Dark Moon (12 page)

“Greek and Roman slaves?”

“Yeah, and Druid,” he answered, just for the fun of it. He knew Emma was sitting rigidly beside him, holding her fork in a death grip.

“And you sent Emma to the beauty salon to have her pussy shaved. It might be more fun to make it part of a scenario.”

“Like what?”

“Well, suppose you were doing a medieval scene. She could be accused as a witch and dragged off to a prison cell. You’d be the inquisitor. Back then, they shaved off all the hair of the accused women so that they could look for witch marks.” He smiled. “0f course, discipline fits very well into that scenario.”

Cole stroked his chin. “Hum. I guess I never thought of that.”

Beside him, Emma sucked in a sharp breath, her gaze going from Cole to Del Conte.

Before Del Conte could make another clever suggestion, the lights flickered out, then came on again, and Cole saw Emma staring at the stage.

Two people were standing there now. A man with a loincloth like the waiter. His coffee-colored skin was oiled so that it gleamed, and a mask hid his face.

The young woman with him was wearing a ripped dress and also a mask. She stood with her arms above her head, chained to a vertical bar held in place by two upright posts. Her legs were spread about eighteen inches apart and chained to another crosspiece.

Lord, was that Karen Hopewell? Cole stared at her, trying to figure out if it was the woman they’d been sent to spring from this place. After several moments, he decided it wasn’t her. The hair color was wrong, and she looked heavier than Karen.

Beside him, Emma tensed, and Cole reached down to take her hand.

On the stage, the man walked to the woman and began running his hands over her body. Then he gripped one of the tears in her dress and ripped at it, leaving a long gash in the fabric. He found another open place and pulled away more fabric, exposing more of her skin. Just as he shredded the dress enough to reach inside and caress her breasts, the lights went down again. When they came up, the couple on the stage was gone.

“Aw,” Henry muttered. “It was just getting good.”

“A little tease,” Del Conte purred.

The main course came. Roast beef. Cole asked for rare and was able to choke some down. Again, the lights dimmed and came up to reveal a couple on stage. He was pretty sure the entertainment featured the same man and woman, only this time the guy was the one tied up.

The woman was cracking a whip when the lights flashed brightly, just before the room was plunged into darkness, and this time Cole was pretty sure it wasn’t part of the performance.

A woman screamed, then went silent.

Next to Emma, their host pushed back his chair.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked in a hard voice.

CHAPTER NINE

Cole’s sharp ears picked up scuffling sounds. He knew there were two or three were more people in the room than there had been, but he couldn’t tell how many.

The darkness put him and Emma in danger, but it also provided them with an opportunity, if they didn’t get killed in the process.

He reached for Emma’s hand. Together they stood.

“What’s happening?” Henry called out.

“Stay in your seats and stay calm,” Del Conte answered.

Ignoring him, Cole led Emma around the side of the room toward the hidden door where their host had entered. She instantly understood what he was doing, helping him feel along the wall until they reached a seam.

“Here,” she whispered.

He pushed at several locations, frustrated when the door wouldn’t open.

Behind them in the dark, a shot rang out.

“Jesus!” Cole whispered. He’d thought that using the riot or whatever you called it was a good excuse to do some exploring, but if they didn’t get out of here soon, they might not get out alive.

He felt Emma stumble sideways and knew she’d found the secret to opening the door from this side. They tumbled through into a dimly lit corridor, and Cole quickly closed the door behind them.

“What happened?” Emma asked.

“Don’t know. But I’m hoping we’re in a private part of the ship. And if anybody asks what we’re doing here, we’re escaping from the captain’s ill-fated party.”

“Right.”

Running feet made them both stop short. Emma pulled Cole into a side passage just before armed guards came pounding down the hall.

As soon as they were alone again, they kept going. Cole was in the lead, and he gasped as water he hadn’t seen hit him in the face.

“What the hell?”

Emma dodged to the side, avoiding the deluge. As he raised his head and blinked into the subdued light, he realized they had come out into a room with an artificial waterfall and a pool. The entrance to the tunnel was behind the cascading water, but he’d charged right through.

Cursing, he backed up, following Emma along a dry walkway.

He was soaking wet now, and mad as hell at himself for blundering into this space without looking where he was going. What if the tunnel had led to an animal cage?

All right, unlikely.

He and Emma moved to the side of the room, which was illuminated by emergency lighting. Screened by tropical greenery, they looked around.

Away from the cascading water, he could hear parrots cawing and people talking. Did he see the glint of metal bars on the other side of the open space? It was hard to tell. But he was sure he caught Karen Hopewell’s scent.

Was she here?

They stopped to listen to the conversation at the bar.

“The lights went out for a minute. What happened?”

“Some kind of malfunction, I guess.”

“We paid enough for this trip. They better get everything working again.”

“Go over and intimidate the girl in the cage, if you want to have some fun. Just remember—no touching.”

Cole strained to see who was talking and made out casually dressed men and women gathered around an open-sided thatched hut with a bar and stools on four sides. The men were wearing tropical shirts and shorts or slacks. The woman were in shorts and halter tops or shirts.

“Where’s Del Conte?” somebody called out.

“Or Big Ben.”

“Is this a hinky fantasy scenario?” someone asked.

Running footsteps came tramping through the underbrush, moving fast.

A woman screamed as a man dressed like a black-clad ninja launched himself at one of the guests, knocking him off the stool.

Chaos erupted, with people shouting and running in all directions.

“Stay here,” Cole ordered Emma as he charged forward. He didn’t know what was happening except that one of the guests had been attacked.

He leaped toward the men on the ground just as the one in black raised a hand with a knife.

Cole grabbed the arm, pulling it back, bringing a scream to the attacker’s lips.

As he and the man grappled, he heard a scuffle in back of him. Another attacker materialized, and Emma leaped on him.

Christ, no
.

Fear fueled his strength. Intent on immobilizing the ninja he was fighting, he yanked the man’s arm back, hearing bone crack.

“Watch him,” he shouted to the people who had been lounging around the bar as he scrambled up and turned toward the attacker Emma had taken on. But she already had him down. With a hand in his hair, she slammed his face against the floor, then lifted his head and did it again.

More men charged into the room, and Cole prepared for another attack.

“The next person who moves is dead,” a hard voice said.

Cole went still, as did everyone else around him.

“What the hell is going on?” the voice asked.

“Ben, thank God,” a woman said.

The newcomer nodded to her before turning to Cole. “You, Mason, what the hell are you doing here?”

It took a minute for Cole to realize the guy was talking to him, since he’d only acquired the name Mason a few hours earlier, strange as that seemed after so much had happened. He raised his head and saw the speaker was the man who had taken charge after the incident at the entry port.

Before he could answer, Emma had started talking, her voice sounding high and shaky, and he knew she wasn’t faking her panic. “What are we doing here? I’d like to know! We were having dinner with Mr. Del Conte. Then the damn lights went off in the dining room and somebody started shooting. Cole and I were desperate to get out of there. We were fumbling along the wall, and a door opened, and we ran down a tunnel. It ended here. Then Cole walked into the waterfall and we were trying to figure out where we were—when these guys rushed in and started attacking everyone.”

 She stopped, dragged in a breath and huffed it out, giving a good imitation of a ditz brain who’d run out of steam.

“That’s right,” one of the men said. “We were attacked, and this man and woman were trying to help.”

“We’re Cole Mason and Emma Ray,” he said.

“Get up,” Ben ordered.

As Cole scrambled to his feet, guards rushed in and grabbed the men dressed in black and also Cole and Emma.

“Not them. They saved us when the other ones attacked,” a woman protested.

“We’ll sort it out,” Ben said.

The guards kept hold of Cole and Emma, marching them across the room.

They passed the area where he’d spotted the glint of metal and saw bars. A cage. For one of the animals that was supposed to have escaped?

He looked more closely and saw a redheaded woman, standing with her shoulders against the far wall.

His heart clunked inside his chest when he smelled her scent very strongly. It was definitely Karen Hopewell.

As they approached, he tried to determine her condition. Her hair was coifed. Her face was made up, and she was wearing a white, see-through kimono and nothing else besides a butterfly clip in her hair. In the corner of the cell he spotted a bucket for her to use as a toilet.

For a second, their eyes met. She couldn’t know who he was, but she seemed to be silently pleading with him to rescue her.

There was nothing he could say to her. She was alive, but she was on display in a way that obviously terrified her—and sickened him. He evaluated his chances of breaking free from four armed guards and knew he’d only get himself killed—and maybe Emma, too. They’d have to get back here later.

Still, the look on Karen’s face made him want to leap to the bars and yank the door open. Only logic kept him from doing it.

He turned his head toward Emma and knew she had seen Karen as well. Like Cole, all she could do was walk past. Moments later, they exited the big party room and were herded down another hallway.

The guy named Ben stopped in front of a door and knocked.

“Come in,” a voice called. It was Del Conte.

Two guards stayed on either side of Cole and Emma. Two more stood behind them with guns. Not good odds for an escape attempt, but if the conversation between Ben and Del Conte went the wrong way, they might have to risk it.

Cole’s hearing was excellent, and he could pick up the exchange on the other side of the door.

“I have Cole Mason and Emma Ray.”

“They disappeared from the dining room during the attack.”

“They claim they were trying to escape the fracas and found your private door. They ended up in the Tropical Lounge.”

“And then?”

“There was a knife attack.”

“A knife attack! From whom?”

“Cast members.”

“They shouldn’t have been able to get in there. Or into the private dining room for that matter.”

“Someone must have given them the code to the Tropical Lounge door. And they disabled the guard outside the dining room.”

“How is that possible?”

“We’re investigating.”

“What about Mason and Ray? What was their role in this?”

“The guests said they came to their rescue.”

“Do you believe that?”

“It sounds plausible, but both of them were on the offensive when I came in. They looked like trained fighters.”

“I want you to focus on their background check. And on how security was breached.”

“Meanwhile, what do we do with Mason and Ray?”

There was a pause. “Treat them like ordinary guests.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send them in here. I want to hear their story.”

“Yes sir.”

The door opened again and Ben came out. “Mr. Del Conte would like to speak to you.”

“Of course.”

As Cole and Emma stepped through the door, Del Conte kept his gaze on them as he gestured toward the guest chairs across from his desk.

They sat.

Emma shot Cole a quick glance before clasping her hands in her lap. Probably she wanted to speak up the way she had previously, but hopefully she understood that this was between the men.