His Secret Past (22 page)

She nodded. “Jonathan wants to fly his plane.”

“I’ll keep them company, Hunter. I need a little break from all the questioning anyway.” Alan patted his jacket, presumably to show Hunter he was armed.

Hunter scrubbed a hand over his face, then turned back to Alexis. She could see a battle waging in his head. Whether he admitted it or not, he was just as much a control freak as she was. “I’m almost finished up in there so I’ll be down in five minutes. You guys will be safe with Saltz. Don’t stray too far.”

She gritted her teeth and turned on her heel. It wasn’t like she had a death wish. They were surrounded by cops and DEA agents. She turned back to Jonathan. “You ready?”

Without glancing at Hunter, she grasped the remote control Jonathan handed to her and then took his hand in hers.

Alan, or Saltz, as all the men called him, stayed a few feet behind them as they walked down the long dock. Once they hit the beach, a blast of wind blew sand over their shoes, but Jonathan didn’t mind.

“Come on, Mom, I’ll show you how it works.” He took the remote from her hand, then froze.

She half-turned to see what had his attention and halted. All the air left her lungs in one
whoosh
. Alan was holding a big, black gun. And it was pointed directly at them. “What are you doing?” Her words came out as a whisper. She barely heard herself above the wind, making her wonder if she’d spoken at all.

“No questions. Move.” Using the weapon, he motioned for them to walk north down the beach. The sand dunes and overgrowth completely blocked anyone from seeing them. And Hunter said he’d be down in five minutes. That wasn’t long, but it suddenly seemed like an eternity.

Instinctively, she shifted, blocking Jonathan more than she already was.

“Why are you doing this?” Maybe if she kept him talking, she could stall him.

“Money.” He snorted and the quiet, laid-back man she’d seen over the past couple of days disappeared. As if he’d never existed at all.

In front of her stood a stone-cold killer. She could see it in his eyes. He’d kill both of them and not lose a minute of sleep over it. Maybe that was why she’d been so wary of him when they’d first met. Whatever the reason for her discomfort, it wasn’t important now. The only thing that mattered was getting Jonathan to safety.

“Are you deaf? Move or I blow the kid’s head off.” His voice deadpanned, sending a tremor through her body, straight to every nerve ending she had.

She heard Jonathan gasp behind her, but she forced herself to do as the man said. Taking her son’s hand, they trudged over the thick sand. Alan walked next to her, keeping his gun pressed into her spine. Horrific visions of her son witnessing her murder flashed in her mind, but she thrust them away. Now wasn’t the time to lose it. If she played this right, maybe she could at least save Jonathan.

Jonathan tugged once on her hand and started to speak, but she cut him off with a look. They couldn’t afford to piss this guy off and she needed to focus and come up with a plan.

Barely two hundred feet down the beach, Alan spoke again. “This way.” He dug the gun into her back and directed them toward another wooden dock. It led to a strip of asphalt that looked like it was probably used for public parking. There weren’t any parking meters, though, and only one SUV was there. The lump in her throat expanded.
He’s been planning this.

The sound of the locks popping up told her that was their transportation. When he handed her the keys, she nearly stumbled and dropped them, but he wrenched her arm and yanked her against him. Her gut roiled as he spoke close into her ear. His hot breath on her skin made her want to vomit. “You’re driving and the kid’s sitting in the front seat. Try anything stupid and he gets shot.”

She gritted her teeth and clenched her hand around the keys. The jagged edges dug into her skin, but she didn’t care. The pain distracted her.

She strapped Jonathan in, then walked around to the driver’s seat. As she started the engine, Jonathan’s small voice nearly broke her heart.

“Mommy?” he asked in a wobbly voice.

“We’re going to be okay. I promise.” She didn’t look at him when she said it. If she saw tears in her son’s eyes, she’d break down. And that was the last thing they could afford.

Chapter 13

Hunter stared at the local map the sheriff had laid on the kitchen table. Despite his earlier assumptions, the locals were on top of their game. The other man pointed out different locations with various colored stickers. “These points indicate vacant beach homes. These indicate recently rented homes, and these are…”

When his cell phone buzzed in his pocket, Hunter walked away from the table to answer. The area code on the caller ID was from overseas. Maybe his PI had news. “Hunter here.”

“Hey, it’s Rick.”

“I figured. What’s up, man?”

“Listen, when I realized what was going on, I started digging a little deeper into your guys.”

“Yeah?” Hunter’s mind went into overdrive. “You find something on Connor?” he murmured.

“No, he’s clean. The other guy, Alan Saltz, has a stepbrother. It didn’t come up the first time because they have different last names, but over the past six months, some hefty deposits have been put into his accounts.”

“From where?”

“Transferred from anonymous accounts. Some in Central America, but most deposits were from various Caribbean banks. And I managed to track a call from his cell phone to none other than Tom Davis’s personal office at the CIA. It was only one call, but it seemed the sort of thing he should have mentioned.”

Hunter clenched the phone tightly against his head. “Saltz doesn’t smoke.”

“Uh, what?”

Hunter closed his phone and yanked the back door open.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Connor strayed behind him.

“Have you ever seen Saltz smoke before?”

“No, why?”

“Shit.” Without responding, he sprinted across the deck. He fought the terror spreading through him as he neared the end of the walkway. Maybe he was wrong. This had to be a mistake.

Blood rushed in his ears. The beach was empty, but Jonathan’s airplane sat nestled in the sand.

Connor ran up beside him. “What’s going on?” he panted.

“I think Saltz kidnapped Alexis and Jonathan.” The world funneled out around him as he stared at his son’s toy, trying to formulate a plan.

Alexis wouldn’t have left the beach except under duress. The only thing that gave him a small sliver of hope was the fact that he was certain they were still alive. If all Saltz had wanted to do was kill them, their bodies would be lying on the beach. He could have killed them both using his silencer.

“What are you talking—”

Hunter’s phone buzzed again but it was a private number. “Yeah?”

“If you don’t do exactly as I say, that little brat and your woman die.” The unmistakable voice of Tom Davis reverberated through the phone line. And sliced through his heart.

Everything blurred in front of him. He blinked and shook his head, trying to focus. He had to stay calm or Alexis and Jonathan would pay for his mistakes. “I’m listening.” Somehow he kept his voice steady.

“Meet me at Pirate’s Cove Marina. You’ve got twenty minutes. Come alone.”

“How do I know they aren’t dead yet?”

A brief rustling sounded in the background, then Alexis’s voice. “Hunter. Whatever he says, don’t do it! They’re going to kill—”

A smacking sound then a yelp from Alexis followed and all the air left his lungs as if he’d been punched in the stomach. One way or another, Tom Davis was dying today.

“Hear that?” Davis snarled.

“I’ll be there.” His muscles tensed as his body kicked into fight mode.

“Remember what I said. Come alone or I kill the kid first. Or maybe I’ll just make him a paraplegic.” He rattled off directions to the correct boat slip, then disconnected.

Hunter shoved the phone back in his pocket and tried to ignore what Davis had just said. The man would do everything he’d said and probably worse. He had no choice but to follow the other man’s directives. If he brought in backup, they’d die immediately. In his gut, Hunter knew he was probably going to end up dead today, but if he could get Alexis and Jonathan to safety, he could deal with that. They’d search him for weapons so bringing a gun was out—

“I take it that was Davis?” Connor’s voice cut through his thought process.

“Yep.” He turned and jogged back toward the house. They’d given him just enough time to get there, but not enough time to do any canvassing of the area.

Connor kept up with him. “What did he say?”

“Give me the keys to your car.” It wasn’t a request.

“Here.” Connor fished them out of his pocket and shoved them toward Hunter as they reached the back door. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to save them.” Or die trying. He hated that his hands shook as he took Connor’s keys, so he tried to force the sudden images of Alexis and Jonathan dying from his mind. Right now they needed someone calm and focused, not someone out of control.
Save them.
The two words resounded loudly in his head. If he did one thing right in his life, this was going to be it. He’d keep them alive no matter what.

Alexis’s hands clenched the steering wheel so tight her hands had turned white and she was sure claw marks would be visible on the leather.

“Turn here,” the man named Davis said. They’d picked him up minutes after Alan had kidnapped her and Jonathan.

So far, Davis was the nastier of the two. Her face throbbed where he’d slapped her and she was sure a bruise had already formed. It took a certain kind of cretin to hit a woman, and in front of a child no less. Poor Jonathan hadn’t made a sound since then. It was as if he’d closed himself off. He might be young, but he had a vague understanding of what was going on.

Jonathan had actually heard someone say they wanted to kill them.
Kill him.
She’d never been a violent person, but after having a gun pointed at her child, a fierce maternal instinct like she’d never imagined raged through her.

Every fiber in her being wanted to fight this man. Fight both men. But she couldn’t. If Jonathan hadn’t been on the beach with her, she’d have let Alan shoot her. She’d taken numerous self-defense classes and the number-one rule always reiterated by her instructors: don’t get in the car with an attacker. Let them wound you. Getting in the car meant death or worse.

She didn’t think either of the men were interested in sexually assaulting her, but nothing would surprise her. Alan had seemed normal. Her first instinct had been that something was off about him, but Hunter had trusted him and now she wished she’d paid closer attention to that gut feeling.

“Now turn here,” he spoke again.

She’d tried asking questions before, but after being slapped, she wasn’t risking it again. She stole a glance at the passenger seat and her heart nearly cracked in two. Jonathan had his arms wrapped around his body and he couldn’t stop shaking. If he wasn’t in the front seat she might risk ramming the vehicle into something. But she couldn’t. The chances of him surviving an accident in addition to the impact of an airbag blowing up were slim. It could break his neck.

After the conversation Davis had with Hunter, she knew where they were going. Probably going to dump them off in the ocean once they got them out to sea. At least that was her guess.

She silently prayed that Hunter came through for them. Not that she doubted him. Even if he knew it meant certain death for him, he’d come. Just like she would.

As she made the next turn, something inside her broke and she couldn’t censor herself. “So which one of you big men is going to kill an unarmed woman and
child
?”

She looked in the rearview mirror. Alan clenched his jaw and stared out the window, but the other man’s face turned red as he leaned forward.

“Oh, we won’t be killing you. I haven’t decided if we’ll kill Hunter either.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“First I’m gonna see if any of Calero’s old faction wants to buy Hunter and his whore. None of Calero’s men even know his real identity, but I could change all that with one call.”

Acid rolled around in her stomach but she forced her expression to remain neutral. “Why bother with Hunter at all? You could have left the country.”

“He just
had
to go to the DEA. That bastard ruined my life,” he muttered.

“You ruined his first,” she shot back as they pulled into the parking lot of the marina.

They all exited at once except Jonathan so she went around and picked him up. He clutched onto her and buried his face against her neck. His wet tears trickled down her back and she gripped him tighter. The fact that anyone had caused this much hurt to the two people she loved more than anything was almost too much to bear.

It was close to noon, but there weren’t many people out. An older couple strolled along one of the docks. She thought about shouting out, but she knew the men holding them hostage wouldn’t think twice about shooting them.

At the end of the middle dock, they turned right, until Alan pointed to a boat called
Addiction.
“This one.”

“What now?” she asked as they stepped into the interior cabin.

“Now we wait,” Davis muttered.

Hunter gunned the engine. He was walking into a death trap. He knew it and they knew it. Still, he couldn’t give up faith. Before Alexis, hope had been a foreign emotion. Now, against all odds, he had to believe that something or someone was watching out for them.

Offering up a silent prayer, he hoped God was listening. Though he’d been raised by a priest, he’d never been very religious.

Heart pounding, he broke every traffic law as he flew down the road. The marina wasn’t far, but his imagination was in overdrive thinking about what Alexis and Jonathan might be going through.

He couldn’t believe Alan Saltz was a traitor. Of all people, it just didn’t seem feasible. Maybe if he hadn’t been so focused on Connor being the bad guy, he’d have seen it. Or sensed it. Anything.