Operation Blind Date (18 page)

Chapter 30

L
aney tried, fiercely, but she couldn’t remember anything more about the man. Edward hadn’t even bothered to introduce him to them, so focused had he been on Amber. While she herself had been noticing how quickly he had switched his intentions. Which hadn’t been fair. She had turned him down, more than once. It was completely illogical, really, since she would have said no again anyway.

But she had to admit now that seeing how quickly he switched had actually made her feel better about saying no.

But not enough to warn Amber off.

Guilt stabbed through her again. It wasn’t as biting, now that she knew Amber was alive, but it was still there.

“Amber never even spoke to him that day, and Edward never introduced him. And she never mentioned him after, that she even knew his name let alone that she was seeing him. She would have. I swear, she would have. She would have made a joke out of it. ‘My life could be a corny movie, girl meets guy, falls for his best friend’ or something.”

He didn’t look at her for a moment as he dug out his phone. Probably thinking what an idiot she was for jumping to wrong conclusions.

“Teague, there’s still something wrong,” she said.

“I know,” he said as he hit a button on the phone, but still held her gaze. “Maybe even more than we thought.”

Before she could ask what he meant, he spoke into the phone. “Hayley?” A pause, then, “Good. Tell him there’s been an unexpected development.”

He went on to relay what they’d learned. He listened for a moment, then said, “No, don’t know if he stole the boat or just borrowed it from Page.” Another pause. “All right. We will.”

“Will what?” she asked when he disconnected.

“Watch and wait. Quinn’s on his way with Rafe.”

“Rafe?”

“You haven’t met him yet. He’s a little intimidating, but he’s a good guy.”

“Intimidating? Next to Quinn? Hard to believe.”

That crooked grin flashed for a moment. “Rafe’s a whole different kind of scary. You’ll see. But he’s the best there is at what he does.”

“Which is?”

“Lots of things. He’s got the best instincts I’ve ever seen. Better even than Quinn, on some things. I swear he can sniff out a bad guy practically as well as Cutter.”

She smiled at that, but it had a rueful edge. “And no doubt better than I.”

“You had no way of knowing.”

He said it so definitely it eased her guilt a bit.

The kayak secured for the moment, he headed back to the car. She followed, although she was torn between going with him and watching the boat. She compromised and took the scope with her so she could watch while he was doing whatever he was going to do.

“And when you already know who the bad guy is, what does your Rafe do?” she asked as they went up the gangway.

Teague seemed to hesitate for a moment, then said, “Among many other things, he’s our sniper.”

She blinked. Somehow just the use of that word instantly took this to an entirely new level. “Foxworth needs a sniper?”

He glanced at her. “Occasionally.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what was showing on her face, but when Teague spoke again, it was gently.

“If it comes down to it, Rafe will take the guy out if he has to, to keep Amber from getting hurt.”

Laney suppressed a shudder. “And who decides he has to?”

“Quinn.”

“Only Quinn?”

He opened the back of the SUV, reached for the bigger bag the scope had come out of and pulled it toward him. She lifted the scope to her eyes to check the boat; all quiet, no sign of Amber or the new part of the equation.

“If it’s optimal,” Teague answered.

She lowered the scope, looked at him. “What’s optimal about shooting someone?”

“I meant, if the circumstances allow, he’s the one who makes the decision.”

“And if they don’t?”

“He trusts us to make the best decision for the situation. But if it comes to deadly force, he wants to be the one, in case there are repercussions. If there’s any heat, he takes it.”

It was all she could do not to gape at the things he was taking out of the pack. More ammunition. What looked for all the world like a small explosive device. These he put in the pockets of the vest he pulled out next. A knife went into a small slot at the top of his right boot. And here she’d thought he just wore the combat-style footwear because he liked them, or they were comfortable.

He must have sensed her unease.

“I have to go in prepared for anything, Laney.”

“I know. I just... I never thought... The police are coming, right?”

He nodded. “But we’re in a remote area here. Their response time could be as much as an hour, maybe more.”

And by then Amber could be dead. She thought of how she’d feel if that happened, if she was reduced to just sitting here safely onshore while her best friend was murdered just a hundred yards away. It didn’t bear thinking about. She would paddle out there alone and unarmed before she could let that happen.

But Teague would make sure that didn’t happen. And these were his tools. Only as good, as effective as the man who wielded them.

She was feeling more foolish by the moment. And yet thankful, too. She lifted the scope once more. Still quiet.

“Have there been repercussions? When Quinn has made that decision?”

“A couple of times.”

“Did he get in trouble?”

“Quinn has a lot of friends, and even more goodwill to spend, in a lot of different places.”

She pondered that answer. Thought of how she would feel when this was over, and Amber was safe.

She’d do anything she could to help Foxworth, if they asked. She didn’t expect there was much she could do, but if they asked, she wouldn’t hesitate. And she guessed everyone they helped probably felt the same way. That was, as Teague had said, a lot of goodwill.

She also knew he was talking more to distract her than anything. And she was letting him, in fact was glad of it, because it felt so wrong to just sit here safely while Amber was...

Was what?

She lowered the scope once more to look at him. “What did you mean, when you said maybe more was wrong than we thought?”

For the first time he looked away. Dodging her gaze? “I just meant this guy is a whole new element, and we don’t know how that changes the picture.”

That made sense. What didn’t was why he was avoiding looking at her.

“You mean because we don’t know anything about him?”

“Yes. With what we knew about Edward we could make a reasonable guess on how he might react. With this guy in the mix now, the whole dynamic could change.”

“And I’m no help. I can’t even give you a name.” Frustrated with herself, it came out sharply.

“Stop, Laney. None of us expected this. And that,” he said ruefully, “will teach us.”

His words, and especially his tone, eased the knot in her stomach a little. But then something he’d said spun back to the front of her mind. “You said with him in the mix now,” she said, the implication only now registering. “Do you mean you think
both
of them might be involved? Edward and this guy?”

“We can’t discard the possibility. We’ve already made one wrong assumption about this case. We can’t—”

He stopped, tilting his head as if listening. Before she could absorb the ramifications of what he’d said, she heard what he’d heard, in the distance, the sound of a helicopter nearing. Quinn. The cavalry had arrived. At least, she thought so, but just when it got so loud she couldn’t believe it wasn’t within view, the sound changed, lessened, and seemed to stop moving. For a couple of minutes it stayed the same, puzzlingly growing neither louder nor fainter.

Maybe it wasn’t Quinn yet after all, she thought. Lots of helicopters, including navy and Coast Guard, flew around here.

She looked at Teague. He straightened up, closed the back lift gate. Looked back at her. And again, read her expression.

“It’s Quinn.”

“But it stopped, how can you be sure?”

“He’s dropping off Rafe. He’ll be here momentarily.”

Even as he said it the sound changed again, roaring as if the craft were taking off again. “Dropping off?”

“I’m guessing that rise just across the road. High ground, and best angle on the marina.”

She glanced that way. “But it’s covered with trees, where could he land?”

“He probably didn’t.”

She blinked. And stared as the small black helicopter indeed came into view over the trees she’d just been speaking of. “You meant literally dropping him off.”

“Like a hot rock,” Teague said cheerfully. “Fast rope insertion. Piece of cake when no one’s shooting at you so you can keep both hands on the rope.”

Feeling ever more out of her depth, Laney watched both the approaching chopper and Teague as he pulled out his unusual phone, pressed a series of buttons, fiddled with a small device in his hand that he then put in his ear.

“Hey, boss,” he said.

He must have gotten an acknowledgment, because he spoke again. “Rafe? You copy?”

A pause, then he said, “No, no change. Laney’s been watching while I gear up. They’re holed up on board.”

He listened for a moment. “Copy,” he said then. “I’m not thrilled with the kayak, it’s not exactly stable for boarding, but it’s the best shot. He’s seen it, and has me pegged as a henpecked husband. Harmless.”

Laney wondered how he’d managed that. She couldn’t imagine Teague Johnson as a henpecked anything.

“It’s a small boat, close quarters. I’m going in armed, but it’ll be last resort, too easy for Amber to be hurt in a crossfire.”

Laney suppressed a shudder. The helicopter seemed to go past them, then turned beyond the cove and headed back over the water. It slowed, not quite a hover but certainly not moving quickly, near the entrance to the cove.

“Copy that,” Teague said to whatever he’d just heard in his ear. A little bothered that she had no idea what was actually happening, Laney watched the chopper a moment longer. But when Teague moved toward the kayak again, she’d had enough.

“I’m coming this time,” she said, reaching for the second kayak.

His head snapped around. “Laney, no, you need to—”

“What I need is to be there.”

He abandoned the kayak, came back to her. He put his arms around her, held her close. She let him; they’d certainly not had the slow, pleasant morning she’d hoped for, so she would take what she could get.

“We’ll handle it.... We’ll get Amber out of there.”

“I know you will.” And she did, that wasn’t the issue. “Amber’s terrified, I told you that.”

“I know. But it will be over soon.”

Laney knew he meant to be soothing, calming, and it would work under probably any other circumstances, but now it didn’t even dent her determination. Reluctantly she pulled free, took a step back. Looked at him steadily.

“Amber’s terrified,” she repeated, “and terrified people sometimes do crazy things. She’ll have no way of knowing you’re the good guys. Unless she sees me.”

She knew she was right. And she saw from the way Teague’s eyes narrowed, followed by his jaw clenching, that he knew it, too.

“Damn,” he muttered, and something about his tone made the curse irrelevant. It made her feel valued, protected. She’d been on her own so long it took her a moment to recognize the feeling.

That it was this man making her feel that way gave her a whole new feeling. And she realized it hadn’t been just those feelings she’d longed for. It was those feelings from the right person.

Teague was that right person.

And she didn’t have a single minute right now to deal with that discovery. He’d told her, when he’d tried to do the noble thing and not give in to the attraction between them. He’d told her she could, and likely would, feel differently once Amber was back safe and sound. She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t deny he was only in her life because of what they would be facing in the next few minutes.

Whether he would be in her life after this, she would soon find out. The most important thing right now was Amber. It had to be.

She supposed it was selfish, but she couldn’t help but wish she’d met him some other way.

Chapter 31

A
nd this, Teague thought with grim realization, was why Quinn warned them not to get too emotionally involved. It messed up your thinking, had you worrying about something other than the goal. Not that he didn’t want them to care, that was the cornerstone of Foxworth’s philosophy: they cared when no one else did. But Teague knew if he’d been thinking straight, he would have seen the logic of Laney’s proposal from the get-go.

But instead he’d been focused on keeping her out of harm’s way, keeping her safe, when in fact she was right. In fact, he’d almost set it up himself, albeit inadvertently, with his nagging wife jokes. If she appeared with him, the guy would think that’s who she was, that the text had been to order him back to get her. It would fit.

She was right about Amber, too. She could well be so traumatized now that she’d see another, strange man as just another threat. She might even decide a drowning death was better, and go for the water.

And Laney had the right to be there. Because the bottom line was that no matter how dedicated he and Foxworth were, no one had more at stake here than Laney. Except maybe Amber herself.

So he was just going to have to deal.

“You will stay back,” he ordered. “And whatever happens, you don’t get between me and him, or between the boat and where Rafe is.”

It only took her a second to process that. Still quick, he thought, as she went a little pale. “I—”

He cut her off. “No argument, or you stay here.”

“I was just going to suggest I stay on the other side of the boat from you. That fulfills your requirements, right? And it might distract him a little, divide his attention.”

The way the boat was positioned now, she was right. Again. She was thinking tactically, in a way that both surprised him and didn’t. This was Laney, after all. She might never have been in a situation like this before, but she was quick and she was smart, and she learned fast.

“All right. Just pay attention to the angle of the boat so you don’t end up in the wrong place for Rafe.”

“In his line of fire, you mean.”

She said it steadily enough. Admiration flooded through him, not for the first time since he’d met this woman. She’d do to ride the river with, as Texas-born-and-bred Liam sometimes said, a saying he’d picked up from his Texan grandfather. Oh, yes, she’d do.

“Yes. And if that happens, if shooting starts, you are to get the hell out of there as fast as you can. Head sideways. Toward the sailboat for cover, or the rocks if you have to, just not back toward the docks or toward the entrance of the cove. Is that understood?”

“Yes. I’m not stupid, Teague. I know when to rely on the pros.”

“I never thought you were stupid. Ever. Far from it.”

He didn’t have time to react to what flashed in those warm eyes then. Quinn was in position, so was Rafe, it was time to move.

And he couldn’t let himself be the one distracted, by wondering what would happen after this was resolved. Wondering if she would indeed come to her senses and realize what had happened between them had been born out of the situation, out of circumstances, and not real.

Never mind that it had been the most real thing he’d ever felt in his life.

He made her put on the Kevlar vest he dug out of his pack. She protested, saying he’d need it if anyone did, but he insisted and she finally gave in. It was the only thing he could do to protect her, and that was the only thing that would enable him to stay focused on the job at hand.

Compartmentalize, he ordered as they paddled out. She handled the kayak efficiently, if not with familiar ease, and he could tell she’d done it before. It could be nice, under other circumstances, cruising around the sound with her, up close and personal in the small watercraft. He’d never taken the time for such leisurely exploration in all the years he’d spent here. He was more of a get-where-you’re-going-and-do-what-you-came-to-do kind of guy. That he was pondering this at all told him how much trouble he was in.

Don’t think about it,
he ordered silently.
Don’t think about anything but the job. Especially don’t think about her maybe getting hurt, or worse. Just do the job. Like you have countless times before.

So why was it so damned hard this time?

He knew the answer even as he thought the question.

Just think about trying to explain to Quinn why you had your head up your ass,
he told himself. And he dug down deep and found the focus, although he wasn’t sure how long it would hold. Until the moment Laney was in real danger, he guessed.

The man was back out in the rear cockpit. Laney had told him he’d gone inside once he himself had gotten back to the docks. She’d been watching intently. But this time he was facing the other way, looking out toward the entrance to the cove.

Watching the sleek, black helicopter that was making slow, high circles above it.

A normal person might look, watch. Might wonder what the helicopter was doing there in the first place, and certainly what it was doing hanging out in one spot like that. Might wonder if there was something going on in the water below that they should be concerned about.

But a guilty person, someone with something to hide, something big, might well assume the helicopter was there for them. And react accordingly. What the guy did now would tell them even more than his ignorance of his supposed home port.

He got ready to run.

“Rabbit?” Quinn’s question echoed in his ear.

“Rabbit,” he confirmed.

“Rafe?” Quinn said.

“Copy.”

The man scrambled up to the bow of the boat, fumbled with the mooring line fastened around a cleat. Teague saw his assessment of the man’s lack of sailing skills had been accurate: he was having difficulty with the unsuitable-for-the-purpose square knots. And he was getting frantic, clawing at the knot uselessly.

After a few more seconds, enough time for Teague to get closer, he quit the battle and darted back to the cockpit, dug in one of the bench lockers and came out with a knife. Teague watched as he sawed at the line near the cleat, while calculating his own approach. Quinn had moved in closer and lower, and the man looked over his shoulder as if he’d realized it.

The line finally parted. He didn’t even pull it clear of the buoy, just let it trail in the water, and Teague had the thought that if it was long enough to tangle in the prop his sloppiness could end this rather quickly.

Teague motioned to Laney to get clear. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the helicopter’s noise. “If he’s as lousy at steering that thing as he is everything else about it, he might run right over a kayak.”

He saw reluctance in her eyes, but she did as they’d agreed and paddled away. Quinn was low enough now he was kicking up a lot of concentric waves and spray, and the noise was an effective distraction. So far, the man seemed so focused on the helicopter he wasn’t paying any attention to them, if he’d even noticed them at all.

He scrambled back to the helm, slipping once as he looked over his shoulder again at the helicopter that was now barely a hundred feet away and even less off the deck. Since he hadn’t started the engine first, the boat was drifting, powerless, the current and probably the wind Quinn was generating nudging it backward. Underneath the sound of the bird closing in, Teague heard the bark of the boat’s engine trying to crank. And crank again, apparently in a similar condition to the boat itself. Finally it turned over. He couldn’t hear it, but saw the belch of smoke from the exhaust.

Teague looked to the far side of the boat, saw Laney’s kayak. The stern of it, anyway. She wasn’t as far back as he would have liked. Of course, he would have liked her safely back onshore. But she should be clear unless the guy decided to turn and aim for her, and Teague doubted he even knew she was there. He’d only just spotted him, and thanks to the shift in the boat’s position he was coming at him head-on.

Teague waved, casually, as if there was nothing unusual going on, as if there wasn’t a helicopter closing in just yards away. The man barely spared him a glance, clearly still thinking him no threat.

The boat started to move, turning as he tried to clear the buoy and head out toward open water. And in that moment so did Quinn, bringing the chopper down even lower and closer. The man’s expression turned to pure fear. Teague moved in, paddling hard and fast. The chop from the rotor’s wake made it tougher, but he dug in deeper, forcing the little personal craft through the broken water. He had to get there before the guy could get any speed up.

He wasn’t sure he was going to make it. The boat began to move, to turn toward the entrance to the cove. There was no way he was going to be able to keep up if the guy got it going forward.

Even as he thought it, Quinn acted. He quit hovering. The rotors tilted, grabbed air and the bird shot forward and down. Straight at the boat. To the man at the helm, it must have seemed the helicopter was diving right at him. On a deadly collision course. It would take a tough heart and steady hand to maintain in the face of that.

This guy had neither.

He slammed the boat’s engine into Reverse. The neglected machinery protested by dying instantly. He abandoned the wheel and hit the deck with a scream Teague heard even over the helicopter as it roared past, arcing back to safer altitude as it cleared the boat by a nearer margin than was sane. Quinn Foxworth was one hell of a pilot.

This was his chance, and Teague knew it. He’d have to move fast and smooth to avoid ending up in the drink trying to do this from a kayak. No time for hesitation, once he started he was committed. Momentum was key. He drove the kayak up against the swim step. Ignored the bobbing of the boat in the chop. Scrambled out, up and over.

He was on the deck of the cockpit before the man realized what had happened. It took a moment to recover from having nearly been sliced to pieces by an eggbeater flown by a clearly crazy pilot.

Teague ran toward him, hoping to take him down before he could react. But the man was too close to the cabin hatch, and he yanked it open and dived inside a split second before Teague had his hands on him. Teague started down the narrow steps after him.

And stopped dead.

He backed up slowly, holding his hands up.

“Don’t,” he said.

“You!” the man exclaimed. Clearly he’d been so unnerved by Quinn’s startling tactic that he hadn’t even realized the man who had come up over the back of the boat was the same one he’d talked to earlier.

“Hi, again,” Teague said, his tone cheerful. “Sorry, didn’t catch your name before.”

The man opened his mouth as if he were going to give it, as if this were some kind of normal, social meeting. The mind worked that way sometimes, Teague knew, falling back on the learned forms when everything was in disarray.

And this guy’s plans had certainly been chopped to bits.

“Back off,” the man ordered, his voice low, shaky and edged with a wildness that didn’t bode well for anyone.

“Take it easy,” Teague said.

“You’re together, aren’t you? You and that maniac in the chopper?”

Looking at the big picture, Teague doubted Quinn would be the one considered a maniac by most people. But that was probably not the best thing to point out just now.

“Back off,” the man repeated. “And tell your buddy in that damned helicopter to back off, too. Or I’ll gut her like a fish.”

He meant it, Teague thought. And he had the means. In his hand was the knife he’d used to cut the mooring line.

And it was at Amber’s throat.