She looked too stunned to speak. I closed the knife and switched it to my left so I could draw my weapon. Cold metal felt familiar in my hand, but the guilt over the pain I’d caused her did not.
She flinched at the gunshot when I fired at the pavement, the starting pistol for my deception of Gio. I pushed her back, forcing her to lie on top of the other bloody body, disregarding her accusing look that might render me immobile.
“Close your eyes,” I urged. “No matter what happens, you don’t open them until you hear me speaking English. I just killed you, so look dead, or we’ll both be.” That was a lie. Gio would never be smart enough to get the drop on me.
Rapid footsteps pounded down the jet stairs, and I spied him dashing toward the car. “What?—”
“She tried to run.” I let the comment roll off my tongue easily.
The information stopped him cold. “You killed her?”
“She was too much of a risk.”
Displeasure smeared on the bastard’s face. “What the hell? If you couldn’t have her, no one could?” He moved closer, rounding the car and peering into the open door, eying Olivia’s bloody hands clasped to the nonexistent hole in her stomach. She did her part, not moving, barely breathing.
He exhaled with disappointment. “I was going to have fun with her. What a waste.”
I still had the SIG in my right hand and the knife in myleft, and for a moment I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to use on Gio more. Instead, I slammed the door shut. “I should go. Someone might have heard the shot.”
I went to the open hold and yanked suitcases out, knowing I’d have to leave Olivia’s and the crew’s behind. There wasn’t any room left in Gio’s tiny car, and what use would the dead have for their luggage? I tossed my suitcase in the passenger seat. Near the hangar, a dark car prowled forward and flashed its running lights once, signaling Gio’s ride had arrived.
“I’ll handle the rest of the luggage. Ring me when it’s done.” He was speaking of the disposal of the bodies, and then he was off, dragging his suitcase toward the car.
Getting out of the private airfield with a car full of bodies wasn’t a problem. The security guard took one look at my plates and waved me through the checkpoint. There had been no immigration officials, and no one following the car as I headed away from downtown, racing against the sunrise.
“Stay down,” I said. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t say anything.
My guilt mixed with anger. “Answer me.”
“I’ll live.” The voice was bitter, but I was grateful for it. And that was the whole point, right? That she made it out alive?
Grapevines clung to trellises that zigzagged across the hilly, lush landscape. The meet-up was ten minutes away. There was a vineyard away from the main road, and I crawled the car up the winding path, pulling in behind the main house so I was out of sight.
My friend Fletcher waited there, leaning up against the front end of a car that looked nondescript. But it was sure to contain a beast of an engine beneath the hood, or “bonnet,” as the Englishman called it. I left the car running, flung my door open, and didn’t bother to greet him.
My feet crunched over gravel as I strode to the back door.
“Hey.” I spoke softly when I pulled it open. “Is your hand still bleeding?”
She had it wrapped in the scarf she’d been wearing around her neck. She sat up, her desire to get out of the car clear on her face. It had to be awkward getting out with only one hand, and she was trying not to disturb the body.
I grasped her arm to help?—
“No.” Her words were ice as she climbed out. “I’ve got it.”
“I thought you said you had the pilot,” Fletcher commented.
The discussion of what was going to happen after landing never made it this far, so she didn’t know someone else was around. When she took in the Englishman’s broad shoulders and intimidating expression, she slipped behind me, letting me shield her. Her instincts were correct. To most, Fletcher was viewed as a threat, but not in this situation. He was there to help.
I felt shot to hell. “She’sthe pilot.”
Fletcher pulled his shoulders back, and I could only imagine that was what I had looked like when I’d assumed she was the cabin attendant.
Actually, you thought she was little more than an in-flight hooker.I’d been so wrong about the woman she really was.
She’d been through hell, and still, she held herself together.
