Page 91 of Fixed Asset

Mason lifted his right hand and flipped me off. What he didn’t do was deny he was scared.

“Does this mean I’m shit out of luck?” Mason asked. “You know chocolate helps me concentrate during a—”

“Stop talking,” Jack interrupted Mason. “The last time you complained about something, we engaged in an all-night battle. Can we just get to the hotel without having to draw our weapons?”

The rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire had us all stopping.

“Goddamnit,” Jack snarled.

“Visual?” Pete asked.

I scanned the runway and didn’t see anything. “Negative.”

I was already pulling my pack off to grab my vest.

An advantage to Shep chartering us a private plane was no one said anything when we walked on strapped. However, I didn’t want to wear uncomfortable ballistic plates on a flight. But I sure as shit wanted them on with the sound of bullets popping off.

I dropped my bag, crouched in front of it, and was unzipping it when I saw movement on the opposite side of the runway nearest the beach.

I watched and waited.

There were neat rows of sand or aggregate piled high. Beyond that there was a long shipping dock. It was night, the business was closed, there were lights at the end of the dock, but otherwise the staging area was dark.

I went back to unpacking my vest. I had it over my head when I saw another dark shadow.

“White sedan rolling in hot. We need to move.”

Pete was right. We were sitting ducks with no cover.

Just as I was standing, I caught a flash of someone running from behind a pile of sand and making a mad dash to a cluster of shipping containers. There was a full moon, not enough light to make out facial features but enough to know the long ponytail whipping around as she ran was blonde.

“Is that her?”

How many blonde-haired women could there possibly be on this island? And a blonde running from someone shooting at her . . . it had to be Calista.

“Who?”

“Calista! I think that’s her behind the shipping containers.”

Engines roared closer.

The woman dashed across an open space headed for another container. She turned her head to look over her shoulder, and I still couldn’t be a hundred percent sure it was Calista, but damn if she didn’t have the same build as the description Shep had sent—tall and slim.

“Cat—”

“It has to be her. Cover me!”

I yanked the Sig P226 Pete let me borrow out of my holster and ran as fast as I could across the tarmac. I was on the other side, back on the dirt, and beelining for the shipping containers. I heard the guys laying down cover fire. I had five feet left to go when a barrage of gunfire rang out, forcing me to do a running dive for cover. I rolled, came up on my hip, and cursed Tom Washington’s name when the incision from removing the tracker reminded me that Jack had only cut into my flesh a few days ago and it was not healed.

I forgot about the pain in my hip when I pulled up on my knees and felt the barrel of a gun pressed to my forehead.

“Calista Ventura?” I asked, even though I knew it was her.

“Who are you?”

“Tom Washington sent me to find you.”

“How do you know Tom?”