Cold in the Shadows 5 (2 page)

“I don’t understand what you’re saying!”

He leaned closer. His warm breath brushed her ear. “
Yo se cuando estas mintiendo, chica. Para que sepas
.”
I can tell when you’re lying, chica. Good to know.

She was obviously an American, so how did he know she spoke Spanish?

“I will say this only once. You need to pay attention.” He spoke English now with a thick guttural accent.

Pain shot along her arms whenever she tried to move. Escalating, paralyzing fear held her immobile.

“It is over.”

What!
What did that even mean? Was he going to kill her? She drew in a breath to scream, but a gloved hand clamped over her mouth, the supple leather cool against her skin.

“The Gateway Project is finished.” The voice turned menacing. “Whoever is giving you orders is acting on his own. We will find this person, and we will shut them down. You do not want to be around when we do.”

He released her mouth.

“I don’t understand.” She twisted around to try and look up at him. “Is this some kind of joke?”

He ran a gloved finger over her cheek. “No joke. This is your only warning,
chica
. Do not make me regret not killing you.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but anger replaced fear, and she glared at him in the darkness.

“Eyes on the floor,” he ordered.

She did as he said. The pressure eased on her chest as he climbed to his feet and she inhaled a much-needed full breath. She braced herself. For a couple of seconds there was nothing but silence. She looked around, but the man had disappeared as silently as he’d come.

Relief hit her like a two-by-four.

What the hell just happened?

More importantly, had he gone for good, or was he coming back?

Alarm propelled her into action. She used her elbow to push herself into a sitting position. She shuffled over to the unit next to the kitchen sink and put her back to the cupboard, leveraging herself up against the smooth wood until she was on her feet. Awkwardly she jerked open the cutlery drawer, holding onto the edge, almost falling over. Her fingers scrambled through the silverware until she found a serrated blade. Trying to keep her balance, she leaned over the countertop and sawed at the stiff plastic that bound her hands behind her back. It took time because of the crappy angle. She sucked in a hiss of pain when she scratched herself on the arm. Finally, the tie came loose with a jerk and she set to work on her ankles.

If he came back…
Oh, God
.

She sawed faster and her legs sprang apart. She kept hold of the knife as she skirted her scattered belongings and smashed groceries, pausing when she reached the wide-open doorway. She peered out into the night, but could see no one. A howler monkey shrieked in the jungle, but her assailant had disappeared. She hoped the bastard was bitten by a snake, or broke his leg tripping over a tree root.

Asshole.

She eased gingerly down the first set of steps, uncertain of her footing in the dark. As soon as she found the paved path she ran, heart pounding from rage and relief, chest tight from being scared out of her mind. Her wobbly legs carried her toward the caretaker’s cabin.

Please be here.

The sound of insects pierced her eardrums like tiny screams. The shadows teemed with a million unseen eyes. Sweat ran down her sides, and the scent of her own slick fear rose up to choke her. She reached the caretaker’s home and hammered on his door. “Open up! Let me in.”

It seemed to take forever, but finally she heard footsteps. The man pulled open the door, and she dipped under his arm.

“Help. Help me. Someone attacked me in my cabin. They threatened to kill me. Call the police.”

He followed her inside, dark eyes wide with alarm. “
¿Estás herida? ¿Viste quién era?
”
Are you hurt? Did you see who it was?

Her throat was raw from the effort of holding down emotions that now threatened to choke her. “I didn’t see his face. He was talking about some Gateway thing. I have no idea what he wanted from me.”

The man’s eyes flared as they ran over her and rested on her bloody wrists, and on the knife. “Did he rape you?” He switched to English.

She shook her head, grateful to have come away from this encounter without any real physical harm—although she knew from experience how damaging the psychological aspect could be. “He tied me up and threatened me, but he didn’t actually touch me.”

The man’s eyes narrowed as he spoke to her. “There are some bad people around here. Some very bad men. Are you sure you want to talk to the police?”

Because sometimes the local cops cared more about the bad men than the victims—that’s what the caretaker was trying to tell her. Audrey was an American. She knew the difference between right and wrong, and just because the asshole hadn’t raped or beaten her didn’t mean he hadn’t done those things to someone else. If reporting this saved one person, it was worth it.

“Call the cops.” She shivered as she remembered his strange warning. “I want this bastard locked up.”

*     *     *

T
HE CALL CAME
at two
AM
.

His hand groped on the side table before he found the receiver. “What is it?”

At first the words didn’t make sense, the accent thick and hurried, making it difficult to understand. Audrey Lockhart. Attack. Masked man. He stared groggily at the ceiling of his bedroom.

“Tell me exactly what she said in the report,” he mumbled.

Two words had him wide-awake in an instant. He swung his legs out of bed and padded across the room.

“Read it again,” he demanded. He could almost hear Audrey snapping irritably at the local cops. Someone had attacked her and warned her that The Gateway Project was finished, but she had no idea what that was.

He went to the window, his pale reflection staring back at him. He reached out to touch the cold glass and connected with his fingertip.

This was what he’d wanted, he reminded himself. This was the culmination of a game he’d been playing for so many years he’d almost forgotten it had to end. He was hit by an unexpected pang of grief and regret. However, he couldn’t risk anyone finding out the truth behind his carefully constructed lies.

“What should I do,
amigo
?” asked the Colombian on the other end of the phone.

A network of frost crept between the windowpanes and a shiver worked its way over his naked skin. Time to finish this. Time for the endgame.

“Get rid of the report. Kill the woman.”

Chapter Two

A
CCORDING TO
P
ATRICK
Killion’s favorite data analyst at the Agency, he was a half-inch short of being the perfect romance hero. As long as the inch she was talking about was his height and not his dick, he didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Today, at a measly five foot eleven and a half inches, he towered above the locals. His height, combined with his sun-bleached blond hair, meant he definitely did not blend in with the Colombian population. He didn’t bother to try.

The CIA dealt in threat assessment and probability levels, manipulation and human intel. Lockhart’s appearance, expertise, hidden Cayman Island bank account, and the fact she was in the right place at the right time for Vice President Ted Burger’s murder, made her his number one suspect. So, despite FBI ASAC Lincoln Frazer telling him to back off yesterday, he was still following her. He couldn’t walk away.

Last night he’d shaken the tree to see what fell out.

He ignored the twinge to his conscience. He’d been a little rough. He hadn’t wanted to risk her getting the drop on him. He had given her a get-out-of-jail-free pass and probably saved her life—that should count for something.

Except she hadn’t behaved as she should have. She hadn’t called her employer. She hadn’t grabbed a bag and run. Instead she’d reported the assault to the local cops and had gone in to work today. Maybe she’d been busy destroying evidence or delaying until the last possible moment before she made a mad dash for some small private airfield. Maybe she was overconfident about her abilities. Or maybe she was innocent.

It was the last “maybe” that bothered him.

As he stood in line for a ticket to the ecological park, a pretty redhead in a strappy top and high-heels eyed his neon orange T-shirt and red plaid shorts with a distasteful grimace. He’d committed a class-A felony and the fashion police were about to convict.

“Airline lost my luggage.” Killion raised his palms in a pitiful shrug, putting enough misery into his travel-worn appearance that the woman’s expression immediately shifted from disgust to empathy.

“That blows. How long ago?”

“Two days now. They swear they’ll get it to me sometime today—”

She gave a disbelieving snort. “Yeah, they once lost my luggage on a trip to Mexico and by the time it arrived I was getting on the plane home. Worse, they refused to reimburse all the clothes I needed to buy…”

Off she went, and he was in. Phase one of this mission accomplished. He walked into the conservatory as part of a group of American tourists, rather than as a single white guy traveling alone. They milled loosely about, looking at Lepidoptera specimens that fluttered about like giant-sized pieces of confetti.

A family of seven—five women who all looked like they’d rather be at the mall, an older man, and a teen who read every piece of information like he was cramming for a test. Killion stayed close to the stacked redhead because he looked like the kind of guy who’d stay close to a stacked redhead, but he also chatted to the others in the group, gleaning information. They were down from Florida, visiting family over Christmas. The Americans had arrived in a large minivan with an armed driver, but the driver stayed with the vehicle so they weren’t too worried about security. In this country, staying in one spot for any length of time meant you attracted attention—and not the, “Oh my, don’t you have pretty eyes” kind of attention.

It wasn’t a good thing.

Hot sun bore down on the forest canopy that shaded the ecological park. The small interpretive center affiliated with the Amazon Research Institute attracted local schools as well as the occasional tourist, but it was Monday, January 5 and schools were closed until after Epiphany. The place was deserted except for this little band of intrepid explorers. The ground steamed and sweat beaded on his skin as his adopted people wandered slowly from enclosure to enclosure. A rivulet of perspiration soaked into his shirt.

A huge yellow butterfly drifted over his head and landed on a piece of cut fruit on the feeder tray. The redhead barely contained her squeal of excitement and took twenty pictures with her little point-and-shoot. Killion’s point-and-shoot dug into his spine and held fourteen rounds. Their group finally headed into the amphibian enclosure where decaying damp earth mixed with traces of ammonia, and the musk of rotten leaves.

Welcome to the jungle.

His new friend grabbed his arm, pointed. “Aren’t they cute!” A minuscule, neon-yellow frog was stuck on the side of a glass tank.

“They may look cute”—said a familiar voice with just the barest hint of a Kentucky twang—“but one golden poison dart frog contains enough toxin to kill ten-to-twenty grown men.” Dr. Lockhart wore spectacles on a string around her neck and reminded him of the class nerd—the one all the guys had secretly lusted after but had been too intimidated to ask out on a date. The professor had unusual violet-blue eyes that showed clear signs of a sleepless night. He would have felt guilty, but more than one person had told him he was a heartless bastard who didn’t have a conscience. A sociopath by any other name.

He didn’t give a shit, so they were probably right. Hell, she should be thanking him. Being tied up and threatened sure beat the hell out of a trip to a Black Camp or a lifetime in prison—and those were the more civilized options.

Audrey Lockhart wore ubiquitous jeans over Birkenstocks and a tight white tank top that molded her breasts in a way that left little to Killion’s undeniably vivid imagination, all topped off with a thin purple shirt that she left open. She wasn’t carrying a weapon—unless she had a frog in her pocket. “I’m Dr. Lockhart, I study anurans and my specialty is the family
Dendrobatidae
—poison dart frogs.”

For all intents and purposes she appeared to be exactly what she said. A scientist, dedicated to her research. He rarely trusted appearances. That’s what data analysts, surveillance, and background checks were for—not to mention interrogation.

“I thought captive ones weren’t poisonous?” Killion pointed to a little guy about an inch long that was sitting at a precarious angle on a large green leaf. The creatures didn’t look real—they looked like miniature plastic toys. They certainly didn’t look like the deadliest creatures on the planet. He placed his hand lightly on the redhead’s back, and she sank against him, proving her taste in men was as terrible as his taste in clothes.

The professor’s eyes ran over him and his new squeeze, then away, dismissing him as just another tourist.

She didn’t recognize him from last night. There was no obvious guile in her gaze. No deception.

“You’re right in that individuals bred in captivity have no toxicity, but
these
specimens were pulled straight from the nearby rainforest where they are endemic and, trust me, you wouldn’t survive a close encounter.” Her voice was husky, sexy enough to raise his awareness of her as a female rather than a target.

He’d always had a thing for voices. And nerds.

She continued, growing more serious, “It takes years for them to lose their toxicity, and even touching a paper-towel that has been in contact with the skin of these particular individuals can kill you. They are
extremely
dangerous.”

“Death by frog.” His smirk didn’t reach his eyes. “Bet that ain’t pretty.”

The redhead laughed. The professor did not.

“We’re very careful how we handle them.” She looked stern now, like she was the teacher and he was the naughty schoolboy. And there was his vivid imagination going nuts again.