Night Game (29 page)

“But why would Parsons investigate here, in New Orleans, a man who would kill not only him, but his entire family?” She rubbed her forehead, a little frown on her face. “If he’s pretending to be friends, he’s playing a very dangerous and stupid game. And if they are friends, then he’s dirty right along with Saunders.”

“Who else did the agency have? They couldn’t get any one near Saunders and Parsons was already here and he knew Saunders socially. He had no choice.” His hand dropped to the nape of her neck, easing the tension out with his strong fingers. He kept his gaze on the three men as they tried without much success to read signs. The rain had been heavy all through the night and it was already beginning to drizzle again. It was obvious from the way they moved in the mud, the sweat on their clothes, and the way they slapped at all the insects, that the men weren’t used to the heat and mud of the bayou. They wouldn’t last long.

“You got all that information from Lily, didn’t you?”

He glanced up at the recrimination in her voice. We’re just goin’ to have to agree to disagree about Lily, sugah. Peter Whitney can burn in hell for what he did to you, but Lily is as much a victim as you are, maybe more. She believed he loved her. She even thought he was her biological father.”

Flame turned her face away from him. The rain came down harder, drenching them in spite of the canopy of trees. The three men jumped back into their vehicle, obviously consulting with one another before driving up the frontage road a short distance, past the remains of the burnt-out houseboat. The men looked at the blackened ruins and then pulled a U-turn and proceeded back toward the freeway.

Flame started to rise. Gator’s fingers tapped her wrist and he shook his head, holding up his hand for silence. He held up two fingers and pointed back toward the interior of the swamp.

Flame remained crouched in the mud, listening. She’d been so focused on the three men she hadn’t paid much attention to anything else. The familiar rhythm of the swamp was off-key. There was the hum of insects and the croak of frogs, even the scurrying of lizards through the brush, but something was slightly off-kilter. She closed her eyes and heard the soft whisper of material against bark. Someone was stealthily climbing down from a tree. It took a few minutes to pick up the steady heartbeat.

“Now who do you suppose has come looking for us?” she asked softly.

“Don’ jump to conclusions,
cher
. I’m going to circle around and see if I can spot him. I don’t want you killin’ anyone before breakfast.”

“You know he’s probably enhanced, Raoul. He’s here looking to find out what happened to his buddy. We can follow him when he leaves. Don’t go giving him a target. And don’t tip him off that we know he’s here.”

Gator laid a hand over his heart. “You think so little of my abilities. I may be charmin’,
cher
, but I know my stuff. He isn’t going to see me.”

The tightness in her chest increased tenfold. She grabbed his arm to keep him with her. She couldn’t, wouldn’t lose him. “You can’t go, Raoul.”

The little catch in her voice was his undoing. He ran missions all the time, most of them in the deadliest hot spots of the world, but here she was, looking up at him with fear in her eyes, fear for him, and he couldn’t move. “Kiss me.”

“What?” She scowled at him. “Are you crazy?”

“Right here. Right now. You kiss me.”

“Or what? You’re going to go play hide-and-seek with more killers? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Gator caught her arms and pulled her to him, his mouth coming down on hers. “He’s spotted us and he’s coming toward us. For God’s sake, don’t kill him. Can you get a good jump off your leg?” He whispered the words into her mouth, breathing into her, his tongue :easing even as he issued the warning.

“I’ll go left,” she said.

“We need him to escape and lead us back to whoever sent him,” he reminded, tightening his grip on her.

She kissed him back, leaning into him, pretending to be oblivious to the approaching man. She couldn’t help enjoying Raoul’s mouth or the subtle way his body moved against hers. All the while she listened for the approach of the man stalking them.

He was right on them when she felt rather than heard Gator say “now” against her lips. Simultaneously they crouched and leapt, pushing off each other, springing up into the air and backward, Flame to the left, Gator to the right, somersaulting in perfect synchronization to land behind their enemy. Flame saw the gun in his hand and he instinctively turned toward Gator, thinking him the bigger threat. She launched herself in the air again, this time wrapping her legs around the man’s neck in a scissors hold.

They both went down hard. He lost his grip on his rifle, reaching back to try to break her hold before she strangled him. Flame locked her legs together, exerting more pressure in an effort to subdue him fast. He pounded on her leg with his fist, three short, hard punches that took her breath away. Her leg was already damaged from the day before and she couldn’t focus away from the pain enough to keep the pressure on him.

Gator kicked their assailant in the head hard as he reached down and jerked her to her feet. “He’s got partners. Get out of here. There are more of them.” He shoved her toward the canal. “Run, damn it.”

She didn’t hear anything, but she felt the telltale rush of her senses, a heavy dread that signaled far more danger. Flame ran, but her leg was throbbing, every step jarring her. She tried to hide it, jumping over the fallen logs in their way and racing toward safety. Gator dropped behind her, covering her back as they zigzagged through the e and brush to leap into the reed-choked canal. He shoved her underwater as bullets spit into the water around them. Keeping contact, they dove as deep as possible, using the rotting logs and plants on the bottom to pull them away from the island and out toward more open water.

With the enhancement of their bodies, both could stay underwater far longer than normal so they swam away from the island and the debris of the houseboat. Gator directed her with hand signals on her body and she followed him until her lungs were burning. She tapped his shoulder to signal she needed to go up for air. They were in much deeper water. He signaled that they needed to make it a few more feet ahead.

Flame knew Raoul had a specific spot in mind, somewhere safe, but her body was wearing out. She’d noticed that lately she didn’t have the stamina she usually had. She caught his belt loop, afraid she’d try to surface before they were safe and she’d get him killed. She’d always worked alone and having someone else to worry about was frightening—especially when she liked him so much. Too much.

She gasped as they came up, gulping for air, dragging it into her burning lungs. Gator came up behind her, his arm circling her waist. They were screened from the island by both a rise in the contour of the island as well as plants growing along the edge of the basin they were in.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded, controlling her heartbeat and the adrenaline charging through her system. “Why the hell didn’t we hear them? We should have known they were there. What’s going on?” She hadn’t been afraid of the first hunter, but something about the eerie stillness, the complete silence of the others had given her the willies. It hadn’t even been the same feeling as with the sniper the day before. She’d known he was there. The swamp had known it. But these men had been able to hide their presence not only from Raoul and her, hut also from the swamp itself.

Gator studied the shore surrounding the island. There was only one man he knew of that could be that silent. That scary. That much of a ghost. Kadan Montague could move through the world almost as if he were invisible. No one really knew how he did it—not even the other GhostWalkers. He was quiet and dangerous, a strong telepath and a man few argued with. He had gifts none of them really understood and even Lily wasn’t talking much about them. One of Kadan’s strongest talents was his ability to shield the entire team from detection. Had that talent been duplicated in another man? Gator had the sinking feeling it could be so.

“Do you know them?” Flame asked.

She was shivering in the water. The rain had begun again, a relentless downpour that added to their misery.

“I don’t know. I didn’t catch a glimpse of any of them. Did you?”

She shook her head. “The big one is heading back toward the road. I can hear him. He’s limping.” There was satisfaction in her voice.

It couldn’t be Kadan. Gator was almost certain of that, but the fact remained, whoever was in the swamp was trained in Special Forces, and they were enhanced.

CHAPTER 12

“Come on, Raoul. He’ll get away from us. Let’s get to the airboat.”

His arm clamped her to his side. “He’s bait. The others haven’t left with him. They’re out there, watching the surface of the water for one small change, one shift in the way the reeds wave. The
only
thing we have going for us is the rain.”

“I can make my way to the airboat and follow the other one to see where he goes. I’ll swim underwater. I’m not losing my chance at finding out who’s behind killing Burrell. You stay and fight the ghost, I’m out of here.”

His arm pressed hard into her side. “You already know that Saunders had Burrell killed. You just want to see who this one reports back to, and we both know it won’t be Saunders. I’m telling you it’s too dangerous to move until we get a direction on his partners.”

For a moment she stiffened against him, then slowly relaxed, letting her breath hiss through her teeth. “Now you believe Whitney’s alive?”

“Maybe. Something’s going on here and it isn’t connected to Burrell or Joy. We’ve stumbled into something on…“ Gator trailed off. Maybe it wasn’t about any of them, not even Flame. He glanced at her. She didn’t look intimidated, she looked determined—and as mad as hell. “If I knew where they were, I could use sound to draw them out, but I have no idea of their direction.” He said it more as a warning to her than as an option.

“I can’t even get them with echolocation, the same as the first sniper. These men have to be enhanced, Raoul.”

There was something in her voice he didn’t like. Rising suspicion perhaps. She had been beginning to trust him. He couldn’t exactly blame her if she suddenly was thinking conspiracy—he was beginning to think it as well. “I’m going to try something.”

Gator wasn’t the strongest telepath in the GhostWalker squad, but, if necessary, he could reach out to someone who was strong. He either believed in Kadan or he didn’t, and the truth was, Kadan was one of the GhostWalkers. He would always be. No one was going to buy him off, blackmail him, or threaten him. Kadan would stand with his own. Flame wouldn’t see it that way, but he knew now she wasn’t ever going to come around voluntarily to the idea of belonging to the GhostWalkers. And he wasn’t going to let her influence him when he knew absolutely his friends were above suspicion.

Kadan. I’m in trouble. We’re pinned down and need help.

He waited, drew Flame’s shivering body a little closer to him. Her arms slipped around his neck and she leaned more of her weight against him. He turned his head to rub his face against her neck. “It takes patience. Most of the time, whoever moves first, dies first.”