“That is just so bizarre,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “But it is what it is.”
She shook her head. “I need to go to the hospital and see her.”
“No,” he said. “You need to stay here, safe and sound.”
She jutted her jaw out at him.
He grinned. “Lennox has gone to the hospital to see what’s going on. The admiral has hired two security guards to make sure Brenda stays safe there.”
“None of this makes any sense,” she said, feeling bewildered. “We just went sailing for one stupid day.”
“And sometimes you cross paths with all the wrong people,” he said.
“Exactly,” she said. “And now what?”
“Now we wait,” he said. “You go to bed and sleep until morning, when hopefully we’ll have more answers. Lennox or I will be here all night. We also must consider the possibility that it could have just been an accident.”
“Because we’re all hypersensitive and think the boogeyman’s turning up in every corner?” She liked that idea. But somehow she knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
“Listen. I have to ask you this. Would Greg do anything like this?”
She stared at him in shock. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m clearly not the best judge. I wouldn’t have thought he would sleep with Brenda’s sister or go with the ‘all men are cheaters’ defense. Hell, I wouldn’t have thought he’d set me up to ride on the ‘happily ever after’ sailing adventure.”
“Got it. I understand,” he admitted. “And why would he try to hurt Brenda now?”
“Only in rage,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense any other way.”
“Right,” he said. “Okay. So I really suggest you go back to bed and see if you can get some rest. Lennox will call me after he’s learned whatever he can at the hospital.”
“Nobody could identify the driver? If it was Greg, Brenda should have seen him, right?”
“Apparently she was lying back a bit, with her eyes closed, when they were hit. By the time the admiral managed to get his wits about him, the driver was already long gone.”
“And the vehicle?”
“Stolen from the same apartment complex she lives in.”
As he watched, Sandrine shoulders sagged. “I don’t want to believe it was Greg,” she said, “but I just don’t know anymore.”
Keane stood. Tugging her to her feet, he wrapped her in his arms and said, “Go on back to bed.”
“I can’t sleep now,” she said, staring up at him. “You can’t possibly think that’ll work?”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Keane said. “I was hoping you would sleep and find this out in the morning, after we knew more.”
“I don’t want to find this out any time of day,” she said, but she did turn and head toward the bedroom. “God.” Not getting far, she collapsed on the couch in the living room and said, “It makes no sense at all.”
“I know,” he said, “but look. You still need to try to sleep,” he said.
She shook her head, yet she wandered back to the bedroom. “I just hate to think of Brenda and all she’d been through. I can’t believe it’s Greg,” she said.
“So who else?” he asked, leaning against her doorway.
She loved the look of him here. She looked back at her bed, then at him and said, “I know one way to put this all out of my mind.”
He shook his head. “Oh, no. I won’t be an exercise to help you forget the things going on in your life,” he scolded lightly.
She smiled. “Maybe not,” she said, “but you know it’s something that you and I both want. And right now, I sure as hell would appreciate something to take my mind off all this.” With a shrug, she crawled into bed. “It’s a pretty shitty world out there.”
“You don’t have to be part of it to that extent,” he said.
“Bullshit,” she said, surprising them both. “It’s already on my plate, so what am I supposed to do about it now?”
He frowned.
She nodded. “Exactly.” As she lay here, she looked up at him and said, “What if it was Scott?”
His mouth formed a tight grim line as he shook his head. “We can’t try to cram somebody into the role,” he said slowly, “just because we would like it to be him.”
Well, he was right that she would like it to be Scott. She was so done with that man. “What if he heard that Brenda had seen him push me?” At his indrawn breath, she nodded. “I don’t know how he would have heard that, or maybe he didn’t know for sure,” she said. “I’m grasping at straws. But, if he found out what she saw, maybe, by taking her out of the equation, it becomes my word against his.”
“And if he tries to take you out again?” Keane asked.
She stared at him and swallowed hard. “Jesus, I don’t like this theory.” She sat up against the headboard, grabbed her covers and pulled them up to her chest. “So, if it is him, how do we find out?”
Keane had his phone out and was walking into the other room, probably talking to Lennox.
She groaned and dropped her head against the headboard. She really did want him in bed with her, but not just as a teddy bear for comfort for the night.
As she lay here, staring at the balcony, she remembered something else. She got up slowly and went to the glass doors. Opening them, she stepped out. She stood there for a long moment, and, reassured that nobody was here, she finally stepped back into her bedroom.
Keane stood there, staring at her. “What’s the matter?”
She shrugged and then said, “I just remembered that one time we were locked out of the apartment. Scott managed to get in by climbing onto the balcony.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he strode over to the balcony and looked down. “You’re on the second floor, and those trees are too damn close.”
“And,” she said, “look. Dumpsters over there by the lower patio, and they have that long trellis there.”
He looked at it and nodded. “Still a bit dodgy but, if it doesn’t work, that’s a short fall to recover from.”
“But that would mean we were thinking that he might try to break in.”
“Well, who knows at this point?” Keane said. “And why would he need to, if you’ll leave him a key under a mat?” he said, raising his eyebrow and shaking his head. “Greg told me that Scott tried to call you multiple times and tried to come see you, and you didn’t answer.”
She frowned at him. “I didn’t answer the phone calls, but I don’t know anything about him ever coming here. I didn’t know he even knew where I was living since we broke up two months ago.”
“Have you noticed any trouble?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing. And, for the record, I just stuck that duplicate key there because I wasn’t taking my purse or anything on the sailing trip.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Is everything still the way it’s been? Any valuables missing?”
“Everything’s the same. No, nothing’s missing that I’ve noticed.” She studied where his focus landed, places oddly inconsistent with his questions. She looked up at him. “Come on. Something is on your mind. What is it?”
“The reasons why a boyfriend who doesn’t want to break up with somebody might come into her place.”
“And you’re thinking what?”
“Video cameras,” he said bluntly.
The color drained from her face, and she felt her stomach sinking. She sagged down on the bad. “What for?” she asked faintly.
“To put on the internet for revenge is one thing,” he said. “For his own personal voyeurism is another.”
She buried her face in her hands as she thought about it. “I haven’t noticed anything, but can you check?”
“I’ll check now,” he said. “But tomorrow morning, let’s get these locks changed.” As he looked at the balcony, he frowned and said, “On second thought, how about you just move? This place isn’t very secure.”
“Right,” she said. “I really don’t like this apartment anyway.”
“You don’t really need anything else to give yourself permission to move,” he said; then he went through the apartment. When he came back, he shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”
“Oh, good, thank you,” she said. “You hear such nightmares about an ex posting sex pictures to humiliate their partners and things like that.”
“Did he ever take videos or pictures of you like that?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not my thing,” she said slowly. “I’ve always been a little worried about that.”
“Good thing,” he said, “and we don’t know for sure that he had ever done that before, in your former apartment or his, when you were together. Guys with bruised egos aren’t always that truthful with their friends.”
“Right,” she said, giving her face a scrub. “You’ll stay for the night, right?”
“Yes, and, should I need to leave, Lennox will come over,” he said.
“And you’ll call me if Brenda’s condition worsens? Or if she needs me?”
“I promise,” he said.
“Okay then, I’ll try to sleep because it sounds like I’ll have a lot to do tomorrow. First thing I’ll do is give notice and find a new apartment.”
“Let’s get you through tonight first,” he said.
“But seriously, I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.” And, with that, she dropped her head onto her pillow and waved her hand.
“Does that mean goodbye, get out of here or what?” he asked with a smile.
“Well, I’d ask for a good-night kiss, but that would be too dangerous.”
“I wouldn’t mind a good-night kiss,” he said, his voice thickening. When he came over and dropped down beside her, he gave her a gentle kiss.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “A real kiss would be better.”
By the time he kissed her for real, and he finally lifted his head, they were both panting. “Jesus,” he said, dropping his forehead to rest on hers.
“I know,” she said, sliding her tongue along his mouth and just inside the edge of his lips. “So much damn heat is between us.”
“It’s not always like this,” he said, gently kissing her on her cheeks and her chin. “And this doesn’t change anything. I won’t be just a fling to get you through the night.”
“You’re not a teddy bear to comfort me tonight,” she said. “You’re somebody I want to spend some time with. To figure out if what we have can go anywhere. And that’s not a surprise to you.”
“No,” he said. “That definitely isn’t, and neither is this.” And, with that, he kissed her harder.
She wrapped her arms tighter and clung to him. Her body twisted as she realized one of Keane’s hand had reached under the covers to come up and cup her breast. “You’re playing with fire,” she said. “I’m already so damn hot that, if you aren’t coming to bed with me, you need to back up several paces.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think I can, Sandrine,” he whispered.
When he slowly withdrew his hand, she grabbed it, then gently placed it back. “Please stay.”
He took several long, slow breaths, and she knew he was reaching for control.
She slid a hand down his chest, his abs, to the ridge just under the heavy denim fabric of his jeans and gently stroked him. “Why not?” she whispered.
“Because it’s not the right thing to do.”
“You think I’m traumatized and I’m not going into this with the right emotional balance or something?”
“Something like that,” he said, arching when her fingers wrapped around his ridge. “But you’re really shaking my resolve.”
“It needs to be shaken,” she said. “It needs to be shaken a lot.”
He stared down at her, feeling torn. She didn’t know how to convince him to stay.
“You know this is what we both want,” she said. “And I don’t want it just for tonight.”
“We’ll see,” he said, leaning down and kissing the side of her neck, before nibbling his way up to her earlobe as he gently sucked on the end. She twisted her hand, sliding down to reach around his buttocks and squeezed. He swore as she laughed and pulled his T-shirt up above his belly and over his head. And, just like that, he stood, chucked his jeans, and he said, “If you’re sorry in the morning—”
She threw the covers back and kneeled on the bed and said, “I’m just sorry we wasted the last three hours,” she said. “You know we could have ordered takeout and had it delivered.”
He laughed, but he stood in front of her, completely nude, proud, erect and so damn male that she almost panted with need.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted somebody as much as I want you right now,” she whispered. “You’re so damn gorgeous.”
“Hell, no, I’m not,” he said. “You’re the one who is.”
As he stepped forward, she wrapped one hand around his erection, and the other was already sliding up over his chest. “You are gorgeous,” she whispered. “You can’t lie about something like that.” His muscles clenched under her touch. She leaned over and gently kissed the tip of his erection, hearing him groan as she let her tongue play at the top and then slide down ever-so-gently.
Suddenly she was picked up and tossed on the bed. “Playing with fire will get you burned,” he whispered.
She groaned as he slowly lifted the nightie up past her hips, his gaze burning deep when her hips and belly were exposed up to her breasts.
Then he lowered his head and took one of her nipples into his mouth, sucking deep and sending a heavy pulse through her lower abdomen. And then his hand slid down to cup her most intimate parts, playing with the moisture already gathered there.
She pulled the nightie over her head and tugged him down to her. “I want more,” she said. “I want it all.”
“Greedy much?”
“Very.” She used her hands, her tongue, as she stroked and kissed her way down, gently cupping his balls below his erection, stroking, tasting his body with her tongue, and wrapping herself over and around as she tried to explore every bit of him.
Finally he captured her traveling hands and tugged her up so she straddled him. “Easy,” he said.
“I can’t,” she said. “There is no easy right now.” She reached down and positioned his erection as she slowly lowered herself onto his shaft. He groaned but held himself still as she settled deeper and lower, adjusting to the size of him. She arched backward. “How do you feel about riding?”
“Go, baby,” he said, “ride away.”
She slowly lowered and raised herself a couple times, then leaned forward and placed her hands on his shoulders and started to ride. And, with a natural movement she didn’t know she had, she rode them both to the cliff. And just when she thought she wouldn’t make it, he grabbed her hips and ground himself higher up before exploding inside her. Tremors echoed all the way through her, setting off even more tremors as her own climax ripped from one end to the other.
She cried out in shock, and he held her firm, whispering to her to let it go. She tumbled into a massive chasm of exploding color in his arms. Gently weeping, she lay against his chest, amazed, delighted and overwhelmed. “That,” she whispered, “was fantastic.”
His chuckle rumbled through his chest, making her smile as she stroked the inside of his thighs and then the outside of his hips.
“You are a marvelous male machine,” she whispered.
“Ditto,” he whispered. “Very female, obviously.”
She chuckled and shifted upward slightly, and he left her body. He pulled the blankets over them, settled her beside him, and whispered, “Now will you sleep?”
“If you’ll be here when I wake up so we can go for round two, then, yes.”
“I promise.”
“I’m still stressed,” she murmured, “but I feel so much better.”
“Sleep,” he grumbled, wrapping an arm around her.
She closed her eyes and immediately slept. She woke several hours later, Keane’s two fingers busy between her legs, and gradually came to consciousness.
“I couldn’t wait,” he whispered. As he slid inside her from the back, he took her on a long and slow rise to temperatures almost as hot and as fast as the first time, but the dropping-off-the-cliff was smoother, easier and so damn emotional. She had tears in her eyes when he was finally done, and her body lay trembling in his arms.
“Sleep,” he ordered.
She closed her eyes for a second time and fell asleep.
Keane opened his eyes, hearing something off. It took a moment to reorient and to determine where he was. But still hearing that inner voice, he grabbed his phone and sent Lennox a text, asking if everything was okay. The answer came back immediately.
Yeah. At the hospital, still standing guard. Didn’t want to leave yet, Lennox explained.
So you’re not headed here? Keane confirmed.
Not immediately. Why? Lennox replied.
It means, it’s not you who I hear.
Slipping out of bed, Keane pulled on his boxers and jeans, checking outside the balcony’s glass doors to find nothing. The bedroom door was open just a fraction. He had no weapon with him, as he hadn’t had a chance to take the gear out of the vehicle Nico had dropped them off in.
Keane nudged the door open ever-so-slightly and slid down the hallway, where he could look at the living room. It was empty too. But then he heard the sound again. And, even as he watched from the corner, he could see the front door slowly open. He watched and waited as the man crept in and closed the door behind him.
He had ropes with him, which was not a good sign. He laid everything down on the kitchen counter and took off his jacket as if preparing to relax or at least to get to work. Then he slipped through the kitchen to the living room.
Not sure exactly what this guy thought he was doing, Keane then saw the handgun. He sucked his breath back because now a confrontation was out of the question. He backed up ever-so-slowly toward the bedroom. From the shadows he couldn’t see the man’s face either. As the intruder came around the corner, it was all Keane could do to duck back out of sight in the bedroom, but he was also on the far side, where he couldn’t make it behind the bedroom door now. He crept to the closet as the man stepped into the bedroom. He had the ropes in his right hand. The mask he wore hid his face.
He was white and about five-ten and lean, maybe 180 pounds. That was all Keane could see. But he heard the voice.
“Wake up, you stupid bitch! Wake up!” He reached down and smacked Sandrine on her feet.
She woke up in shock, then looked at him and screamed.
He grabbed her ankle and gave it a hard slap. “Stop screaming,” he said. “I’ve already got enough lessons I have to teach you. I don’t want to sit here and shut your mouth up too. But, if you don’t stop, I will.”
She immediately stopped, grabbing deep, gulping breaths. “What do you want?” she cried out.
“What do you think I want, bitch?” he said. “I want you to fucking die.”
She stared at him in shock.
Keane waited for his chance, but, from where he was, he didn’t have a clear move. He didn’t want her to get hurt, and he didn’t want that damn gun to go off. But the guy was now pacing back and forth at the end of her bed. If he would just walk a little closer to the closet, Keane would have him.
“Why do you want me to die?” she asked. “I’ve never done anything to you.”
“You were supposed to die in that goddamn boat,” he snapped.
“What?” Slowly she pulled her legs up and kneeled with the blanket pulled up to her chest, since she didn’t have any clothes on. She stared up at him in the dark. “Scott, is that you?”
He reached up and pulled the hood off his face. “God damn fucking right it’s me,” he spat. “Why couldn’t you have just died in the fucking water?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t enough that you pushed me into the water and left us to drown?”
“That storm was a godsend,” he said. “Any opportunity to knock you overboard would work for me.”
“Why?” she asked. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
“You broke up with me,” he said, “and made me a laughingstock.”
“Because I broke off our relationship? Who gave a shit about that?”
He shrugged. “Nobody dumps me,” he said. “I’m the one who decides when the relationship is over.”
She stared at him in horror. “All of this because I broke up with you, after I found you in bed with another woman, and somehow that’s my fault, so you’re trying to kill me over it?”
Keane could hear the anger rising in her voice. He really loved the spirit in this girl. She’d been through so much and right now was facing a killer head-on instead of backing down and becoming a victim. She was strong and standing firm.
Scott stopped at the end of the bed, but he was still too damn far away, and he was now holding out the handgun. “If you don’t shut your fucking mouth,” he said, “I’ll shoot you right now.”
Immediately she closed her mouth and glared at him. She looked around casually. “How did you get in here?”
When her gaze landed on the closet, she caught sight of Keane but drifted past and then came back to look at Scott again. She twisted toward the closet ever-so-slightly, and Scott immediately stepped into her line of vision. Keane realized she’d done that on purpose.
Changing her position caused Scott to move as well, giving Keane a little more opportunity to come out and attack. He really liked that she was staying calm and thinking things through, using her head and trying to help, without giving his position away.
“Nice of your landlord to give me a key,” he said, “for the surprise party and all.” He cackled at his own joke, sounding deranged.
“Well, I’m leaving this apartment anyway.”
“Too bad you didn’t leave already,” he said.
“Well, if you had your way, I’d already be dead,” she snapped. Suddenly she stared at him, slack-jawed. “Jesus. Did you try to kill Brenda too?”
“She saw me push you off the boat,” he said.
“Do you know that she saw you, or are you just afraid she might have?”
“I was hoping that I’d have a better position where she wouldn’t see me. And I couldn’t take a chance, so I figured she had to go anyway.”
“Even if she didn’t see you push me off? Even if, in the middle of a storm, it was so confusing that nobody knew anything for sure? No matter what, you decided she had to die?”
“Can’t have loose ends. They have a habit of coming around and biting you in the ass,” he said.
“You realized you failed, right?”
“She’s in the hospital,” he said. “She’s not protected forever. I’ll get another chance.”
“So this is your second chance to kill me, and you’ve already tried to kill her once with the hit-and-run. Or did you push her off the damn boat too?”
He just grinned at her.
She stared, stunned. “Seriously?”
“What can I say?” he said. “She was fucking irritating. She was stopping Greg from doing all kinds of shit we used to do together.”
“So she didn’t fall accidentally?”
“She had a little help,” he said. “And you had a little help. That should have been the end of it. Dumped in rough seas in the middle of nowhere with a fucking storm raging. It couldn’t have been more perfect.”
He shook his head, getting pissed all over again. “But not you. Trust you to end up getting rescued. What are the chances of those smugglers coming along and picking you out of the water and taking you to that island?” He shook his head. “You’re always the one who comes up golden.”
“Really? Brenda got a bad head injury, Scott. And now I know why. Because you probably hit her over the head when you knocked her over. Didn’t you?”
He shrugged.
She took a slow and deep breath. “And, yeah, we got picked up by smugglers, or guys associated with smugglers anyway. We were dropped on a desolate island and locked away in a tiny shelter. Yeah, really lucky. And instead of getting rescued, we ended up in the middle of a drug-smuggling fight with people getting shot all around us. Yeah, so lucky,” she murmured.
“Well, that’s okay,” he said, “because you won’t remember any of it by the time I’m done with you.”
“And this will be what?” she asked. “Just your average breaking and entering?”
“Why not?” he said. “They happen all the time. I’ll make it look like some rapist went crazy, and I’ll leave you to die in your little pathetic apartment.”
“All because I broke up with you?”
“All because women are bitches,” he said, his voice suddenly cheerful. “And because I can.”
“So pushing us off the boat gave you a feeling of power. But then fear kicked in, and you realized you hadn’t done a good enough job, so now you’ll do it all over again. You can feel that power, and you like that feeling, don’t you?”
“I sure do,” he said. “I’m so damn tired of women taking over the world. Taking my job. Women pretending to be equal to men. Women not doing what they’re told.” He shook his head. “You should all just fucking die.” As he went to lunge at her, Keane jumped from the closet, threw a chokehold around Scott’s neck, and, using the same momentum Scott had used to push forward, pushed him to the ground. The gun skidded free and ended up spinning wildly under the bed.
Scott roared, “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, you see your mistake now?” Keane asked. “It was coming here and assuming she was alone.”
As soon as he looked up, she had already thrown the nightgown over her head and raced into the kitchen. She came back with zip ties, which they quickly used on Scott’s arms and then his legs, while Scott struggled enough that Keane felt perfectly inclined to give him a couple good hits to the head.
“That’s for what you already did,” he said, “and this one”—he hit him hard in the ribs—“is for what you were planning on doing. What I could do to you for what you’ve already done would leave you dead, so I’ll avoid doing that,” he said. “I’m sure jail will take care of you nicely and put you in your place when you become some big man’s bitch.”
Scott glared at him, and the hate spewing from his mouth had Sandrine racing off again, and she returned with a hand towel and shoved it into his mouth.
“Nobody wants to hear anything you’ve got to say,” she snapped. “I hope they throw you into prison and leave you to rot. Thanks for supplying all the details, by the way.” The red Record light on her phone shone brightly.
As she snatched up her phone, Keane looked at her and said, “Grab mine, will you, honey?”
She brought it over to him, and, while he literally sat on Scott’s back, Keane dialed Lennox, who answered immediately, having been on alert since Keane’s earlier text.
“No need for security at the hospital now,” he said. “It was Scott. I’ve got him tied up here in Sandrine’s apartment. And Sandrine got everything recorded. Scott tried to run Brenda down, thinking she had seen him try to kill Sandrine on the sailboat. He’s also the one responsible for Brenda going off the boat in the first place. He hit her in the head, knocking her off the boat. That’s where her head injury came from.”
“What the hell?” Lennox said. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Brenda was cramping his style with his buddy Greg apparently.”
Keane held the phone by Scott’s head and said, “Say something to Lennox, Scott.”
All Scott could do was scream his fury through the gag in his mouth.
Lennox laughed. “Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes, and I’ll bring the cops with me.”
“Yeah, you better. This guy’s pissed, and I don’t want him to get loose. By the way, he came with a gun too. He was prepared to make it look like a breaking and entering gone bad, a rapist into bondage. He planned to mess her up pretty badly, then walk away in the night. Clearly he hates women, and he’s still pissed about that job thing she was telling us about. Remember? When she got the job, and he didn’t.”
“Wow,” Lennox said. “Well, it’s pretty easy to know who was the better candidate, right?”
“We sure do,” Keane said. After the call, he pocketed his phone and spoke to Sandrine. “You’ll probably want to get dressed. Lennox and the cops will be here soon.”
She nodded. “It’s really over now, isn’t it?”
This time her voice was hopeful, but she waited for him to confirm it. He opened his arms, even though he was still sitting on Scott. She shook her head and gestured that he should stand up first. He nodded, and, rising, he walked over and wrapped her in his arms. He whispered, “It’s over, and now you get your life back.”
She reached up, kissed him and said, “I’ve got an idea. Since you’ve already saved my life several times, how about just looking after it from here on out?”
“Instead of me looking after it,” he said, “how about we share the responsibility together?”
“That works,” she said. “I just want to spend as much time as possible with you.”
“Ditto,” he said as he leaned over and kissed her once more.