Dark Waters (2013) (30 page)

“These people must have left some kind of online trail.”

Trace smiled. “I’m on it, boss. Relax.” He winked at the nurse. “Enjoy the view.”

Her hair wasn’t so much blonde as honey brown. The shade made her dark eyes and brows stand out, and it suited her. Brent had just grunted.

Since that burst of desire in the shower, they’d managed to find a place to coexist between the scorching attraction and blind fear. An unspoken time-out, detached from the reality that had become so terrifying over the last forty-eight hours. But Anna wasn’t finished with Brent Carver. Not by a long shot.

They wandered down to the campsite shop and Brent found cheap watercolors and a sketch pad. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning, but she doubted he’d ever had a real Christmas. She remembered the boys in that photograph in Brent’s home and compared it to her own idyllic childhood. The memories seemed far away, but still inspired a wistful sense of longing.

She found a paperback and they picked up sunscreen and a cheap bathing suit for her and a couple of beach towels. She also grabbed a big floppy hat and plastered a smile on her face, because she didn’t want anyone to recognize her from the grim portrait on the front of the newspaper.

They strolled slowly to the beach, not holding hands but in step and almost touching. They headed through the woods by their site and found a quiet spot on the warm sand. There were people around, loads of kids, and the occasional dog, but no one paid them any attention.

“Do you think we’re safe?” She spread her towel and dropped to the sand with her book.

“This is the last place a bad guy is going to expect to find us. Hell, I can’t believe it myself.”

He went down to the water and filled a small plastic cup. Then he sat beside her and started sketching. She watched him doing a wash of the sky. Even a few brush strokes revealed his incredible talent. He wore those same board shorts and a T-shirt they’d picked up yesterday with a zebra on the front. Didn’t matter what he wore, he always looked good. The muscles in his arms flexed as he painted. He set one picture to dry while he started another, almost feverish in his intensity.

“You’ve missed it.”

He caught her eye briefly. “It’s my drug of choice.” The calming satisfaction of getting a fix relaxed the tired lines of his face.

Anna felt bad. She taken him from his home, put him in danger,
and
deprived him of his passion. A lucrative passion. His livelihood. What would happen if he ended up back inside? The thought squeezed her lungs so tight she could barely breathe.

It wasn’t a game. This was life and death and years in prison.

She buried her nose in her book and tried to read, but as the sun rose she drifted off to sleep. When she woke, Brent was standing next to the water’s edge throwing a stick for a chocolate Lab that danced around his legs, making the water splash and both of them grin happily.

She wandered down to join him, the sand hot against the soles of her feet.

He launched the stick and the dog leaped into the water.

“Who’s your new friend?”

“Just some mutt.” But he didn’t fool her.

“Why don’t you get a dog? You obviously love them.”

One mile-wide shoulder curled up.

Then she got it. “You deny yourself all the things that make you happy. And you’re scared you’ll have to abandon it if anything happens to you.”

He shot her a scowl, but kept his mouth shut.

The sound of excited children’s voices bounced around the lake and a bunch of them ran out of the trees.

“There he is! Boomer. Boomer!” one kid called.

Anna noticed Brent’s mouth tighten with disappointment, though he tried to hide it.

“You’re denying yourself some basic companionship in the unlikely event—”

“It’s not
that
unlikely.”

Because of her. Her stomach cramped and she folded her arms over her waist as the kids and dog converged.

“This your dog?” Brent asked the kids. He held the stick hostage as the dog danced around.

“Yes, sir, we’ve been searching for him all over the camp,” the eldest, a boy about twelve, piped up. The dog kept wagging his tail, mouth open, eyes hopeful as he eyed the stick. The boy wrestled the dog into its collar and started jerking the leash.

Anna winced.

“Next time he escapes, check out the beach first,” Brent called. “He’s a water dog.” His voice trailed off as they dragged the poor animal away.

Anna reached a hand around Brent’s elbow. “You should get a dog. Finn would watch it for you if anything happened—”

“I don’t want a damn dog,” he snarled, back to being the bitter man she’d first encountered.

She searched for something to say, but Brent had withdrawn and locked himself behind those big stone walls. He jerked off his T-shirt. “I’m going for a swim. Want to come?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t swum in years. Not since the night I almost drowned.”

He stared at her for a long moment but didn’t say anything. She’d made the mistake of reminding him of the person he usually showed the world and he was rebuilding his armor. He handed
her the car keys from his pockets. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t go anywhere,” he warned.

Anna watched him walk away and then dive into the gentle lapping water. This was how he got all those muscles, she realized. Swimming. He cut across the surface of the lake, never seeming to tire. After a few minutes of standing there gawking at him, she went back to her towel. His sketch pad was closed but she saw a page edged in blue sticking out. Eyeing the distant swimming figure, she eased the paint box off the top and opened the pad.

The first four paintings were of the lake, each similar but different. The fifth picture was of her, dozing beneath her oversized hat. It shocked her. He’d drawn someone tranquil, serene. Soft lines, long slender legs that belied her short stature. His view of her was unsettling. It wasn’t how she saw herself—uptight, meticulous. His painting showed someone she wanted to be: relaxed, beautiful.

She closed the pad and tried reading her novel. But when he came back, wet shorts clinging to every powerful inch, she couldn’t concentrate.

That body made her realize she’d always dated boys. Boys who did as they were told. Boys she could control.

Brent Carver was no boy.

And he was determined to hold her at arm’s length even though they both knew the time they had together was short. She doubted she’d ever meet another man like Brent. The question was, what was she going to do about it?

Katherine groggily opened her eyes and rolled her head to see where she was.
Ugh
. On a hard concrete floor that made her feel every one of her fifty years. A curved tin roof arched overhead and someone watched TV about thirty feet from where she’d been dumped.

She tried to move her arms, but they were tied behind her back and her ankles cinched close together. The position and lack of blood flow was excruciating.

“Katherine,” someone whispered.

Harvey
.

She twisted the other way, trying to ignore the pain in her bound wrists.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered back. “Are you?”

He nodded, but he sported a ripped shirt and a bloodstained swollen nose where someone had either punched him or introduced him face-first to a wall.

“Why are they doing this? What do they want?” Hysteria crept into her voice and her heart lunged.

He shook his head, but made the movement small as he kept one eye on the guy watching TV. “I don’t know.”

“
I’m
not rich,” she hissed, and it came out like an accusation.

He raised one brow. “You’re the one they stuffed in the van. They just grabbed me because I was drawing too much attention to them.”

She frowned. It didn’t make any sense.

“I told Barb I wanted a divorce last night.” He looked around the warehouse. “But I don’t think she had time to organize this.”

Katherine opened her mouth in shock. He’d actually done it. Left his wife. And thought she might kidnap him for money. That was not a happy marriage. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. She knew she’d had something to do with his decision, although she didn’t know exactly what.

“Don’t be.” His eyes were warm. “It’s been on the cards for a few years. I just never had the guts to do it before.”

And it did take guts, Katherine realized. To walk away from a life you’d made, in the hopes of finding a better one. She was trying not to think about her life with Ed. It had been fine. For the last nine years, Ed had taken care of her, gotten her through heartbreak and betrayal, but…

But
was the problem.

For the longest time, she’d been a weak broken creature. Pathetic and nervous as a doe. Davis’s betrayal had undermined every belief she’d had in herself. After years of telling herself she didn’t care about him anymore, his death had hit her hard. And lately Ed’s rigid control had started to feel suffocating. Stifling. But those feelings made her feel ungrateful, which was why she’d been ignoring the problem.
What problem?

She was done living that way. Davis’s death reminded her that life was fragile and temporary. There were no second chances. “Why were you following me?”

His eyes crinkled. “I saw you leaving the ship. I wanted the chance to apologize for upsetting you last night. It was never my
intention to try and get you into bed. I was actually just enjoying the fact I could talk to you so freely—about anything, which was really rather stupid and highly inaccurate, given how you ran out of the lounge like I’d molested you under the table.”

If she hadn’t been bound and lying on a concrete floor, she might have blushed. “I’m sorry.” She held his gaze. She was sorry for everything. For overreacting last night and getting him mixed up in this today.

Harvey seemed genuinely nice. He talked to her as if he valued her opinion, something Ed never did. Oh, and he’d tried to stop kidnappers from carting her off in a van, which was a pretty big deal as they were both now tied up on this floor.

They were close together, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. It felt intimate, and yet she was glad she wasn’t alone. And that made her very selfish indeed.

“What do you think they want with us?” The nerves were back and there was nothing she could do to lose the image of cut-off ears or missing fingers.

“Does Ed have any enemies?”

“No,” she said, and then it came to her. “But my ex-husband died last week—”

“The thief?”

She nodded. Grief morphed into anger. “If anyone was involved in something dubious, it would be Davis.” Bitterness tasted acidic on her tongue. God, she’d been such a fool to believe all his lies and then mourn for him. She put him out of her mind. Someone would rescue them if they just stayed alive long enough. “What are we going to do?”

He leaned closer. If he hadn’t been here, she would have gone out of her mind. “See if you can find anything sharp to cut these goddamned ties, but don’t let them know you’re awake.”

He closed his eyes and looked like he’d suddenly nodded off. Was he sick? Then she felt a presence loom behind her and turned
her head. Obviously she wasn’t very good at this kidnap-victim business, but she did know how to keep her dignity. “Could I have a drink of water, please?”

The guy was bald and muscular, and looked like a cleaned-up biker. He shrugged and turned away. A moment later she heard the tap running. He came back and helped her sit up. The glass he held to her lips looked murky. She decided this was a time in her life when she couldn’t afford to be fussy. She swallowed the water greedily. Her mouth was bone dry. The water slid down her throat and down her neck with delicious satisfaction.

Harvey pretended to sleep.

“Thanks. Can you tell me why you’ve taken us?”

Baldy shook his head.

“You can’t just grab us off the streets and not tell us why!” Her voice rang out in the open space.

The big guy squatted closer beside her and she got a strong whiff of unwashed male. She forced herself to meet his gaze. His eyes were intelligent and sympathetic, but they were also resolute. No way could she talk him around. He stuck a pistol in her face and her heart started drilling through her chest as he swung the gun at Harvey. “Your buddy here volunteered for this mission and we don’t need him.”