Safe Passage (11 page)

But deep down, they were one and the same, flowed from the same source. And into the same ocean.

“Scott?” Her light silver eyes bored into his. “Oh. I see… It’s double standards.” She held up her glass. “You look like you just lost your appetite.”

He had. For this mission. Deceiving Skye Van Rijn suddenly tasted real bad. It wasn’t fair.
He
wasn’t playing fair. He breathed in deep. “I lost my family. My wife and my baby.” He said simply.

She paled.

“And I’m not inclined to talk about it.”

Neither of them was able to finish their meal.

Skye felt light-headed, surreal, as Scott led her to the front of the restaurant to get her jacket. His words had shifted her world. She suddenly saw him differently. He shared the pain of a lost child. She felt crass for having pushed him. But in a way she was glad she had. Because with those few words he’d opened a window through which she could suddenly see him. She felt as though she could understand this man. Relate to him.

And she felt something else.

A need to help mend his wound. A need to nurture. It was weird, but it felt as if her breasts were full and swollen again. As if the female part of her that had withered and died with the loss of her child was once again stimulated, full, pulsing with a new kind of life. As though she had something to give.

The waitress was waiting up front to say goodbye. Skye pushed her gold beetle necklace into her hands. “For you.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly take it—”

Skye closed her hand tightly over the woman’s. “Please. I want your sister to have it. It’ll make me happy that it has a true home.”

“I—I can’t thank you enough—”

“Don’t. I hope your sister finds her place in her chosen profession. It’s a fascinating field.”

Skye felt liberated by the simple act. She reached for her jacket hanging on the coatrack just as two burly men entered the restaurant.

They glanced at Skye, stared at Scott.

Skye could swear she sensed his hackles rise in primitive instinct at the sight of the men.

An unspoken aggression simmered in the air around him, like waves of heat from a flame.

It made fear stick like a hard ball in her throat.

Her eyes darted to his, questioning. But he made a slight movement with his lips, his eyes, telling her to be quiet.

He casually edged around her, shielding her from view as he helped her with her coat.

The men brushed past them, heading into the restaurant.

Scott whirled, grabbed her arm. “Quick,” he whispered. He yanked her out the door, ushered her smartly to their SUV.

A dark green Dodge truck was parked right outside the front door. Scott swore.

“What is it?” she whispered.

He stared at the plates on the truck as he steered her to their vehicle. “Get in the car.”

She didn’t resist. She didn’t like the razor edge in his voice.

He started the engine, but he didn’t gun the gas. He moved smoothly, quietly, out of the parking lot, like a hunter through night shadow. But once he was a block away, he stepped on it.

Only after he ducked down yet another narrow side street did she speak. “What the hell was that about?”

His eyes flicked to hers, his features stark and dangerous under the sporadic illumination of streetlights.

“Our tail just showed up at the restaurant.”

“Those men?
They
were our tail?”

“Yeah.”

“But the brown car wasn’t in the parking lot.”

“Different men. Different vehicle.”

Skye looked at the dark road ahead. The sides of her throat stuck together. Nerves skittered through her belly. Scott McIntyre had not shown this kind of edge when the brown car was after them.

He knew something she didn’t.

The night sky was clear, the moon high when they crept silently into the parking lot behind the motel.

“Why are we coming back here? Why don’t we just drive through?” Skye tried in vain to keep desperation from creeping into her voice.

“We need to lay low.”

“What are you not telling me, Scott?”

“We picked up a new tail in Duncan. I thought we’d shaken them.”

Fear clawed her throat. “How did we pick them up?” Her voice was hoarse.

“Don’t know.” He parked right up close to their motel room door. Skye bit back her anxiety, waited in the vehicle while Scott let Honey relieve herself under the trees at the side of the building.

She watched as he and the dog made their way through the night shadows. He unlocked the door, then motioned for her to join them.

And a new kind of dread pooled in her stomach.

She was going to have to sleep in the same bed as this man. This man who knew how to reach right into her and take hold of her very soul.

He held the motel door open for her, flicked on the light. She hesitated.

“Come on,” he whispered.

She stepped cautiously into the room, saw it almost immediately. The cot. Under the window. She turned to him, eyes questioning.

He smiled, a gentle look in his features she hadn’t seen before. “I had them put it in while we were out. You take the bed, I’ll take the cot.”

An insane gratitude swelled through her chest.

She reached up, touched the rough stubble of his cheek with her fingertips. “You’re a good man, Scott McIntyre.” And she meant it.

As much as she’d tasted the raw lust in his kisses, as much as she knew he wanted her, he was giving her this space.

He wasn’t trapping her. He wasn’t using her. He wanted her to be free. Truly free. And the tenderness of it hurt so bad she felt wetness threaten her eyes.

His hand covered hers at his face. It was rough. Large. Protective. “Don’t be deceived, Doctor.” A quiet edge snaked through his words. “My intentions belie my actions.”

A dark thrill quivered, slithered, to her belly. He was still letting her know he wanted her.

He was giving her the choice.

Eyes meshed with hers, he took her hand from his cheek, turned her palm face up, put his lips there.

She gasped softly.

His breath was hot, his lips firm against her skin. The sensation was painfully erotic. He tested, briefly, with his tongue. And her knees turned to putty.

He lifted the strands of her wig, whispered darkly in her ear, lips barely brushing her lobe. “I really do not have your best interests at heart, you know.” He slipped his arm around her, gathered her close.

She could feel the hard bulge in his jeans press up against her thigh. His chest was solid under the swollen arousal of her breasts. Her heart staggered, her breathing became ragged. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of what is in my best interests…when the time comes.”

He stepped back, his voice dusky with desire. His eyes, dark and wild, looked down into hers. “When the time comes, then.”

She angled her head slightly. “You make that sound like a threat, McIntyre.”

“Think of it as a promise.”

The shrill ring of the cell phone in her pocket knocked them both back to the present.

“Oh…I—” She rummaged in her jacket pocket, pulled out the phone, turned her back on Scott. “Skye Van Rijn.”

“Skye, this is Martha Sheldon.”

“Martha?” Why was Charly’s mom calling? At this hour. “Is everything all right?” Skye yanked at her wig, tossed it onto the bed, waited for Martha to answer.

“It’s…it’s Charly.” The woman’s voice cracked.

Fresh panic clawed at Skye’s stomach. “What’s happened to Charly?”

“She’s… Oh, God, she’s in a coma, Skye. The doctors don’t know what’s going on. She developed pneumonia symptoms suddenly. They took her into hospital this morning. I just don’t understand. She seemed fine yesterday.”

“Where is she?”

“It’s no use coming to see her. They’re flying her to the mainland tomorrow morning. There are some specialists in Vancouver…” Martha’s voice wobbled, trailed off.

“Oh, Martha, what can I do?”

“Nothing. I saw you left a message for her. I just wanted you to know. She would want you to know.”

Skye clicked her phone off, sank down onto the bed. Her brain spun. She felt nauseous. She was vaguely aware of Scott watching her.

He locked the door and moved to sit beside her on the bed. “Who was that?” He nodded toward the cell phone still clutched tight in her hand.

“Charly…my colleague…my friend, she’s very ill. She’s been hospitalized. Doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her.” Skye turned to look at him. “She was my maid of honor at my…wedding.”

“Tell me what happened. What are her symptoms?” The bite of immediacy hardened his words.

“Her mother said it looked like sudden pneumonia. Now she’s in a coma.” Skye forced herself to her feet. “I must get to her.”

“No.” He grabbed her hand, pulled her firmly back onto the bed. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“Maybe there is. Maybe she just needs me there.”

“She has family, right?”

Skye nodded.

“Let them take care of Charly. The bedside of your ailing friend is one of the first places these guys are going to go looking for you when they can’t find you here.”

“
If
they can’t find me here.”

“They won’t.” He grabbed her by the shoulders, forced her to look at him. “Trust me, Doctor. Believe in me, and they won’t.”

She didn’t doubt it. Not at this moment. Not by the look in his eyes. Not by the dangerous undercurrent in his voice. And more than anything, she needed to trust someone right now, to turn to someone. Because her world was crumbling around her. And a sinister thread of thought was twisting through her brain: What if everything was connected? What if this was all just too big for her?

Chapter 10

S
cott held Skye until she finally stopped shaking and fell asleep in his arms.

She’d said nothing as he cradled her.

He’d said nothing.

It was the most comforting silence in his life. He’d only stroked the incredible silk of her hair as she’d nestled into the crook between his shoulder and his neck. And despite the sinister turn of events, Scott felt ridiculously fulfilled in some basic way.

Honey was making little muffled snores at his feet. Scott’s leg was stiff, sore. But he was loathe to move. He didn’t want to disturb Skye now that she finally slept. He looked down at the smoothness of her face. He tentatively lifted a hand, ran the backs of his fingers softly along her exotic cheekbone, marveled at the way tension had seeped from her features in sleep.

In his arms she was like a vulnerable child who needed protection from the badness of the world. But that child lived in the sinfully sensual body of a strong and infinitely capable woman, one who sent his libido off the Richter scale.

He moved a strand of hair from her face and a strange and unfamiliar ache, warm and liquid, swelled through him, caught in a ball at his throat.

He tried to swallow it down. But it was a tide beyond his control. It crept right up into his eyes. He clenched his jaw, fought to bite it back. He was almost successful, apart from the small wet tear that escaped the corner of his eye. The ball in his throat hurt. He wouldn’t let it out. Couldn’t. Because it scared the hell out of him. What would happen if he released?

He edged Skye carefully over into the center of the bed, laid her down. She curled into a fetal ball as he covered her with a blanket. He turned, walked to the window. He clenched and unclenched his fists, stared out at the moonlit night, at the silhouettes of heavy brooding pines. By God, he hadn’t had that feeling, that sweet painful ache, since he’d held his Leni and their precious, beautiful little Kaitlin.

All these years of hiding out in raw primal jungles and under the naked skies of deserts and it was back. All that running from his pain and it hadn’t gone away. It had merely been buried. And now, this woman had unearthed it. She was right. When the numbness started to wear off, it hurt like hell.

He thudded his fist into the windowsill.
Damn her.

He spun around to look at her. The light of the moon bathed her face, giving it the look of fragile porcelain. Her mouth was parted, breathing gently. As he watched, she muttered something in her sleep. Something foreign. He leaned forward, tried to catch a word.

She murmured again.

He frowned.

It sounded like Greek. He knew the language well. It was one of the many he was fluent in. He leaned even closer. But she said nothing more, just rolled over.

He turned back to the window. Skye dreaming in her native Dutch he could understand. But Greek? His mind went back to the sight of Skye, dressed like a Greek goddess for her wedding. And at dinner she’d tried to brush aside an obvious expertise in Greek mythology. But she said she’d never been to that part of the world. She’d been quick to deny it. Too quick. She’d been nervous. Why?

She held so many secrets. And like him, she seemed to be running from herself. He gave a soft snort at the irony of it. They shared a kinship, a strange pair of outlaws fleeing down the same road. But the very thing that bound them together—their deception—would ultimately tear them apart. They were on a collision course and both would do well to keep their hearts from becoming collateral damage.

Scott bit at the inside of his cheek. He needed to maintain emotional distance. And not just for his sake. He didn’t want to hurt her. Whatever she’d done, whatever crime she’d committed, whoever was after her, he believed there was an innate goodness in this woman.

And there
was
someone after her. Someone other than the feds. He checked his watch. Almost four in the morning. He wanted to be gone within the hour. He wanted to leave under the cloak of darkness.

Dawn broke bright over the sea, stealing grays and silver, infusing the world with yellows and greens. Mist rose from the ribbon of tar as dew evaporated under the kiss of morning sun. And steam curled up from their coffee mugs, filling the interior of the car with warm scents of morning.

Skye bit into her cranberry bran muffin, listening halfheartedly to the chatter on the Island radio, meteorologists warning of a storm front that should hit by evening. Hard to believe it, looking at the cloudless blue of the morning sky.

She turned her attention from the weather to the man driving at her side. He’d woken her before the break of dawn, bundled her and Honey into the SUV. She felt rested.

But he hadn’t slept. She’d noticed the untouched covers of the camp cot in their motel room. And she could see the lack of rest in the depth of the lines around his eyes and the ones that bracketed his mouth. What, she wondered, had happened to his wife and child, his family?

She turned back to face the road, sipped her coffee, the warm steam of it moistening her face. They should be at Campbell River within the hour. Another three and they’d be in the wilds near Zeballos. In the middle of nowhere. Where would they all end up when this was over? Would he ever forgive her if he found out who she was?

“Tell me about Charly.”

The words sliced into the comfortable silence. He hadn’t spoken much in the past two hours since they’d left the motel.

“What do you want to know?”

“What does she do at the Kepplar lab?”

“She’s my right hand…my friend.”

“She works with you on your assassin bugs?”

“Yes. I was counting on Charly to convince Marshall to halt the beetle project until they could do more research.”

His eyes darted to her. “They?”

“I mean ‘we.’” She’d slipped up. She didn’t want him to know she had no intention of returning to her life in Haven.

He studied her briefly. “You think he’ll hold off?”

“No.”

“Is that something that worries you?”

“Yes.”

“But not enough to go back?”

Was he testing her? “I’ll be no use dead,” she said bluntly.

He nodded. It surprised her, his acceptance. She had a sense something in him had shifted. Since he’d seen those men in the restaurant. It was as though he was buying into her story.

“What’s the worst-case scenario if they release your beetles as scheduled?”

She gave a dry laugh. “That’s a tough one. That’s why I need more time, to assess the possibilities.”

“When you spoke with Marshall on the phone, you mentioned anomalies showing up. What are they?”

“When I checked into the lab, just before we left Haven, I noticed some very slight color differentiations in my core samples.”

“Is that serious?”

“Maybe not. But you can’t release something foreign into an ecosystem unless you’re damn sure what you’re dealing with. And, even if you are, there are still always unknown variables, still an element of risk.”

“Like the introduction of new pathogens?”

“Yes. My beetles could become a vector for new disease. God, I hope Marshall does the right thing.”

“Well, it’s his company on the line. I’m sure he’ll take that into account.”

“I hope you’re right, Scott. Because the whitefly epidemic has spread into the States and Marshall wants to be right there behind them. He’s had the Canadian government contracts sewn up for several years, but now he’s after the big fat carrot—the U.S. Department of Agriculture contracts. And he’s in a race with his corporate competition to prove Kepplar can be the best and the fastest.”

“So Marshall is ruled by greed over caution?”

“That’s putting it mildly. He’s so obsessed sometimes I think he’d create a blight just to win a contract to arrest it.”

Scott’s eyes flashed to hers. “He capable of doing that?”

Skye swallowed the last of her coffee, mulling over the notion. She’d never vocalized it before. Only entertained the idea in the periphery of her brain, almost as a joke.

But now, nothing seemed funny. Now things were deadly serious.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I believe he is capable.”

“They
lost
them?” He lurched to his feet.

“Only the visual. The tracking device is still working. They’re on the move right now. Have been since early morning. The device shows they’re headed south. Already nearing the outskirts of Victoria. And we have an ID on the man she’s with. He reserved a table under the name Scott McIntyre. We’ll have more on him within the hour.”

Malik spun around, glared at the portrait. The silver eyes of the woman who was once his stared coolly back at him. And for the first time, worry dug at him. Operation Vector was designed to use her to destroy herself.

Had he been too arrogant, playing her this long? Would she now end up destroying him?

No!
He smashed a fist onto his desk.

He’d invested too much in this. For the prephase of Operation Vector he’d paid disenfranchised Soviet scientists handsomely to do the bio work in his Anubis labs.

Then he’d inserted Jozsef, who’d dispersed mosquito eggs infected with Rift Valley fever when he crossed the border into Texas. Then Jozsef had delivered the mutated whitefly to Canada. Armed with this knowledge, his operatives had played the stock markets accordingly, helping to fund the entire project.

Next, details of Skye’s travel plans had been carefully leaked to link her to the RVF outbreak. The whitefly links would be divulged later, once her beetles were released.

As expected, the Kepplar labs had picked up the government contract for the whitefly plague. If Kepplar hadn’t, Malik would have gone to one of his backup plans.

But it had worked. And that meant sublime justice. Jozsef had interfered with her beetle project, inserted the genetic variants, and now the Canadian government itself was set to unleash a scourge such as North America had never before seen.

The beetles would become a vector for a deadly plague. People would die by the thousands.

And Skye would be blamed. Posthumously, if necessary.

Because the next step would be to release proof of her identity fraud, captured from Jalil’s office, along with evidence of her terrorist background. A smile tugged at the corners of Malik’s mouth. She even bore his mark on her hip. The world would think she had served him until the very last. A sleeper, activated to unleash a scourge Anubis would take credit for. Thanks to her, fear and terror would shatter the economic monster of the United States. He ran his tongue over his teeth.

The tracking device would lead his men to her.

He’d still triumph.

There was no sign of their tail in his rearview mirror as they drove into Campbell River. Scott breathed a sigh of relief. “Looks like we lost them.”

“Thank God. That means we have a clear run to Zeballos, right?”

Scott nodded. “But there’s no real town between here and there, apart from Woss. We should stop for supplies. Tell me about the cabin, what’s it equipped with?”

“Not much. It’s real basic, really. It belongs to Mike Henderson. He’s the owner of the general store in Haven. He was to give me away at my nonexistent wedding.” She paused. “He’s been like a father figure to me. He brought a group of us out this way a couple of years ago, said I could use the cabin anytime.”

“Why does he have a cabin out in such a remote area?”

“That’s exactly it, remote.”

Scott pulled into the parking lot of a mall that boasted a supermarket and a large camping goods store. “I take it any water we might need up there comes from a river?”

“Yes, it’s pretty primitive.”

“I’ll get some water purifiers.”

“No need, the water’s fresh from heaven.”

Scott frowned, motioned with his head toward the car radio. “You heard the forecast. Major storm brewing.”

Skye made a face. “Looks clear as glass to me.”

“The weather in these parts has a way of sneaking up on you. The kind of precipitation they’re predicting could muddy up a river real good. The cabin got a woodstove?”

“Yes.”

“Ax and stuff like that?”

“I don’t remember.”

Scott nodded, mentally checking off equipment he thought they’d need for a stay in the wild. As for how long they’d be there, that was anyone’s guess. They’d best be prepared. He opened his wallet, pulled out a wad of cash, handed it to Skye. “Here. Can you handle the grocery supplies?”

“Oh, no.” She held up her hands. “I’m not taking that. I don’t want your money, McIntyre.”

“Just take it.”

She shook her head “No way. You’ve done enough for me. I can handle this.”

“Skye—”

She reached for the door handle, swung open the passenger door, slipping out of the car before he could finish his sentence.

“Oh,” she said, ducking her head back into the vehicle. “What kind of food you want for Honey?”

He couldn’t help but smile as he once again watched her neat rump, her long, sleek legs carrying her determinedly through the parking lot.

“She may be a criminal badass, Honey, but I have to hand it to her, she’s got something.” He chucked the dog under the chin. “And she’s real pretty,” he added softly.

Scott loaded the new gear into the back of the Land Rover, slammed the door shut, made his way around to the driver’s side. That’s when it caught his eye. The sign. It hung above a small store at the far end of the mall. It drew him, more out of curiosity than anything else. “C’mon, Honey. Let’s go take a look.”

The golden retriever at his side, Scott hobbled across the parking lot. He stopped outside the store window, looked up at the sign that hung over the door. It was made of wood, old and out of place in this newish mall. It displayed a fish—a trout—leaping for a fly that flicked at the end of a long loop of line.

“Sit, Honey. I won’t be long.” Scott pushed open the door. The jingle of a little bell announced his presence and he blinked into the gloom.

It was as if he’d stepped back in time.

Even the white-haired man tying flies behind the counter at the rear of the store looked as though he hailed from another era.