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“Seriousmoney,” the captain corrected. “There was a fortune in jewels and gold in that safe, and it was scattered all over the floor at his feet like nothing. Like an afterthought. That’s the problem with rich men like him. They have no concept of how the rest of us have to scrape and bleed and suffer for years just to make a fraction of what they have. John Brady was a pillar of the community,” he sneered. “That’s what the papers said. His poor wife, Margaret, devastated at his untimely death.” He barked a curse as he pushed her up the steps onto the viewing platform. “Both of them were cheating on each other, but the media painted them like angels on their ivory pedestals.”
“Alice thinks you’re having an affair,” Cora said, resisting as he shoved her closer to the railing. Every nerve in her body was on high alert, but she fought to keep him talking, waiting for the right moment to act. The thunderous roar of the waterfall did nothing to drown out the frantic beating of her heart. Grabbing the rail in a white-knuckle grip, she stared into the churning water below. In the twilight, the jagged rocks were softened by shadows, but Cora knew they were as deadly and unforgiving as the man standing behind her. Bracing herself, she poked the hornet’s nest. “She told me you were sleeping with someone else. Are you cheating on your wife, Captain?”
With a furious curse, he clamped a hand painfully on her left arm, spinning her to face him.
Now.Cora dropped her weight and turned with him, harnessing the momentum and using it to her advantage. She struck out hard with her right fist, aiming for his solar plexus. It was a solid move, but Captain Thompson knew her too well. Jerking to the side, he avoided her strike at the last second. Then he raised the gun and backhanded her across the face. Pain exploded across her cheekbone, blinding her with agonizing pinpricks of light as she bit back a cry.
His ruddy face was a mask of fury. “I wouldnevercheat on Alice,” he spit. “Everything I’ve done over the years has been for her.”
“That’s not what she thinks,” Cora managed, forcing the words past the pain. “She told me you bought fancy jewelry for your mistress.”
“Wrong.”He jerked his head from side to side, like a wild animal harassed by bees. “Alice found one of the necklaces I was planning to sell. She believed I’d bought it for another woman, and nothing I said would convince her otherwise. But she’ll understand soon enough.”
“Did you tell her you’d been stealing and taking bribes for years?” Cora knew she was on borrowed time, but she had to keep the conversation going. He was clearly bothered about Alice, which Cora might be able to use to her advantage. An emotional opponent was a sloppy opponent. “Did you tell her you killed John Brady? Lindsey Albright? Magnus Blackwell?”
Captain Thompson’s angry face flickered with unease. “She’s flighty and impulsive, my Alice. She doesn’t need to be bothered with irrelevant details. She just needs to sit tight for now. I promised her a better life when we got married, and I’m damn well going to give it to her.” There was a maniacal gleam in his eye. If he actually believed he could still walk away from all this and have a normal life with his wife, then he wasn’t just greedy and desperate. He was unhinged.
A cold finger of dread skated down Cora’s spine. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, drawing on all her training in an effort to appear calm and cool. “So, what’s your plan, Captain? You take the money and run? Doesn’t sound like an easy life. Even if you manage to evade the law, you’ll still have to flee the country.”
“Shut up.” He spun her around again, shoving until the railing pressed painfully against her stomach, making it hard to breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to stare at the deadly two-hundred-foot drop into the frothing cauldron below. She had tofocus!
“Alice doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d be happy living the rest of her days hiding in some backwater town on the other side of the planet.” Her mouth had gone bone-dry, but she licked her cracked lips and forged on.Keep him engaged.“You know what I think?”
“Enough!” he roared. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think, McLeod.”
She tamped down the fear that shot like wildfire through her veins. “I think Alice realizes something you don’t.” It wasn’t easy to speak hard truths to a crazy man holding a gun on her, but every second she kept him engaged was another moment she kept breathing. “You can’t win, Captain Thompson. Even if you take me out, there’s nowhere you can run that the law won’t find you. We know too much, and you can’t cover it up this time.”
“Watch me,” he sneered. Cora felt the cold barrel of the gun at the nape of her neck and knew she was out of time.
26
LIAM GRIPPED THE edge of the ledge with his fingertips, pulling himself up until he had both arms braced over the rock’s surface. It was their third try, and he prayed this time it would work because Finn was losing energy. The man was surprisingly strong considering he’d been starving for the past week with nothing but water to drink, but his energy reserves were fading fast. Liam’s hands skidded over the rock, searching for indents to grip. When he’d finally found divots to brace his arms against, he called down to Finn. “Ready.”
Finn took a running leap and grabbed Liam’s legs, using them as leverage to climb up Liam’s back.
“Hurry!” Liam managed, his muscles straining with the effort of holding Finn’s added weight. Just when he felt his hands beginning to slip, Finn hauled himself up over the edge of the rock ledge and flung onto his back, gasping for breath. In the next moment he rolled to help Liam as he hooked a leg over the ledge and climbed up after him. They rested for a few minutes with nothing but the light from Liam’s phone.
“We did it,” Finn said with a gasp that turned into a cough.
“Almost.” Liam glanced at Finn from the corner of his eye, wondering how much farther Finn could go before he collapsed from exhaustion. “The tunnel above is much closer, so it won’t be as hard this time.”
They lay there for a few moments to catch their breath. Then Liam dragged himself to his feet. He reached for Finn and helped him stand, shining the light of his phone at the ledge ten feet above them.
“If you brace on my shoulders again,” Finn said, “you can just pull yourself up and over the edge.”
“What about you? I’m not leaving you behind,” Liam said before Finn could try to suggest it.
“When you get up there, lie on your stomach and reach your arms down. I’ll jump up to catch your hands, and you can help pull me up.”
“That’s quite a leap. The ledge we’re standing on is only a few feet wide. It’s not like you can take a running jump.”
“Just trust me,” Finn said in a voice that brooked no argument. Liam almost smiled at the exhausted man’s steely core of determination.
With a nod, Liam climbed onto Finn’s back once again, bracing his feet on Finn’s shoulders until he could stretch up and grab on to the ledge above them. This time, it was much easier to climb. When Liam reached the top, he laid his phone beside him and stretched both arms out for Finn. “Ready when you are.”
Finn took a cautious step back to gain momentum, then leaped toward Liam with surprising dexterity. His hands slapped against Liam’s biceps, sliding down until they locked forearms. Liam almost shouted in relief, until he felt Finn’s hands begin to slip farther. He could hear the exhausted man’s labored breathing, and for a moment, Liam had a terrifying glimpse of what could happen if he let go. Finn could tumble down to the narrow ledge and roll off it, or he could miss the ledge altogether and fall into the cavern below. In his condition, he wouldn’t be able to sustain another fall like that.
Finn grunted with effort to hold on, but his hands continued to slip. Liam squeezed harder, but the sweat from exertion made it difficult to grip. Swearing under his breath, Liam tried to pull Finn up, urging him to hold on, but Finn had reached the end of his strength.
