To the Brink (35 page)

"You're international news, Darcy. So far, for whatever reason, it's being kept quiet that you're no longer a hostage. That's fine with me, but whoever's pulling the strings on this deal has to be in the know."

She'd already considered that. It showed in her eyes. Just like it showed that she was in denial. He pressed his advantage.

"Think about it. They have to know that you were sprung. Christ, a company of Philippine infantry witnessed your great escape. You think they didn't capture some of the Abu Sayyaf cell members?" he asked pointedly. "You think they didn't figure out a way to make them talk?"

He made sure she knew she was fooling herself if she did. "The military knows. They know you were on Jolo and they know that you escaped. And whoever wants you gone or dead knows it, too. Most likely they've known it for over forty-eight hours, according to the news footage we just saw. It won't be long before they find you again. And when they do, I'd just as soon know what we're up against."

She looked stricken.

"For God's sake, Darcy," he pleaded, at the end of his patience. "Talk to me. Who's after you? Who wants you silenced? And what have you got that they want?"

Tears glittered in her eyes as she slowly shook her head. "I don't want to place you in any more danger."

"And I don't want to see you dead!" he roared back.

She wet her lips, rubbed at her eyes as if she were so weary she couldn't think. Then she steadied herself. "Look. This was a bad idea—my staying here."

He pushed out a disbelieving laugh. "You think staying is a bad idea? Try leaving."

With his fingers clamped firmly around her upper arm, he walked her back toward his bedroom.

"I don't think sleeping with you is going to solve anything," she said, stopping at the guest bedroom door.

"I don't really care what you think." He pulled her the rest of the way into his bedroom. "Until this is over, you don't breathe without me feeling it against my skin. You don't brush your teeth without me handing you the toothpaste. Just consider me your very own personal bodyguard for the duration, sweetheart, because you're not getting out of my sight. And you're not getting out of touching distance."

"When did you become such a bully?" she grumbled, sitting down hard on the bed and glaring at him.

"About the same time you became so bullheaded. So I'd say that makes us even."

The drapes in Ethan's bedroom were open to catch the cool night breeze. The light from a quarter moon hanging low in a night sky dusted with stars was enough to let Darcy see the face of her ex-husband sleeping beside her.

Sleeping beside her.

The implications and confusion that reality brought to light were too numerous and complicated to even contemplate.

What wasn't complicated was the urgency she felt about getting away from him.

What choice did she have? Ethan was right. If the story of her escape had been out for over forty-eight hours, Gatlin had had plenty of time to launch an organized search for her. He'd probably already dug into her personnel file, found names and the addresses of her family and friends. And when he ran across the fact that her ex-husband just happened to be former SF, it wouldn't take long for Gatlin to piece together who was responsible for rescuing her from Jolo.

In fact, Gatlin had probably already figured it out. Ethan's town house might well be under surveillance right now. Which meant that when Darcy left she'd lead them away from Ethan.

And right now, that's all that mattered. She did not want to be with Ethan when they found her. Every moment she spent with him placed him in further jeopardy.

She'd feel guilty about the money she planned to lift from his wallet later. And about the fact that she needed to "borrow" his car. For the time being, it couldn't be helped. She needed to hole up somewhere away from Ethan to sort things out, to figure out whom she could trust. Whom she could contact with her information. And she needed to retrieve the tape she'd mailed to the PO box she kept near D.C. so she could find out exactly what was on it and why Gatlin had no qualms about killing to get it back.

And it didn't stop there. Once she figured out whom she could trust, she had to get an investigation rolling on the ambassador. One that she was beginning to suspect would launch a scandal and a probe of historic proportions. Oh yeah. And she also had to keep herself alive in the process.

Piece of cake,
she thought grimly but with no less determination.

She stared at Ethan's hard, clean profile in the night. And finally admitted another truth. She needed to get away from him for reasons other than his safety. She needed to get away from him for
hers.
Despite surviving an abduction by terrorists, she wasn't sure if she could survive Ethan Garrett again.

Look what had already happened. She'd made love to him. Couldn't stop wanting to make love to him. Despite how angry she was at him for bullying her, it was all she could do to keep her hands off of him.

Five years she'd been without him. And she'd never stopped craving his touch. Never stopped... loving him, she admitted finally.
Not for a second.
And the longer she was with him, the more she realized that for her, loving him was not an option.

She'd always loved him.

She always would.

And that was reason enough to leave.

Ethan was deeply asleep now. And Darcy couldn't put it off any longer.

His alarm clock said it was 12:35 a.m. when she eased out of bed. She dressed quietly in the dark and with a quick glance over her shoulder lifted some folded bills out of his wallet.

She was almost to the door when a hand clamped over her mouth at the same time an arm as strong as tempered steel caught her around her waist.

She was hauled back against a body she knew all too well.

"Don't make a sound," Ethan whispered in her ear, then slowly let her go.

She turned around, mortified at being caught, confused over the urgency she saw in his eyes.

"Someone's trying to break in," he whispered close to her mouth. He lifted his hand, touched a finger to his lips. "Stay quiet. And stay here."

Heart pounding, Darcy watched as he reached into his bedside table and withdrew a sinister-looking handgun. Regardless of his leg wound, his bare feet were silent on the carpeted floor as he walked to the bedroom door with the speed and the stealth of a man who had years of practice at both.

She hadn't even heard him get out of bed and yet he'd heard someone outside the town house.

He nosed the door open with the barrel of the gun, peeked into the hall, then quietly eased out of the room.

Stay here?
she mouthed silently as she crossed the room.
I
don't think so.

Tiptoeing and staying close to the wall, she followed the route he took down the hall. The town house was light enough that she could make out shapes and shadows. A table lamp by the sofa. The dark bulk of the entertainment center against a far wall.

And oh God ... the shadow of a man easing open a slider from the balcony. When he slipped inside, she dropped to a crouch, holding her breath, afraid to call out to Ethan and warn him. Afraid not to.

She saw the flash of fire from the muzzle of a gun before she heard the sharp blast, then the crack of shattered glass.

A rapid series of answering shots drowned out her gasp. Then came more breaking glass. The crash of a lamp as it was knocked to the floor. The muffled grunts and sickening smack of fists against flesh and bone.

It seemed like hours when only seconds could have passed when Ethan swore.

The scrape of the slider on its rail rang through the night as Darcy looked up and caught a glimpse of a man's back as he raced out of the town house and disappeared over the side of the balcony rail.

And then she heard nothing but silence.

Chapter 24

"Ethan?" Darcy's frightened whisper
cut through the pounding in Ethan's ears.

He pushed himself to his feet with a grunt. "Thought I told you to say put."

"Thank God you're alive." Her relief, evidently at finding him alive, was quickly outdistanced by a frantic, "Are you hurt?"

He heard her take a step toward him in the dark. "Stop. Don't come in here. There's broken glass all the hell over the place. Sonofabitch!" he swore, and picked a splinter of glass out of the bottom of his foot.

"Are you hurt?" she repeated.

"No," he grumbled. Hell yeah, he was hurt. Mostly his pride. The only thing that took the sting out was the knowledge that he'd put a round into whoever had broken in with a big bad Glock. And if there was a God, the bastard wouldn't be feeling so great right now.

He'd also be reporting back to his boss the first chance he got.

Ethan made an instant decision.

"Go get a towel and toss it to me so I can wade out of here without slicing my feet to ribbons.

"No. Stop right there. Just toss it to me," he said when Darcy rushed back into the living room with the towel.

"Throw a change of clothes for both of us into my duffel—it's in the closet on the top shelf. And no lights. We're getting the hell outta here."

Fifteen minutes later, Ethan was still wired. The adrenaline was still pumping when they slipped up the on-ramp and eased into traffic on 1-95 heading north. He had no idea where they were going. He just knew he had to get her out of West Palm. And they didn't have a helluva lot of choices on their mode of transportation. Without ID for Darcy, they were pretty much stuck with his wheels.

He needed to contact his brothers but decided it could wait until he had more answers.

Shifting a Life Saver from one side of his mouth to the other, he glanced in the rearview mirror of his SUV, fairly well satisfied that the jumbled route he'd taken through town would have shaken anyone who might have had a notion to follow him.

"For the record," he said, his voice hard, "if my hands weren't full of steering wheel, I'd throw you over my knee right now and whale the daylights out of your pretty, sexy ass."

He glanced sideways at Darcy, where she sat beside him in the front seat.

His thigh throbbed. His shoulder burned where the sonofabitch had clipped him. He felt about as mad and as mean as a junkyard dog and he was tired of playing pattycake with his ex-wife and pandering to a lingering weakness from the blood loss that hit him at the damnedest times.

"Care to tell me why you thought you had to sneak off like a thief? Oh, wait. I forgot. You
are a
thief. How far did you think five hundred bucks was going to take you?"

She stared dead ahead. "I was going to pay you back."

"Tough trick when you're zipped into a body bag wearing nothing but a toe tag."

Jaw hard, his eyes dead ahead, he shot through traffic. "In case the significance of that little scene was lost on you, whatever misguided notion you had of taking me out of the mix just got shot all to hell. You're too smart to think that was a random break-in. Whoever's after you knew you were there with me.

"They found you once, babe. It won't be long before they find you again," he added.

He let her think about that for a minute, then started in again. "Face it. It's time to give it up. I'm a big boy. I know how to play big-boy games."

She hesitated for several more moments. But he could tell by the defeated droop of her shoulders that she knew she'd played this out at far as she could.