Solving the Mysterious Stranger

“I don’t scream,” she hissed, her words a lot braver than her voice.

Her bravado made him angry.

Damn it, Amelia, don’t be stupid. Stupid people often didn’t live long enough to regret their actions.

“Do you cry?” he growled. “Because I can break your fingers one at a time and keep you conscious so you can feel each bone crack.”

Her head jerked. He’d gotten to her. She might not scream, might not even fear death, but she did fear pain.

“You are talented, aren’t you?” she retorted, her voice hoarse with the strain of staying calm.

He almost smiled through his anger. Her courage was ill-aimed, but she had plenty of it. “Don’t mess with me, sweetheart. You’re making me angry, and I promise you won’t like me when I’m angry.”

“I don’t like you now.” She swallowed again, stronger this time. “What do you want from me?”

He ignored her question. “Pick up that case you dropped. I don’t want anything to look out of place.”

He loosed his hold long enough for her to scoop up the case, and then he nudged her forward. “Move it.”

Unexpectedly, she twisted, trying to break his grip. Instinctively, he jerked her back.

She gasped.

“Don’t try that again. I promise you’ll regret it. I can knock you out if I have to.”

“Wow. Is there no end to what you can do?”

“You’ve got me beat at stand-up comedy.” He scowled. She was afraid, but her wisecracks taunted him. He had to watch himself. This wasn’t a silly flirtation, nor a prelude to a date. It was an abduction—a deadly serious business.

He couldn’t afford to lose sight of his goal for one second.

They came to a fork in the gravel road. If he continued up toward her house, the rocks would block his view of the harbor, and he needed to see the boats. So he pushed her in the other direction, down toward the Hopkins’s boatyard.

“Where…are you taking me?”

He knew what she was thinking. From the moment he’d first heard about Amelia Hopkins and the Global Freedom Front’s plans, her fate had haunted him—that’s why he’d gone to their leader and requested this job.

Thank God he’d earned the terrorist leader’s respect. It had taken him three years, but he’d finally managed to get close enough to Chien Fou to ensure that whatever he asked for, he got.

The idea that one of his fellow seamen might lay his hands on Amelia sickened Cole. Yet he knew that in the deepest, most shameful corner of his soul, the idea of taking her, willingly or not, titillated him.

He disgusted himself.

“Look, whoever you are. I have money. Lots of it,” she said desperately. “I’ll make sure you’re set for life. Just please don’t—”

“Shut up!” he snapped.

Off to the north, the boats were moving. Amelia spotted them as soon as he did. She stopped.

“What’s going on down there?”

The boats were rigged like pirate ships, flying the Jolly Roger. Cole heard cheers and laughter coming from the little town below.

Chien Fou’s ruse had worked. Cole pictured exactly what the townsfolk saw.

Ships with black sails and orange pirate flags. Seamen with red rags around their heads and knives in their teeth.

“Oh, dear heavens,” Amelia whispered, and craned her neck to look up at him.

He met her gaze for the third time and, just like the first, when he’d put himself in her path as she came out of the fortune-teller’s booth, and the second in the crowded pub, her eyes glowed like Tupelo honey.

Her expression morphed from puzzlement to confusion to horror within the space of a second.

“You!” she stormed.

He nodded and curved his mouth in what he hoped was a sneer. “You don’t look like the type who’d pay a fortune-teller. What’d she tell you—beware of strangers?”

Two spots of crimson flared across her cheekbones. His pulse jumped. So the fortune-teller had gotten his message across. Or spilled the beans about the weird guy and his odd request.

“What’s going on down there? Who are they?” Her head jerked toward the boats.

“Who knows? Pirates. Revelers. Paid performers.” He heard the sting in his own voice.

“No, they’re not.”

She was entirely too intuitive.

“They’re not part of the festival. Something’s happening. Something bad.” She surprised him by jerking against his thumb, a classic self-defense move. She took off running.

Damn it. He threw himself after her. She was nimble and quick, skipping down the cliff-side path, her high heels clicking on the rocks.

Then suddenly she went down. Her fancy boots were her undoing, just as he’d predicted.

He caught up to her in no time. She lay in an awkward heap on a jutting rock, her eyes glittering like gold nuggets—or hot coals.

Cole examined the line of her body. Was she hurt? Or was she feigning? At this point, he wouldn’t put anything past her.

Then he saw it. The long skinny heel of her boot appeared caught under a rock.

“I knew I should have brought my purse. I carry a gun. I could have shot you.”

“No purse? Then what’s this?” he asked, picking up the metal case she kept dropping when she fell.

“Give me that.”

He examined it. “What is it?”

“Nothing you’d be interested in.”