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He drew her body firmly up against his. “Listen to me, Jessica,” he said quietly. “I can tell you what happened to Giles Rehnquist, but right now your life depends on following my orders. Now run.”
He hunkered low, pulling her by the hand at a clip over irregular paving as the sirens grew louder. They ducked into Blood Alley, and he forced her hard up against a rough brick wall as Vancouver Police Department cruisers converged on the scene of the shooting, car doors swinging open, officers barking commands. Cops quickly began to fan out, heading their way with flashlights beaming through the fog.
“This way,” he whispered, pulling her after him. They ran for the alley exit, but a squad car slowed in front of it, barring their escape. He turned and shoved her down between two overflowing Dumpsters that flanked the service entrance of an Irish pub, pinning her down firmly against bags of garbage with his weight. “Don’t move,” he murmured against her hair. The smothering stench of stale sweat and booze permeating the tattered tweed of his jacket made her gag, but the soft sweater against his hard body smelled soapy clean. Masculine.
Jessica closed her eyes, trying to calm herself. She could feel the strong, steady beat of his heart against her chest. It was a strangely comforting sensation. In a foreign city where she’d been cut off from everything including her clothes, apartment, cell phone and colleagues—a city where she was beginning to wonder if she could even trust her own mind—this man felt solid. He felt real. Capable. And he hadn’t betrayed her.
Yet.
The sounds in the distance grew less frenetic, but still her rescuer didn’t move and her legs were going numb. She tried to wiggle feeling back into her toes.
“Keep still,” he hissed. “Someone’s coming.”
Then she heard it: the steady clop, clop, clop, of hooves on cobblestones. She peered out from under his jacket as the silhouettes of two police officers on horses darkened the entrance to Blood Alley, fog swirling behind them.
The mounted police entered the alley slowly, hooves echoing as they panned darkened crevices with flashlights.
Jessica’s throat tightened, but the steady beat of her defender’s heart never faltered. Not even when the hooves drew so near they almost touched his feet. One of the horses snorted, hot breath steaming into the air. She could smell them.
“Hey, you,” one of the cops said, directing his flashlight into their corner. “Can you get to your feet, please? I need to see ID.”
The man lying on top of Jessica groaned, made as if he was trying to sit up, then he flopped back as if too drunk.
The officer dismounted. “Can you stand, buddy?” the cop said, reaching down to pull him up. Her mysterious savior waited until the cop’s center of balance was precisely at the most disadvantageous, then he grabbed the policeman’s arm, yanked him down, cracked his head against his own, and rolled out from under him as the unconscious cop slumped heavily onto Jessica. She stifled a yelp of shock.
The officer on his horse immediately drew his weapon, yelling at him to freeze, but her protector surged forward with such swift and fluid motion it caught the officer by surprise. He fired, his bullet going wild and pinging into the Dumpster over Jessica’s head as her defender grabbed the cop with bare hands and dragged him from his horse.
The horse reared, hooves clawing at air before taking off with a clatter over stone. Jessica stared in awe as her guardian rendered the policeman unconscious with quick, firm pressure of his hand to the man’s neck.
She’d seen people trained in martial arts do that. She’d seen them move like him, too—fast and powerful, balletic. This man was skilled in hand-to-hand combat. He was a walking, talking lethal weapon.
Fear squeezed at her heart.
He dragged the unconscious V.P.D. officer off her and checked his pulse, before rolling the man gently onto the garbage bags and positioning his head so he could breathe easily.
He held his hand out to Jessica. “Come.”
“What…what about the policemen?”
“They’ll wake in a few minutes. We’ve got to move. Fast.”
She stared up at him, the beam from the fallen flashlight catching the icy glint in his eerily pale eyes. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Jessica shrank back into the garbage, suddenly terrified, the aftereffects of adrenaline combined with the cold, making her shake violently.
“You want to live, don’t you?” he said.
She nodded. He reached down, grabbed her wrist and jerked her firmly to her feet. “Come, then.”
He guided her through a twisting network of narrow black alleys that stunk of urine and decay, moving in the direction of the water.
They crossed the railway tracks into a deserted dockyard. The fog was thicker down by the sea, inky water slapping softly against old wood pylons, the scent of brine heavy.
“Quietly,” he whispered, taking her hand as they slipped between two massive rows of shipping containers. He held her back against ice-cold steel, waiting until he was certain they hadn’t been followed.
Jessica’s breathing was ragged, her lungs burning from running in the cold, her pulse pounding wildly. But beside her, his body was as calm and still as a practiced and patient predator. She had no doubt this man could kill with his bare hands and without compunction.
“Who are you—?”
He clapped his hand suddenly over her mouth, and pointed. Another cop car cruised quietly across the harbor entrance, flashing lights creating pulsing halos of white, red and blue in the dense fog.
He removed his hand as the cruiser moved on. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Come—”
But Jessica didn’t move. She felt suddenly paralyzed with exhaustion and she couldn’t seem to order her thoughts.
He tilted her chin and looked into her eyes. “You okay?”
“Please…just tell me who you are,” she whispered.
“My name’s Luke Stone. You ready to run again?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He grasped her wrist and dragged her in a crouching sprint across the empty parking lot toward the black water.
They stopped at a dock pylon, Jessica panting hard. Between them and the North Shore lay nothing but the frigid expanse of the Burrard Inlet. Snowflakes began to swirl bigger and softer, disappearing into the black void below her feet.
He edged her toward the dock edge. “You first. Down there.”
“What?”
He swore softly and grabbed her hands, drawing her into a crouch. He placed both her hands on a frozen metal rung. “Hang on to this. Put your leg over the side, feel for the next rung with your foot, climb all the way down to the inflatable. One step at a time.”
Panic whipped through her. “I…I don’t see any inflatable.”
“It’s down there, in the dark. Trust me.”
Her eyes shot to his. She didn’t trust anyone.
“Jess,” his eyes held hers steadily. “They killed your friend because of what you saw in Chinatown. They killed Giles because you told him. Believe me, they will kill you, too. Don’t give them that chance, okay?” He touched her cheek gently. “I’m here to help you.”
Emotion exploded through her chest and she tightened her grip on the rung.
This man simply accepted what the cops hadn’t—that she really had seen those men, that her life was in danger. He believed her. Surely that placed him somewhere on her side?
“You got the film in that bag?”
She said nothing.
“Give it to me, Jess.”
“I…I’d rather hold on to it.”
He swore again. “Look, we don’t have time for this. Give me your bag.” He reached to take it.
But she pulled back, overbalancing as she did, her foot shooting out from under her, lurching her down toward the ocean. He grabbed her, halting a certain plunge into the icy water. His fingers dug into her arm as she swayed out over the water. “If want my help, Jessica, you give me that bag and you get down into that boat. Fast. Understand?”
There was something in his voice that warned her not to cross him.
Her throat turned dry and her eyes watered as she let him take the one thing from her that could prove her sanity and buy back her credibility—proof that the man who’d tortured her in China three years ago was real.
“Thank you. Now go.”
Heart slamming against her ribs, she swung her leg out, searching for purchase on the old ladder, and she descended blindly into the darkness.
Luke cursed to himself, willing her to speed it up as he scanned the shadowed dockyard, weapon in hand, her camera bag slung across his chest.
This was supposed to have been a simple in-and-out job—pick up the principal at the pay phone, take her back to his place, call it in, arrange to ship her out. It sure as hell hadn’t panned out that way.
Somehow the Dragon Heads—if that’s who those two men were—had gotten wind she’d be at that pay phone. And they’d ambushed her.
He’d just killed two of their members. Those guys tended to hold grudges. He’d also assaulted a couple of V.P.D. cops. There was going to be a fair grudge there, too.
Damn it to hell. Jessica Chan had just sucked him right into her shadowy mess, all the way up to the bloody hilt. The triad, the RCMP and the city police were all going to be out for his blood now, too.
“Way to go, Stone,” he muttered to himself. So much for keeping a low profile. At least you got the girl.
Trouble was, he didn’t want the girl.
He didn’t want to be responsible for protecting another woman. Ever. If he failed again, it would kill him.
Inky ripples fanned out in the ocean as she stepped into the Zodiac. “I’m in,” Jessica whispered from below. And for one insane and fleeting second, Luke almost thought about leaving her. Right there. On her own. In the boat.
Because she scared him.
It wasn’t her beauty or the fact she smelled and felt too damn good when pressed against him. She was frightened. Vulnerable. And she needed him.
Luke didn’t want to be needed.
He didn’t want to care about anyone.
But being close to Jessica Chan had awakened something dangerous inside him. Something better off left dormant, preferably dead.
But the beast inside him had stirred. And Luke Stone knew instinctively that he was in trouble.
Chapter 2
Luke steered the inflatable into the choppy shipping lanes of Burrard Inlet. They had no lights and their small craft was dangerously invisible to bigger ships.
Jessica drew the black plastic sheet Luke had placed over her shoulders tightly around her neck in an attempt to shut out the insidious cold. “Wh-what happened to Giles?” She was shivering so badly she was stuttering.
“Shh, not now,” he whispered. “Sound carries over the water.”
A tanker loomed suddenly out of the mist and a foghorn blared. A monster hull sliced through the darkness in front of them, causing a surge of waves that broadsided their little boat, sending them bobbing like a cork.
But Luke held the Zodiac steady as he calmly negotiated the churning white water of the big ship’s wake. Nothing seemed to knock this man’s steely control.
As they neared the North Shore the sea turned glassy and the air grew quiet. All Jessica could hear as they neared the lights of Lonsdale Quay was the low drone of their small engine and the soft slap of water under their hull. It was around midnight, no movement on the pier, the Lonsdale market long closed.
Luke guided their craft past a row of tugboats as he maneuvered into a small working harbor and bumped up against a dock. He tossed out a rope, secured the craft and reached for her hand. “Leave the plastic in the boat,” he whispered.
“It’s freezing,” she protested.
“You can have my jacket.”
“It stinks.”
He laughed softly. “I don’t mean this one,” he said as he shrugged out of the booze-drenched tweed. He reached under the dock, fiddled with some knots and rope, pulled a garbage bag free and opened it. “This one,” he said, withdrawing a black leather jacket and draping it over her shoulders.
He removed his tattered gloves, palmed the wool hat off his head and ruffled his hair before dropping to his haunches and floating the old jacket out into the dockyard water along with the hat and gloves. Bemused, Jessica watched as he dipped a handkerchief into the sea and wiped the black camouflage grease from his face. He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pant pocket, stood to his full height, and slung her camera bag across his massive chest.
There was enough light coming from the SeaBus terminal for Jessica to see his hair was sandy blond, short and rumpled. His features craggy, strong, and tanned against his startlingly pale gray eyes. He was now clad in black jeans, black boots and a black turtleneck sweater which emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the muscle in his arms. Not the slightest hint of the broken homeless character she’d seen shuffling behind the shopping cart lingered in his physique.
A chameleon, she thought. One who shifted shape at will. And he’d clearly planned every step of their escape. A cool whisper of warning ruffled through her and with it came the renewed bite of fear.
He checked his watch, and hooked his arm casually through hers. “You’re my date, okay? Let’s go.”
“I’m…what?”
“The last SeaBus is coming over from the city now. We’re going to blend with the commuters as they disembark and drift toward the car park and bus loop. Then we’re going to walk up to a nightclub on Esplanade, grab a hot dog at the late-night stand outside the club and I’m going to hail a cab to take us to a false address. No talking in the cab, not one word, understand?”
“Luke, please—” she tried to draw him to a halt. “I need to know what happened to—”
“Later. All the cab driver must recall is an ordinary couple coming out of the club. Nothing else, got it?”
She pulled her arm free. “No,” she whispered angrily. “I don’t get it. There is nothing ordinary about us. I have no idea who you are or where you’re taking me. Do you think I’m nuts? You think I’m just going to along with—” she wagged her hand at him “—whatever some lethal cross between James Bond and Crocodile Dundee orders me to do? You just assaulted two cops back there. You killed two men. I—”
He seized her arm, pulled her close, his eyes narrowing to sharp steel slivers. “Dammit, Jessica, keep it down. I saved your life back there.”
“And I’m grateful. But I don’t trust anyone, especially foreign men with guns who want what’s in my camera.”
He studied her in silence for a long beat. “I know why you don’t trust anyone,” he said quietly. “It’s because no one trusts you.” He tilted her chin up. “Not since your abduction and torture in China. Am I right?”
She swallowed a ballooning hurt in her throat.
Luke was right. The incident had cost her everything, most importantly her career, her pride and her hard-won respect. As the unacknowledged, illegitimate daughter of a British diplomat and his Chinese mistress Jessica had felt driven all her life to prove her worth in this world, to dig herself out of her impoverished London background. To make something of herself.
She’d done it for her mother.
She’d done it to show she didn’t need the acknowledgment or support of her wealthy father. She’d done it for her own sense of self-worth, and she’d succeeded. She’d become a rising star with the BBC, one of their top foreign correspondents. There was even talk of hosting her own news show.
But it had all vanished three years ago, the day she’d been kidnapped from Shanghai’s business district and taken to a remote factory warehouse in Hubei province where members of the Dragon Heads and an official from the Chinese government had accused her of being a spy for the United States.
She’d been tortured for information and injected with mind-altering hallucinogenic “truth drugs,” designed and administered by the man she called The Chemist. A man she believed was a top level biochemical assassin for a covert arm of the ruling Chinese Communist Party which was using the Dragon Heads to further its political agenda worldwide.
