Heart of Gold (15 page)

Ignoring the sarcasm, Banks pressed on. “We can make certain he won’t have a chance of getting to her.”

Shane’s jaw clenched as he turned to stare out at the ocean again. His voice was low and strained. “There’s always a chance.”

For a long moment the only sound was that of the ocean pounding the shore a hundred feet below. The wind whipped at Banks’s wildly mussed hair as he turned and leaned his forearms on top of the stone wall. “This isn’t Quantico, Shane,” he said softly, his voice almost gentle. “She’s not Ellie.”

Shane’s heart clenched at the comparison. He had loved Ellie Adamson. He had lost her because his emotions had clouded his judgment. Now he prayed his old friend and colleague was right, because he knew with bleak certainty that if he lost Faith, he would lose everything. She was his hope, his salvation, his one slim chance at a future that wasn’t empty. What he felt for her was so intense, it was like a fire in his soul where for so long there had been nothing but cold and darkness.

“We’ll do it her way.” Banks made the announcement, then took a deep breath and changed the subject. “Rumor has it Strauss bought a boat in Mazatlan. Looks like he’s taking his act south after all.”

“Yeah,” Shane commented absently, not really listening. His gaze had fallen on Faith as she came through the French doors and onto the terrace.

He loved her. He’d forgotten how painful love could be. It was a relentless ache inside him—knowing he loved her and being terrified of losing her.

How had such an innocent woman become entangled in such a dangerous situation? Faith didn’t belong in the world of espionage. Of course, Shane acknowledged the irony, he never would have met her otherwise. Bitterly he wondered if they wouldn’t have both been better off. Certainly she would have been.

“If you’ll excuse me, Ms. Kincaid,” Banks said, straightening away from the wall. He smoothed his hands over the lapels of his hopelessly rumpled suit and gave Faith a wry smile. “I believe I’ll go freshen up before we discuss this further.”

“Of course,” Faith murmured, her eyes on Shane as his boss made his exit.

“You’re getting your wish,” he said flatly, tossing down his cigarette and grinding it against the flagstone with his shoe.

Faith wondered if he realized the thing she had wished for most was his love. He was giving her that, albeit begrudgingly—but it was a start at least. The next step was to close the door on her past so they could be free to look for a future together. It was clear by Shane’s stony expression that her idea for achieving that end was the wish he was talking about.

She folded her arms over her chest as the wind cut through the yellow Shaker sweater she wore. “It’s the best way.”

His expression incredulous, Shane barked a laugh. “You’re an expert?”

Faith met his angry gaze, though tears rose in her eyes. She was all through backing away from trouble, even when it came in a six-foot-four-inch package. “I’m an expert at feeling helpless and afraid and manipulated. I have to put an end to that, Shane. Please understand.”

He stared at her for a long moment, unable to reconcile the conflicts within himself. She was asking for his support, but he was simply too afraid to give it to her. She wanted to risk her life and have his blessing to do it. Anger burned in his chest. How dare she make him love her, then ask him to let her get killed. Dammit, why couldn’t she have left his heart alone? That was where he belonged—alone, in the shadows.

Emotions roiling inside him like an angry sea, he said, “Do what you want.”

Faith squeezed her eyes shut against the pain and held her breath as she listened to him walk away.

It wasn’t a bad evening by coastal standards, Faith thought as she wandered away from the house, strolling through the lush grass twenty yards in from the edge of the cliff. Clouds had rolled in, promising rain later on, but the fog bank that was such a constant this time of year was nothing more than wisps tonight. Bits of it floated past her like thin strips of cotton candy. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her cardigan, hunched her shoulders against the chill, and walked on.

Dinner had come and gone, a vague memory of frozen pizza eaten during the discussion of the case. Setting a trap to catch the man terrorizing her had been Faith’s idea, but she remembered little of the conversation. Shane had occupied her attention almost to the exclusion of all else.

Her heart ached—not so much because of him as
for
him. He’d declared his love for her, but there was little doubt in her mind he would sooner have cut out his tongue. Immediately he had withdrawn from her—physically and emotionally—pulling back behind those gray granite walls of his. The tension that had thickened the air between them since that moment had driven her out of the house.

Oh, it wasn’t Shane alone, she admitted as her steps led her down a gentle slope toward the caretaker’s cottage. It was everything—Shane, the case, thoughts of her life with William, memories of the Fearsome Foursome and their days at Notre Dame. All of it had crowded in on her until she’d begun to feel claustrophobic. As soon as she had tucked Lindy in and watched her daughter drift off to sleep, she had slipped out a side door in search of fresh air and solitude.

She let her mind drift now to thoughts of her friends—Alaina and Jayne and Bryan. Their lives had taken such different paths. The dreams they had shared with one another had been altered or left behind or attained, only to discover there was no gold at the end of the rainbow. More than a decade had passed since they had each rushed off with youthful enthusiasm to find their futures. Life had led three of them to meet once again at the same crossroads, and together they had chosen the path that had brought them to Anastasia, to what had once been a fantasy dreamed up by college kids on spring break.

What did the future hold for her now, Faith wondered as she stopped to look out at the sea that was as gray as liquid pewter. Absently she rubbed her keepsake between her thumb and forefinger, and her thoughts turned back to Shane.

He wasn’t an easy man to love, but love him she did with all her heart. Could they have a future together? He’d told her from the start he couldn’t make promises. A man like Shane was married to his profession, and it was a profession that demanded he be a loner. It was a profession that had locked a tender, sensitive man behind walls of cynicism.

She had to hope that after all this madness was past, she would be able to convince Shane the time had come for him to let go of the shadows shrouding his soul, because she was convinced right down to her toes that he was the man she had been waiting for forever. They could have a life together there at Keepsake, a nice, quiet life. And a family. Tingles fizzed through her like champagne bubbles at the thought of carrying Shane’s baby, of holding it and nursing it at her breast while Shane looked on, proud and content.

Turning away from the ocean, she let her gaze wander over the lovely, rolling land that belonged to her, to the eccentric complex of houses that made up her inn. Due west of her, beyond her long driveway and to the other side of the road, the wild meadowland gave way abruptly to rugged hills beautifully cloaked in deep green forest that looked nearly black now in the fading light. And just a few yards to the north of where she stood sat the caretaker’s cottage—a small whitewashed stone building with a slate roof and a bright red door. It marked the northern border of her property with a distinctively Irish flare.

Yes, this would be a perfect place to raise a family. It would be a perfect place for Shane to settle and shed the shell he’d encased his tender feelings in to protect them from a world of grim reality. Faith closed her eyes and pictured the scenes clearly in her mind, praying with all her might that she wasn’t just wasting her time romanticizing, letting her heart chase rainbows.

She checked her watch and heaved a sigh. It was time to head back to the house. Banks wanted to go over the particulars of their plan once again. But as long as she was so close, she decided she would stop in to check on Agent Matthews first. The poor guy had scarcely been allowed to set foot out of the cottage because he was the expert when it came to the phone tap and that was where his equipment had been set up. She bit her lip and winced at the thought of having to share living space with the noisome, irascible Mr. Fitz. Del Matthews deserved some kind of commendation for sacrifice above and beyond the call of duty.

Bringing her fist up to knock at the door, Faith frowned when it moved inward on its hinges as she applied pressure. “Mr. Matthews?” she called as she stuck her head inside.

The place seemed dead quiet. The lights had not been turned on. Shadows swallowed up all the corners of the cluttered living room, giving the place an eerie cast. The furniture was old and worn. Books were jammed haphazardly into a built-in case in one wall. An angry-looking steelhead trout stared down at her from its mount above the cold stone fire place.

“Mr. Matthews?” Faith called again, inching her way inside. “Mr. Fitz?”

Silence was her answer. Gooseflesh rippled the skin on her arms, but she ignored it and continued on into the cottage.

She found Matthews in the small main-floor bedroom sitting with his back to the door, monitoring his machines, earphones clamped on his head. Faith breathed a sigh of relief, only briefly wondering why he hadn’t turned on a light.

“There you are,” she said, crossing the room. She stopped beside his chair, but the questions that had formed in her mind never made it any farther than her throat. She tapped Del Matthews on the shoulder, and his body suddenly slumped sideways and sprawled onto the floor at her feet.

Faith clamped a hand to her chest as if to keep her racing heart from leaping out. For just an instant she froze as her mind absorbed the visual information. Del Matthews was dead. Realizing that, she took two steps backward, ready to whirl and run. She had to get to Shane.

“How thoughtful of you to come down to the cottage, Faith,” a dark, silky voice murmured in her ear. “You’ve saved me a great deal of trouble.”

At the sound of that voice every muscle in her body tensed with a speed and intensity that was painful. She didn’t have to turn around to know it was the barrel of a gun she felt pressing into her spine. The metallic taste of fear washed through her mouth. The need to see her tormentor surged through her but was overridden by the feel of the pistol in her back. The sensation of a weight crushing her chest reminded her to start breathing again, though the tension in her muscles prevented much more than a shallow gasp.

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” she asked, managing nothing more than a raw whisper.

“Why, I’m an old friend of Agent Callan’s,” he said, sarcasm edging his curiously pleasant, well-modulated tone. “My name is Adam Strauss.”

TEN

S
HANE SAT AT
the piano, playing softly. As he had time and again in his past, he let the music sort his feelings through for him.

He loved Faith Kincaid. Damned if he hadn’t wanted to throttle her for it earlier in the day, but he was getting used to the idea now. What he wasn’t comfortable with was the plan to use her openly as bait to catch a possible killer.

It might have been a different story if they’d had a better handle on their perpetrator, but they didn’t have a clue as to who the man might be, what his connection to Gerrard was, what his background was. The guy might have been a mild-mannered former mail clerk from DataTech, or he might have been a hired gun. Whoever he was, he hadn’t taken one false step. Shane couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was a pro.

The thought of setting Faith up for the creep made his blood run cold.

But they would deal with it. The decision had been made, and he would follow orders. But he vowed he would bring Faith through this without so much as a scratch. No harm was going to come to the woman he loved—not if he had anything to say about it. And when it was over, he was going to tell her he loved her—not shout it at her, not say it as if it were a curse, but whisper it to her, kiss the words across her skin, give voice to the feelings that had invaded his previously empty soul.

He was going to make love to her until there was no doubt in her mind about his feelings for her. The future still held uncertainties, but there was one thing he was feeling more and more sure of—he wanted that future to include Faith …

“Hi, Shane.”

… and Lindy.

Shane’s fingers stilled on the keys, and he turned, his heart warming instantly at the sight of little Lindy standing beside the piano bench in her Care Bears pajamas. She had a choke hold on her doll with her right arm and was rubbing at her sleepy eyes with her other hand.

“What are you doing out of bed, honey?” he asked softly, not even trying to stop himself from reaching out to brush at the little girl’s tousled blond curls.

Without waiting for an invitation, Lindy scrambled up onto the padded bench and situated herself on Shane’s lap. “I had a bad dream about dinosaurs. Where’s my mama?”

“I don’t know.” He and Faith had gone their separate ways after dinner in a tacit agreement to cool off before they discussed the case further. “Isn’t she with Alaina and Jayne?”

Lindy shook her head, an earnest expression on her face as she stared up at him with her thumb inching toward her mouth. “Huh-uh.”

A sliver of fear skimmed his nerves, but Shane dismissed it. There was no danger. Faith wouldn’t have left the property, and the property was under surveillance.

“I want my mama ’cause I need a hug real bad,” Lindy said soberly. Her lower lip plumped out, and her brow furrowed with the threat of oncoming tears.

Letting go a little more of his reserve, Shane scooped her up in his arms and held her tight, deeply inhaling Lindy’s warm, powder-soft scent. “How about if I give you a good hug now, and then we’ll go together and find your mama?”

Lindy hooked one arm around his neck and squeezed for all she was worth. “Okie-dokie, but I still get a hug from Mama too.”

“Deal.”

Faith wasn’t in her office or her bedroom or his bedroom or the kitchen. Shane had to fight to keep the cold wave of fear from sweeping over him as he carried Lindy through the rambling old house. The place had twenty-seven rooms and four attics. Faith could be anywhere, putzing around with decorating details or hunting through old trunks left behind by long-dead residents. She liked to do that kind of thing when she was nervous or angry.

Maybe she had gone upstairs to search for that ridiculous ghost she believed so strongly in. His brain spewed out a dozen possible simple explanations for her disappearance, while the sixth sense he had relied on so many times over the years told him with ever-increasing volume that something was very wrong.

One thing was certain. When he found her, he was going to take her in his arms and not let go of her until morning. He kicked himself mentally for having been such a bastard about the case. He could understand her need to end it, to try to get back some control over her life. He could have shown her that understanding instead of snarling at her like a wounded lion. He would—just as soon as he found her.

They had been through a dozen rooms when Shane realized Lindy had fallen asleep in his arms. He gently tucked her into her bed, brushed a kiss to her cheek, and slipped back out into the hall, quietly closing the door behind him. When he turned, he was met by a grim-faced John Banks.

Immediately Shane’s pulse picked up a beat. “What is it?”

“We need to talk.”

They stepped into Faith’s office, and Banks closed the door.

“Matthews is dead,” he said in a tight voice.

The words set off an explosion of panic in Shane’s chest. He stared at his boss, praying to God he’d heard wrong. “What?”

“He’s dead. The caretaker found him. Timmons and Cerini are at the scene now. Where’s Faith?”

Dragging his hands back through his hair, Shane swore viciously. “I don’t know. I can’t find her.”

The silence that hung between the two men was as brittle as spun glass; the ringing of the telephone shattered it.

Swallowing down the knot in his throat, Shane grabbed up the receiver. “Callan.”

Everything inside him turned to ice at the sound of the voice on the other end of the line. It was cultured, sardonic, and deadly. “Shane, my old friend. Long time no see.”

“Strauss.”

Adam Strauss chuckled, a sound that managed to embody evil rather than humor. “And here I thought perhaps you had forgotten me.”

“Never.” Cradling the receiver between his shoulder and ear, Shane pulled his gun from his shoulder holster and checked the clip.

“That’s a comfort. I certainly haven’t forgotten about you, dear friend. In fact, I’m rather anxious to see you. As is Ms. Kincaid.”

Adam Strauss had Faith. In a terrible flash of insight Shane realized he had never truly known terror until this moment. Now it threatened to swallow him whole. Adam Strauss was a cold-blooded killer, a man without a soul, and he had Faith.

Questions about Faith’s status roared through his head, but Shane forced himself not to ask them. Showing an interest in her would only make her situation more tenuous … if it wasn’t too late already. Pushing the thought to the back of his mind he tried to concentrate on keeping the conversation going, all the while straining to catch background noises that could give him a clue as to where Strauss was.

“I heard you’d gone to Argentina.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Strauss said mockingly. “After everything we went through together, you didn’t really think I’d leave without saying good-bye, did you?”

“No,” Shane admitted. “I didn’t.”

“You and I have a little unfinished business to take care of,
mon ami
.”

“Where are you?”

The laughter that floated over the phone lines rang with rich amusement. “Nice try, Agent Callan, but I’d rather not have an army of your compadres descending on our little soiree. What we have to settle is between you and me.”

“Why the theatrics with the Kincaid woman, then?” he asked, fighting to keep emotion out of his voice. He holstered his pistol and wiped a sweating palm on the leg of his pants. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Doesn’t she? Ah, well, you know me, Shane. I always have had a flare for the dramatic. Remember our foray into the theater district that time—”

“Can the bull, Strauss,” Shane cut him off. He wanted no reminders of his time inside the Silvanus operation. He’d come too close to the edge, too close to losing what it was that made him human rather than a cunning, vicious animal like Adam Strauss. Now he forced a sigh and a bored tone. “I’ve had a long day. Where do you want to meet?”

“Testy tonight, aren’t we?” Strauss taunted lazily, then turned businesslike. “I’ll give you ten minutes to drive to Anastasia, to the phone booth outside Dylan’s Bar and Bait Shop. I’ll call you there and give you further instructions.”

Shane swore at his nemesis in disgust. “You’ve seen too many Dirty Harry movies.”

“Don’t be insulting, Irish,” Strauss said on a laugh. “Oh, and need I remind you?” he added as an afterthought. “Come alone.”

Shane stared blindly at the stretch of road that was illuminated by nothing more than the headlights of the car. The night was as black as the heart of the killer he was on his way to meet.

The road dipped and curved, turned and cut back along the cliff edge. Frequent signs advised caution and a prudent speed limit. He ignored them. The sedan hugged the pavement, though its driver was operating on nothing more than reflexes and subconscious memory.

Strauss had Faith. It was Shane’s worst nightmare come true. Instead of protecting the woman he had grown to love, the woman who had offered him a future, the woman who had offered him her heart, he had put her life in grave danger. There was no question in his mind—Strauss was there because of him, to even the score. This had nothing to do with William Gerrard. It had nothing to do with defense contracts. It was vengeance.

He had expected it to happen sooner or later. It was just a matter of his past catching up with him. But now Faith was caught up in it as well. She could die, and it would be his fault.

Dammit, he thought, this was why he had avoided involvement. Long ago he had set the rules that governed his life. Those boundaries had made his life a lonely one but that had been the price for doing a very important job, a job he believed in. By breaking those rules he had endangered the one person who had touched his life and left him feeling better for it.

The twinkling lights of Anastasia came into view as the road eased around a bend and down a slope. The tourist town that was home to two thousand permanent residents was nestled in a quiet cove. With its restored Victorian buildings and busy harbor, Anastasia was picture-postcard lovely, but its beauty was lost on Shane. His entire being was focused on one goal—rescuing Faith from the clutches of the most evil man he’d ever known.

Dylan’s Bar and Bait Shop was located on the waterfront, in the heart of Anastasia’s tidy, thriving marina area. It was a popular establishment, busy most nights, and this night was no exception. Warm amber lights glowed through the building’s windows, a welcoming beacon to passersby. Music and laughter floated through the front door as patrons came and went.

Parking his car in the small lot, Shane got out, his narrowed eyes scanning the area as he strode toward the phone booth that stood to the left of the bar’s entrance. The scents of fish and fuel and the sea filled his nostrils, but danger was what he sensed stronger than anything. Strauss was nearby; he could feel it.

The phone inside the booth was out of order. Strauss’s idea of a joke, Shane supposed, though he found no humor in it. Taped to the glass of the booth was a note with the name
Brutus
and a pier number written in Strauss’s neat, almost feminine hand. Using the pen that hung on a frayed string beside the phone book, Shane scrawled
BANKS
across the top of the note and left the missive taped in place.

He had come alone, as Strauss had instructed, but Banks wouldn’t be far behind him. There hadn’t been time to argue about strategy. Shane had wanted time to try to deal with Strauss on his own—certain that bringing in more cops would further endanger Faith—so he had given himself a head start.

As he pulled his gun from his shoulder holster, he wondered just how much trouble he would get into for knocking out his boss. It didn’t matter. The odds were against him coming out of this at all, he thought as he started toward a boat called
Brutus
and a confrontation with the man who had sworn to kill him.

The
Brutus
was a powerboat, a midsize luxuriously appointed cabin cruiser fitted out for deep-sea sport fishing. But fishing wasn’t on the mind of the man who owned the boat, Faith thought as she sat on the cabin’s small built-in sofa, trying her best to keep from shaking visibly.

William had owned a boat very like this one. He hadn’t been much interested in fishing either. The
Getaway
had been for impressing people, an ostentatious toy, a place to hold clandestine meetings. But if William Gerrard’s uses for his boat had been less than honorable, Adam Strauss’s were evil.

“In a way, I’m going to regret killing Shane Callan,” Strauss said from his leather-upholstered chair in the corner. In his left hand he held a snifter of cognac. His right hand absently stroked the semiautomatic weapon lying in his lap as if it were a beloved pet cat. A Mozart symphony played in the background.

“A very shrewd, intelligent man, Shane. Well brought up, you know. A Princeton man.” He smiled at Faith. “I myself graduated from Brown. A doctorate in behavioral psychology.”

Faith guessed she was supposed to be impressed, but she was too damn scared to pull it off. Tugging her cardigan closer around her, she merely stared at her captor with wide, unblinking eyes.

He was a handsome man in a cold, sharp-featured way. Thinning brown hair was combed straight back from his high forehead. The arch of his eyebrows above his narrow dark eyes could only be described as sinister looking. They went well with the cruel, thin line of his wide mouth. He was well dressed and meticulously groomed—right down to his neatly manicured nails. Somehow the fact that he was an educated, fastidious man made him seem even more diabolical in his madness.

In a little corner of her mind Faith noted that this entire scenario was insane. She was just a former business major from Notre Dame, a mother, a woman trying to pursue a quiet dream. How on earth had she ended up on a boat listening to Mozart while an assassin reminisced about his college days?

“What do you need me for?” She blurted the question out, amazed that she had dredged up the nerve.

Strauss’s face lit with amusement. “Why, bait, of course. You should be very familiar with the role by now, I should think.”