"Emil's men," Cassidy said.
"Security from his yacht," Nash elaborated.
Cassidy looked impressed. "Yeah. And they don't need to see us together. They'll report to Emil. He's paranoid about who I talk to. I need to go. Now. If they walk down here, they'll see you. I have to leave before they know I talked to you."
But she didn't talk to them, not really. Lena wanted to scream. Cassidy appeared unharmed, but no questions had been answered, and Cassidy wanted to run right back to Emil.Why?
"We just got here, Cass. You need to leave with me! You're in danger with Emil."
Cassidy's familiar, stubborn posture infuriated Lena, and strangled her hope of a quick resolution to the deadly drama they'd stumbled into.
Cassidy held Lena's face in her hands. "Listen, Lena, we have to talk later. Everything is going to be fine. I've got things figured out. I know Emil took the jewels, but I also know I'm a suspect in the investigation in Houston. I'm not going back home without the jewels. But I know where they are. Don't worry, I've got a plan. Emil said you're coming to the party, right?"
"Yes, but—"
"Okay, see you then." She took off toward the pathway without a backward glance.
Lena lunged after her, but Nash grabbed her by the waist. "Hang on."
"What? Why?"
"She's right about one thing—we can't let Emil's men see us talking to her before the party. I have no idea what they're doing on the cliff, but we don't want them getting suspicious. They might be checking on Cassidy. If she leaves now and they follow her back to the marina, they won't get close enough to see us or the SUV. But if they come closer to check onher—"
"Okay, okay. I get it." Her words were clipped. She didn't want his logic. She wanted to run after Cassidy and drag her to the airport.How could Cass just leave like that when she knows Emil is dangerous?Waves of worry and exasperation threatened to drown her. She was stunned. Scared. Unmoored.
Nash's deep, steady voice broke through her thoughts. "Let's move under the cliff until they drive off." When she didn't move, he placed a firm, gentle hand on the small of her back and guided her off the sand and onto the rocks beneath the cliff. "There's a cave opening here." He turned on his phone's flashlight and shone it around the cave entrance. He leaned close and spoke into her ear, presumably to make himself heard over the waves crashing on the rocks. "This is a good spot for a few minutes. We'll be directly underneath them, out of their line of sight. If they're just keeping an eye on Cassidy, they should be driving off soon."
The cave looked dark. And wet. And creepy. She didn't feel like cooperating, but she couldn't think of anything else to do. Cassidy was being stubborn. And she was gone.
As much as she loved Cassidy, a scream of frustration threw a hissy fit in Lena's throat, wanting to rip throughthe inky, clammy cave that Nash was steering her into. She'd come all the way to the Caribbean to warn her, to get her home. And Cassidy wouldn't listen. The more she considered Cassidy's stubbornness, helplessness morphed into numbness, dulling her aggravation.
She let Nash lead her a few feet into the cave.
He brought his mouth close to her ear. "We'll hole up here for a few minutes."
An ironic thought bubbled up. She trusted Nash's judgment right now over Cassidy's. By a large margin. The realization felt surreal. But as she grabbed his shoulder to steady herself on the slippery rock floor, gratitude for his steadfast presence swelled in her chest.
Chapter 14
Nash maneuvered himself on the uneven, wet cave floor until he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Lena, watching the rough waves crash onto the boulders at the mouth of the cave. He felt the frustration roiling off her. He wanted to say something encouraging, but talking wasn't a good idea at the moment. The ocean crashing onto the rocks was probably loud enough to cover their voices. Still, best not to take chances.
Nothing but the roar of the surf echoed through the cave. So, there was no warning when a large object—a human-sized object—fell from the sky and landed on the boulders jutting above the waves.
Realizing what he was seeing, Nash grabbed Lena and pulled her to him, forcing her focus away from the grisly scene. He dipped his mouth near her ear. "Don't look."
She clamped her own hand over her mouth to hold in her scream, her eyes impossibly wide. He felt her bodywrestle with freeze, fight, or flight. Her legs chose flight, but Nash held her firm against him. "No. We can't run. They'll see us. You're okay. I've got you."
Praying his strained whisper filtered through her terror, he held her tight around the waist with one hand and cradled her head with the other—ensuring she didn't look toward the mouth of the cave. He didn't want the image burned into her mind.
He, however, stared ahead, needing to identify the victim and detect any chance he'd survived the fall.
The man who'd set fire to the pier on Emil's beach, endangering young Kai, was lying half-submerged on the rocks, the angry waves threatening to grab him in seconds. His vacant, lifeless eyes told Nash there was no reason to check for a pulse. As the waves claimed his body and yanked him from the rocks, Nash noticed blood on the man's head. Gunshot wound.
They would've heard a gun over the noise of the surf. This was a body dump.
He squeezed Lena tighter against him and whispered again, "Don't look. Don't move."
"Is he? Is he?"
