A Kiss of Revenge (Entangled Ignite) (21 page)

She swallowed a cry of protest. This was what she wanted. No, not what she wanted, but what had to happen. She had to do what needed to be done alone. It was the only way to protect Griff. And after that, she still had to be alone. He didn’t deserve what she was going to become, even if he tried to understand, tried not to hate her for it. She couldn’t live with the possibility that he might compromise his principles for her, make exceptions that he refused to make for his fiancée all those years ago. Eventually, it would poison them. Loving him, trying to build a future with him, only to have it end in a contemptuous good-bye would kill her as surely as Big K intended to.

But she owed him one answer. “What’s that?”

“I’ve always wondered why you stuck by him so loyally when he betrayed you. When he nearly killed you.”

The answer came without struggle. “I don’t do the leaving. Everyone in my life has always left
me
, whether they meant to or not, from my father right on down.” She swallowed, the words suddenly ringing false in the face of what she was doing to Griff. But she finished answering anyway. “I wasn’t going to abandon Brian, no matter what he’d done.”

Griff nodded. “That right there? That’s the whole reason I waited. Why you were worth waiting for.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Obviously, it didn’t work out that way. Not meant to be, I guess.”

“I’m sorry, Griff.” The words were heartfelt and true, but he shook his head.

“Not sorry enough.” He shrugged on his shirt, checked his pockets, and retrieved a pancake holster from under the pillow on the bed. She would have gaped—she had never noticed the weapon, never mind him sliding it under there—but the gesture underscored why she needed to push him away, get rid of him now.

Griff was a good, moral, ethical man. A good investigator. An asset to many people, tasked with making the world safe. She couldn’t—
wouldn’t
—corrupt that, and letting him help with what she had planned
would
corrupt him.

“Okay. Send me a bill, then,” she said, hiding the agony of her shattering heart.

And with one final, ugly look, he was gone.

Chapter Thirteen

Within two days of arriving at the tiny airport servicing the island, Reese had the schedule and routine figured out. One plane took off in the morning, usually loaded with tourists. It came back from the island at one o’clock, let off its passengers, and took another load out. The final trip in landed at four. She bought a ticket, an open one that she could use any time as long as the plane wasn’t full. On her first attempt, she got as far as the gate, and that was it. The sweat, the squeezing of her lungs, and the frantic pounding of her heart that she was certain was a heart attack. She turned around and walked away.

She couldn’t get on the fucking plane.

Stupid freaking irony.

Maybe she could have forced herself onboard, especially if she could get her hands on Valium or something to calm her. But it wasn’t just sweat and suffocation and a heart about to burst. As those symptoms escalated, so did the electric aura around her. She’d fried a beverage cooler the first time, electricity pouring into her, then arcing to the machine. The second time she’d totally failed to contain it, despite using all the tricks she’d learned. The panic just overwhelmed her, and this time a fire alarm sizzled. She wasn’t sure she stopped before it shorted completely, so she’d left an anonymous note to the manager to have it checked. But clearly, she couldn’t force herself past the panic and take the flight—she’d bring down the plane.

The failure weighed heavily on her. Sure, she’d once considered letting go of her quest, but having it taken away brought no relief. It was too abrupt, too incomplete. And too unsatisfactory an outcome.

She could
not
let him get away with everything he’d done. Couldn’t let it end this way.

There must be another way onto the island. They had to be able to get building materials and vehicles and other large items out there.

But no. There was a large freight flight once a quarter, which of course had just gone out last week. The postal service contracted to a charter company for any shipped item too large for the passenger flight. No boats of any size were allowed near the island, because of the danger.

So that was it. Big K had won, just like he’d won last year when Brian tried to end their partnership. And again two days ago when he had Brian killed before he could recover enough to name and finger Big K.

Unless Missirian showed up with his boss next to him, holding a big sign with his name on it, Reese was at a dead end.

But she refused to give in.

She hung around the waiting area, pretending to herself that she would get on the next plane. That she would conquer her panic and the accompanying electric chaos. But even the thought made the lights flicker.

So she tried to distract herself, thinking, inevitably, about Griff. Where he was, what he was doing. If he thought about her. Hated her. Or if he’d dismissed her easily, belying what they’d become to each other. When the wondering became unbearable, she used her prepaid cell phone to check the messages at her home number. The insurance company had called four times about the fires. She couldn’t dredge up enough energy to care, but the stalling helped her fool herself that the next plane, she could get on. She just had to work up to it.

Sure. That was all.

A buzzing over the water grew steadily louder. She stood and moved to the tiny terminal’s window. Her palms went clammy and she wiped them on her jeans, her eyes fixed on the point in the sky where the plane would become visible. Although she managed to control her breathing, her heartbeat accelerated, pounding so hard she could feel the pulse in her neck without touching it.

Her spine seemed to vibrate with the buzzing of the plane engines, and she shuddered against the sensation. The cell phone in her hand, which she’d forgotten to turn off, beeped and flashed, then popped with a tiny wisp of smoke.

Wonderful
.

The weight of her failure pinned her to the floor. She couldn’t do it. She had desperately willed herself to get on the plane, but her feet would not obey. No matter what she told herself, no matter how strong her despair at not reaching the end of her mission, she could not go through those doors.

The parking lot door opened and a breeze kissed the back of her neck. The compulsion to run rose from deep inside, speeding her heart even more, making her pant. She turned on one foot and took a step toward release.

Two people had entered the terminal and, averting her face, she moved to the side to go around them. They were hurrying through the building to get to the plane. Something nudged her brain—a scent? A voice? She wasn’t sure—and she glanced up as the couple passed. She swallowed a gasp, recognizing the one closest to her.

One of the geeks who had broken into her house—Idiot Number Two.

Excitement rose, banishing the despair and the panic. She watched as he walked across the wooden terminal floor. He had his hand wrapped around the elbow of the woman next to him. It appeared solicitous unless you looked closely. His fingers dug into the woman’s flesh.

Who was she? Reese moved closer, trying to see better, but they went out the tarmac door before she could get a look at her. Reese moved back to the window, but all that was visible was the woman’s long blond hair. Something still struck her as familiar. “Turn around,” she murmured. “Drop something. Let me see you.” But all the disembarked passengers swarmed around them, and she lost sight of the couple. A minute later, they were climbing the steps to the plane. Idiot Number Two paused to hand their tickets to the attendant at the top, and the woman twisted, scanning the tarmac almost frantically.

Reese gasped . She knew that face.

It was Kimmie
. The sweet, naïve nanny she and Griff had prevented from getting caught up in that awful movie/prostitution mess. This time, the panic Reese felt had nothing to do with flying.
What the hell were they doing with her?
Reese was certain Kimmie had learned her lesson when they told her what was really going on. Had Big K sent his goons to get her because of Reese? To teach them both a lesson?

Guilt was bitter in the back of her throat as dread clawed at the front.

This was her fault. There was no way she could watch Kimmie get on that plane and do nothing.

The tarmac was clearing, and the doorway to the terminal streamed with people coming inside. Driven to follow Kimmie, forgetting everything else, Reese pushed against them, trying to get out, and finally squeezed through. She ran across the tarmac, shouting at the attendant retreating into the plane.

Her ticket, she needed her ticket
. The attendant smiled as she dashed up the steps, the metal ringing and shaking with her movements. Her right hand scrabbled in her rear pocket for her ticket, pulling out the crumpled papers as she reached the top.

“Sorry,” she gasped. “Just made it.”

She glanced inside the plane while the attendant checked her ticket. She didn’t want Idiot Number Two to see her, not if she could avoid it. Kimmie either, because Reese knew she’d give her away. But she couldn’t tell where they were sitting.

“All set.” The attendant signaled to the crew member below to remove the stairs.

Reese hoped for a seat in the front, but the plane was nearly full. She had to walk all the way to the back. She spotted the idiot on the left, leaning across Kimmie to peer out the window, and turned her head quickly when he straightened. Praying neither had noticed her, she dropped into the aisle seat in the empty second-to-last row and buckled her seatbelt. She peered up the aisle through her bangs. Both of them still faced forward. One crisis averted.

Bring on the next
.

Anxiety reacted as if it had been waiting for her challenge. Her already racing pulse accelerated. New sweat broke through the drying moisture from her run to the plane.

She peered in desperation through the window where the asphalt was sliding by.
Too late. No escape.
Her throat closed and she couldn’t get any air. Her vision darkened around the edges except for golden lights dancing in the center.

Oh, God. What had she done?

She couldn’t breathe, and the hairs on her body rose with the panic, prickling with static, the only electricity in proximity. But she could feel her body opening up, reaching out, seeking more. Had the pitch of the plane’s engines changed? She trembled, her heart slamming against her breastbone. It was going to explode. She was going to die, and she would take all these innocent people with her.

Oh, no, you won’t
.

She struggled to slam the door closed, focused on cutting herself off from the electricity. The slam didn’t come, but slowly her arm hairs lay flat again. Now she had to control the panic. She couldn’t call attention to herself, or risk losing it completely. She wasn’t dying, she knew that. She was only
scared
of dying, of damaging the plane and sending them all plummeting to Earth. Of sitting helpless while the people around her bounced around the cockpit, smashing into the windshield and roof.

She choked and tried to rein in her frantic imagination. That wasn’t her fear. That was her memory. That was Brian, who’d taken off his seatbelt to check on her because she couldn’t move. Who hadn’t put it back on because he was trying so hard to keep them from being killed.

Her lungs expanded and she caught a little air.
It’s not the same situation.
Up front, Kimmie’s handler didn’t know she was here. He had no reason to harm anyone or interfere with the plane.

The plane was fine.
She was fine
.

And she was
not
responsible.

Her eyes flew open and she froze, shocked. Her heartbeat settled, and her lungs, while still tight, seemed more like they were waiting than collapsing.

I’m not responsible
.

She hadn’t allowed that thought to fully form since the accident. At the beginning, her own injuries had made up for Brian’s. But as she recovered and he didn’t, guilt festered and grew, manifesting in the need to wreak revenge on the man who’d destroyed them.
He
was the one responsible, but until she punished him, she carried the blame. If she had been able to move that lever, Brian wouldn’t have unbuckled. If he hadn’t lost precious time reaching for it, he might have survived the crash with fewer or less devastating injuries.

The guilt wasn’t logical. As Griffin had pointed out more than once, she hadn’t sabotaged the plane. And Brian had put them in danger in the first place by letting his partner involve him in criminal activity. If she hadn’t gone with him on that flight, he would have died alone, probably with no one knowing what had happened or why. So her presence on that plane might be the only thing that would lead to justice.

Permanent justice. Retribution.

At one time, she’d thought when she found him and had her questions answered, had the man who’d done this to them arrested, gotten closure, she could move on. Lead a normal life.

Brian’s death had shown her how delusional she’d been. The moment she’d decided to pursue vengeance, she’d set in motion an unstoppable stream of events. Big K would never let her live but even worse, he’d made clear that he wanted her to suffer first. He’d demolished her life piece by piece, and there was only one thing left that mattered to her. One person.

Whatever the consequences of preventing that, of committing premeditated murder…however it might change her, however many years she might spend in jail, it would be worth it.

Her vision cleared and she looked around. The plane had taxied to the runway with no problems, and no one appeared to have noticed her panic attack. If they had, they probably chalked it up to routine aerophobia.

The plane began its takeoff run and she clutched the armrests, closing her eyes and forcing herself to think of something else. White light kept flashing behind her eyelids, making her body jerk. But she kept her body closed, pretended the airplane didn’t use electricity, that there was nothing to connect to. Concentrated on that and only that. She would worry about the rest later. About justice for Brian, who’d walked into his activities willingly, if not intelligently. For herself, for this curse she was struggling to make into a gift. And for Kimmie and every other victim of this man’s crimes.

But first, she had to make it to the island alive.

…

Reese managed—barely—to avoid screaming every time the plane dropped in an air pocket or shook from turbulence, but only by clenching her teeth so tightly they were locked together when they landed. Her relief was immediate when the plane lurched to a halt near the island terminal. And so complete, she imploded with it. The plane’s cabin lights, which had just flashed on, flashed back off, and the man across from her frowned at the tablet he’d been tapping on.

But they were on the ground, and safe. She nursed her guilt until the lights came back on, though the guy’s tablet, and probably other electronic devices near her, would need new batteries. Hopefully nothing more than that.

She worked to relax her jaw and rub feeling back into her white-knuckled fingers while the passengers disembarked, then followed Two and Kimmie off the plane. They were met by a man at the curb outside the terminal. He stood with two bikes, and Reese blinked when Two got on one and motioned to Kimmie to get on the other. When the young woman balked, he glowered at her and patted his pocket. Presumably he had a weapon in there, because Kimmie bit her lip and swung her leg over the bicycle.

Confused, Reese scanned the street and realized there were no cars anywhere. Logical, of course, on an island with no boat access, but cripes. Now what was she going to do?

“Taxi?” A tall, gangly teenager had approached. When Reese looked quizzically at him, he motioned to a rickshaw, connected to a bicycle. She had her doubts about his ability to pull her, but she nodded and followed him to it.

“Can you follow those two on the bikes?” she asked. It was risky. Maybe Big K knew and owned everyone on the island, and following those two would reveal her presence to him. But she had to follow them. The kid just nodded as if his fares made such requests every day, and set off.