a deck of cards. The grayness filtered through the shattered windows and afforded them precious little light to play poker by. The warehouse was one of the oldest on the dock; a broken-down wooden structure surrounded by newer ones with corrugated aluminum skins. Matt had chosen it because of its proximity to the gulf. If things to got too hot, they could escape in the forty-foot cabin cruiser floating in a nearby quay.
“How’s my girlfriend?” Boyce asked, grinning.
Matt’s eyes turned the color of charcoal. “Forget about her, Boyce.”
Boyce placed his cards on the table. He was a large, hulking man, half again Matt’s size. “Look, I don’t like these society dames, Taylor. The rich always think they’re better than the rest of us.”
“You screwed up. We kidnapped Kai Easton instead of her sister, Susan. Both of them have red hair and are the same height.”
Boyce looked momentarily shocked and then shrugged noncommittally. “Doesn’t make any difference. She’s an Easton. One’s as good as another.”
“Kai Easton’s a nurse. She works for a living.”
“You’re breaking my heart, Taylor. Now she’s Miss Goody Two Shoes. What she needs is a real man to show her what life’s about.”
Matt glanced at his watch. Boyce couldn’t be trusted. And he had to meet with Drummond in forty minutes. “Make that second phone call to Easton’s home. Be sure—”
Boyce slowly rosé. “I know. Make it from a different phone booth each time. Don’t worry, Taylor, I know my job.” He flashed a disdainful look. “This is my sixth kidnapping. It’s your first. So don’t try to tell me what to do. You’re supposed to coordinate and pick up the money. It’s my job to make the calls and take care of the broad.”
Matt’s face remained closed and unreadable. “Let’s go,” he ordered, motioning Boyce toward the corrugated door located at the other end of the warehouse.
The rain was coming down in earnest, soaking Matt’s shirt and stretching the thin material across his muscled back before he could reach the car at the end of the wharf-side dock. As always, he and Boyce split up, each taking a different route and vehicle. Even in the gloom of the shroudlike morning, Matt restlessly combed the deserted strip of wharf for any suspicious activity. No one but Drummond knew of their whereabouts…. He shut off his thinking there, allowing his instincts to override his mind. With his five senses Matt scanned the area. No sight, sound or smell escaped his abilities, honed to radar precision. It seemed he could almost feel danger, too—taste it when it was in the air.
For the past two years he had lived and behaved like an animal, rubbing elbows with the criminal element. A grimace pulled at his mouth as he peered through the slashing rain. His human side remained in hibernation. Until now…. Kai Easton was responsible for its reawakening. My God, why now? Why her? She was out of his league in every sense of the word. She was born rich. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. According to Drummond, Kai’s wildcatting father had had every last penny riding on one last oil well. The day Kai had been born, Paul Easton had gained a red-haired baby daughter, a multimillion-dollar producing well and had married his love hours after Kai’s birth. Two days later he had lost his adored wife, Rae, to post-labor complications.
Matt hesitated at his dark blue Toyota Celica. His sharpened gaze missed nothing as he looked over the sports car. Satisfied that it hadn’t been tampered with, he slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. Water trickled down the length of his strong jawline as he leaned over, placing the key in the ignition. One more look around the area and Matt slowly drove away from the wharf, heading toward the prearranged destination point.
He saw Boyce’s black Mustang easing out from another entrance. Matt braked to a crawl, wanting to make sure Boyce was heading in the opposite direction before turning left into the dreary noon-hour traffic. Drummond would be waiting….
* * *
BOB DRUMMOND slid into the Toyota Celica, his meaty face a dull red as if he was experiencing a high-blood-pressure attack. He slid a glance over at Taylor.
“How’s it going, Matt?”
“Murphy’s Law is in effect.”
“Yeah, I heard you got the wrong Easton girl. She okay?”
“Boyce roughed her up. She’s still coming out of a drug overdose, and her wrists are in bad shape. She’ll have scars there the rest of her life.”
“Let’s just get her out of this alive, shall we? That damn Boyce. I’m sorry we didn’t take him out before.”
“I can’t stay long, Bob. Boyce tried getting smart with her already.” Matt rubbed his reddened eyes. “How’s it going from your end?”
“We’ve got a special team from the police department assigned to run you down. Trammel’s got it.”
“And my people?”
“Inspector Anderson from the local FBI office is interfacing with Trammel. We’ve got more federal agencies involved in this than you can shake a stick at. After five kidnappings in a row, you know they want to solve this one real bad.”
“God, that’s got to be a picnic for Anderson. I feel sorry for him.”
Drummond managed a sour grin. “My office is staying clear, like I promised your people back in D.C. when we first hatched this plan.”
“Good, then your chief of police isn’t aware of the undercover operation at all?”
“Nope, just you and me at the local level, friend. I’m filing a report back to your D.C. office as soon as we conclude this meeting. Has Garcia contacted you yet?”
“Not yet. I don’t think he’ll surface until we’ve got the money.”
Drummond shook his massive gray head soulfully. “Look, I don’t mean to put more pressure on you, Matt, but you realize the five women kidnapped before you got involved were murdered. You can provide Kai Easton with the protection she needs. It’ll be the last kidnapping of this kind. I only wish we could tell Paul Easton the truth. Maybe he’d take this a little easier.”
“Even with me there isn’t any guarantee. Boyce could get rabid and put a slug through me just as easily. I didn’t get involved soon enough to foil the other kidnappings. I got a last-minute call from Garcia’s right-hand man, Emilio Dante, and he told me to take a flight out here to Houston. Boyce met me at the airport, and then we waited for the Easton woman to go jogging as she always does.” He grimaced. “Boyce made a hell of an error in mistaking Kai for Susan Easton. All we can do is ride this one out.”
Bob agreed and handed him a sheaf of neatly typed papers. “You’re lucky you were at the right place and time at all, so quit bitching. It’s not every day we’re lucky enough to get a deep-undercover agent in place behind the lines. Take a quick read. I got these reports through your Washington office. It’s a profile on Kai.”
Matt glanced up momentarily from the report. “How’s the rest of the family taking it?”
“According to Trammel, Kai’s half brother and sisters are pretty upset about the whole thing. I guess he overheard Frank Holt bewailing the fact that the four million Garcia’s demanding is going to be waisted on Kai.”
