Princess (2 page)

Something stabbed him hard in his side, just below his ribs. He grunted at the sudden wave of pain burning from his old wound. His hand loosened slightly, and in a second she shot past him. She was struggling with the front door when Hawk spun her around and shoved her against the wall beside the open door.

“Where is it?” he growled.

She didn’t answer, fighting furiously.

“Where did you put it?”

“Where did I put what? When I tell Isaacson about this, you’ll be fired. I don’t care about the deadline or any other instructions they gave you.”

So she knew about the deadline to recover the animal?

But there was something too pat about the explanation.

Hawk scowled as she managed to wedge one bare foot in the open door. Down the hall two men emerged from the elevator, and any minute the damned female was going to create a scene, which was the last thing the government needed.

“Move your foot out of the doorway.” His arm circled her throat to keep her from screaming. “Otherwise, I start breaking small bones.”

She paid no attention. Her towel slipped as she fought back wildly, slamming him in the ribs with her fist.

So she’d been briefed on his weak points.

“Two can play dirty, honey.” His arm tightened, cutting off her air while he held her in place with his body. But her foot was still wedged in the open door, and the two men were getting closer.

“I’m just—doing—what they pay me to do.” The words were a hoarse whisper.

“So were the Nazi death squads, honey.”

She was bordering on hysteria now, thrashing wildly. Hawk knew his options were dwindling fast.

That left him one choice.

His fingers feathered along her collarbone, fast and expert. They tightened sharply until she stopped fighting.

Five seconds later she was sliding down the wall into his arms, out cold.

chapter
2

H
awk opened the bedroom door silently. It was still early and Elena Grimaldi was out cold where he had left her on the bed. As a precaution he had clipped her wrist in a plastic hand restraint, which he attached to the head of the bed. No running away for this Mata Hari.

With his intruder immobilized, Hawk pulled a laptop from his backpack and set it up to download his digital photos from the cliffs. While the photographs loaded, he stripped off his muddy clothes and took a two-minute shower, alert for any noises from the bedroom. Not that it mattered, because the lady was going nowhere.

After his shower, he checked on her again, but Elena Grimaldi slept on, one foot dangling from the bed. Quickly he rebandaged his ribs and then inspected the closet. Three sweaters were neatly folded on an upper shelf next to a big leather purse. At the back of the highest shelf, he found a worn pair of red sneakers, contrasting sharply with the pink silk suit nearby. Why did he get the sense of MTV meets haute couture?

Curious, Hawk opened her purse and pulled out a well-worn notebook carrying pages full of times, dates and names, along with what looked like detailed descriptions of various hotels. Security assessments of civilian targets? In an inside pocket he found breath mints, dental floss and a half-used packet of birth control pills.

The lady got around, he thought wryly. Searching one of the dressers, he pulled out an old and well-used laptop. Hawk booted it up, waiting for a password query and security protocols.

He was surprised when none came. Files filled the screen, organized under neat directories by date, location and what appeared to be hotel names. Hawk took a closer look, puzzled to see precise evaluations of housekeeping, restaurant facilities, public areas and recreation staff. There were records of hygiene compliance and services performed by employees, including names and dates. Occasionally an employee’s name was flagged in red, along with a note about unacceptable work or guest complaints.

Hawk sat back, staring at the computer. Her security was nonexistent, but the files could have been recorded in some kind of code. If so, it was different from any others he’d seen.

But guest complaints? Hygiene compliance?

He noticed the frayed bottom of her leather purse and the hole in her right shoe, lying on its side in the bottom of the closet. A sweater was folded neatly on the desk, and he saw careful stitches across one elbow, where it looked recently mended.

Who the hell
was
Elena Grimaldi?

The surf was coming in, murmuring lightly along the hot sand. There were no car payments to worry about, no pennies to pinch. Only the beach stretched before her, with no responsibilities, no schedules—

Abruptly Jess Mulcahey woke up. Her eyes snapped open as memories returned in a rush.

Had the hotel found out about her visit in advance? Was that why the man had broken into her room while she showered?

If only she’d managed to wrench the door open before he’d—

Before what?

Shivering, Jess looked down at the towel draped loosely around her body. The last thing she remembered, he’d done something with his hand, and then everything blurred.

And now she was locked to the bed by some kind of hard plastic cuff that made her whole arm burn.

In growing fright, she stared out the partially opened door. Was the crazy commando-type in the leather jacket still nearby?

A drawer closed outside in the little sitting area. She sprawled back on the bed, feigning sleep and trying to ignore the terrified hammering of her heart. Footsteps crossed the hall and approached the bed.

She could almost see him frowning down at her.

Somehow she managed not to flinch when his fingers touched her wrist, measuring her pulse beneath the plastic cuff. The blanket beside her shifted, and then the quiet footsteps moved back down the hall.

A chair creaked, and she heard him speaking on a phone.

She scowled at her wrist, which was burning savagely. Anger warred with panic as she scanned the room. Then her eyes narrowed on the bedside chest.

Twisting hard, she opened the drawer with her left hand crossed tight over her chest.

Telephone directory.

Blank postcards.

Laundry schedule.

Twisting, she looked on the other side of the bed. A bottle of bright pink nail polish lay on the edge of the bed, where she had left it just before her shower. But it was the thought of the tweezer and nail clippers in her carry-on bag that made her heart pound.

But the bag was on a chair at the far side of the bed. Grimacing, Jess stretched out her free arm, coming nowhere within reach. When her first effort failed, she wriggled down and dangled her foot as far as she could, ignoring the pain from the plastic band digging into her wrist.

Her toe nudged the bag, then curled, hooking one handle. Holding her breath, she pulled the bag back across the carpet until it rested at the edge of the bed.

In the room next door the man was pacing, snapping out quick questions. Jess heard him ask something about topo maps and satellite photos. What was he, a spy as well as a kidnapper?

She forced down her fear and concentrated on finding her nail trimmers. Her hands were slippery with sweat by the time she pulled them out and fit them over the plastic restraint.

Three times the clippers slipped free. Jess’s fingers began to shake. Outside she heard the footsteps cross back and forth.

Desperate, she shoved the narrow blades over the ridged plastic, gripped hard and felt the plastic snap in two.

Outside the talking suddenly stopped. She heard the chair creak.

She dropped the nail trimmers, hiked up her towel and crept to the open door. He was facing away from her at the desk, glaring down at a digital camera hooked up to an expensive laptop.

“No, the woman’s still asleep, but she should be coming around before long.” When he stood up to pace again, Jess inched behind the door so he wouldn’t see her. “I checked her laptop and found files on hotel properties and staff performance. Beats the hell out of me what those could be used for.” His voice hardened. “Possible hostage scenarios? A terrorist assessing civilian targets?”

He thought she was a
terrorist
? Furious, Jess reached for the door, determined to set the record straight.

Immediately common sense prevailed. The man outside was either crazy or a criminal—maybe both. And the woman who had registered as Elena Grimaldi wasn’t a pampered princess, the offspring of an obscure branch of European royalty, the way she’d explained when she had registered. She wasn’t wealthy or arrogant, and the expensive designer shoes and pink silk suit in her closet were simply part of a professional disguise. As Elena Grimaldi, Jess lived large, dispensing big tips and bigger bribes to see how many workers she could find to break hotel rules in return for personal gain. Well trained and efficient, Jess noted hotel strengths and weaknesses in detailed reports filed within hours of her visit. In the last month alone she had visited twenty-one different properties, finding serious problems in eighteen of them.

Just that morning, as Elena Grimaldi, Jess had slipped fifty dollars into a clerk’s pocket and asked that a registered hotel guest be shifted so that she could have a better room location. The bribe had been successful.

Of course, she hadn’t expected that a crazy man would ambush her on the way out of her shower or suspect that she was a terrorist. So, was her crazed mystery man some kind of security agent working for the hotel?

Not your problem, Mulcahey. Get out fast, file your report, then forget all about it.

A quick peek out the window revealed a narrow balcony about eight feet above the ground. Difficult but not impossible, she decided.

Silently, she pulled a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt out of the square mesh laundry bag beside her bed and changed quickly. Shoes would have been nice, but her assailant would definitely spot any move toward the closet. As she finished dressing, Jess heard him on the phone, asking questions about tire prints and weather predictions. She didn’t understand any of it, but she certainly wasn’t hanging around for clarification.

She slid open the bedroom window and climbed onto the balcony, shivering in the icy wind.

Her captor was just finishing on the phone. “I sent through all the digital shots from the cliff. See what you can do with those tire prints, Izzy. If they’re expensive, we could locate dealers and subpoena sales records. Yeah, I’m in for the night, unless our carpetbagger causes more trouble. I’ll find out what I can, then you can take her off my hands. After I catch a few hours of sleep, I’ll head north and see if I can pick up their trail.”

Jess barely heard, focusing on closing the window behind her. Gritting her teeth, she eased the frame down slowly, wishing she could go back for her purse.

“My suitcase? Yeah, it was in the new room. I called downstairs and was told everything had been switched while I was out.” A few choice words followed. “Izzy, I have to go.”

Cold rain hit Jess’s face. Her bare feet slipped as she climbed over the icy railing and jumped to the ground.

She staggered, then stood up slowly.

No broken bones; always a positive sign.

Wincing, she ran across the wet grass, making mental notes shaping a report that would make heads roll, starting with her kidnapper’s.

The hotel job had come at a time when she needed a change. Her sister had never understood her restlessness, but then, Summer was established in her career as an FBI field agent in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Jess had been eager to stand on her own two feet, and when she revealed a flair for the dramatic, along with an intuitive skill at assessing people, her employment agency had recommended her for the job of hotel investigator.

Now she was on the road an average of twenty-five days per month, always careful to maintain her false identity and smile seductively while she probed for any secrets a hotel manager might prefer to hide.

And the current hotel manager was going to get a tongue-lashing he would never forget.

Hawk scanned the bedroom and swore. The woman was gone, her towel tossed on the floor. The nylon carrier lay open on top of the robe, next to the cut plastic restraint.

He felt a cold wind. Curtains fluttered through the crack in the window, which she hadn’t closed completely behind her when she’d escaped. He crossed the room and looked out, cursing as he saw her run over the grass, bare feet flashing.

His face hardened. He closed the window and packed up all his gear. In minutes he was gone, leaving no trace.

chapter
3

B
ut he was there a minute ago. “I heard him talking on the phone.”

Jess stared at the uniformed hotel security guard in the doorway of her room. “He knocked me out and cuffed me to the bed.”

The guard looked unconvinced. “Sorry, ma’am. All I know is that no one’s here now. Check the other room for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Jess stalked past him, throwing open the closet and the door to the bedroom. Both were empty, except for her shoes and jacket. To her surprise her purse was still where she’d left it, too.

Aware that the hotel guard was watching her curiously, Jess took a deep breath and assessed her situation. She had already decided to cut her investigation short and leave as soon as she collected her things. Before she’d taken this assignment, she’d heard warnings about this particular hotel, which had a reputation for harassing inspectors. But she had never expected a physical assault in her room.

First things first.

She decided to make a quick stop downstairs to stock up on coffee, fruit, and free pastries from the self-serve kitchen off the lobby. That way she would be stocked adequately for her drive home to San Diego.

Every penny helped.

The security guard was still waiting impatiently at the door. “Are you done here, ma’am?”

Jess summoned a smile. “Everything’s fine now. Thanks for taking a look.”

“No problem. I’ll call in a report, ma’am.” The guard headed back outside, fingering his walkie-talkie before the door had closed behind him.

After he left, Jess stood tensely in the middle of the room. The attack was like a horrible dream, after weeks of nonstop travel. Her shoulders sagged. She realized how much she wanted to be at home in her small apartment, where she’d always felt safe.

Jess closed her eyes, struggling beneath a wave of hopelessness as she remembered the clever way she had been suckered into a new hotel venture in Mexico with its “guaranteed” promise of ground-floor profits for the first ten investors.

At first the enterprise had been solid, banked by reputable American and Mexican firms. The profits had seemed like a sure thing until the owners had vanished in the night, leaving Jess and the other investors with useless contracts, broken promises and a pile of debts.

Now her shoes had holes and she had to squirrel away food at every hotel she visited. She felt powerless or humiliated when she thought of all she had lost, which happened to be almost every penny of her savings.

But there was no going back and no point in kicking herself for being naïve. If she wanted to be paid, she had a job to do. She’d finish her report and be on her way.

With any kind of luck, this whole nightmare would be nothing more than a bad memory in a few hours.

Hawk stared north, squinting into the wind.

Driftwood littered the beach around him, and low-lying clouds darkened the gray water stretching between Washington and Canada. He’d left the hotel and followed the road west, hugging the coast, stopping often to check for signs of motorcycle tracks. He wasn’t overly disappointed when he found nothing, because the mountains hugged the coast here, making off-road travel next to impossible. Eventually, however, they would have pulled off for a break, and the isolated wildlife refuge where Hawk stood was a perfect spot to avoid prying eyes.

To the north, surf pounded the spit of land that curved out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Beneath a gunmetal sky, waterbirds nested on the tidal flats, oblivious to Hawk as he moved slowly along the beach. Turning inland, he searched for tire marks or footprints that had survived the rain. Patient and thorough, he covered the entire beach and all its gravel access roads. Finally, at the far side of the cove, protected from the numbing north wind, he found the sign he had been looking for.

The partial print of a metal-tipped motorcycle boot lay protected in a hollow between two rocks. The print was fresh, and Hawk quickly snapped six shots for Izzy. Following the beach for two hundred feet, he came across a second bootprint indented in a patch of moss. When Hawk bent down to capture the detail with his camera, he saw a tiny wedge of chewed gum nearby. With gloved fingers he slid the evidence into a plastic bag. Having a recent DNA sample to accompany the boot imprint would make the government’s job easier.

To the north the San Juan Islands were hidden beneath a layer of clouds. Even as Hawk worked, Izzy was researching motorcycle travelers who had used the local ferries. Private boat rentals would be harder to trace, but Izzy was making inroads there, too. Meanwhile, some instinct told Hawk that the men he was tracking hadn’t left the peninsula. Between the rugged Olympic Mountains and the rain forests in the south, there were a thousand places where a well-provisioned and experienced outdoor team could vanish for weeks, taking a stolen animal with them.

Hawk’s current orders were to track the attackers without alerting local residents. Privately, he suspected that telling the truth would have been easier and more effective, but sometimes telling the truth was dangerous—at least that’s what the politicians and experts kept saying.

With the light fading fast, he slid his camera into his pack and studied the road that looped west. In a few hours he would be back, hoping for more sunlight and another glimpse of a motorcycle boot.

As rain struck his face, Hawk cursed softly, wet and cold, angry that he hadn’t come up with more solid evidence. He wondered how far the woman in the shower had gotten and what kind of story she had told the hotel staff. She was unquestionably smart and resourceful, and he still railed at himself for not securing
both
of her hands.

Down the road a bus lumbered into view, its lights blurred by the heavy rain. Hawk realized his ribs were aching again.

So much for the Navy’s latest experiment with tissue regrowth medications. Right now an elastic bandage and a dry towel would have been a hell of a lot more useful to him, and they’d be a damned sight cheaper.

Shouldering his backpack, he revved his motorcycle and headed back the way he had come.

It was done, Jess thought. Her report was finished, sent via e-mail, and she couldn’t wait to hit the road.

She tossed her single suitcase into the back of her Jeep, shivering in the cold rain. Despite the storm, she meant to push south without a break until she reached Portland.

As she started her car, Jess glanced over her shoulder nervously. Inspectors had one ironclad rule in her occupation: check out and
then
file the report. Those who forgot the rule risked verbal harassment or physical retaliation. In her case, she figured the harassment had already begun. She was lucky she’d come away with no more than a few bruises.

Anxiety made her floor the Jeep down the hotel’s main driveway. Her cell phone began to ring, but she ignored it, peering into the gray light as the road twisted through fingers of mist.

After a brief pause, the shrill peals began again.

Muttering, she dug into her purse for her phone. “I can’t talk now,” she snapped. “I just turned in a report.”

“Did they pay you this time?” a dry female voice asked.

“I
always
get paid.” It was a lie, she knew. Her checks usually arrived several months late, stretching her finances perilously thin. “I’m fine, I’m happy, and I’ll call you in thirty minutes, Summer. I want to get away from the hotel. Especially
this
hotel.”

“Why?” Jess’s twin sister said sharply. “Did something happen to you?”

“Nothing’s happened, but I have to go. The fog’s getting worse.”

“What fog?” Summer Mulcahey’s voice changed, more worried than irritated. “Where the heck are you, Jess? You’re breaking up.”

“I just checked out of a hotel on the Olympic Peninsula. Sorry, Summer, but I’ve really got to go.”

“Okay, call me, hear? Make it soon.”

A few minutes after Jess cut the connection, lights flashed on a gravel road that wound down to the beach. She had meant to explore the cove, but she never had. As usual, there had been too much work to do.

She shivered a little, bumping up the heat while the motor whined. She realized she needed to clean her carburetor and check the idle. Though she loved her Jeep, it had seen plenty of off-road miles and was in need of some major repairs, none of which she could currently afford.

One more consequence of being incredibly stupid and trusting people she barely knew.

Suddenly car lights cut across the highway. A commercial delivery van swerved from its lane and passed a farm truck, headed directly for her.

Braking hard, Jess turned onto the shoulder, her tires spinning in the mud. The van fishtailed, its lights leaving her temporarily blinded, and she swung hard to the right to avoid impact. Her Jeep took a half-circle through the mud and the van raced past her with inches to spare.

A black shape flashed through the trees on her left. Jess jerked the wheel hard, trying to maneuver out of the mud and back onto the road while the farm truck rumbled toward her, also on the left. Somewhere ahead of her came the powerful whine of a motorcycle traveling off-road.

In the Jeep’s headlights Jess suddenly saw a black helmet, sleek chrome exhaust pipes and a driver in a black jacket. Because of the sharp curve and the farm truck blocking his view, Jess realized he wouldn’t be able to see her until he was nearly on top of her.

As she churned through the mud, clouds drifted over the trees, veiling the road. When the rider took the turn without slowing, Jess wrenched the wheel sharply, trying to clear a path for him, but she spun out in the mud, struck a boulder and then fishtailed sideways.

The sickening
thump
she heard next was the sound of a body slamming against her front fender.