Secret Assignment (5 page)

She growled as she hung up the phone. Jesse wasn’t the only one of her brothers and sisters who treated her as if she were still a child, but he was definitely the worst.

It wasn’t her fault she was born last of the six. It wasn’t her fault their mother had decided her career had to come before motherhood or marriage. She hadn’t asked her siblings to make her their pampered, protected little pet.

She pushed herself off the bed and crossed to the window. It had rained a little during dinner, enough that the window sparkled with tiny diamonds of raindrops clinging to the glass. Moonlight peeked from behind thinning clouds, casting a cool blue glow across the night scene.

Through the blur of water, the thick stands of trees east of the house looked like a dark watercolor painting, all soft edges and mysterious shadows, punctuated here and there by the glow of lightning bugs flitting between the trees. It took a few seconds to realize that the light came not from flying bugs but from someone moving through the trees about two hundred yards away from the house.

Curious, she went out onto the balcony for a closer look. It was definitely a light, moving slowly through the trees. Was it Gideon doing another tour of the island for the night?

One way to find out, she thought, heading for the stairs.

When she reached the main floor, it was dark. Gideon was no longer inside Stafford House, so the light in the woods must have been him.

She started to turn back toward the stairs when a niggling sensation at the back of her neck made her reverse course. She went instead to the side veranda that looked out across the trees to the east, hoping for a better view of the light she’d seen from her bedroom window. She had to unlock the dead bolt to step out onto the veranda. The door creaked as she opened it, the loud sound setting her nerves on edge.

Wincing, she eased out onto the wooden porch, wondering if the sounds she was making were loud enough to wake Lydia in her upstairs suite. She stepped gingerly toward the railing, trying to make as little noise as possible from here on.

A damp breeze blew in from the Gulf of Mexico, lifting her hair away from her face. Wishing she’d put her hair in a ponytail before she came downstairs, she finger-combed her hair out of her eyes to keep the swirling strands from blocking her view of the trees.

She stared for a long time, straining for any sign of the lights she’d seen earlier, but the woods were dark and quiet. She released a soft breath and started to turn back to the house when she spotted it.

A light, swinging back and forth with a rocking rhythm, as if held by someone moving slowly, steadily through the woods.

Was it Gideon?

She wasn’t so sure anymore.

She moved around the veranda slowly until she was facing the back garden, where just beyond, a single-story house on stilts rose over the garden, perched on the highest point of land on the island. Like the Rosses’ house, Gideon’s residence also had a widow’s walk around the top gable, though when Shannon had first spotted the house earlier during Lydia’s guided tour of the house and gardens, she’d noticed the widow’s walk on the caretaker’s house looked new, as if it were a recent addition.

There were no lights on in the caretaker’s house. No sign of movement inside. Maybe her first guess had been right. Maybe Gideon was taking a quick tour around the island to make sure everything was safe and secure for the night.

She returned to the door she’d left open, stopping just long enough to take another quick look at the woods.

Her heart skipped a beat. For there wasn’t just one light flitting around through the woods anymore.

There were three.

If Gideon was out there somewhere in the dark, he wasn’t alone. But was he in danger himself? Or was he collaborating with someone to do harm to Lydia Ross?

Shannon slipped back into the house, her heart racing, and tried to figure out what to do next. Gideon Stone might be surly and unpleasant, but he seemed to aim his bad attitude primarily at her. To Lydia, he seemed genuinely affectionate, and clearly Lydia returned the feelings. In lieu of evidence to the contrary, she decided to give Gideon the benefit of the doubt.

The question was, did he know there were people out there? And if not, what should she do, go bang on his door until he answered?

It was as good a plan as any, she decided, heading back around the house to the garden. A gravel path wound through the garden, past brightly colored coleus and merry daisies, beyond a small stone basin of water where, Lydia had told her earlier, birds regularly gathered for communal baths during the oppressive heat of summer afternoons.

At the end of the garden, the path to the caretaker’s house went from neat gravel to an uneven walkway crowded on either side by scrubby grass that grew halfheartedly in the sandy soil. She stumbled a few times before she made it to the front porch. Seeing no sign of a doorbell, she rapped loudly on the door, grimacing as the sound echoed in the night.

There was no answer. Shannon knocked again, with no better result.

“Come on, Gideon!” she growled softly at the unyielding door.

But he didn’t come.

Her pulse thundering in her ears, she hurried back along the crooked path, retracing her steps through the garden and ending up back on the veranda again. She circled the house once more to the place she started.

How much time had she just wasted trying to fetch Gideon? How much farther had the lights in the trees encroached?

She stayed in the shadows of the eaves, peering through the darkness until she spotted the lights again. They were stationary for the moment, glowing through the trees, flickering only when the breeze made the low-lying palmetto bushes and high-growing sea grasses dance back and forth.

Whoever was out there had stopped moving toward the house.

She wished she had a pair of binoculars like the ones Gideon had used earlier in the day. She should have packed a pair for herself, but she hadn’t been planning on trying to spot intruders at night when she packed for the trip.

Slowly, she eased backward until her spine flattened against the French doors. Like it or not, she had to rouse Lydia and let her know something was happening outside. She would, at the very least, know how to sound the horn on the lighthouse, and maybe the noise would drive their intruders away again.

She eased open the doors and slipped inside, turning for one last look at the woods. Only the faintest creak of the floor beneath her feet gave her any warning at all.

A hand clapped over her mouth. A hard-muscled arm snaked around her stomach, pulling her flush with a hard, hot body.

She raised her foot to stamp on her captor’s instep, Cooper Security training kicking in before she had time to think.

Her captor sidestepped quickly, and her foot slammed on the ground, making her ankle tingle with pain.

“Don’t do it again,” warned a voice like steel in her ear.

The arms loosened, and she jerked away, turning around to face her captor. “You scared the hell out of me,” she whispered.

Gideon Stone’s eyes glittered like blue diamonds in the low lights, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was gazing past her, toward the woods in the east, his expression hard.

“You see the lights?” she asked softly.

“I do.”

“Do you think the intruders are back?”

He nodded.

“Pretty brazen,” she murmured.

“How many lights did you see?”

“Just three.”

“Can’t be sure that’s all that’s out there, though,” he said thoughtfully, turning his gaze away from the door long enough to look down at her. “What were you going to do if I hadn’t grabbed you?”

“Get Lydia up and see if we could sound the foghorn again.”

“Let’s not do that yet,” he said softly, curling his palm over her arm and easing her away from the doorway. His hand was big and warm, sending unexpected sensations rippling through her flesh. “You stay here. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, sound the horn. The switch is located in the kitchen pantry, second shelf, at the back.”

She nodded, too breathless to speak.

He locked the French doors again, then pulled his Walther from a hip holster and checked the clip with practiced ease. He chambered a round and looked down at her. “Fifteen minutes.”

He disappeared into the shadows, heading toward the back of the house. She heard the faint snick of the back door dead bolt turning and felt her way through the dark until she reached the French doors. She tried the locks until she found the one he’d left open. She locked it behind him and leaned against the door, her heart racing.

Pushing the stem of her watch, she lit up the face so she could see the hands. Nine thirty-eight. At nine fifty, if Gideon didn’t come back, she would sound the lighthouse horn.

And meanwhile, she had a GLOCK and knew how to use it. She hurried up the steps to the top floor, feeling her way rather than risk turning on the lights and possibly alerting the intruders.

Retrieving her GLOCK from her duffel bag, she headed back into the hallway and collided with another warm body.

She leaped back, flattening to the wall, already tugging the GLOCK from the holster.

“Shannon?”

She sagged against the wall. “Mrs. Ross.”

Shannon heard a soft click and a flashlight flickered to life, illuminating Lydia’s kind face and revealing the lethal gleam of a rifle gripped in her free hand. “What’s going on, dear?” The older woman’s tone was as gentle as ever, but the thread of steel beneath her words made Shannon smile despite her own nervous tension.

She brought Lydia up to speed and checked her watch. “In six minutes, if Gideon’s not back here, we’re supposed to sound the horn.”

Lydia nodded. “If the horn continues sounding for more than five minutes, Terrebonne Fire and Rescue knows to send a boat to check on us.”

“Can they hear the sound from that far away?” Shannon had heard the horn well enough from the boat earlier that day, but the
Lorelei
had been a long way from the shore by that time.

“It can be heard all the way to Bayou La Batre on a clear day.” Lydia nodded at the GLOCK. “Do you know how to use that?”

Shannon cocked her eyebrow at Lydia and nodded at the Remington. “Do you know how to use
that?
”

Lydia smiled. “Touché.” She turned off the flashlight.

They went downstairs together, easing through the dim shadows to the French doors on the eastern side of the house. Shannon peered through the clear glass. “I don’t see the lights anymore.”

“How much longer?” Lydia asked.

Shannon checked her watch. “Two minutes.”

“Do you see any sign of Gideon?”

“No. He went out through the garden door.”

“Perhaps we should make our way to the foghorn switch.” Lydia hooked her free hand in Shannon’s elbow, guiding her toward the kitchen. Shannon heard a pantry door creak open and a soft tapping sound. A light mounted inside the pantry snapped on, illuminating cans, bottles, boxes and, at the back of the second shelf, as Gideon had promised, a simple electrical toggle switch.

Shannon checked her watch. The second hand passed twelve. “Now,” she said, her stomach aching with tension.

Lydia flipped the switch. Shannon braced for the moan of the foghorn.

But nothing happened.

Chapter Four

Three years of Marine Special Operations missions in Afghanistan. Four more years of duty in Iraq, clearing Baath Party holdouts and al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters out of war-weary villages hungry for peace and stability. He’d done a final three years on super-secret reconnaissance missions in Kaziristan and almost paid with his life.

Gideon had seen his share of impossible missions and no-escape situations. Being surrounded by at least three unknown subjects wasn’t the most terrifying situation he’d ever dealt with. Not by a long shot.

But if he had his choice, he’d rather be elsewhere.

Time ticked inexorably away as his quarry circled him in the thick stand of pines and hardwoods that grew in abundance in the center of the island. He didn’t want to give away his position by lighting the dial of his watch to check the time, but he was certain most of the fifteen minutes he’d given Shannon to wait before acting had already passed.

What would the men moving through the trees around him do once the lighthouse foghorn sounded?

He hadn’t gotten very close to the intruders before they extinguished their lights, making recon substantially more difficult. Whoever they were, they were damn good at moving quietly through the dark, making him wonder for a while if they were wearing night-vision goggles. He gave himself a mental kick for not having a pair of his own, although in his defense, he’d thought he’d left his night-combat days far behind him.

He spotted one of the intruders again, finally. Male, based on his shape and size. He was dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt, dark trousers, a black hood and a balaclava, as they all had been. He wasn’t visibly armed, though Gideon couldn’t be sure he wasn’t packing a concealed weapon. No sign of night-vision goggles, he saw to his relief.

Time ticked, and still no horn. Surely fifteen minutes had passed.

The sound of movement nearby set his nerves on edge. He hunkered lower, sheltered by a fallen pine tree that had gone down during the last tropical storm of the previous season. The leaves were brown and prickly but offered acceptable shelter.

He spotted movement to his right. A second man glided through the trees in near silence. “It’s done,” the newcomer said in a flat, Midwestern accent that sounded strangely familiar. Gideon frowned, trying to remember where he’d heard that voice before.

“Good.” The first man’s voice was pitched a step or two lower, the authority in his voice unmistakable. He seemed to be the leader.

“There’s still Stone to deal with,” Midwest said. “And the women.”

“An old lady and a little stick of a girl. Still decent odds.”

Gideon arched his eyebrows at the man’s description of Shannon Cooper, remembering the way her windblown clothes had hugged her tempting curves and delightful valleys.