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“Tell me about all the men you’ve had,” he whispered.
She began to cry, great big tears silently rolling down her cheeks.
He leaned into her again, his lips brushing across hers, but she knew whatever had possessed him moments ago had passed. He’d changed his mind. She wanted to beat his chest with her fists. She wanted to beg him to take her.
He gently kissed her lips, then her tears. “Not here. Not like this. Not your first time.”
She started to protest but he covered her lips with his in a silencing kiss, then pulled back as if he heard something. He turned on the flashlight, pointing it at their feet, but his gaze was on her face.
“Someday you’ll thank me,” he said as he laid down the flashlight, the beam shooting across the floor to the back of the shedlike room.
He reached to button her jeans but she pushed his hand away as she pulled her bra down over her breasts, covering herself, fingers trembling as she fought to get her balance and jeans buttoned. She’d never slept with a man because she’d never wanted one badly enough. Until now.
The faint clink of metal on metal made them both freeze. Landry quickly motioned to her to be quiet as he reached down and shut off his flashlight. A clank of metal on metal. Someone had just come in through the gate to the storage units.
Landry moved quickly to the large door and lifted it a few feet off the ground. Moonlight bled into the opening. He checked outside, then motioned for her to slip through and followed her. She heard him quietly close and snap the padlock into place, then move along the shadowed side toward the front of the property, motioning for her to wait.
He returned a few moments later. “It’s an armed security guard,” he whispered, and motioned for her to follow him toward the back of the property.
Her heart lodged in her throat. If they were caught, Landry would go to jail. She would go to another safe house. Neither of them would be safe. In fact, she suspected they wouldn’t last long, given the powerful people after them.
A breeze stirred the palms that lined the back of the chain-link fence. She could hear mosquitoes buzzing next to her ear and smell the swampy stew that bordered the property. In the moonlight, she caught a glimpse of one alligator, then another. The tourist wild-animal park she’d seen was right next door.
Back here the fence surrounding the storage units was ten feet high but there was no razor wire along the top. There were just alligators lounging in the swamp on the other side of the fence.
Willa saw at once what Landry had planned and balked at even the idea. “Alligators,” she whispered, just in case he hadn’t noticed.
He knelt down, his fingers weaved together as he motioned for her to put her foot in for a boost up the fence. “Trust me,” he whispered.
Right. She heard the sound of footfalls coming along the edge of the storage units and quickly weighed her options before putting her foot into his hands. He boosted her up. She grabbed hold of the fence and climbed to the top, swung a leg over and teetered there for a moment before gingerly working her way down the other side, all the while keeping an eye on the alligators.
Landry bounded up the fence, over the top and down the other side. He caught her as she dropped to the ground. She heard the scurry of the alligators nearest the fence and for a moment she thought they were scurrying after her instead of away.
“Come on.” Landry took her hand, dragging her through the swamp toward the small shack that acted as a ticket booth for the wildlife exhibit. At one point, he stopped and pulled her down next to a large fake rock. She held her breath, listening not just for the security guard but for any alligators sneaking up on them. Off to her left, she saw a huge gator yawn, his massive jaws opening and finally closing again.
They slipped under the gate by the ticket booth and ran across the street, losing themselves in the shadows of the buildings as they wove through the small residential area.
“Neither of us can go to St. Pete Beach,” he said when they finally quit running. He’d stopped by a fishing shack near the canal. The area was a web of canals. The night was deathly quiet. No lights or vehicles anywhere. “They’ll be waiting for us.” His gaze met hers in the darkness, his dark eyes shining. “We have to try to get the paintings sent to us.”
She hated the thought of involving Evan Charles in all this. Keeping her voice down, she asked, “Are you sure the police or Freddy D. don’t already have the disk?”
“If the police did, then Freddy and his crew would be behind bars. No one would want us dead. Just the opposite.”
“And if Freddy has it?”
He shook his head. “If he did then he wouldn’t have any reason to want you dead. If anything, he’d want to keep you alive so you could testify against me.”
He touched her cheek, his hand cool, his touch making her shiver but not from the cold. “Trust me. The disk hasn’t been found. That’s why you and I are still alive. That’s why we have to contact the gallery owner—and not go there. Come on.” He took her hand. “I saw a pay phone back by that closed motel.”
Pop. Wood splintered on the shack wall beside her. Landry knocked her to the ground, landing hard on top of her and rolled them both down the slope toward the water. Pop. Pop.
The last thing she heard was Landry whisper next to her ear, “Hold your breath.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
They hit the water.
Landry pulled her under, dragging her deeper and deeper, forcing her to swim after him, the water growing colder and colder as they dove down toward the bottom.
