ he chuckled, then winced, holding his side.

‘Should I call a doctor?’ she said, hating to see him in so much pain.

‘Nah, I’ve been roughed up worse than that back in Edinburgh.’ He smiled.

She sat down on the bed next to him.

‘I don’t understand. Why did they let us go?’

Josh shrugged.

‘If they saw us at Miriam Asner’s, maybe they assumed we were being tracked. I bet Sergei and Uri are in enough trouble without having the SEC seeing us going into the Kaskov compound alive, then turning up dead the next day. Besides, they probably think they might still need us.’

Dead
. Sophie’s mind jumped back to that scene by the pool and she reached for his hand.

‘Josh, I thought they were going to kill you,’ she said, her voice cracking.

‘Hey, come on,’ he said. ‘I’m tough as old boots.’

‘We shouldn’t have gone to see Sergei; it was so stupid.’

‘We had to, Soph,’ said Josh. ‘Those guys would have kept coming after us until they got what they wanted. Now they have it, we’re safer than we were.’

‘I guess. But now they can find the money and none of Asner’s victims will ever see a penny of it. It’s all going to go on Sergei Kaskov’s polo ponies and manicures.’

Josh gave a weary laugh.

‘Sorry,’ he said more seriously. ‘I’ve let you down.’

She shook her head.

‘No you haven’t.’

‘But you wanted the money.’

‘Not for myself,’ she said firmly. ‘I wanted the money for the old guy who lost his life savings. I wanted it for the family who lost their children’s college fees, I wanted it for all those people who worked really, really hard and thought they were doing the right thing to safeguard it by investing it. I didn’t even want it for my dad. He shouldn’t have hidden it, whatever reasons he had.’

Sophie paused for a moment.

‘You know,’ she said softly, ‘when we lost everything, I really thought my world had fallen apart. I actually cried when the Mulberry bags went to the dress agency and I was almost inconsolable when I had to leave my Chelsea flat. I was a spoilt little bitch.’ She gave an embarrassed grin.

‘I can’t say that the Asner scam was the best thing that ever happened to me, but having money made me think I was happy when really I wasn’t. People think money is security, it’s freedom, and for many people I guess it is. But for me, it was just insulation. I was drifting. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t think I was good at anything – I can see that now. If you need designer bags and exotic holidays to be happy, then I’m not sure that counts as really being happy.’

Josh looked at her for a long moment.

‘So what does make you happy?’ he asked.

‘You.’

The word hung in the air between them, but Josh didn’t move.
What’s stopping you?
she pleaded silently, wondering whether she had read the signals completely wrong.
But I couldn’t have, could I?
And then he reached for her, his hand brushing her cheek, his fingertips barely touching her skin, the most tender thing she had ever felt. He moved closer, and she began to babble.

‘We should phone the SEC,’ she said. His lips brushed hers and then pulled away teasingly. ‘Tell them everything we know,’ she added, her voice trailing off into a moan. And suddenly he was kissing her – urgently, passionately. She could taste blood on the corner of his lip and wanted to be gentle with him, but her desire was as strong as his. Her whole body ached for him. Unable to wait any longer, she lifted her dress over her head as he snaked his arms around her back to unfasten her bra. Her breasts sprang free, and he pressed himself against her, taking her head in his hands, planting soft kisses on her lips as if he were drinking her in like sweet nectar he had been long denied.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he growled, his voice full of desire, and Sophie pulled him in to her harder, smiling. She felt on fire, every nerve ending alight, every sense, taste, touch, smell heightened, her lust making her dizzy. She reached down to unbuckle his belt, impatiently tugging his trousers down and off, wanting, caring for nothing but to feel him inside her.

Josh couldn’t wait either. They fell on to the bed and he spread her thighs, pulling her sheer panties to one side and then sliding into her in one movement. She gasped, moaned, exquisitely full of him. Clenching herself around him, she rotated her hips as they found their rhythm. In and out, hard, soft, quick, slow. Kissing her throat, her earlobes, her nipples, his stubble rough, his lips soft, the extremes of sensation driving her wild.

She had never felt more intimately connected to anyone. He was passionate and yet tender, maddeningly sexy and yet gentle and loving. They had known one another barely a week and yet he found her sweet spots with such accuracy it was as if they had been romantically involved for years.

She could think of nothing except the absolute pleasure of him being inside her, moving as one, her whole body shivering on the edge of climax until finally she cried out, biting his shoulder with such force that it surprised her when he moaned with contentment rather than pain. White-hot ripples of lust radiated from her belly down to the tips of her toes, wave after wave of glorious, pulsating pleasure. He came moments after her, and they lay in silence, calm, exhausted, slowing their breathing together, overwhelmed by the intensity of what had just happened.

They made love again a little while later; slower, less frantic the second time around, with more time taken to explore and enjoy each other’s bodies. She took him in her mouth, savouring his taste, bringing him to the edge of pleasure, astonishing herself that she could make one man so wild with desire.

She had no idea what time they fell asleep. So when she woke up in the middle of the night, she felt completely displaced. It was perfectly quiet. No ceiling fan, no noise of traffic on the street outside, just the faint sound of crickets and bullfrogs in the distance. For a second she tensed, before the blissful recollection of falling asleep in Josh’s arms came to her. She reached for him, but the other side of the bed was empty. Still drowsy, she sat up and pulled the white sheet around her naked body. Josh was sitting in a chair in his T-shirt and boxer shorts, bent over a reading lamp.

‘Josh?’

He looked up, and when he didn’t smile, Sophie immediately felt a stab of pain: she didn’t regret what had happened for one second – did he?

‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

He looked at her for a moment.

‘I think I know where the money is,’ he said.

‘What?’ she said, suddenly feeling wide awake.

He held up a battered paperback book, and Sophie’s heart gave a jump –
I Capture the Castle
; she would have recognised that green cover anywhere.

‘How the hell have you got that?’ she gasped. ‘Sergei took it from us.’

‘Sleight of hand,’ smiled Josh. ‘When I was out doing my research on the Russians, I found a little second-hand bookshop. They had about five copies of
I Capture the Castle
, so I bought one and copied the name and the numbers into it. I knew the Russians wouldn’t know the difference.’