They were drowned in darkness. “How did you know this was here?” she whispered.
His chuckle belonged to a much younger man. “I know something about secret passageways. Judging by the fortified armaments, I guessed this hacienda was owned by a drug lord or other unscrupulous type. And drug lords always have secret passageways.”
“That doesn’t explain—”
“Is now the time, or should we simply make a run for it?”
At that moment, an alarm sounded. Screeching wails blasted around them, though the painful pitch was muted by the walls behind which they hid.
“I guess someone figured out we’re up to no good,” she said.
“It’s been years since I’ve been up to no good,” Paschal said wistfully, then tugged her tight into his arms. “Let’s make the most of it, shall we?”
***
“This is Mariah. You know what to do.”
With a curse, Ben snapped his cell phone shut. He’d already left three messages. Why he’d thought for five seconds that his ex would be hanging around town, twiddling her thumbs, waiting to provide aid in his personal crisis, he didn’t know. Mariah Hunter was a lot of things, but accessible wasn’t one of them—not unless she had something to gain.
“Any luck?” Cat asked, glancing at him from the driver’s seat.
He shoved the phone into his pocket. “No, but keep going. I know where she keeps her bird. I’m sure she won’t mind if I borrow it for a few hours.”
“What if she’s taken it?”
Ben would deal with that contingency when and if necessary. Born into a family of bush pilots from the Northern Territory of Australia, Mariah preferred her Cessna to her Eurocopter. She’d won the chopper in a poker game and the craft had saved both their asses more than once during their string of retrieval operations in southern Mexico. Ben hoped the whirlybird would provide the same good luck this time. if Cat’s visions were accurate—and he had no reason to believe they weren’t—they didn’t have much time to rescue Paschal from the Hill Country before all hell broke loose.
“If she’s got the bird,” he replied, “we’ll take her Cessna and make do.”
“Do you always go around stealing your ex-girlfriend’s flying machines?”
He eyed her suspiciously. “I didn’t say she was my ex-girlfriend.”
“You didn’t have to. There’s a growl in your voice when you say her name. Not a sexy growl, either. More like a mad dog.”
“I don’t growl,” he claimed, but even he heard the guttural undertone in his voice.
Cat snickered and Ben just shook his head. He should have known better than to try and be coy around a gifted psychic like Cat, whose abilities were growing every minute.
“Ma-ri-ah,” he said, stringing out the name so he could enunciate each syllable without snarling, “owes me. And right now, she’s all we’ve got.”
Without his reminding her, Cat switched lanes and took the exit that led to Mariah’s hangar. “I called Alexa,” she offered. “She’s not answering her satellite phone, but her assistant is on alert and can arrange a ride for us in thirty minutes, tops. Crown Chandler has all sorts of private transportation at its disposal.”
Ben checked his watch. They were only ten minutes from the private airport on the outskirts of San Antonio where many of the pilots had questionable pasts, so for the right price, few questions were asked. If the guards remembered him, they would be able to get in and out with minimal fuss.
“That’ll be Plan B, but we’re too close to Mariah’s place to wait for Alexa to pull her strings and get us a lift. Let’s just hope we won’t need a Plan C.”
As they pulled off the highway onto an unlit, single-lane road, Ben had to face the fact that seeking out Mariah was more than just necessary to save his father. Until Cat came into his life, Ben had thought that his ex had destroyed his ability to trust and his ability to care about a woman who, with her innate sensual power, had the means to carve even the strongest man’s heart into a bitter shell. Ben hadn’t realized how high he’d valued his romantic ideals until Mariah had torn them down.
His mother had loved his father in ways Ben never could completely understand. And his father had capitulated to his mother’s every whim—except when it conflicted with one of his mysterious jaunts to retrieve this or that item related to Gypsy lore. Ben had taken up antiquities hunting honestly, so to speak, then had fallen hard for Mariah the first time she’d acted as his partner in crime. He’d been a fool, but so what? He was done hating himself for wearing his heart on his sleeve, where Mariah had had easy access to rip it to shreds. In the four years since their definitive breakup, he’d healed. He’d kept his relationships superficial, but he’d healed.
If he hadn’t, Cat wouldn’t have seeped into his bloodstream so easily.
Luckily for Ben, Cat was as resourceful as she was beautiful. With a wad of cash provided by her heiress friend, Cat bought them onto the airfield property. Two hidden keys, three security codes and a picked lock later, and they were in Mariah’s hangar. Thanks to his ex’s obsessive need to be ready to depart in the shortest amount of time, Ben and Cat were in the air in less than an hour.
“She’s going to kill you, isn’t she?” Cat asked into the speaker that fed into Ben’s headphones.
“If she hasn’t killed me by now, taking her bird in an emergency isn’t going to push her over the edge.”
Cat flashed him a dubious look, then opened the map across her lap. She’d circled the area where she’d sensed Paschal was being held, and Ben had already charted the coordinates into the navigation system. Compared to Mariah, he was a rank amateur as a pilot, but he could get them there.
Question was, could he get them back?
Even at dicey airstrips like Mariah’s, security kept him from bringing his gun with him. Fortunately, he’d known where to look for Mariah’s. He had a high-powered rifle for himself and a pistol for Cat, though she’d refused to touch the weapon unless absolutely necessary. Another difference between her and Mariah.
They seemed to be adding up, which forced Ben to realize that he was, like so many men before him, a complete and total idiot.
After twenty minutes in the air, Cat asked, “We should be close now, right?”
He checked the navigation computer and found she was correct. “You’ve got a great sense of direction.”
Catalina smirked. “Thanks to this,” she said, holding up the catalog of swords she had taken from his father’s secret room. Of all of Paschal’s belongings, including the diary, she’d claimed this one had given off the most intense vibrations. His father hadn’t shown much interest in weaponry before. Gypsies weren’t the types to sign up for anyone’s war. But he didn’t waste time questioning her. Not with his father’s life on the line.
“We need to go in low,” he said, scanning the countryside, “and look for a clearing where we can put this down as close to the place where they’re holding him as possible. Since they didn’t ask for ransom or contact anyone, they’re likely not expecting a rescue attempt.”
And yet, as they flew over the estate where Cat sensed Paschal was being held, Ben spotted fortifications that made his skin crawl. Far from any lit road, the spacious hacienda was surrounded by a tall fence, likely electrified, judging by the red lights on the posts that blinked at regular intervals. The land abutted a shadowy ravine. The rock slope, even from a distance, looked difficult to traverse without equipment, and while Mariah was an accomplished climber, he doubted she stored her gear on board the whirlybird.
Otherwise, he’d done the right thing in hijacking Mariah’s helicopter. By land, they’d be spotted easily. Trouble was, how could they possibly put down inside the grounds without being seen? They couldn’t. But if they landed nearby and hiked in, how would they get past the electrified fence?
“We could always knock on the front door,” Cat suggested.
He understood the irony in her tone when he saw armed men standing in the lit entryway. Unfortunately, they saw him as well. One fired. The other tore inside.
Ben pulled up and spun away from the estate. Once clear, he found a safe spot to hover while he organized his thoughts.
“We’re not ready for this kind of operation,” Ben said. He loved his father. He couldn’t bear to think he’d be hurt simply because his son failed to come up with a decent plan.
Cat reached across and laid her hand on his leg. “Too bad for us. We either move in now or never.”
“Did you sense something?”
Closing her eyes, Cat paused before replying. “Anxiety. Trouble is, I don’t know if it’s mine or your father’s. Or even yours.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“Of course you are. You’re diving headfirst into a dangerous situation with no reconnaissance and no clue if my vision is even remotely accurate. For all you know, your father is hundreds of miles away and I’m just some freak who has delusions of grandeur.”
Ben laughed, covering her hand with his. “You? Not possible. You’re just an average nutcase. Beautiful, sexy and resourceful, but still crazy as hell for hanging out with me.”
“Now isn’t the time to discuss the advantages of mental health,” Cat said, scanning the landscape below them. “I say we put this baby down on the other side of those trees, kill the engine and figure out what to do next.”
“Have you got a plan?”
“I thought that was your specialty.”
Ben piloted the chopper to the clearing she’d indicated, grinning as ideas started spinning through his head, each crazier and riskier than the last.
Twenty Seven
As the secret panel leading into the garage slid open, Gemma tucked her blouse back into her slacks. The alarms had stopped. An army of footsteps had stomped out of the hacienda, including, if she wasn’t mistaken, the cool, clipped gait of Farrow Pryce. If she was going to move Paschal, she had to act without delay.
He eased up behind her, the scent of his cologne screwing with her senses in ways she didn’t want to admit.
“Now what, Mata Hari?”
“We get the hell out of here,” she replied.
“You don’t think Pryce alerted his guards to stop us?”
“Probably. That’s why we need to act fast.”
The garage was deserted. The security cameras inside this portion of the house activated when a garage door was opened—either the one from the house or the one that led outside. They had a few minutes to work out a plan—but no more.
Though the garage was designed to hold four vehicles, only one car, a luxury Lexus, was parked inside.
She retrieved the spare key from the utility closet and popped the trunk.
“Get in,” she instructed.
He eyed her warily. “You expect me to fold this old body into that cramped space?”
She scoffed noisily. “I just experienced what you can do with that so-called old body of yours in another cramped space. Don’t wimp out on me now.”
“I do not,” he grumbled, swinging one leg into the trunk, “wimp out. Ever.”
“Explain what happened in the passageway, then,” she challenged.
“Alas, no time,” he answered cockily. “I’m not quite as young as I used to be. Besides, certain things should not be rushed.”
“So you say,” she countered, helping him in the rest of the way while trying to forget just how skillful he’d been up to the point where he couldn’t finish what he started. “One of these days, you’re going to have to prove it.”
He winked as she grabbed the top of the trunk. “One of these days, I will.”
She slammed the trunk, closed the secret panel, then dashed into the driver’s seat. She’d always planned to turn the tables on Farrow and betray him, but she’d had a coup d’état in mind, not an unplanned, reckless escape. But Paschal Rousseau had the information she needed, and if Farrow got it before she did, she’d have no chance to take the leadership of the K’vr. Better to escape with the man now and hope she could beat Farrow at another time.
She’d have to think on her feet. She’d always been more of a planner, but if her pleasurable, though incomplete, time in the dark passageway with Paschal Rousseau had taught her anything, it was that preconceived notions meant nothing when someone was properly motivated.
With a deep breath for fortification, she opened the garage door at the same time she turned on the engine.
“Here we go,” she said loudly, intending for Paschal to hear but not respond. “Hang on.”
She backed out with lightning speed, flinging the car into a controlled half circle and then shooting down the long driveway, past the dozen or so armed guards jogging across the lawn. No one fired at her. Good. The order to consider her a traitor had not yet gone out.
She proceeded unchallenged until the guard gate loomed in front of her. If she burst through, a hail of gunfire would pepper the back of the car, negating her need for an escape in the first place, since Paschal would be Swiss cheese. She had to stop and talk her way out of Farrow’s compound, just as she’d talked her way in all those months ago.
And to that end, she unbuttoned the top of her blouse.
“Where’s Farrow?” she asked as her window automatically lowered. “I was just out of the shower when the alarm sounded. Paschal still missing?”
“A helicopter buzzed the building,” the guard told her even as he aimed his pistol directly at her head. “Rousseau’s not in his room. Pryce said he was with you.”
She glanced down at her cleavage, knowing the guard would follow her eyes.
He did, though he didn’t lower his gun.
“I was on my way to interrogate him when I”— she lowered her lashes and her voice seductively—”decided to…freshen up a bit first. I hardly had time to dress.” She giggled girlishly.
When the guard leaned forward to leer into the car, she slammed the door open, knocking the man in the gut at the same time she grabbed the barrel of his gun and tugged it from his grip. He twisted to grab the rifle leaning against the guardhouse. One shot at close range later and Gemma was peeling from the driveway yet again.
“We’re clear!” she shouted.
The backseat tilted down. “You shot the poor man,” Paschal reproached.
“Him or me,
monsieur
. Stay down. We’re not clear yet.”
Headlights gleamed behind her. She jammed the gas pedal to the floor of the car, kicking up dirt from the unpaved road as she accelerated. She had no idea where she was going or how she was supposed to outrun the legion of four-by-fours Farrow had when she was driving a luxury Lexus. Then she remembered the guard. A helicopter buzzing the property in the middle of the night? That was no accident.