Now You See Him(20)

His hand on her bare arm stopped her. "Wait a minute."

"But…"

"Hold still," he said, no longer gentle and polite. There was a wariness about him, and all gentleness, all sweetness, seemed to have vanished. "Someone's been here."

"Don't be absurd. Why should someone…?"

"Move back." It was a ridiculous statement. His hand was clamped around her upper arm so tightly it would likely leave bruises, and he was already moving her back, slowly, steadily.

"What's wrong, Michael?"

"Can't you smell the gas?"

She could. She hadn't noticed—indeed, she'd been so caught up in her confused feelings about Daniel's guest that she hadn't been paying much attention to anything. "The gas heater must have malfunctioned…"

They were back at the car. He practically shoved her into the passenger seat, and there was no hesitation in his movements, barely a trace of his troubling limp. "It was tampered with," he said flatly.

"Don't be ridiculous. Who… ?"

"The same person who cut your brake lines. Face it, Francey, someone wants to kill you." He started the car, spun it around and took off.

"Where are we going? We can't just leave it like that," she protested, dazed by his sudden forcefulness.

"We're getting the hell out of here. I only know one person I can trust on this island. Your friend Cecil."

"He's not my friend," she said. "I never saw him before last week."

He stopped the car in the middle of the narrow, deserted roadway. "Take your choice. Is there anyone else you want to turn to?"

She couldn't think of a soul. She didn't trust anyone. Except maybe this suddenly enigmatic stranger beside her. "Cecil," she said.

He didn't smile or look triumphant. He simply nodded, putting the car into gear once more. She glanced back at the house that had been her haven, her safety, her place of healing, just before the road twisted, putting it out of sight. And she wondered if she would ever see it again.





Chapter 5


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"Stay in the car," Michael ordered, vaulting out with a lithe strength that was entirely at odds with his previously fragile air. They'd pulled up at a tumbledown shack near the harbor, one she hadn't realized was even inhabited. The windows were darkened, the door tightly shut, strange occurrences for a climate like theirs. But for the moment she was numb, too bewildered by the swift turn of events to even consider moving.

He was back in a moment, his face as shuttered as the ramshackle little cottage. "You know where Shaman's Cove is?"

She nodded. "It's a small, rocky inlet on the northern side of the island."

"Directions." The word was a command, brief, to the point, one she obeyed without question.

A car passed them as they drove up the long, winding road away from the deserted cottage, a new Land Rover with smoked windows, going so fast it nearly ran them off the road. "Was that Cecil?" she asked.

"Land Rovers cost more than that entire village makes in a year," he said flatly.

He hadn't answered her question, she noticed. "Was that Cecil?" she asked again.

He glanced at her. The sunglasses were covering half his face, and his mouth was thin, grim. "Your guess is as good as mine."

He wasn't going to tell her anything more specific,. To ask again would be a waste of breath. "What's in Shaman's Cove?"

"Cecil will have a boat waiting. We're getting the hell out of here."

"But…"

"I've told him how to get in touch with your cousin. We'll have to leave it up to Travers to rescue us."

"The house. It'll blow…"

"Maybe. Cecil's going to see what he can do about it."

"Are you certain we're not overreacting? I mean, brakes do fail. Gas heaters do malfunction."

"You want to wait for the third attempt to be convinced? Chances are, that time they'll be successful."

Francey was suddenly very, very cold. She rubbed her bare arms, wishing she could ask him to put the top up on the convertible, wishing she'd brought a sweater, a bulletproof vest, a quart of Scotch. Anything for protection from the ice that was slicing down into her heart.

She'd been ready to put it all behind her. Even the near miss last week had been easy to explain away. Her involvement with Patrick Dugan had been a brief sojourn of misery, but it didn't need to wreck her life.

But now it seemed as if it was coming close to ending her life. She couldn't imagine how they'd managed to find her, or why they even wanted to kill her. For revenge, perhaps, for Patrick's and maybe Caitlin's deaths. She hadn't been responsible for Patrick, and she hadn't meant to push Caitlin in front of the car. She'd been fighting for her life.