Hunt Her Down (21 page)

Pain and pleasure and excitement collided under his tongue and lips, firing sparks through

her body, tensing her muscles, making her hips writhe.

She needed to think, but all she could do was
feel
. All she could do was tunnel her fingers

into his hair, and guide his head to the other breast, and sigh with each wave of sexual bliss

that rolled over her.

There had to be some truth she could wrest from him to douse the fire, because this was

headed one place. Fast.

“I have to know one more thing . . . first,” she panted.

He lifted his head, his lips wet, his green eyes heavy with arousal. “All right. One more

question. Then let me take this top off, Maggie. Let me . . .” He reached between them,

sliding his hand down past her bunched-up skirt, low enough to stroke her thigh, then press

against the silk of her panties.

Soaked, sticky silk.

“Let me.” His voice was rough with need. He followed the lace with one finger, then

slipped inside, branding her core with one slow stroke. “Please . . . let me.”

She rolled against his finger, making him slip in deeper. So easy. It would be so easy, and

sexy . . . and stupid.

So, so stupid. And so, so good.

“You like that,” he coaxed with a soft voice, his thumb on her clitoris, his index finger

circling her sex-slicked opening, his power over her as strong and relentless as ever.

“One more question,” she said, forcing the words from a mouth that just wanted to moan

and plead for more. “And one more truthful answer.”

“Then . . .” Moisture and heat surrounded his fingertip, making it impossible not to slide

deeper. “I want to be in here.” Deeper. “I want you, Maggie.” Deeper. “I want—”

“Will you leave me again?” The question was out of her mouth before it even consciously

formed in her brain.

He froze. “What?”

Talk about the truth. She had it in just one look. She didn’t know what made her ask the

question, didn’t even realize how much it mattered.

But suddenlyit mattered a lot. “Will you make love to me and leave me again?”

Still silence.

“I don’t get the question,” he finally said. “What are you looking for? A formal

commitment? A promise? Some kind of pledge about the future?” He made it sound like she’d

asked for the moon.

Maybe she had. But the question—and his response— did the trick.

She rolled out from under him and sat up, pulling her T-shirt over nipples still wet and hard

from his mouth.

He looked shell-shocked.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” she admitted. “But I have a son to think about—your

son. I have to know. When Quinn is safe and everything’s normal, are you leaving? Going

back to New York, back to your life and out of . . . ours?”

He opened his mouth and she put her hand over his lips.

“Don’t give me some Dan Gallagher version of the truth.”

Three, four, five endless seconds ticked by. “Yes,” he admitted. “I’m leaving. But that

doesn’t mean—”

“Yes it does.” She stood, the skirt falling over her legs. Finally she could think straight.

Both the past and the future looked like heartache, with him.

“Good night.” She bent over and kissed him softly on the forehead. “I really appreciate the

honesty.”

COULD THIS BE possible? Did they have the best Thursday night
ever
or had she counted the

receipts wrong? Brandy knocked her knuckles on the bar and stared at the readout. There had

to be a mistake. She needed to run the numbers again.

“Hey, Milk Dud,” she called out. “What time is it?”

The kitchen door punched open and Dudley Matheson beamed at her, a navy bandanna

wrapped around his shaved head, his blue eyes bright, considering he’d been cooking,

washing, and working his damn ass off since four that afternoon
and
he loathed the nickname.

“Snapper spawning hour, my friend.” He held up a small cooler. “Got the chum here, and

Jimmy’s picking me up in five minutes at the dock.”

“Really? It’s that late?” She’d lived in the Keys long enough to know those little buggers

mated after two a.m., and the hard-core fishermen were out there to catch them in the act. “No

wonder I’m beat.”

“That last table of tourists couldn’t say die, huh?”

She shrugged. “They will suffer tomorrow, that’s for sure. Had a couple of hundred on the

tab when they finally closed.” She pointed at the calculator. “Contributing to what appears to

have been a stellar night.”

“Kitchen’s done and locked up,” Dudley said. “You going out the front? I’ll walk you to

your car.”

She made a face at the pile of receipts. “I want to run these numbers one more time so I can

call Lena with the right amount tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “No can do, boss. Lena left strict orders that you are not allowed to

walk to your car alone with cash.”

“I won’t take the cash, Dud. I’ll lock it up. And I’m parked next to the kitchen door, so

there’s nowhere for you to walk me. You go out the front, I’ll lock it behind you, and I’ll leave

through the back.”

His look said he didn’t like the plan.

“Come on.” She jumped off the stool and pulled her key ring from the pocket of her shorts.

“You’ve worked too long and too hard to miss this boat ride to snapper heaven.”

He hesitated, but she marched right by him, unlocked the door, and held it open for him.

“You sure, Brandy? I don’t mind waiting.”

“I’m fine.” She hit him on the shoulder. “Go forth and fish. Catch enough so we can fry it

and sell it at a ridiculous profit tomorrow. I’ll give you a cut.”

He grinned and blew a kiss to her, heading straight out to the marina, where there were

enough engines running to assure her that all was right in the home of twenty-fourhour

fishing. She locked the door and went back to the numbers which, miraculously, were dead-on

the first time.

She finally turned out the bar lights, locked the cash in the office, grabbed a soda for the

road, and trotted through the kitchen that Milk Dud had cleaned within an inch of its life.

Shutting down the last lights, she unlatched the dead bolt and stepped outside, lifting the Diet

Coke to her mouth.

The can flew forward as the force of a man’s body pushed her down to the sidewalk, and

his body covered hers.

Son of a bitch! More mad than scared, she fought to lift her head, but a powerful hand

pressed it down.

“I don’t have cash,” she managed to say.

“Where is she?” The voice growled in her ear.

What did he say? “I don’t have money,” she repeated. Could she give up that five hundred

in cash? Yes. The rest was credit cards, thank God. Would he make her go back in? Then what

would he do to her? She struggled to turn and see her attacker. “I swear to God, my kitchen

guy took the bank.”

A knee slammed into her back, knocking her breath out in one painful swoosh. “Where is

Maggie Varcek?”

Maggie Varcek? “I don’t know what you want.”

Something prodded her back, right behind the heart. Holy shit, this dude had a gun. Her

veins went icy. “I have five hundred,” she said quickly. “Inside. Please, don’t hurt me.”

“Don’t fuck around,” he rasped in her ear. “Where is Maggie?”

Maggie? “Do you mean Lena? My partner?” Was her name Varcek before she married

Smitty? Wasn’t that Quinn’s middle name? Panic made her mind go blank.

“She’s not here,” she said, unable to see anything but his arm in a long-sleeved sweatshirt.

Was it the guy with the snake tattoo?

“I know that.” He knocked her head down with the heel of his hand, pressing her

cheekbone to the concrete. “You tell me where she is, right now, right this minute.”

“She went out of town. With . . . her boyfriend.”

He yanked some hair. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Miami.” It was a big city. He’d never find her. “I swear to God I don’t

know.”

“And the kid?”

“Yes, he’s with her. But I swear, I don’t know where they went. I
don’t
. Don’t hurt me.”

“I’m gonna hurt you.” Her stomach turned, fear flattening her. “I’m gonna hurt you so bad,

you’ll want to be dead. Tomorrow.”

She fought for a breath, terror squeezing her chest. Tomorrow he’d hurt her, or she’d want

to be dead?

“Please. I can’t . . . help you.” Tears she didn’t even realize she’d been crying soaked her

cheek and dribbled into her mouth.

Voices floated up from the marina, some of the men laughing.

He released his grip, maybe looked up. She tried to jerk free, but he smacked her back

down again. “I’m not fucking around, Brandy.” The use of her name punched her like the

knee in her back. “I’ll be back, and I’ll get what I want.”

The voices grew closer, and then he was off her. She stayed perfectly still, half expecting a

bullet in her head, half hoping she was about to wake up from a really bad dream.

His footsteps faded away, and so did the unknowing saviors from the marina. Shaking

down to the bone, she slowly pushed herself up, then managed to stand, turn to the door, and

reach for her—

Damn it!
Her keys! She searched the shadows, the whimpering sound from her throat not

even recognizable as her own.

The bastard took the key ring. Which had her car keys, house keys, bar keys . . . She let out

a soft moan.

Lena. She had to call Lena. She pulled out her phone and pressed the speed dial with

trembling fingers, her gaze darting up and down the street in terror. This side was silent.

Around the front, there was activity near the marina.

She took a few steps in that direction, willing Lena to answer, but it clicked into voice mail.

Half certain he’d be waiting around the next corner, she headed to the marina, grateful as hell

that her best friends were fishermen.

“How exactly did you get this appointment?” Maggie peered through the windshield of the

Porsche, checking out the four-story office building tucked between two much glitzier towers.

“Oh, the usual Gallagher technique.”

“You lied.”

He threw a wry grin as he took his seat belt off. “I convinced Ms. James’s efficient assistant

that I was a potential new client checking out cargo companies and only had one hour this

morning. She said she’d get me in.” He handed her a cell phone she recognized as her own.

“You left this in the guesthouse. So now I’m number one on your speed dial.”

Of course he was.

“You need to call or text me if you see Lola James come or go while I’m up there. But I’m

hoping she’s the workaholic that file says she is, and I’ll catch her in the office.”

Maggie had gone through the paperwork as they drove over the causeway from Star Island

to downtown Miami, knocked out that his company could get that much information from a

name. Flipping the file open again, she glanced at the picture of a beautiful Latina woman

holding court at a business networking event, printed from the pages of a glossy magazine.

“I’d have never recognized her in a million years,” she said. “There’s no way that homely

little girl grew up to look like that.”

“That’s the work of a fine Venezuelan plastic surgeon— they’re world class. What surprises

me is that her company is legit. At least on paper. I’m going to go find out more.”

She closed the file folder and held out her hand. “Keys?”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“No, but you’re not leaving me without air-conditioning. Keys.”

He put them in her outstretched hands, closing his fingers around hers and drawing her

closer. For a minute, she thought he was going to kiss her, but he just gave her that look—the

same one he’d seared her with when she walked away from what he offered last night. A

warning that it was coming, like it or not.

“Go.” She pushed him back, trying to pull her hand and the keys from his grip. “Go pretend

to be a client.”

He gave her hand one more squeeze; then he left, striding across the parking lot, his broad

shoulders square, jeans fitted over narrow hips and the hard thighs she’d ridden for a few

blissful minutes last night.

Once he was inside the building, she watched the glass doors glinting in the sunlight as they

opened to let in and out a few people who couldn’t possibly be Lola James.

Five more minutes passed and a man with long dark hair emerged, throwing on a pair of

sunglasses the instant he stepped outside and looked around. Something about his gait, his

posture—

Ramon! It was Ramon Jimenez. She peered at him, reaching for her cell phone as he

approached the same dark blue compact car she’d seen him get in when Dan ran him out of

the bar.

She couldn’t lose him. He was a critical link to the kidnapping, the fortune, and El Viejo.

She hoisted herself over the console and stabbed the key into the ignition. Would Dan kill her

for following a dangerous man? Or would he be disappointed she’d lost track of him?

She hit 1 on her cell phone, glancing at the options on the screen. What if he was talking to

Lourdes right then? She opted to text, quickly typing in
Ramon here
just as the blue car

backed out.

She hit Send, then threw the phone on the passenger seat, using all her might to depress the

gearshift and follow the pattern on top to get the car in reverse. To the right and straight back.