Jax pulled his rented G6 into the marina’s narrow strip of parking lot, found an empty space near Pier 2, and killed the engine. The sun glinting off the water hurt his eyes, and he slipped on a pair of sunglasses before opening the car door.
Halfway down the pier he could see two men, one of them big and redheaded and unfamiliar. But Jax recognized the dark, good-looking one: his name was Stuart Ross, and six months ago he’d been in Colombia with the Army’s Special Forces.
“Sonofabitch,” Jax whispered, and headed for the steps.
The two men were on board now. Elizabeth Vu was at the wheel and Jax could see the girl, October Guinness, out on the bow. As he watched, she cast off the bowlines and started working her way aft.
Trotting down the pier, he called out cheerfully, “Hey, Elizabeth. Heading out? Mind if I come along?”
Without waiting for an answer, he leaped nimbly aboard. The redhead with the freckles and sunburned arms turned a Glock on Jax and growled, “Go sit over there, shut up, and don’t do anything stupid. Who the fuck are you?”
Jax glanced toward Ross. The guy was studying Jax with a frown. But Jax had worn a full dark beard in Colombia, and it was obvious that Ross’s memory of him wouldn’t gel.
The redhead growled again. “I said, who are you?”
Jax spread his arms wide and sat down on the aft bench. “You told me to shut up.”
“A smartass.”
Jax was aware of October Guinness, a silent watchful presence on the far bench. He glanced at Elizabeth Vu. Her face was pale, her dark eyes huge, but she seemed to have herself under control. She said, “He’s a friend of mine.”
Ross grunted. “He picked a bad time to come for a visit.” Leaving Redhead to cover the other two, Ross turned his back on Jax and moved in close to Vu. “Back up slow and take us out on the lake. We need some privacy.”
Jax could feel the deck vibrate, hear the swell of the water as Vu eased the cruiser out of its slip. For the first time, he swung his head and looked directly at October Guinness.
Her honey-colored hair fluttered loose around her face in the breeze, and the golden tone of her skin seemed to glow with health and vigor in the sun. He was surprised by how small she was, and by how young she looked. She had the body of a fifteen-year-old gymnast, with small high breasts and no hips. It made her look younger than he knew she was, and oddly more vulnerable.
She was staring straight ahead. He could feel the tension in her. She was wound tight inside, so tight he wondered how she was managing to hold herself together. He knew only the faintest outlines of the hell she’d been through in the last eighteen hours.
The last time she’d been through hell, in Iraq, she had not coped well.
The cruiser lurched forward, the engines racing. Jax glanced to where Elizabeth Vu sat tall and stiff at the wheel.
Ross said to her, “You’re going too fast. Just take it slow and don’t do anything stupid. No wake.”
Wordlessly, Elizabeth Vu throttled back and the cruiser eased up.
They were out in the channel now, a long narrow line of wind-ruffled blue water cutting between grassy banks baking in the heat. Jax could see the point, opposite the ruins of an old lighthouse. As long as they were in the channel, Stuart Ross and his redheaded friend were unlikely to do anything. But once they were out on open water, Jax had no doubt he’d be the first one over the side with a bullet in the back of his head. If he was going to act, he needed to do it quickly.
He was aware of the hard outline of his own gun pressing against the small of his back, and casually leaned forward. The odds definitely were not good: two men with drawn guns against himself, a middle-aged math professor, and a woman certified as missing some of her marbles.
He looked again at Elizabeth Vu. She kept casting furtive glances at the console, her gaze drifting between the channel, Ross, and a built-in open shelf to the right of the helm. Jax shifted his position, trying to see what she might be looking at, but her body blocked his view.
He cleared his throat and raised his voice over the drone of the engines. “What’s going on here, Elizabeth? Who are these guys?”
“I told you to shut up,” snarled Redhead.
They were clearing the channel, the cruiser keeling gently to the right. Ross said to Vu, “Okay. Now bring up the speed and head out into the middle of the lake.”
The boat began to pick up speed. Jax shifted his weight, giving himself lots of space around his right arm. Redhead leaned toward him, the Glock waving threateningly in the air. “Goddamn it, I told you to sit still!”
His shout jerked Ross’s attention away from Dr. Elizabeth Vu. And in that instant she reached into the open compartment on the console and swung around, a heavy knife in one hand.
She lurched toward Ross, the knife clutched in her fist. Jax yanked his Cougar from his waistband, threw himself forward in a roll and came up firing. But Ross was already turning back toward Elizabeth Vu. He pulled the trigger, and an oozing red hole opened up in her chest as Jax’s bullet slammed into Ross’s face.
Jax swung back toward Redhead just in time to see October Guinness launch a well-aimed kick that knocked the gun flying out of Redhead’s hand. Her second kick caught the man in the face. He toppled backward over the handrail, his body hitting the water with a heavy splash.
“You bastard,” she shouted after the man in the water.
The helm abandoned, the cruiser swung in a tight, fast circle, the engines racing, the wheel spinning wildly. Jax leaped for the helm. He eased up on the throttle and steadied the helm, then went to make damn sure that Ross was dead. He was.
Slipping his gun into his waistband holster, Jax laid his fingertips against the pulse point on Elizabeth Vu’s neck. “Shit,” he whispered.
He heard October Guinness ask, “Is she dead?”
Jax sat back on his heels and swiped a forearm across his sweaty face. “Yes.”
“What about him?”
“They’re both dead.” He glanced over at her.
She was standing in the middle of the deck. At some point when he wasn’t watching, she had picked up the redhead’s heavy Glock. Now, she was holding it out in front of her in a steady, two-handed grip, pointed at him.