CrossFire (Love & Lies #1) (10 page)

“We have to get off this ship before anyone finds us,” he said, pulling a gun from a holster, and for the first time she noticed the one already in his hand. “You know how to fire this, right?” he asked.

“Yes, but—”

“Good,” he said, cutting her off. “I’m going to need you to stay close to me and shoot at anyone who isn’t me.” He peeked his head out the door and looked both ways. “With a little luck, we won’t see anyone else.”

Jillian looked at the floor by Reid’s feet and saw the same man Casimir had posted guard at her door, now in a heap with a line of blood coming from the small hole in his forehead. His vacant eyes stared up at her. She shuddered.

“But how—” she started to ask, turning away from the gruesome sight.

“I promise I will answer all your questions later, but first we need to go now!” He pulled her out of the room with him and she tried to keep up as they headed down the hall, Reid’s gun poised for a possible attack. Jillian looked down at the weapon in her hand and wondered if she would be able to use it. After all those hours in the gun range with her father, she never imagined she’d actually have to shoot a live target.

Movement caught her eye and she looked down the hall behind them just in time to see someone coming around the corner.

Shoot at anyone who isn’t me.

“Reid!” she screamed, firing off a shot. Jillian missed by a mile, but it was enough to send him ducking for cover.

Reid spun her around, putting her in the lead, and pushed her forward as he fired back at whoever was still around that corner. Their attacker was sending bullets their way, but since he was too chicken to actually stick his head out, they weren’t in any real danger. Yet.

“Everyone’s going to know we’re here now,” said Reid. “Take the stairs, get out on the deck, and jump. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Jump in the water? That’s your plan?”

“Just go!” he yelled without looking at her. Casimir’s man had realized he needed a new tactic and stepped out into the hall. Jillian ran the last few feet up the steps, leaving Reid to provide cover. She bolted up the stairs and slammed right into a hard chest. She was immediately shoved against the wall. She could feel a hand trying to wrestle away the gun that was now lodged between their two bodies. Her other arm was being pinned by a death grip against her hip. Jillian held as tight to the gun as she could, but knew she didn’t stand a chance against this much muscle. In one last-ditch effort she squeezed her fingers even tighter and jumped when the gun went off.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Reid raced up the stairs just in time to see Jillian struggling with another assailant and a split second later heard a gun go off. Both Jillian and her attacker froze, and Reid thought the worst.

“Oh, God, oh, God, please, no!”

But then the man slumped to the ground, almost taking Jillian with him. She managed to stay upright, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

“I killed him,” she whispered, looking at Reid. “I didn’t mean to. I just—”

“It’s okay,” said Reid, grabbing her. “We have to go.” He didn’t have time to talk her down from this. There would be time enough for that if they could manage to get off this boat alive.

He poked his head out the door and could hear commotion all around, but it didn’t sound close. Everyone was still trying to figure out what was going on, and this was their one small window to get off before anyone saw them.

Reid motioned Jillian to follow him out to the railing.

“So what do we do once we’re in the water?” she whispered as they climbed over it.

“Stay close to the hull and wait for my direction. Ready?”

She nodded and they both jumped in.

Reid’s head bobbed back to the surface to see Jillian already swimming towards the hull as instructed and he quickly joined her.

“Now what?” she asked, shivering.

He knew they couldn’t spend too much time in the cold boundary waters.

“We find my raft,” he said, pulling the phone from his vest pocket. Housed in a waterproof case, it told him that his raft carrying a tracking beacon had drifted thirty feet behind the boat. Further than he had hoped, but doable if they started moving now. “Swim this way, as quietly as you can,” he told her.

Their hands had barely left the side of the yacht when he heard the motors kick on.

“Hurry,” he said as a spotlight started searching the water. Reid could tell Jillian was fighting as hard as she could to stay with him, but she didn’t have the same layers he did and the fear of hypothermia crept into his mind.

“We’re almost there,” he said, putting an arm around her waist, helping her to go faster. Her body relaxed and she stopped swimming, choosing to let him drag her.

“Jillian, honey, you’ve got to keep swimming. You need to keep your blood pumping.”

She gave no sign that she had heard other than her legs kicking harder.

Panic was just starting to sweep through him when he slammed into the side of the black rubber craft. Reid tried lifting her into it first, but she didn’t have the strength to get in and he couldn’t get enough leverage to push her. Reluctantly he climbed in first and from there was able to pull her out of the water. Jillian collapsed on the bottom of the boat.

Reid pulled an emergency blanket out of a kit in the raft and looked towards the yacht, now moving in the opposite direction, still searching the waters with the bright light. He wrapped the blanket around Jillian who was conscious, but not saying anything. Her weak, ragged breathing was the only sign that she was still alive. The blanket would prevent her from losing any more body heat, but he knew she needed a heat source ASAP. He started the engine and steered the raft towards shore, making sure to keep plenty of distance from the boat.

When he was sure they had enough ground, or water in this case, between them, Reid called Aaron.

“She’s safe,” he said as soon as Aaron answered. “Leak the intel and assemble a team.

“Got it,” Aaron said and hung up.

Now that Jillian was out of harm’s way, Reid felt comfortable alerting the authorities of Casimir’s whereabouts without risking her becoming collateral damage.

“Talk to me, Jillian,” he said.

“About what?” she asked through chattering teeth.

“Anything. I just need you to stay awake.”

“I’m too cold to fall asleep right now,” she said.

“That’s a good sign. We’ll get you warmed up as soon as we get to shore.”

“Why aren’t you balled up down here, feeling like an icicle?”

“I have a wetsuit jacket on,” he said. “Trust me, I’m still feeling the chill, but I haven’t lost as much body heat as you.”

“Can I ask questions now?”

“Yes,” he said.

“How do you know that man? Casimir.”

Reid was trying to think how best to answer that when she asked another question.

“You don’t work in bank security, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Is your name even Reid Jackson?” she asked.

Reid could hear the distrust in her voice.

“Yes, Jillian, my name really is Reid,” he said. “Hold on, we’re coming to shore.”

Jillian felt the thud before she had a chance to lift her head. Reid was out of the boat in an instant, pulling it onto dry land. She started to push up to see where they were, but then he was scooping her out of the boat, still wrapped in the aluminum blanket. Instead of taking in her surroundings, Jillian buried her head into his neck. It felt only slightly warmer than her own chilled flesh. In less than a minute Reid was laying her in the back seat of the SUV before opening the driver’s door and starting the vehicle. She could hear air blasting and prayed that it warmed up quickly; even her bones ached from the cold.

“We have to get you out of these wet clothes,” he said, climbing into the back seat with her. Jillian let Reid help her sit up and start removing her sopping wet clothes. She heard the sloshing noise as he tossed them into the back of the vehicle. When she was down to her bra and underwear, Reid pulled off some of his own layers, and she could feel his warm chest pressed against hers as he pulled the blanket over both of them.

“You never answered my first question,” she said. “How do you know Casimir? Why did he kidnap me?”

“Anton Casimir is an international criminal. Last week when I said I was in New York, I was actually in Mexico City saving another man and keeping sensitive information out of Casimir’s hands. He took you hoping that he could force me to get that information back in exchange for you.”

“But why me?” she asked. “Why did he think he could use me?”

“Somehow he knew,” Jillian felt Reid swallow hard before continuing, “he knew I cared enough about you that I wasn’t going to just walk away.”

“But
how
?”

Reid shook his head. “I haven’t figured it out yet. But it turns out you were right that night you felt like somebody was watching you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jillian said, sitting up straight, and Reid immediately pulled her back into him. “We had barely met, you didn’t even ask me out until later that night. Why would he single me out from all the other neighbors?”

“I don’t know.
I
hadn’t even heard of Casimir at that point. Which means there has to be an inside man.”

“But why me?” Jillian muttered. She just couldn’t wrap her head around it.

“I’ll figure it out eventually, but first we need to get you somewhere safe. Are you feeling warmer yet?”

Jillian still felt a chill, but it didn’t hurt anymore.

“A little,” she said.

“Good. You stay here in the warm car while I deflate the raft and load it.”

He pulled away from her, and Jillian wished she had lied about being warmer. “All right.”

Sitting alone in the back seat under the blanket, Jillian replayed everything Reid had just told her. First off, he wasn’t who he said he was. Second, because he had shown interest in her—what was it he said—cared about her, a dangerous man had decided to abduct her and hold her ransom for something apparently only Reid could get. She thought of their dinner in Seattle and remembered how reluctant he had been to talk about himself. Was it because of his double life? And then she remembered their conversation at the Falls. Had any of that been real? Had he made up the story about his parents just to have something to talk about? She was confused. But then she remembered that Reid had just risked his life to save her, had killed at least one man to get her off that boat. She thought at least some of that had have been sincere. And then Jillian thought of the man
she
had killed and wondered how long that would haunt her.

Reid opened the valve on the Zodiac to let it deflate while he carried his gear bag and the small outboard motor to his SUV.

“How you doing, Jillian?” he asked with the tailgate open.

“Fine,” she said, without looking back at him.

Knowing she was far from fine, Reid grabbed the carry bag for the boat and walked back over to roll the last of the air out and pack it up as quickly as possible. He could see a light off in the distance headed in their direction and guessed it to be the
Clara
. It was going to take a couple hours before Aaron could convince their superiors that Casimir was in the area without giving away how he and Reid knew. They just needed to buy some time.

Reid slammed the tailgate and slid into the driver’s seat.

“We need to find somewhere to rest a couple hours until the first ferry out,” he said twisting back to look at her. “It’s warmer up here, but if you want to lay down back there, that’s fine too.”

Without answering she proceeded to climb over the console into the seat next to him, bringing the blanket with her.

“We’ll figure out how to get you some dry clothes,” he said.

She nodded, still not speaking.

A glance in the rear view mirror showed a yacht coming closer. Not that it could get to the shallow shore here, but Reid drove off as quickly as possible anyway.

Reid kept glancing at Jillian, who stared straight ahead, barely making any movements. The silence was killing him.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, reaching for a hand that was poking from beneath the blanket. “You’re safe now.”

She finally looked at him, giving his hand a small squeeze.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For coming to get me.”

“Of course,” he said.

They rode another mile through the dark in silence, her hand still in his, but Reid could almost hear the wheels turning in her head.

“Who
do
you work for?” she asked.

“I work for the government,” he said. “That’s all I can really tell you right now.”

“So you’re like a spy?”

“Sort of,” he said with a smile. “A true spy as you are imagining is someone who goes in and gathers information. I’m more the agent that goes into action based on that information.”