Storm Warning (22 page)

Sea spray scraped Ben’s cheeks. The hard metal of the Walther rubbed the skin off his spine.

With the help of Davy and Sheila Morgan, Ben had commandeered the 12-meter Mersey class, all-weather lifeboat with a skeleton crew made up of part-time lifeboat volunteers.

The crew worked with Angus and Robbie Logan, but Ben was taking a chance on their honor and integrity, plus the fact none of them wanted to aid and abet murderous drug runners. They were good honest men who’d been betrayed by their own.

Ben searched the night and ignored the headache and fears that wanted to paralyze him. Sorcha was out there somewhere. At the mercy of killers. Panic desiccated his mouth and slicked his skin with sweat, but nothing mattered except finding Sorcha before the ocean stole her forever. He focused on the reflections on the water. Gripped his hands over the safety rail, and prayed to a God he’d given up on years ago.

“We’re following the coast to Fife Ness.” Davy appeared beside him on the deck. “We’ve got a bunch of boats on radar, but we don’t know who’s who and we keep losing the signal in the rough waves.”

“Goddammit.” Fear for Sorcha squeezed Ben’s heart into a bloodless mass.

“Aye, just what I was thinking,” Davy said slowly, “but don’t you think…”

Ben raised an eyebrow, waiting. He felt as though he was being gutted with a blunt pencil.

“Well. There’s no way they can get far in the trawler with all these high-powered boats after them.”

Ben was betting on it. Then he understood what Davy was getting at. “They’re going to switch boats?” He rested his forehead against the back of his hands and counted to ten. How could they follow a boat when they didn’t know which boat to follow, especially at night?

Davy had a strange half smile on his face. “And there is this one signal that looks like it might be two boats tied together.”

Despite the sickness that hammered at his brain, he forced his head up. Hope slammed through Ben’s heart and he wanted to kiss the other man.

“So that’s where we’re headed.” Davy huddled his shoulders against an arctic blast of wind. Shot him a glance from beneath beetled brows. “I don’t want to see her hurt.”

“I don’t want to see her hurt either.” Ben closed his eyes against the feeling that he’d be too late. That he’d watch her die the way he’d watched Jacob die. Or worse, that he’d never know what happened to her. She’d just disappear forever and he’d be left with that niggling doubt that would eat him alive.

“Sorcha’s a wonderful lass.”

“I know.” An endorsement from Sergeant Davy Logan should have sent him running in the opposite direction faster than a bullet from a Glock nine-millimeter.

It didn’t.

Because Sorcha was a wonderful lass. A fantastic woman who’d probably never speak to him again—if she lived through this experience.
Please God, just live through this.
He’d deal with the rest later. He’d make it right.

His cell phone rang.

It was Ewan. “The transmitter on Peter Hughes’s boat on the May Isle is up and running. So is the boat.”

“He’s on the move?” Ben latched onto the only good news he’d gotten that day.

“Packed up the coke and raced off like a ruddy rocket.” Ewan had to shout over the drone of boat engines and Ben hunkered down against the wind and held his phone tight to his ear, pulling his jacket over his head. “We’re running an interception course with the other Coastguard vessel. Then we’ll take him down.”

What about Sorcha?
Ben ground his teeth on frustration.

“Where are you?” Ewan asked.

He had no freaking clue. “On the lifeboat somewhere, headed toward Fife Ness.” Staring at impenetrable blackness.

“Look, I know you have a thing for this girl, Foley, but if you’re wrong…” Ewan was shouting into the phone, even so Ben could barely hear him. The sentence hung. He knew the consequences. If he was wrong, his career was finished. And he didn’t care.

“I’m not wrong.” Ben lost the connection and with a curse slipped the phone back into his pocket. He sank to a bench seat and held on as they pounded over the crest of the waves.

Two crew members moved to the other side of the craft, pointing into the distance. He heard enough snippets above the roar of the engines to turn his blood to pack-ice.

Fire.

He grabbed his binoculars and scanned the night. A tiny fleck on the horizon began to glow. Ben knew who was burning.

***

Sorcha rolled onto her side and hauled herself to a sitting position. The stench of fuel filled her nostrils, cloying, choking. Her head felt barely attached to her body. She held her skull with both hands, scared she was going to pass out again. Vision wobbled, split in two and realigned as the boat bobbed on the swell. Her jaw rang with pain from where Robbie’s boot had caught her.

She manipulated her jaw, found it tender, although she didn’t think it was broken. She was down but not out.

Something was different.

It was quiet, she realized abruptly. Except for the whoosh of the sea, it was quiet. The engine had stopped.

Where were Robbie and Angus? She squeezed her eyes shut. This didn’t make sense. Her brain wasn’t working, too many residual aches and that god-awful smell clogging her nose, coating her tongue.

The acrid taint of smoke crept through the gaps of the deck above her, deadly and insidious. The crack and hiss of fire taunted her before she saw the yellow glow. Fear stole her breath.

God Almighty
.

She crawled to Carolyn, who still lay unconscious against the boat’s concave hull. Sorcha’s hand hovered over the girl’s shoulder, knowing she shouldn’t move an injured person, but not having any other choice.

“Hurry. Hurry!”
The voices screamed as if they’d been released from a cage.

Urgently she shook Carolyn’s arm. “Wake up, Carolyn, wake up.” The girl moaned, but didn’t move.

Sorcha ran back to the ladder and climbed the rungs. She pushed against the hatch with one hand as the boat rolled and pitched uncontrollably. The hatch rattled in its frame, but didn’t open.

“Help. Please help me.”

There was no one to help.

Dizziness and frustration made her want to scream, but already the smoke was making it difficult to breathe.

The wooden strut she’d pulled away from the side of the hull earlier lay on the floor. Jumping down the ladder, she grabbed it and jammed it into the narrow gap. Yanking and swearing, ignoring the pain as the wood splintered in her palms, she focused the full force of her body into prying open that hatch.

Sweat made her fingers slippery.

She didn’t want to die.

It was working. Each time she prized the hatch open a little wider, she shoved the strut further into the gap. Flames flashed and danced overhead, illuminating the hold with a vivid glow that ignited terror in her chest.

Burned alive.

Her nightmare for the last year.

Nightmare or premonition?

The strut snapped and she fell to the floor, letting out a scream of frustration. It was no good, she couldn’t open the hatch. Sweat bloomed as heat pressed down from above. Tears prickled against the smoke, making her vision blur.

She ran to Carolyn, shook her forcibly, but she still didn’t wake up. Dammit, even if she saved herself, how could she save Carolyn? She wiped the moisture from her eyes and tried to think.

She was so stupid.

“I’m sorry for running away from you, Ben.” She sent the thoughts out into the air. Hoped somehow he’d sense her remorse for not trusting him. Maybe pick up on a little of the love that hummed through her core. “I am sorry.”

If she had a second chance she’d do things different. “But I’m not giving up!” she yelled, sitting back on her heels. Turning her head, she saw her daddy’s ghost hovering in space a few yards away.
Jeez
. She might join him sooner than she’d wished. Was that what he wanted?

“Escape. Escape!”
The voices cried.

“I’m thinking!” she shot back at them. She stretched the neck of her sweater up over her nose and scooted around the perimeter of the hold. Trailed throbbing fingers over smooth wood, barely able to see through the thickening haze.

But there was no escape. Her hands shook, she walked the circuit again. At the front of the boat, she stood before a wall that separated the engine-room from the cargo-hold.

The voices in her head jabbered, nonsensical, but excited. Coughing, she rapped against the wood. Realized it wasn’t solid timber, but plywood.

“Smash it. Break it. Get out.”

She lay on her back and kicked at the wall. At first it didn’t budge, then after five solid kicks, she heard the wood begin to split. Heart pounding a thousand times a minute, she used the torrent of adrenaline flowing through her veins and put more force into it. Smoke clogged her lungs as she blasted the wall with her feet and didn’t stop kicking until half the wall was gone.

Blinking away the tears, she worked her way back to Carolyn. Tried to lift the other girl, but she was too heavy, and lack of oxygen made Sorcha weak.

She grabbed Carolyn’s legs and dragged her to the opening of the wooden partition. Winced as the girl’s head bobbled along the floor and then cursed, frustrated because there was
no way she could maneuver Carolyn through the splintered divide and get her up the steps on the other side.

Bloody hell.

Sorcha swallowed convulsively, her throat tight and sore. Looking up, she wondered if Angus and Robbie were still onboard.

It didn’t matter. She didn’t have any choice. She had to get out, but she couldn’t leave Carolyn to die. The boat lurched heavily in the water. Sparks flew and fire hissed as a vague plan formed in her mind. Praying, she dove for the hole in the wall.

***

The boat punched the waves as it sped over the rough sea. Skin strained over his knuckles, energy struggling to burst into action, only there was nothing Ben could do except hang on.

The inferno grew. Flames stretched upward at one end of the fishing boat, streaking the rolling sea with melted orange and gold. He shook, knowing Sorcha was probably inside that hellhole. He willed the rescue boat to move faster even though they were speeding flat-out, racing time itself.

They’d never make it.

They were close enough to see the blaze spread along the sides of the boat and engulf the rigging. Close enough to hear the crack and hiss of flames that touched the sea with each dramatic roll of the trawler. Close enough to see a powerboat riding beside it, sleek and sinister.

Through his binoculars, Ben saw Angus Logan pulling lobster pots up over the side of the speedboat and unloading waterproof bags of cash or coke.

The acrid smell of smoke irritated Ben’s nostrils. He couldn’t imagine being inside that conflagration and surviving. Sitting down, he took off his jacket. Removed the Walther from his waistband and cocked the pistol. The mechanism was stiff, but operable.

Someone centered a spotlight on the deck of the burning vessel and a blonde figure appeared.

Sorcha.

What the hell was she doing? Rather than leaping off into the relative safety of the waves, she lifted a wrench and started beating the crap out of something on deck as the fire roared around her.

“Why doesn’t she jump?” Davy asked from behind his shoulder.

“I don’t know.” Dread rose higher in Ben’s mind. The lifeboat was traveling at top speed, almost there now. Angus looked up and spotted them, turned and shouted to the trawler.

“Angus! Robbie! Dear God, give it up!” Davy held a megaphone to his lips, but the speed they were traveling made it hard to hear above the oncoming rush of air.

The roar of the engine changed, the pitch lowering to a growl as they slammed into reverse, the wake overtaking them with a whoosh. Never taking his eyes from Sorcha’s figure, Ben braced himself against the railing.

The fishing boat blazed. Alarm shot through him when a silhouette rose up behind her. A warning sliced across tongue as the figure lunged with a flash of silver.

“Bollocks!” The police couldn’t have tracked them down already. Robbie squinted at the blinding spotlight and exhaled with relief. It was the lifeboat, not the Coastguard. Inconvenient but not a disaster. Their speedboat was faster.

Davy’s incomprehensible tones blurted out over the water and Robbie smiled. With that moron in charge, they’d be fine.

Slipping the GPS unit he’d nearly forgotten into his back pocket, he strode out of the smoldering wheelhouse and stopped in amazement. There, on deck, was Sorcha attacking the hold’s padlock with a wrench. How had she got out? Disbelief morphed into molten rage that pounded through his veins.

What did it take to kill this woman?

He unsheathed his knife, grabbed her hair with one fist and leaped back when she swung the wrench at him. He danced away as she tried to connect with his head.

“You’re like a cat, cousin, but I think that’s nine lives now.” He held the knife with his teeth, grabbed the wrench, yanked at it until her fingers fell away and then he dropped it to the deck. He retrieved his knife, grinning. Her eyes rounded with fear.

About damn time.

Power filled him. He took a deep breath. Flames spluttered as they bit into damp wood. Maybe destiny required him to finish Sorcha himself. The same way he’d killed his mother.

They circled each other, him holding her by the hair. She watched the knife for the slightest move. Excitement tingled through him. They should have played this game years ago.

“Robbie! Let’s get out of here, lad!” Angus shouted from the speedboat.

Robbie’s knuckles brushed the warm skin of Sorcha’s forehead, and he wished he had time to savor this. Wished he had time to enjoy punishing the witch who’d ruined his life.

He swung her to his side, twisted her around so her knees buckled, and angled the filleting knife against her throat. Razor-sharp metal scored delicate tissue as she swallowed and a trickle of crimson slid down her alabaster skin. She held her breath, eyes wild, body straining away from his.

An image of his mother flashed between them in their first real psychic connection. Finally, finally he could show someone the extent of his power. He showed her the stunned disbelief in Eileen’s eyes when he’d drawn the knife over indignant flesh. He showed her the hot blood spraying his mother’s precious kitchen. There was so much more. Dammit. Why did this have to happen now?

Sorcha’s eyes bulged and her struggles became more frantic. Hanging on his arm, she stole a breath. Robbie savored her horror. Let her
fear
him.

Another vision swam into his mind. The American with a knife pressed against Emilio Santayana’s jowls. He glanced toward the lifeboat. Should have known. He’d warned Santayana about the one undercover operative he’d sensed watching him, but he’d obviously missed Ben Foley.

“This is Scottish DEA. You’re under arrest.” The American’s voice echoed commandingly over the water, and hope flickered across Sorcha’s face.

“Under arrest?” Robbie’s grin hurt. “I don’t think so.” Pieces of burning rigging began to shower the deck.

“Come on, Robbie lad,” Angus screeched. “They’re too close.”

His father was right. He shoved Sorcha toward the rail. This was what they got for interfering with his business—an up-close and personal look at revenge. Sorcha’s breath brushed his wrist and flames gathered behind him. The water sparkled and he swayed, an ember hitting his cheek, making him balk.

Visions reared up in his mind in a tsunami of death. Sorcha’s eyes rolled back, her head tilted just enough to meet his gaze. Fate was written there. His and hers. Bound by blood, cursed by heritage.

He pressed the knife tighter against her throat, prepared to end it, but the boat lurched, throwing them both forward.

Sorcha slipped out of his grasp, tumbled into the sea, the water closing over her head.

“No! Come back here!” he screamed, and the boat tilted again, tipping him into the freezing depths after her.

He gasped as he cleared the water, flailing wildly, the knife still in his grip. Angus started up the powerboat. He turned to look at his son for one drawn-out moment, regret and torment bright in the old man’s gaze. Then he turned and began to throttle up.

“Come back!” Robbie yelled. “Daddy! Come back! Don’t leave me!”

***

Gut-wrenching horror filled Ben as the fishing boat listed, causing a blast of water to rush toward them. First Sorcha, then Robbie dropped into the raging sea.

“What the hell?” Ben threw the megaphone on the seat as panic screamed along his nerves. Sorcha was a damn good swimmer, he knew that, but Robbie had a knife and it was nighttime and this was the ocean, for God’s sake.

The roar of the powerboat’s engine intensified, and Angus glanced at his son before pulling back on the throttle.

Ben raised the Walther. He was sure either Robbie or Angus was responsible for Jacob’s death. Ben wasn’t letting either of them escape. He aimed for the outboard motors. He had no idea about the accuracy of the gun, or even if it would work. He kept pulling the trigger, until after six shots the machine blew out of the water like some explosive stunt in an action flick.

Holy shit.

***

The sudden boom made Robbie squint against the glare of the blaze. Disbelief rocketed through him, and for a second, he could do nothing but ride the wake as the speedboat was thrown up out of the water, and all his dreams shattered.

A feeling of agony zipped through him and then nothing. The connection was broken.

“No!” Robbie screamed. His father was dead. Angus had been weak, but he’d loved him. Then he spotted Sorcha trying to climb back onto the burning vessel. The bitch. The bloody bitch. She just wouldn’t die.

If it wasn’t for her, everything would have been all right. With quick strokes he was beside her as she tried to haul herself up onto the wildly rocking hull. He grabbed her foot.

“Angus is dead. It’s over, Robbie.” She kicked at him, her anger and frustration palpable.

“Let me go.”

“I don’t think so.” He ran the blade across her calf, and she screamed.

Their eyes locked then, and he saw something shift in hers, the blue crystalline against the flames. She snatched a breath and dove on top of him, forcing him backward. She drove him down and down, and he sputtered, drawing in water, unable to grab a quick breath.

Water closed over his head, and they smashed below the surface. He swung the knife, but couldn’t get closer to her. Couldn’t see or hear anything except for his own frenzied blood.

Desperately he tried to stab her, but she manacled her hands around his wrist and kept kicking down into the pulsing depths.

Christ.

Terror hit him, making him thrash and flail. He grabbed her hair and twisted, sinking though the water on his back, fighting for the knife. The flames on the boat backlit Sorcha, turning her into a demon from hell.

And then other arms grabbed at him, tight little fingers that pierced his skin like shark’s teeth. He let go of Sorcha, who lunged for the surface. She hesitated only briefly to look down at him with furious eyes and a mermaid’s curse. He kicked to follow, his lungs compressed, his body bursting with the need for oxygen. But he couldn’t move. He kicked and kicked, but he didn’t go anywhere.

What the…?

Voices started tearing into him, and he looked down to see little naked Evie grabbing his ankles. Her face was white and bloated, her hair a cloud of blackness, her dead eyes fixed with hatred as if she finally understood what he’d done to her.

He lashed out with his boot.

Other hands rose out of the depths and seized him. Alec McCabe. Duncan Mackenzie.
His mother.
Adrenaline shot through him making his heart jackhammer.
No, no, no.

Kicking violently, he tried to swim. Struggled against the strength in those thin dead fingers. Struggled against those wicked, grasping hands and got nowhere.

Unable to swim, unable to escape, he screamed and water poured in.

***

Where was she? Desperation tore along Ben’s nerves all the way to his whitened knuckles. Sorcha hadn’t reappeared.

Where the hell was she?

Davy stared at him open-mouthed, tears running down his face, but Ben wasn’t going to apologize for blowing up the speedboat. He hadn’t meant for it to happen, and Angus, the lying sonofabitch, had gotten what he deserved.

“Can’t we get any closer?” Ben leaned over the railing toward the trawler. They were about twenty feet from the burning boat and drifting farther away.

Davy cleared his throat, swallowed his grief. “No, with these waves, the trawler could smash into us and we’d all go down.”

Ben tossed the gun onto the bench, grinding his teeth in frustration. Two of the lifeboat crew were kitting up in survival gear about to enter the water. He clenched his fists, feeling useless against the might of the ocean.

Then he slipped off his boots.

“You’ll get yourself killed if you go in there!” Davy shouted, grabbing his arm.

Ben didn’t care. Without Sorcha, life was worth nothing. The fishing boat was gradually slipping beneath the waves. Despite his horror of the water, he had to try to save her.

He had nothing else.

Ben grabbed a float, jumped over the rail and into the abyss.

***

Sorcha burst through the surface and snatched air into her starved lungs. There was no time. She didn’t look at the lifeboat. Didn’t look for Ben or Davy, just swam to the trawler and crawled onboard the heavily listing vessel. Carolyn was going to die unless she did something about it. She pulled the smashed padlock from the hatch and slipped back inside the tomb her cousin had constructed for her.

Surrounded by blackness, lit only by the slowly diminishing flames above, she searched the water of the rapidly filling hold.

Carolyn wasn’t there.

Alarm swept through her and gave her strength. She searched again, finally trod on something soft and dragged Carolyn out of the water. She wasn’t breathing. Bending over her friend’s body, she felt a weak fluttering pulse.

Letting Carolyn float and treading water herself, Sorcha made an airway, sealed Carolyn’s mouth with her thumb and blew a breath deep into Carolyn’s chest through her nose.

It took three breaths before Carolyn choked and spat up water from her lungs. She tried to roll, and Sorcha grabbed her before the girl drowned them both with her terror.

“Listen, Carolyn. Listen!” She took her friend’s battered face firmly between her hands.

“We’re going to make it, but you have to calm down.”

Her friend looked around, sentient enough to realize they were inside the hold of a sinking boat. “Oh, God.” Carolyn gripped Sorcha’s fingers.

“Here’s the plan. We’re going to go over to the hatch.” Sorcha glanced at the water rushing in and knew they’d never get out until the water slowed right down. “Once the hold fills up and the water stops coming in,
then
we can swim out.”

Carolyn whimpered in her arms.

“Understand?”

She nodded. “We’re going to die,” the girl wailed.

“We are
not
going to die.” Sorcha had too much to live for. She’d uncovered some of her past, knew she wasn’t insane, knew she had abilities she hadn’t even begun to comprehend. And cop or not, she was going to tell Ben Foley that she loved him, even if she died trying.

Not a direction her thoughts wanted to go in.

“Carolyn.” She shook her gently. “Once we get out of the hold, the boat will try to drag us down with it—remember that scene in
Titanic?
I’ll try to hold onto you, but you
must
kick for the surface.”

She swore she heard her name being called but blocked it out. There was no time for distraction. They were close to the exit, the inward rush of water slowing down. The air pocket disappearing as the vessel sank.

“Take a deep breath, hold my hand and kick to the surface.” Sorcha pressed her face against the rough wood of the top of the hold where the last of the air was trapped. The water level was nearly to their chins and they craned their heads to take that last gasp of oxygen. “If we get separated, follow the bubbles.”

They held each other’s gaze as they sank beneath the water’s surface.

Carolyn clung hard to her hand, made it difficult to move forward, but she dragged the girl through the narrow hatch, determined to save one innocent soul.

There was no light, and it was bitter cold. Disorientated, Sorcha kicked upward, fiercely fought the downward pull of the sinking vessel.

Carolyn flailed by her side, kicking her legs frantically. They didn’t sink, but they didn’t climb either.

“Kick. Harder. Kick.”

Sorcha acknowledged the voices and kicked harder. The boat sucked at them, kept them tight in its grip. Carolyn’s face strained, and Sorcha knew if they didn’t surface soon, the girl would grab a fatal breath. She held onto Carolyn so tight her fingers hurt. Her lungs craved oxygen, desperate to inhale and release the fire that made them burn.

She thought she was hallucinating when she saw the ghosts of her parents floating beside her, as if cradling her and urging them from the depths.

Her pulse thundered. Her lungs were bursting with the ferocious need for air, and suddenly they were free of the drag. Finally, finally, they were moving upward. Away from death.

They clawed for the surface. Broke through and sucked in the smoke-tainted air that filled their lungs with life. Carolyn coughed and spluttered on a choked breath. The sea was rough, waves breaking over their heads threatening to drown them even now. Carolyn gripped her too tight, and took them under again.

When they came back up, Sorcha urged. “Relax, Carolyn. I’ve got you.” She looked into her friend’s wild eyes, noted the broken shards of the once happy girl.

She wanted her friend back.

The lifeboat floated nearby. There were men in the water, and Sorcha waved as the searchlight finally spotlighted them. Another man was being hauled over the side of the boat. She put her thumb and forefinger between her lips and let out a shrill whistle.