Deception Island

He didn’t want them to know what he was doing. Why? I need you to carry this, he’d said. Like he was asking a favor, like they were in this together. He pushed the harness under her legs. Lifting her hips, she let him slide it under her bottom and up over her back and waist, her body fizzing with awareness of his touch. Ridiculous. She sure had a talent for being attracted to the wrong man. Evidently her mind and body hadn’t learned a thing since Jasper had sucked her in when she was nineteen and spat her out four years later, right into the eager hands of the Feds. You’re sworn off men, remember?

She allowed the capitaine to pull her to her feet. The sat phone was hers—now she just needed a few minutes to fire it up and get out a message. He leaned in to adjust the harness and check the clips.

“I don’t get it. What’s the harness for?”

“Safety.” His forehead was etched with concentration as he yanked tight the straps on her shoulders.

The man who’d been waiting in the shadows sauntered up and spoke. He was nearly as big as the capitaine and wore a grubby pilot’s cap. The capitaine’s gaze flicked up to catch hers for a second, eyes hooded in warning, then he calmly turned, picked up her backpack and threaded it onto his chest. The man grabbed it and yabbered something, sharply. The capitaine shrugged and muttered a reply, pulling off the bag and unzipping it. He held it out in offering. The man reached in and pulled out a bottle of shampoo, then dug around thoroughly, emerging with a bra. He held it up and grinned a gap-toothed smile.

“Give that back, you pervert.” Holly stepped forward. The capitaine shot out an arm and she tumbled into it, forced to grab his shoulder to keep from falling.

“Easy, princess.” He yanked the bra from the man’s hands, stuffed it into the bag, zipped it and pulled it back onto his chest. He strode a few yards to a larger bag she hadn’t noticed—not the one he’d pulled the jumpsuits from—and lifted it onto his back, fiddling with clips and straps.

The pervert strolled toward Holly, thumbs tucked in his belt loops, buggy eyes checking her out like she was dessert. She shuffled backward, not trusting herself to take large steps. He pulled up inches from her, his breath stinking like fish oil, and reached for her hair. “Miss America,” he whispered, in a murky accent.

She ducked away, fighting to keep her balance. If he made a play for her, what could she do? She could hardly stand up straight, let alone defend herself.

Suddenly, he lurched sideways and sprawled onto the ground. He snapped out several words, anger flashing in his eyes. The capitaine stood over him, drawn up to full height, chest massive, jaw set, arm still outstretched from shoving him. Playing good cop, bad cop?

No—she’d been caught in that game enough times to know this was for real. He was protecting her, all right. Just what was the dynamic here?

The capitaine spoke, quiet and dangerous. The pervert’s eyes narrowed. He scrambled to his feet and spat on the ground, an inch from her foot, but maintained his distance. She exhaled. Thank God that wasn’t about to happen, at least.

The man unleashed a series of bitter words and held out his hand to the capitaine, palm up. The capitaine slapped a mobile phone into it. So that was why he was so keen on her equipment—he wasn’t allowed his own. Someone else had to be pulling the strings, leaving him to do the dirty work. Was he a hired gun? His bearing and commanding tone weren’t those of a lowly henchman. This was a man accustomed to leading, a man who didn’t trust whomever he was taking orders from. That conflict could work to her advantage, as could his evident protective instinct, if she played it right. And if she was good at anything, it was playing people.

The pervert fiddled with the phone and held it up. The flash seared her eyes. Taking photographic evidence she was alive? How long did they plan to keep her that way?

* * *

Half an hour later she sat cross-legged on the cold metal floor at the back of the plane, g-forces churning her stomach and spinning her head. If her balance had been warped before, it was tied in knots now. The seawater soaking her clothes felt like it was snapping into ice in the chill of the altitude. Fat lot of use the jumpsuit was.

And what was with the transparent plastic roller door on one side of the plane? What kind of scrap-heap plane had a door like that, and no seats? The wiry man sat beside it, gun slung over his shoulder, beady eyes staring at her. Only a finger-width of metal and a pervert pilot at the controls separated her from a couple of vertical miles of nothing, with a sudden stop at the bottom. At least the roar of the engine was muffled by the helmet the capitaine had eased over her head. But why the goggles and harness? He hadn’t clipped her to the plane, so what was the point? Or had the whole getup been an excuse to find hiding places for the electronics?

She struggled for breath, the thinness of the air escalating the growing panic of watching her window of escape close. She swallowed, hard, to equalize her ears. Her body might have given in—for now—but her mind certainly hadn’t. The electronics equipment digging into her ribs was as good as an escape pod.

The capitaine eased up behind her. She flinched. He cradled his legs around hers, his knees splayed either side of her waist. “Time to strap up,” he shouted. “We’re approaching the dro...” The thundering engine engulfed his words.

“The what?”

He fastened a series of clips at her shoulders and waist and pulled on the straps, yanking her spine hard up against the backpack strapped to his chest. They were clipped together? He stretched out his legs so they rested, hot and solid, either side of her thighs. Her heart sped up. Okay, this was getting weird.

“When we open the door, wrap your legs around the undercarriage of the plane.”

“When we what? Are we landing?” She hadn’t noticed a drop in altitude.

“When we jump, I need your chest out, legs curled back and head up. You know this, yes? Like a banana. A banana with its arms out.”

“Jump? Are you shitting me?”

“Hold tight. The plane will turn.”

She swayed in time with the capitaine as the plane banked, then corrected. The thin man gave the thumbs-up and rolled up the plastic door. Wind whistled into the plane, flapping the guy’s bandanna. Holly clutched for a handhold on something, anything. All she found was the capitaine’s thighs. His quads clenched into rock under her gloves. Her belly lurched. They were parachuting? He pushed forward. She resisted, but he had all the power. She tried to twist away. He grabbed her arms and straightened her.

“If you want to live, do what I say,” he shouted into her ear. “If you fight this, if you grab for me, I might not be able to pull the cord and we’ll both die. Best thing you can do right now is relax.”

Relax? What kind of a psycho was he? He slid forward, shoving her ahead of him. Her stomach churned like a washing machine.

“Don’t be so tense, princess. I’ve done this a thousand times.”

“Pushing your luck then, aren’t you?”

Another shove and her legs dangled out the door. Nothing but thin air lay between her shoes and the ocean. A whole lot of thin air. The water shone silver in the moonlight, interrupted by patches of darkness, like black holes. She retched, and clamped her mouth shut. Vomit would only spray right back into her face.

“Best not to look down.”

No kidding. She snapped her focus straight ahead. Death was not in her game plan. As the man said, she had no choice but to trust him, for the next few minutes, at least. Just as well he was a 250-pound slab of muscle.

No. That made no sense, right? Wouldn’t his weight just mean they’d hit the ground with a bigger smack? Would she hit first, or would he? Physics had never been her thing.

“Don’t forget, wrap your legs backward,” he shouted. “Rest your head back on my shoulder and look up. When we’re in the air, keep your arms extended and curl your legs back. Banana, remember?”

Holy Moses. She was really going to do this. Wind buffeted her jumpsuit, flattening the fabric against her. She didn’t need encouragement to wrap herself into him. If she could nail their bodies together, she would. He’d obviously done this before, and right now the more immediate threat was the deep blue sea—or worse, the land. She closed her eyes, tried to block her thoughts. Banana, banana, banana.

Her stomach plummeted. Air rushed at her exposed cheeks. Her eyes flicked open. A shadow loomed overhead, retreating. The plane. Oh man, they were falling. Her sinuses pinched. Her nerves pelted panicked messages into her brain. Even through the goggles, she struggled to keep her eyes open. A piece of fabric flapped against her cheek like a jackhammer. What was she supposed to do again? Arms back, legs extended? No, the other way around. They righted and stretched out parallel to the earth as wind buffeted her jumpsuit. The pull of the harness suggested the capitaine was still attached, at least.

The pain behind her eyes intensified, as if someone was shoving needles into her skull. Was something about to pop? This couldn’t be healthy. An hour or so ago she was being rocked to sleep by a gentle ocean swell, and now this?

She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing her mind to imagine herself skimming over the water in a yacht, as she had every endless night in prison, returning her to the happiest time of her life: the three years she’d spent working at the sailing school in Los Angeles, trading honest labor for a place to crash and a chance to sail. But then she’d fallen for the wrong man and got suckered into running cons for him by her desperation for love and money and survival. Yada yada yada.

Pressure thumped into her chest, and something yanked them upwards. Oh, God. What had gone wrong? She opened her eyes. A red parachute stretched above them. The rush of the wind had silenced, leaving her panting the only sound. They’d stopped dead, as if suspended.

“Holy crap,” she said. People did that for fun?

“How was that?” He sounded as if he was grinning.

“Terrifying, you jerk. You could have warned me.”

“Anticipation only makes it worse. Do you trust me now?”

“Even less.”

“An hour ago you probably thought that wasn’t possible.”

Was it only an hour since they’d left the inflatable? How far could a small plane fly in half of that? In the hull, in the darkness, she’d had no grasp of their direction. “Where are we?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Because you don’t know?”