Beauty & the Beast (29 page)

Tess looked up before she stamped out the fire. Two faces beamed down at her.

Heather and Svetlana.

“Tess!” Heather hissed. “Tess, thank God you came!”

“Ssh,” Tess said. “Quiet.”

She put out the fire. In the darkness, someone scrabbled down the tree and stood beside her. Svetlana.

“Glad,” she whispered. Then, “Heather hurt. Cannot climb down.”

Tess said, “Sit tight.” If Heather wouldn’t be able to keep up with them, then remaining in the tree until they could safely get her out might be their best choice.

Svetlana pushed the inert man over on his back. She crouched over him and shined a cell phone light on his face. His sandy brown hair was closely shaved to his skull.

“Ilya. You must shoot,” Svetlana said. “He wake up, he kill us. Never give up. Or I crush.” She picked up the rock and held it above her head with both hands, preparing to bring it down on the man’s face.

With a strangled cry, the man bolted upright. A split-second later, Heather dropped from the tree with the tiniest squeal and landed on top of him. Fists doubled, she battered his head and face with rapid punches while Svetlana hit him with the rock.

Svetlana clamped her hand over Heather’s mouth and said, “Good, good.” Heather was crying hysterically.

Together Svetlana and Tess eased Heather to her feet. Heather lurched to the right, favoring her right foot. Svetlana wrapped her arms around her and Heather sobbed against her chest.

“Shut up, shut up,” Svetlana cooed, patting her. “Is good.” She looked at Tess. “He is dead?”

Tess pushed the rock off his face. The moonlight concealed whatever damage Svetlana had done, which was probably for the best given Heather’s emotional condition. Tess felt for a pulse. There was none. Tess remembered her first kill in the line of duty—mandatory therapy, nightmares for months— and got to her feet.

“He’s still breathing.” It was a lie, and she let Svetlana know that with a quick squeeze of the other woman’s forearm.

“Oh, too bad,” Svetlana replied, and the odd note in her voice told Tess that she had gotten the message.

“He’s not going to be able to warn the others,” Tess said in an undervoice. “He’s out of the game. Does he have information on Anatoly?”

“
Da
, much,” Svetlana said. “He is nephew Anatoly.”

“Then we’ll leave him here. Maybe he’ll get lucky and pull through. Heather,” Tess said gently, changing course, “you need to stop crying. Can you walk?”

Heather wiped her eyes with her free hand. Before she could answer, Svetlana crouched down and hoisted her over her shoulder like a big sack of laundry. She straightened.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Put me down. I can walk,” Heather protested.

“Can’t. And I am strong Russian woman.” Svetlana turned to Tess. “I want witness protection.”

“Okay,” Tess said, having no idea if she could make it happen, but needing Svetlana’s help if they were to survive. “I’ll do everything I can.” Possibly her second lie in the last five minutes. “How many are out here? Are they trying to recapture you or…?”

“I think ‘or.’ There are five more,” Svetlana said. “They go ahead. Ilya stay here. Wait. Like cat and mouse.” Hatred dripped from every syllable. “Anatoly say he love me, then tell Ilya he boss.”

“Office politics can be tough,” Tess drawled. She moved in front of Svetlana. “I’ll go first, since I’m armed.”

“We had a gun but we lost it in the crash,” Heather said.

“Was good gun,” Svetlana murmured.

“No talking now,” Tess ordered.

They moved out, Svetlana behind Tess, keeping as before to the shelter of the trees. They crept through the darkness for a few minutes, until the crash of running feet made Tess halt and Svetlana softly bumped into her. Neither spoke. Then Tess tapped Heather on the thigh and passed her gun up to her. Heather took it. Tess gave Heather a pat:
You can do this.

Whatever “this” turned out to be.

A brilliant light flashed on, blinding Tess. She lifted her forearm to shield her eyes; as they adjusted, she counted three figures in front of her. One was holding a Maglite. As she recovered from staring into the white nimbus, she made out shapes and sizes: three large men. On either side of the corona, a mean, victorious face grinned at her.

The one on the left marched up to Svetlana and slapped her across the cheek. Svetlana staggered backward and Heather grunted in protest. The rightmost one patted Tess down, enjoying it way too much, and Tess thanked her lucky stars that she had given Heather her weapon—and hoped that Heather could either keep it concealed or pass it back to her before it was discovered.

The man who had slapped Svetlana spoke to the woman in a barrage of Russian. She answered back, then quickly said in English, “One other besides Ilya is missing.”

The man raised his hand again but Tess jumped between Svetlana and him, and the thug holding the flashlight laughed.

“Brave American cop woman,” he said, “don’t worry about Svetlana. She’d turn on you in two seconds to save her life. Just keep watching.” Of all four Russians they had thus far encountered, he spoke the best English. Tess wondered if he was Anatoly Vodanyov himself. But everything she had read about the crime lord said that he left others to do his dirty work.

He spoke to Svetlana in Russian, and Svetlana set Heather on her feet. The same man who had searched Tess patted down Svetlana, taking even more time. Tess watched Heather hop on one foot with her hands against her chest. She was concealing the gun. As the man finished with Svetlana and moved on to Heather, Tess caught the quick exchange of hands; Heather had just given Svetlana the weapon.

Tess’s stomach clenched. Svetlana was armed and she knew Tess was not. This was her moment of truth. It could be that she would step back across the line and shoot her and Heather both to prove her loyalty. She might see it as her only way to survive.

I can try to take her
, Tess thought, but that was too risky.
Maybe Heather and I together.

Still too risky. She had to assume all three men were armed in addition to Svetlana, and that they had at least one unaccounted-for backup. Just because Svetlana had counted five didn’t mean there were only five.

But a surprise attack of Tess’s people might be their only hope; as Tess watched, the man on the left pulled a gun from his bomber jacket. The mood shifted. No more fun and games. Heather gasped and looked over at Tess, but in the fuzzy light, Tess knew she could never hope to communicate a plan to Cat’s little sister.

Then Svetlana said in English, “If two only…”

Flashlight barked at her in Russian. And Tess knew Svetlana was still on her side, trying to orchestrate a way out of this.

Except, it wasn’t “two only.” It was three. Tess thought,
Could I distract them long enough to change the odds? Start running? At least one would go after me. Then if she was quick enough, Svetlana could shoot the other two. When I got my badge, I was fully prepared to die in the line of duty. But if I’m pregnant…

I don’t know that I am. And these two need me right here and right now.

She took a breath. An image of JT formed in her mind. And then one of Cat.

She got ready to run.

The man on the right side of Flashlight pulled a gun as well. Glock. Probably hollow-point bullets that would do a lot of damage. Cause a lot of pain.

Heather cried out, “Stop! We won’t say anything! None of us!
Ever!
”

Here goes
, Tess thought. She prayed Svetlana was on her game—and fast on the trigger.

But just as she bolted, Glock fell forward soundlessly onto his face. Then a gun went off. As Tess whirled around, a second shot was fired. The second blast, at least, had come from Svetlana’s weapon.

Flashlight’s gun went off, wide, before he tumbled backwards onto the ground.

And then Bomber Jacket collapsed. But Svetlana had not fired again.

Heather ran screaming toward Tess as Svetlana ran to the inert bodies and kicked their weapons away.

“Get down, get down, get down!” Tess shouted at Heather. Svetlana kept her gun aimed at their attackers, then swiveled it toward the black forest.

“Tess! Tess! It’s me!” a voice shouted. It was JT.

“Don’t shoot!” Tess yelled at Svetlana. “It’s a friend.”

Svetlana grabbed up the flashlight and aimed it instead of the gun.

JT Forbes strode out of the forest. He was wearing Tess’s bullet-proof vest, and he was holding the tranq gun diagonally across his chest. He was the most badass biochem expert Tess had ever seen. He must have shot Glock and Bomber Jacket. Svetlana had taken out Flashlight.

Heather ran to JT and threw her arms around him. She kissed his cheek and cried, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Hey, Batman,” he said proudly to Tess as he gave Heather a hug. “There’s another one out there I tranq’ed. And someone else I think is dead. His face is, anyway.”

Heather caught her breath but did not say anything. Svetlana patted her butt.

“Ow,” Heather grunted.

“Thank you, Superman,” Tess said. “Let’s get these civilians the hell out of here.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Archer, the bedraggled Shih Tzu, trembled in Cat’s arms as Cat, Vincent, and Bethany herded the three dogs up the steep stairway that led to the wheelhouse. The poor little creature’s many satin bows hung in filthy disarray and she reeked of smoke. She was so traumatized that she made no effort to protest as Vincent took her from Cat and cuddled her against his chest.

In front of Cat, Bethany urged the two larger dogs upward with an air of determined if shaky control. From somewhere deep inside herself, the teen had found a well of strength and she was using it to stay focused. Cat was impressed. For all Bethany knew, her father was dead, and the raging storm prevented any hope of rescue. Cat remembered her own trauma at nineteen when her mother had been gunned down, and the havoc it had wreaked on her psyche. Bethany appeared to be made of stronger stuff—or maybe she had back-burnered all her emotions, as Cat had done for years afterwards. Cat pledged then and there that she and Vincent would stay in Bethany’s life if she wanted and needed them.

Emergency lights flashed red and white, red and white, and Cat could hear their shoes ringing on the metal steps between bleats of the klaxon. She looked behind herself to check for flames or—God forbid—onrushing seawater. Bethany had explained that a series of watertight doors could be activated either electronically or manually to protect the bridge and thereby retain control of propulsion and navigation. She had learned how to close the hatches during her brief internship with Captain Kilman. If anything happened, Cat knew Vincent would push her, Bethany, and the dogs through the hatches first.

Weariness weighed her down. She’d been drugged, fought for her life, and run all over the ship. She forced herself not to spin what-if scenarios that would demoralize her or otherwise sap what energy she had left and instead concentrated on the progress they had made: The Daughertys and the pups had been rescued from the fire. With any luck, the chip was history.

At the top of the last flight, they stepped over a large metal lip at the bottom of the entryway—the last watertight door— and into a sort of white anteroom fitted with a wooden desk that had smashed against a wall and photographs of the ship in dark wood frames, many of which had crashed to the floor. There was broken glass everywhere. Vincent leaned forward and grabbed one end of a Hawaiian-motif rug. Glass glittered as he turned it over and experimentally walked over it.

“No glass to cut the dogs’ feet,” he told Bethany. Then he opened the wooden door to the bridge and everyone entered.

It looked like the set of a science fiction movie and much less Captain Nemo-esque than Cat had pictured it: screens, joysticks, and keyboards, and not a wooden wheel in sight. Heads raised from a bank of seats—four valiant crew who had stayed behind. Cat caught sight of the captain, who was slumped in a chair with his head drooping downward. The grimace he gave her was a mixture of pain and relief. His eyelids fluttered shut.

“Daddy,” Bethany said to her father, who lay on the deck on a stretcher, covered up to his chin with a blanket. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Dr. Jones approached Vincent. Archer yipped and pressed her nose into Vincent’s armpit. “Mr. Daugherty is stable, Dr. Keller, but we can’t do anything else for him unless we go to sick bay.” She smiled sourly. “And I don’t think that’s a good idea. Captain Kilman was on the stairs when the explosion happened. He took a very bad fall, is showing signs of concussion.”

“The lifeboats are gone,” Cat said. “I assume you know that.”

“We have one more option,” said a tall man in an officer’s uniform as he came up beside the captain’s chair. His nameplate read: M
R
. O’B
RIEN
. “There’s an escape pod at the stern. It’s held in place by explosive bolts, and there’s an inflatable ramp to soften entry into the water. If we can reach it, there’s more than enough room for everyone.”

“Including the dogs,” Bethany insisted.

O’Brien opened his mouth and Cat said over him, “Right. Including the dogs.” For now, that was a possibility.

“That German shepherd will probably need to be muzzled,” he said.

“Schmutzie saved my life,” Bethany retorted. “I can give him commands and he’ll obey me.”

Cat gave the man a hard look—
Please don’t argue
—and he got it. Nodding, he said, “We have the ship on autopilot now. Our computerized system is doing a better job of keeping her afloat than we could.” He cleared his throat. “We have three unaccounted for: their bodyguard, Terence Milano, a passenger named Wes Connors, and our photographer, Cecilio Kamuki.”

“Terry Milano is dead,” Cat said. “And Connors is dead, too. I found his body in his stateroom. It had three bullet holes in the head. Then I caught Cecilio going through our suite…”

Vincent shot her a concerned look. She knew she had to keep it vague. “Because he was holding me at gunpoint, he thought he could brag about what he’d done. He and this passenger Connors were working together, and Cecilio admitted he had killed him with his own gun. He also said he murdered Terry Milano, for reasons undisclosed. Cecilio is the one who started the fire.”