Judith McNaught (60 page)

of them returning each night to unload their catch, then leaving each morning when the stars were still twinkling in the predawn sky.

Like the boat, there was little that stood out about its owner as he strode down the dock. Instead of the shorts and knit shirts preferred by the charter captains, he wore plain fisherman's garb—a white, loose-sleeved shirt of rough cotton, khaki pants, soft-soled shoes, and a dark cap pulled low over his brow. His face was tanned beneath a four-day growth of dark beard, though if anyone had looked closely, they'd have noticed that his skin was not nearly as weathered as the other fishermen's and his boat was actually better equipped for cruising than fishing. But this was a busy, competitive island port, and the
Julie
was merely one of thousands of boats that put in here—boats that often carried cargo that wasn't edible or legal.

Across the pier, two fishermen aboard the
Diablo
looked up as the
Julie's
owner went aboard.

Moments later, the boat's generator purred to life and the cabin lights went on below. "He wastes fuel running that generator half the night," one fisherman observed. "What does he do that he needs that engine?"

"Sometimes I see his shadow at a table through the curtains. I think he sits and reads."

The other fisherman looked meaningfully at the five antennas that spiked high above the
Julie's
upper helm. "He has every kind of equipment, including radar, aboard that boat," he observed meaningfully,

"yet

he never fishes and he seeks no charter customers. I saw him anchored out near Calvary Island

yesterday, and he didn't even have his lines in the water."

The first fisherman snorted in disgust. "Because he is no fisherman and no charter captain either."

"He is another drug runner then?"

"What else?" his companion agreed with a disinterested shrug.

Unaware that his presence was causing any comment along the busy docks, Zack studied the maps he'd

spread out on the table, carefully charting various courses he could take next week. It was 3 A.M.

when

he finally rolled the maps up, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep even though he was exhausted.

Sleep was something that had eluded him almost completely for the last seven days, even though his escape from the United States had gone off without a hitch—thanks to Enrico Sandini's connections and a half million dollars of Zack's money. In Colorado, the small chartered helicopter had appeared, as expected, to pick him up in a clearing 200 yards away from the house, a clearing that existed for precisely that purpose, except that it had been intended for use by the house's owners and their invited

guests. Carrying skis and dressed like a skier, complete with large, tinted goggles that covered most of

his face, Zack had climbed aboard and been flown to a small ski lodge an hour away. The pilot had asked no questions nor shown any surprise at what was, Zack knew, a fairly ordinary means of transportation used by wealthy skiers who preferred to own their own mountains and ski on someone else's.

A rented car had been waiting for him in the parking lot of the ski lodge, and from there he had driven south to a small landing strip where a private plane was waiting, as scheduled, on a cleared landing strip.

Unlike the helicopter pilot, who'd been perfectly innocent and legitimate, the pilot of the four-engine
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propeller plane was not. The flight plan he filed each time they landed to refuel was not the one they followed as the little plane headed on a course south by southeast.

Soon after they left U.S. air space, Zack had fallen asleep, waking only when they landed to refuel along

the way, but from the time they landed until now, he'd only been able to doze for a couple of hours at a time.

Standing up, he went down to the galley and poured brandy into a glass, hoping it would help him sleep, knowing it wouldn't, then he carried it up to the small salon that served as living room and dining room in

his sea-going "home." He turned off the cabin's main lights, but he left the small brass lamp lit on the table beside the sofa because it illuminated the picture of Julie that he'd torn from the front of a week-old newspaper and put into a small frame taken from the wall of a forward berth. Originally, he'd assumed it was probably her college graduation picture, but tonight as he studied it and sipped his brandy, he decided the picture had more likely been taken when she was dressed for a party or perhaps a wedding.

She was wearing pearls at her throat and a peach-colored dress with a modest neckline, but what he most liked about the picture was that she was wearing her hair much as she'd worn it the night they'd

dressed up for their "date."

Knowing he was torturing himself and yet unable to stop, he reached out and picked up the picture frame, then he propped his ankle on the opposite knee and laid the picture against his leg. Slowly, he ran

his thumb over her smiling lips, wondering if she was smiling again now that she was back home. He hoped to God she was smiling, but as he gazed at her picture, what he saw was the last image he had of her—the wrenching look on her face when he'd ridiculed her for saying she loved him. The memory of

that haunted him. It tore at him along with other worries about her, like whether or not she was pregnant.

He tortured himself constantly wondering if she'd have to endure an abortion or endure the shame of unwed motherhood in a small town.

There were so many things he wanted to tell her, so many things he needed desperately to say to her. He swallowed the rest of his brandy, fighting the urge to write her another letter. Every day, he wrote her letters even though he knew damned well he couldn't send them. He had to stop writing those letters, Zack warned himself.

He had to put her out of his mind before he went insane…

He had to get some sleep…

And even while he was thinking that, he was reaching for a pen and tablet.

Sometimes he told her where he was and what he was doing, sometimes he described in great detail things he thought would interest her, like the islands on the horizon or the habits of the local fishermen, but

tonight he was in a much different mood. Tonight exhaustion and brandy sent his rampaging regrets and

worries soaring to new heights. According to the outdated American newspaper he'd bought in the village

this morning, Julie was definitely suspected of aiding and abetting his escape. It suddenly occurred to him

that she was going to need to hire a lawyer to keep the police and FBI from badgering her or, worse, from charging her with collusion just to terrify her into admitting things that weren't true. If that happened,

she'd need a top-notch attorney, not some country bumpkin. She'd need money to hire an attorney like that. A new sense of urgency banished the defeated despair that had clouded his thinking since she left him and his mind began to work furiously, coming up with new problems and sudden solutions.

It was dawn when he leaned back in his chair, incredibly weary and completely beaten. Beaten, because

he knew he was going to send her
this
letter. He had to send it to her, partly because of the solutions
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he'd come up with, but also because he desperately wanted her to know the truth about how he felt. He was now certain that the truth couldn't hurt her nearly as much as he'd hurt her with a lie. This would be

their last communication, but at least it would correct the ugly ending to the most exquisitely beautiful

days and nights of his life.

Sunlight was peeping through the curtains in the salon and he glanced at his watch. Mail on this island

was only picked up once a week, early in the morning on Mondays, which meant he couldn't take the

time to rewrite his rambling, incoherent letter, not when he still had to write a letter to Matt and explain what he wanted done.

"
T
hat's Keaton down there, off the starboard wing, Mr. Farrell," the pilot said as the sleek Learjet slid gracefully out of the cloud cover and began its final approach. "I'm going to make a pass over the airstrip before I set her down, just to make sure it's in as good a shape as it's supposed to be."

Matt reached up and pressed the intercom button.

"Fine, Steve," he said absently, studying his wife's worried features. "What's wrong?" he asked Meredith quietly. "I thought I reassured you completely that

there's nothing illegal about delivering a letter that was addressed to Julie Mathison in care of me. The authorities are well aware that I have Zack's power of attorney to handle his financial affairs. I've already

turned over the envelope his instructions came in so they can try to trace it. Not that it will help them," he added with a chuckle. "It's postmarked from Dallas, where he's obviously paying someone to receive mail intended for me, remove it from its original envelope, and then forward it on to me."

Knowing how strongly he felt about what he was doing, Meredith made a better effort to hide her worry

and asked, "Why is he doing that if he trusts you so implicitly?"

"He's doing it so I can freely hand over to the authorities whatever envelopes I receive from him, without

giving away his whereabouts. He's protecting both of us. So you see, I've adhered to the strictest letter of

the law so far."

Meredith leaned her head back against the curved white leather sofa that dominated the plane's cabin and said with a laughing sigh, "No, you haven't. You did not tell the FBI that he enclosed a letter to Julie Mathison along with his letter to you, and you didn't tell them you're delivering it."

"The letter to her is in a blank, sealed envelope," he countered lightly. "I have no way of knowing if Zack wrote what's in it. For all I know it contains recipes.

I hope," he said with mock horror, "you aren't suggesting that I should open the letter to find out what's in it. It happens to be a federal offense to do things like that. Furthermore, my love, there is no law that specifically requires me to tip off the authorities

every time Zack contacts me."

Alarmed and unwillingly amused by his bold nonchalance, Meredith tipped her chin down and looked at

the handsome man she'd fallen in love with and lost when she was an innocent eighteen-year-old debutante and he was a twenty-five-year-old steel worker. In one short decade, he'd left the mills behind

him and built his own financial empire on a foundation of daring, brilliance, and guts. And then he'd

reclaimed her. Despite his veneer of smooth sophistication, tailor-made clothes, yachts, and private

planes, however, Matt was, and would always be, a street fighter at heart. And she loved him for it. She loved that reckless, forceful streak in him, even though she knew it was the reason he was now ignoring

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the possible legal consequences of his actions. He believed in Zachary Benedict's innocence, and that was the only justification he needed for what he chose to do. Period. Even though she knew it was futile

and probably unnecessary, she'd insisted on coming along this afternoon, just to make certain he didn't stick his neck out too far.

"Why are you smiling like that?" he asked her.

"Because I love you," she admitted wryly. "Now, why are
you
smiling?"

"Because you love me," he whispered tenderly, putting his arm around her and nuzzling her neck.

"And,"

he admitted, "because of this." From his breast pocket, he took out the letter Zack had written him.

"You said that's just a list of instructions about Julie Mathison. What's funny about a list of instructions?"

"That's what's funny—a
list
of instructions. When Zack went to prison he had a fortune in investments spread out all over the world. Do you know how many instructions he gave me when he gave me power

of attorney to handle them all?"

"No. How many?"

"One instruction," he said with a grin, holding up his forefinger. "He said, 'Try not to bankrupt me.'"

Meredith laughed, and Matt glanced out the window as the plane swooped down, racing for the runway, the setting sun glinting off its wings "Joe's here with the car," he said, referring to their chauffeur, who'd flown into Dallas on a commercial flight that morning, rented a nondescript car, and driven it here to meet

them. Matt wanted to arrive and depart without anyone knowing they'd been here, which meant they couldn't call a taxi from the airfield, even if there was a taxi service in Keaton.

* * *

"Nope," he replied cheerfully as he slammed down on the accelerator and sent the car barreling down the runway in his habitual race-car driver fashion. "I got here an hour ago and located Julie Mathison's house. There were a bunch of kids' bicycles in the front yard."

Meredith clutched Matt's arm for balance and rolled her eyes in amused resignation at Joe's daredevil driving. To distract herself from the gravel flying from beneath the car's spinning tires as they shot out onto the highway, she picked up their earlier conversation in the plane: "What sort of instructions did

Zack give you about Julie Mathison?"

Removing the folded missive from his coat pocket, Matt glanced at the first few lines and said dryly,

"Among other things, I am to take careful notice of how she looks and ascertain whether she seems to have lost weight or lost sleep."

Zack Benedict's unusual concern for his former hostage registered instantly on Meredith and softened

her attitude toward him. "How can you know that by looking at her? You don't know how she looked before she spent a week with him."

"I can only assume the stress that Zack has been under has finally worn him down." Forcing himself not

to show how badly he felt about that, Matt continued lightly. "You're going to love the next item on this
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list. I am also supposed to discover whether or not she is pregnant."