Original Sin (26 page)

“Stay out of sight,” she said.

Moira crossed to the balcony and, while squatting, slowly opened the door but not the drapes. So far so good. She heard people in the hallway, guests complaining or worried about the power outage. Also good. She said to Rafe, “Stay here, by the door, don’t go out. I have an idea.”

“What?”

“Chaos. That’s a strategy that usually works.”

She ran to the door and listened again, but there were at least a half dozen people chatting in the hallway and she couldn’t distinguish the voices of the men she’d heard outside Rafe’s door. She closed her eyes, picturing the hall as she’d seen it when they first came in. They were three rooms from the end. To the left was the main hallway, and at the far end, the elevators. To the right was the staircase. The bad guys would assume they’d go to the staircase since it was closer. She hoped.

But next to the staircase was the fire alarm.

Outside her door she heard the shrill voice of a woman. “I was drying my hair! My hair is going to frizz if I can’t dry it! Kenny, can’t you do something?”

Moira took that moment to open her door and step out. The woman jumped. “Watch where you’re going!”

By the time she finished her sentence, Moira had opened the small door of the alarm and set it off.

The clanging of the emergency bells and a piercing siren trilled through the hallway.

“What are you doing?” the woman demanded as Moira stepped back into her room, shut the door, and slid both the bolt and the chain.

A swirling red light in the corner of the room had gone on with the alarm, along with a mechanical voice informing them of a possible fire and to leave the building.

“Let’s go,” she said to Rafe. “Stay low.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Ask questions later. We’re going to jump. It’s only about twelve feet.”

In case someone was watching the balcony, she didn’t want to be obvious. The power outage helped some, though the emergency lights didn’t.

“On three,” she said.

They counted together, then she pushed open the sliding glass door and without hesitating, they both ran to the far corner of the wide balcony. They jumped together, rolling to soften the fall, and then were up and running low toward the trees on the north side of the lot where she had parked Jared’s truck.

Moira kept pace with Rafe, who didn’t have all his strength back but was moving fast enough. She spotted Jared’s truck under a street light and turned in that direction, Rafe right behind her. The fire alarm faded in the distance, but she couldn’t hear any sirens. She glanced behind her and saw no one in pursuit, but she didn’t dare slow down.

She hadn’t told Rafe what she’d overheard in the hall, but he needed to know as soon as they were clear that he was in danger. The thugs hadn’t said a word about Moira but had mentioned Rafe by name.

Moira sprinted the last fifty feet so she could get the car open and started by the time Rafe got inside. Keys in hand, she clicked the unlock button and reached for the door at the same time that someone leaped out from between two cars in the next aisle. It happened so fast, while she was focused on who might be behind them, that the tall guy had an extra few seconds to grab her, and he slammed her head against the glass.

Shit!
She tried to shake her head to rid it of the stars in her eyes. She was furious with herself; her instincts weren’t as sharp as they needed to be.

“Well, surprise surprise! It’s little Andra Moira,” the asshole cooed.

“Don’t say that name,” she hissed, jerking against him. He whipped out a knife and spun her around, holding the blade against her throat.

He laughed. “Your mother will be so pleased to see you again,
Andra.”

Rafe watched as Moira was grabbed by the beefy thug and ran forward as if to tackle the attacker, halting ten feet from the truck when the man put a knife at her throat. Blood seeped through a cut on Moira’s forehead. Rafe’s chest burned, but everything around him stilled, his eyesight sharpened, and he focused on the immediate danger to Moira.

“Cooper,” the attacker said, pressing the knife into Moira’s flesh. “Come with me and I won’t kill her.” Blood dotted her pale skin.

“He’s lying.” Moira’s eyes were dark with fear, but her voice was steady. “Run.”

He wouldn’t be alone, Rafe knew. There had been at least two people outside his room, and someone had turned off the power to the hotel. They would be nearby. He didn’t have time to escape, nor would he leave Moira. Moira had dropped the keys when she was grabbed. Rafe had no weapon.

He said, “Let her go and I’ll come.”

“Get out of here, Rafe!” Moira ordered.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Dammit!” She was angry and fought against her attacker’s arm.

Rafe pointedly glanced to Moira’s left and saw that she understood his signal, even though they’d never trained together.

It was going to be risky, because he had to wait. Wait until the attacker’s backup was in sight in order to create a distraction.

“You work for Fiona,” Moira said to the attacker. “You won’t let me live.”

“For a while.”

“Téigh trasna ort féin,”
Moira said. Rafe had no idea what it meant, but it sounded insulting and the thug tightened his hold. The knife dug deeper into her skin. Rafe was slow to anger, but seeing Moira in pain, blood dripping down her neck, had him raging inside. He swallowed the emotion, knowing it would hinder him. Only complete calm and focus could save her.

Rafe saw two men jogging toward them from behind the hotel. He turned his head to get Moira’s attacker’s attention. When he looked in that direction, the knife wavered just a fraction.

Simultaneously, Moira reached up between the attacker’s hand and her body, grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted it, and slammed it against the cab of the truck so hard Rafe heard a bone snap. She kicked the creep in the groin as Rafe reached down for the keys on the ground. He came up and grabbed the man’s other arm, pulling him away from the truck and pushing him hard into the ground as Moira grabbed the knife he’d dropped when she broke his wrist. Rafe slipped Moira the keys while she handed him her dagger.

A bullet ricocheted off the truck.

“Get in,” she ordered Rafe as she opened the door. “Slide over.”

Two men were running their way and firing weapons. As Moira was shutting the door, she cried out. “Shit!”

She locked the doors and turned the ignition simultaneously, tears leaking out of her eyes as she bit back the pain and drove fast out of the parking lot.

“You okay?” he asked, glancing behind him.

“I’m fine.”

He looked at her left arm and saw a hole in the leather jacket. “You were shot!”

“It’s minor. Just hurts like a bitch, but I’m fine.”

They weren’t out of the woods yet. He saw a car behind them. “The gunmen are in a sedan. They’re following.”

“I need to lose them. Hold on. Put on your seat belt.”

“You’re not—”

“Do what I say!”

She had definitely been trained by Rico Cortese, Rafe thought. She sounded just like him. He did as she said and noticed that she winced when she put her left hand on the steering wheel.

He grabbed the door handle as Moira spun the truck in a one-eighty. She then drove straight at their pursuers, turning on the high beams.

“Moira—” Rafe felt helpless as she increased speed.

The game of chicken was quickly over. Moira moved left, which the pursuing car didn’t expect, and the driver overcompensated and jerked the car off the road.

Moira braked quickly but steadily. She spun the car around again and continued in her original direction, away from the hotel.

“Rico never taught me that move,” Rafe said.

She was shaking. “Rico didn’t teach me it either. I just made it up,” she said. She glanced in her rearview mirror. No one behind. “I’m good on the fly.”

She shot a look at Rafe, then focused on the road ahead. “I heard what those men said outside your room. Fiona wants you alive. What do you have that she needs?”

Rafe slammed his fist on the dashboard. “I don’t know!”

“We’d better figure it out sooner rather than later, because she’s not going to stop until she succeeds.”

TWENTY-TWO

After nearly twelve years as a cop, and the last two as sheriff, very little surprised Skye McPherson.

Today surprised her.

It wasn’t just that a teenage girl was left naked and dead on the cliffs in an apparent occult ritual—which may or may not have been murder.

Or that a sweet, mild-mannered librarian had stolen a classic 1964 Mustang and committed suicide by driving off the cliffs and into the rocks at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

Or that she’d been called to a hostage situation at Rittenhouse Furniture that night that ended in death when David Collins shot the gunman. There were four deaths and two survivors—one of whom was in critical condition. The other, customer Ashley Beecher McCracken, was hysterical and under sedation at the hospital. Skye hoped to get a statement from her in the morning.

It was that Skye had faced all these deaths in one twenty-four-hour period—only ten weeks after the massacre at the mission.

She finally arrived home after midnight. She knew Anthony was there—her sheriff’s truck was in the driveway. She’d parked behind it in the marked sedan she’d borrowed from the pool. The shower was on, and she considered joining him … but what she really wanted was a shot of whiskey.

As if all this death and dying wasn’t enough, the D.A., Martin Truxel, had waylaid her at the hospital after the shooter, Ned Nichols, was declared D.O.A. Truxel made it perfectly clear that he would make Raphael Cooper’s disappearance and Abby Weatherby’s murder major issues in her upcoming election against his hand-chosen candidate, Assistant Sheriff Thomas Williams.

Whiskey in front of her, she stood at the kitchen counter, palms down, and replayed the conversation over and over.

“You’re incompetent, McPherson. I’m watching these investigations closely. And you.”

She’d never liked the arrogant, ladder-climbing D.A., but now she was scared. If he dug too deeply, not only was her job at stake, but so were those of everyone else who had helped her cover up what happened on the cliffs during the fire that claimed three lives. Juan Martinez, Rod Fielding, even Deputy David Collins had helped her clean up after the fact, no questions asked, because they trusted her.

David was extremely upset about what happened tonight at Rittenhouse. So was she, but he blamed himself because he’d told Grace Chin to stay in the bathroom, that he was coming in to save her.

And Ned Nichols had shot her while Skye was talking to Grace on the phone. It was a living nightmare. When Skye closed her eyes, she heard Grace’s scream, then the gunshots. She would never forget.

“Skye?”

She turned around. Anthony stood there in jeans and no shirt, his skin damp from his shower, his shoulder-length hair brushed slick down the nape of his neck, curling at the ends. The scar from where he’d been stabbed on the cliffs was still dark across his stomach. She’d almost lost him ten weeks ago. She loved him so much her chest ached, and she wanted to break down and hold him forever.

“Skye, honey, what’s wrong?”

She wiped at her damp eyes. She wasn’t crying, she just wanted to. “It’s been an awful day, an even worse night.” She looked down at the glass of whiskey she’d poured but now didn’t want. She pushed it aside.

Anthony pulled out a chair and sat her down on it, then sat across from her. He kissed her lightly on the lips, so light, so sweet, but she didn’t want light
or
sweet. She wanted hot, passionate sex with Anthony right now. She wanted to pull down his jeans, kiss him everywhere, make love to him on the table, the floor, anywhere as long as they were together, touching, naked.

“Talk to me.”

She shook her head and pulled him to her, kissed him hard and long, pushing her tongue into his, drawing it into her mouth. He met her lust, kiss for kiss, stroke for stroke.

His lips were hard and warm against hers, his body solid, fresh soap and a hint of something mysterious on his flesh. He made her wild with need, for him, only him.

His hands moved down her back, up her shirt, hot against her cold skin. She wrapped her arms around his neck, fisting his damp hair in her hands, rubbing his neck, his shoulders, unable to keep her hands still.

“Skye—”

“Don’t talk. Make love to me.”

She pulled off her shirt and felt his bare skin against hers. She was urgent, moaning as her nipples pressed against his chest, as his large hand pushed between them and molded around her breast.

She fumbled with his jeans. He had to stand so she could push them down, along with his briefs, and his semi-hard cock grew under her touch. He knelt in front of her, kissed her, his hands on her breasts. She pushed his head from her lips downward, and he took one small breast into his mouth, his hand cupping and squeezing the other. She gasped as his teeth lightly bit her nipple, then reached down and squeezed him, pulling him closer to her.

“Skye—” he whispered into her chest.

“Shh.” He always wanted to make sure she was comfortable, that she was enjoying herself, so concerned about her that he never really let himself
go
. She wanted him to lose control with her, to want her so much that he took everything she offered and more. He was too damn restrained, too damn
noble
.

But she didn’t want to talk about it, not now; she just wanted Anthony in her, over her, any way she could get him. He was hers; she wanted to mark him.

Very unlike her. She swallowed uneasily, then Anthony whispered in her ear, “I love you, Skye,” as he stood, helping her to her feet.

He slid off her uniform pants and panties together, and she was naked. He picked her up to carry her to the bedroom. Always the gentleman. Always chivalrous.

“Right here, right now,” she said, using her body to direct him toward the counter. Uncertain, he sat her on the edge and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He was exactly the right height to make love to her like this.