Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies (24 page)

He glanced out the window, searching the horizon, praying Cameron would get there soon. But with Marsters in the mix, who knew what was happening on that end?

Becca picked up a manila envelope that had been lying on the table. One that Genie kept glancing at. Becca shoved the paper she’d taken from him into it. “The problem here, Kyle, is that you’re with the CTA, and there are some things about our family—” she patted the envelope “—that we don’t want CTA to know about.”

“You mean about the Amelia Project?”

The smile dropped from her face as though a switch had been flipped. “Smart boy. Too smart. Let’s go Genie. We’re out of time.”

“Genie is CTA, too,” Kyle said, grasping at a straw.

“Not anymore,” Becca said smugly.

He grabbed Genie’s hand. “Don’t go with her.”

Genie’s eyes swam with tears. Actual shimmering tears that turned her blue eyes into brilliant jewels. Just the sight of them tore into his gut. He held her hand harder.

Becca made an impatient sound. “This is all very touching, but if you want everything to end well, then we need to go.” Becca walked toward the door but hesitated in the doorway. “Feel free to rest in my cabin, Kyle. We’ll be back before you know it.”

Genie kissed his lips. “I’m sorry.”

She stepped away from him. He reached for her, but found only air as she hurried after her sister. Kyle followed, and watched worriedly as she climbed into the big yellow jet boat. What hold did Becca have over her? What secret was so awful that now she needed to abandon him in order to deal with her sister?

Knowing he could do nothing to stop her, he turned his attention back to the galley. An answer to what was going on had to be somewhere on this boat. He yanked open drawers and cabinets looking for clues. For more papers. For anything that would give him a clue.

But found nothing.

My stateroom’s the big one at the end of the hall
. Becca’s words, the smile on her lips, mocked him. And as he heard the engine of the big yellow jet boat roar to life, Kyle froze.

Then he whirled and ran.

…

Genie hoped she was doing the right thing. Kyle had obviously been confused and worried, and scared for her. She wished she could read him in, tell him what this was all about, but there was no time now. Right now her first priority was to stop Becca, and she had to do it on her own. Before everyone on the planet found out about their special abilities…and what Becca could be capable of doing, Genie had to stop this.

The mind control Becca just demonstrated had scared her senseless. She’d been able to influence Kyle, a powerful, strong-willed man, to do exactly what she’d wanted, against his wishes. Who knew what other dangerous things Becca might be able to do to unwilling victims. One thing was certain, she didn’t want Becca anywhere near Kyle. Not wielding such power over him. Did she have that kind of control over everyone? Or just people she knew well or was in close physical contact with? She claimed to have found Genie and Cat just by plugging into their thoughts and seeing their surroundings. That was truly frightening. Becca was the last person she wanted inside her head. Or anyone else’s.

She swallowed and went to sit in the captain’s chair next to Becca, who’d started the boat and pulled away from the yacht. At least she’d left Kyle behind, and he was safe.

“Where are we going?” Genie yelled over the noise of the engine and wind. She held on tight to the seat as they flew across the ocean. Becca didn’t answer, but after a few minutes she glanced at her watch then slowed the boat until it came to a stop. She turned off the engine and looked back at the yacht, far behind them.

“What‘s up? Why did we stop?” An uneasy sensation churned through Genie’s stomach. She didn’t like the look on Becca’s face, or the stillness of her body. Or the negative energy she was emitting.

“Becca?”

Becca pulled a cell phone out of her pocket. Alarm shot through Genie.

No!

“Don’t do it!” she screamed, and lunged for the phone.

But she was too late. Becca’s thumb had already punched the speed dial button even as Genie hit her. She clawed at Becca’s arm, knocking the phone out of her grasp. Becca tumbled out of the chair. Genie scrambled for the phone. Praying with everything in her she was wrong. She wasn’t. Even as Becca pulled herself up off the deck and climbed back into the pilot’s chair, a crackling sound split the morning air. Then another. Followed by a deep, hollow
boom
.

“What have you done?” Genie cried.

In the distance, the elegant prow of the yacht exploded into an inferno of flames.

“Kyle!” Genie screamed. She stared at the burning boat in stunned horror, tears welling to blur her vision. Numbness stole her strength, her knees weakened, and she collapsed to the floor.

“Genie?” Becca said, turning to her.

But Genie couldn’t see her through the haze of red filling her eyes. Hatred and molten anger as hot as the flames from the burning boat consumed her. “What have you done? You killed Kyle!”

Becca turned the key and the boat’s engine roared back to life. “Don’t you see, Genie? Now we’re both dead.”

Chapter Thirteen

The percussion wave from the explosion shoved Kyle across the frigid surface of the ocean, farther away from the burning yacht. Heat from the flames that engulfed it singed his hair and debris rained down all around him. Fire and black smoke filled the sky. Unconsciousness had threatened, but the cold slap of the water against his face woke him up to full alertness.

Holy crap
. The bitch had blown him up!

Kyle struggled to recall what had happened as he shivered on a postage stamp-sized inflatable raft in the freezing water. He remembered running into Becca’s stateroom. It had been completely empty except for a sturdy table in the center of the room. Sitting on top of the table had been a bundle of six sticks of dynamite.

Holy shit!

The dynamite had been wrapped in colorful wires that were carefully threaded through the blasting caps, then to a small battery pack. Old school, but deadly effective. Moving very carefully, he’d gingerly pulled his phone out to call Cameron. Dead. Unfortunately, his last dip in the ocean had done it in. Just as well, he thought now. His own signal might have triggered the bomb by accident.

Not that it would have mattered. Before he could examine the wires further, the cell phone attached to the bomb as a detonator relay vibrated. The red numbers on the timer had blinked ominously to life and started counting down.

Two minutes.

Kyle had whirled to get the hell out of there, and practically tripped over a self-inflating raft sitting next to the stateroom door. Without questioning its presence, he’d grabbed it and run, tearing it open, pulling strings, and unbuckling straps as he bolted up the stairs. As he burst out onto the deck, he yanked the cord to inflate the raft, and jumped, soaring over the side. The raft expanded as they sailed through the air, and he’d landed in the water just seconds before the yacht exploded, rupturing the morning sky.

He floated on the waves now, catching his breath, shivering like a Chihuahua, and trying to calm his galloping heartbeat. It was a pure miracle he’d survived.

There had been two minutes on that timer. Two minutes that had saved his life.

Or had it been a miracle?

If Becca hadn’t told him twice to go to her cabin, he would have died in that explosion. She’d warned him for some reason, and that warning had saved his life.

But why? He certainly didn’t take Becca for a hero. Was she the one orchestrating this situation, pulling all the strings? Or was she just one of Emerich’s puppets working on her own behind the scenes to try to protect her family? He wished he knew.

He thought again of the papers he’d seen on the table—CTA papers regarding the top-secret Amelia Project, run by her father. Papers Becca had insisted on taking with her when she left.

Stuart Marsters was up to his sneaky little eyeballs in this mess. Maybe even behind the whole damn thing. Kyle had no doubts about that. But he was at a loss what to do about it. Especially floating in a small raft, watching the flames from the burning yacht light the morning sky.

A few minutes later, Cameron, Marsters and the CTA’s men finally arrived, pulling an outboard boat up alongside his raft. Thank God. He was nearly frozen to death.

“Where is Genie?” Marsters demanded, anxiously scanning the raft, then the water around it. “Where is my daughter?”

If Kyle didn’t know better, he’d say Marsters looked genuinely shocked to see him floating there. Alone. He truly wished he believed the old man was innocent of involvement, but Marsters had gone to way too much trouble to get Genie away from him that morning, and out to the yacht without him. And Kyle still didn’t know why.

So Kyle kept his mouth shut. As far as the world was concerned, Genie and Becca were dead, just as Becca had planned. He didn’t know what she was up to, but she could have let him explode with the boat. She hadn’t. At the very least he owed her two minutes’ worth of trust.

So he fixed his eyes on the fire and didn’t say a damn word.

“Montgomery, what have you done?” Marsters demanded again, louder this time.

“I believe that’s my line,” Kyle said, cutting him a lethal look. “Tell us, Marsters, what was the Amelia Project?”

“You son of a bitch, where is my little girl?” Marsters almost came over the side of the boat in his desire to get at Kyle.

“Leave him alone,” Johnny said. He leaned over the side and stretched out his large hand. Kyle grabbed it and let his friend pull him aboard. Johnny quickly wrapped a large towel around his shoulders. When Marsters came at him, he blocked his way. “Chill out, dude. Can’t you see he’s in shock?”

Grateful, Kyle looked up at his friend, and when he was sure no one else was looking, he winked.

…

Becca’s complete lack of compassion, of humanity, stunned Genie senseless as she stared at the plume of black smoke filling the sky. Grief fell over her, dousing her anger. Becca didn’t speak, just turned away and pushed the jet boat’s throttle to the floor. Genie felt numb as the vessel flew across the ocean. She tried not to think about it, about Kyle, about the fire burning behind her closed eyes. About where Becca was taking her.

Oh, Kyle.

Hot tears streamed down her face. She couldn’t stop them. Didn’t want to. She no longer cared about anything or anyone. With the touch of one of Becca’s long red nails against a button, her sister had taken everything from her—her chance at a normal life, her chance at love, her chance at a future. Now she had nothing. Her family’s secrets had cost her the only good thing, the only honest thing, still left in her life.

Her tears turned cold on her cheeks as the numbness coalesced into a self-destructive hatred that emerged from somewhere deep inside her, someplace she hadn’t even known existed.

Without thinking, and in one fluid movement, she launched herself at her sister, falling on top of her. The boat swerved to the right so hard it almost flipped before rocking back to the left and then to the right again, the momentum sending Genie flying backward.

“Are you
crazy
?” Becca screamed as she steadied the craft, slowed it down, and then stopped completely.

Genie pulled herself up from the deck and jumped on Becca again. The hate flowing through her was all-consuming. She wanted her sister to pay for what she’d done.
She wanted her dead
. She punched and kicked, taking as good as she got, grabbing a fistful of Becca’s hair, yanking and pulling, until suddenly, they were both hurling over the side of the craft.

The frigid Pacific water was an icy slap to her system. Genie went under, gasping, swallowing. Salt water sluiced down her throat. She choked and coughed, her throat burning. She let go of Becca and struggled against the waves as her survival instinct kicked into high gear. She started swimming back toward the boat that was idling in the water.

But the current pushed it away from her. Genie’s arms and legs burned with the exertion and the cold as she swam for the boat. The boat kept drifting farther away. If she didn’t reach it, she would die out here. She redoubled her efforts, pushing herself, but even as her muscles screamed and stiffened, she wondered what the hell was she fighting so hard for? Kyle was gone. Her mother was gone. Her father had lied to her all these years. And Becca…Becca had betrayed her the worst of all.

Genie had no one. Nothing.

And as the cold seeped into her, fighting her, luring her to give up, she thought about Cat and her beautiful children and the wonderful life she’d built for herself. If she and Becca died out here, Emerich would not stop his twisted plan. He’d go after Cat next. And there would be no one left who knew the truth, no one who could stop him. He’d destroy Cat. Her family would be devastated.

Genie couldn’t let that happen. She could give up on her own life, but she would not give up on Cat’s.

She forced herself to survive, pushing stroke after stroke, kicking as hard as she could.