Kiss the Bride (71 page)

Dear Lord, she’d placed the President’s daughter squarely in the line of fire.

You have to get away from him. It’s the only chance you have. It’s the only chance Elysee has.

“Take the overpass,” he instructed. “Drive at the speed limit. Not one mile above or below.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, really not wanting to hear the answer but frantic for some kind of information that would help her form a plan.

“To the shipping channel. To the docks.”

“Why are we going there?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve already made arrangements for the disposal of two bodies. A third corpse shouldn’t pose much in the way of an added inconvenience.” His grin was pure evil. “There’s a lot of places to torture someone down along the waterfront where screams go unheard.”

After his talk with Elysee, Shane hurried to Tish’s bedroom to tell her that they’d broken the engagement, but she wasn’t there. He went in search of anyone who might know where Tish had gone. The place was in a bustle because the President was coming in. He couldn’t find any staff members who’d seen her.

Until he spoke to one of the valets, who told Shane he’d seen Tish get into her car with a man just a few minutes earlier. Shane pressed for a description but the valet said he hadn’t been close enough to get a good look at the guy.

Shane thought about phoning Cal, but hesitated. He no longer had any idea who he could trust. For all he knew, Cal could be behind the arson fire. He hated to believe it of his former partner, but at this point, everyone who’d been staying at the ranch that had been at the engagement party was suspect. Especially Cal, since he smoked and had access to those matches. Especially since Shane had seen bits of red lava rocks—the very same red lava gravel that was in the garden outside Tish’s apartment—underneath Cal’s shoes in the limo the night of the fire.

Call Tish.

But, of course. He was so frantic with worry, he hadn’t thought of the simplest solution first. He went into Tish’s bedroom, picked up the cordless phone, and called his cell.

It rang six times, then switched to voice mail. He left a message asking her to call him immediately and hung up. That’s when he realized Tish’s camera was hooked up to the computer monitor and photos were scattered across the desk.

Tish might be a little flighty at times, but when it came to her work, she was a dedicated professional. She would never have gone off and left her camera on or her editing equipment strewn around. He examined the camera and saw the disk was missing.

Alarm jolted through him.

He stabbed his fingers through his hair, blew out his breath and let out a short but emphatic curse. Something had happened to interrupt Tish from her work. Where had she gone?

And with whom?

He pivoted. On his way back out the door he saw a decorative glass bowl filled with the same matchbooks Dick Tracy had found at the scene of the fire. He scooped up a handful as he went past and stuffed them into his pocket, convinced they held the key to the person with whom Tish had gone.

His training told him not to jump to conclusions, but his gut told him his fears were valid. Someone had taken Tish and her camera disk from the engagement party, he guessed. And he feared it was someone who meant her serious harm.

Shane’s father had taught him that in times of crisis he should always listen to his gut and not to his head.
Listening to his head had sent him walking out on his marriage when he should have paid attention to what his gut had told him.

Instinctively convinced Tish was no longer on the ranch, he raced back to his Durango, got in and zoomed to the security checkpoint at the front gate. The guards had changed shifts, so the officer in the guard shack hadn’t seen Tish leave, but it had been logged in that Tish and a passenger had left the grounds seventy minutes earlier.

“Passenger?” Shane asked of the guard. “Who was the passenger?”

“It doesn’t say here, sir.”

“Male? Female?”

The guard lifted his shoulders in a helpless gesture. “No notation was made regarding the sex of the passenger in the car with Ms. Gallagher. Would you like me to call the other guards at home?”

“No.” Shane didn’t have time for that. Besides, he had another plan. He would track her via the GPS device in his cell phone. Wherever she was, he could target her location.

Once he had a plan of action, Shane calmed. He would find her and when he got hold of the sonofabitch who’d taken her, his retribution would be both swift and relentless.

He felt a surge of protectiveness for Tish unlike anything he’d ever felt before. It was far stronger than his sense of duty, far deeper than his patriotism and his honor code. It wasn’t about revenge. This wasn’t about his ego. This was about Tish’s safety. She needed him—this time, he was determined to be there for her.

The sun was slipping down to the horizon as Larkin shoved Tish ahead of him through the maze of shipping pods lining the docks. Huge freighters lay tied up at their berths.
There was a lot of activity around the new arrivals, but Larkin stayed clear of those areas, guiding her farther and farther away from any dockworkers and her possible salvation.

Larkin shunted her down dark and musty rows of heavy metal containers, and the smell of fish and brackish water was thick in her nose. With all the noise and hustle, it was doubtful anyone would have heard her cry for help. The gun poking hard into her back deterred Tish from even trying to call out.

Finally, he told her to stop beside one of the pods positioned right at the edge of the water. “Open it up,” he said.

Oh God, was this where he was going to torture her and kill her? Was this pod to be her coffin?

She hesitated, unable to make herself open the door.

He jabbed her in the spine with his gun. “Do it.”

She obeyed his demand, struggling to unlatch the heavy metal door. As she worked on it, his pager went off. Cursing, he tugged it off his waistband and squinted at the display. For a brief second his concentration left her and went to the pager. Her eyes went to the water: If she jumped off the pier could she swim away from him? Or would she simply be a sitting duck in the water, a perfect target for his bullets?

“Sonofabitch.”

“What is it?”

“The President is arriving at the ranch in an hour and he wants a training session and a massage when he gets there,” Larkin fumed. “He treats me like I’m his frickin’ servant.”

“Well, he is the President of the United States.”

“Like I have time for this crap.”

“You better show up. If you don’t, someone might get suspicious of your whereabouts,” Tish said.

He cursed again. “Okay, in you go.”

“What?”

“The pod.” He waved his gun. “Get in there.”

“But it’s dark inside.” She peered nervously into the black depths. “It smells like mice.”

“You’d rather I just shoot you now?”

“I’m in.” Tish hopped into the pod.

Larkin slammed the door on her and turned the lock. She pressed her ear against the door, straining for the sound of his footfalls walking away.

He was gone.

Relief weakened her limbs and she sank to the floor of the pod, wrapping her arms around herself to stem the uncontrollable shaking that suddenly gripped her body.

Inside the shipping container was airless and empty. Tish had never known darkness could be so deep and black, except for in her own mind, in her soul, after she’d lost the baby.

And then she’d lost Shane.

Mentally, she had whirled out of control, spinning wildly, madly—a dizzying dance of consumer excess. Buying, shopping, throwing away money. Until she’d lost momentum and like a wobbly dreidel, fallen over, top-heavy, spent and out of balance.

Time passed.

She didn’t have any idea how long it was. It could have been mere seconds. It could have been a dozen hours. She might have dozed. She might have only hallucinated that she dozed. She might have dreamed that she hallucinated about dozing. The isolation and visual deprivation were disorienting.

I’m going to die. I’m going to die in here alone without ever telling Shane that I still love him.

Shane arrived at the docks just after dusk. The location scared the hell out of him. He knew someone could easily go missing down here. He found the Acura parked behind an abandoned warehouse on the far side of the shipping channel.

That’s where his search ended, when he peered in the window and spied the cell phone he’d given Tish lying on the console. Shane’s gut spoke to him, and it was yelling some pretty ugly things.

You weren’t there for her when she needed you most, Tremont. Face it, you failed her. If she dies, it’s all your fault.

He gulped. Guilt and fear hitched a ride from his throat to his stomach and settled in like bad indigestion. He stepped away from the car, eyes scanning the night, senses attuned for danger. His Sig Sauer was nestled in its shoulder holster, but it gave him little comfort. Fear badgered him, too.
What are you going to do? Shoot with your left hand?

Yes.

Your target better be as wide as a Wal-Mart.

He heard a sound in the darkness behind him. He whirled, simultaneously reaching for his gun, but his reaction time was too slow.

“Got the draw on you, Tremont,” said a voice from the darkness. “Throw down your weapon.”

“What the hell is going on here? Who are you? Where’s my wife?” Shane demanded, searching the shadows for a face.

Surprise tripped down his spine when he saw Pete Larkin emerge with his own Sig Sauer pointed at Shane’s head.

“Throw it down,” Larkin repeated. “You’re worthless with the thing anyway. I know what kind of shape your hand is in.”

“What are you doing, Larkin?”

“Stop yapping and do it.” Shane tossed his weapon on the ground. Larkin retrieved it and tucked it in his waistband.

Rage engulfed Shane, red-hot and blind. It wasn’t long ago that he could have as easily killed Larkin as look at him. “What the hell is wrong with you? Where’s Tish? Is she alive? If you’ve done anything to her, I swear I’ll kill you.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’ll take you to her. Reunite the lovebirds. Put your palms on the back of your head, turn around, and start walking toward the water.”

Calm down. You’re no good to Tish in an irrational state. Remember your training. Detach from your emotions.

“What’s this about?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice calm when he wanted nothing more than to launch himself at Larkin and rip his throat out.

“Something you shouldn’t have gotten involved in. It was none of your damn business. Nothing to do with you. Either one of you.”

“Clearly.” Shane’s mind was racing as he tried to formulate a plan. He didn’t want to act too prematurely, didn’t want to disable Larkin before the man led him to Tish. “Who are you working for?”

“CIA.”

“Fucking spook.”

“You think that’s an insult?” Larkin laughed. “Take a left at the next shipping container and don’t try anything or I’ll blow your kneecaps off.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“Then you’re very stupid. I have no problem with killing anyone who gets in my way.”

“I’m guessing your superior officers have no idea what you’re up to. Since when is a wedding videographer a threat to national security?”

“Those spineless pencil pushers. Please. They don’t have a clue what it’s really like out here in the field.”

“What did Tish do to deserve this?”

“She took my fucking picture.”

“And?”

“She got my voice on tape.”

“Sounds like your fault for doing business in a public place.”

“It was Sumat Kumar’s idea,” he grumbled.

“The Indian Ambassador?”

“He wanted the meeting at the engagement party so I could see Rana Singh.”

“He hired you to assassinate Elysee’s former nanny?”

“And some rebellious Indian chick whose father is some kind of cabinet minister in India. He wanted her dead for marrying a guy he didn’t approve of.” He smirked. “Imagine if we had honor killings in the States. All the teenage girls would be dead.”

“So what were you getting out of the deal?” Shane asked, as his mind frantically tried to come up with a plan. The only reason Larkin would be telling him all this was if he intended to kill him.

“Besides a shitload of money, you mean?”

“Besides that.”

Larkin smirked again. “Kumar’s promised to give me detailed info on their nuke capacity. The CIA won’t give me another shit babysitting assignment like Yuri
Borshevsky after I drop that little Turkish delight in their lap.”

“All this for two honor killings?”

“These dudes are rabid about keeping the practice alive. They don’t want their women getting uppity.”

“So you’re just going to kill these women in cold blood for your personal gain?”

“Shut up, Eagle Scout, and take a right.”