him, paralyzing him. He hadn’t made it. His escape was so close but exactly what he feared had happened. His timing sucked. Was this it? Was this how it was all going to end for him?
“H-How did you get in?” What had happened to his high-priced alarm system?
“You’re not quite as safe as you think you are, asshole. A strong radio frequency can knock out even the best alarms.”
“You’re choking me.” Graham could hardly get the words out as the stranger pressed harder on his windpipe and dragged him along the floor. He was sweating so badly now he could smell it on his body. How would he ever get out of this? He’d been so close, so very close.
“We’re going to take a little trip, you and I,” the man went on, “along with whatever is in that briefcase. Mr. Moreno says you’re unhappy, amigo. He wants to meet with you and make sure you understand nothing is to change. Your friend, Vincenzo, tried to run, too. Unfortunately in his haste he met an untimely demise before he could give us all the information we want.”
Vince. Goddamn.
“Let’s move.” The man urged him forward, still exerting the pressure on his neck and nudging him with the gun.
He couldn’t let Moreno’s thug get him past the front door. Graham dragged his feet and looked around wildly for something, anything, any option to get him out of this. Whatever it was, he’d have only a few seconds to make it happen. Then, in the hallway, he spotted something that gave him a faint ray of hope, if he could get hold of it.
“I—I can’t breathe.” He made his voice as faint as possible, and sagged against the man behind him.
“Too bad.”
“If you deliver a dead body,” Graham gasped, “Moreno won’t be very happy with you.”
He could have sworn the man growled, but he finally loosened his hold. Knowing he’d have scant seconds to do anything, Graham yanked on the man’s arm and ducked beneath it. In one desperate movement he spun around, grabbed a bronze statue from the hall table, and hit the man over the head. For an endless moment nothing happened, and he was afraid he’d misjudged. Then the man toppled to the floor, nearly taking Graham with him.
He had no idea if he’d killed the man or merely knocked him out, but he didn’t stop to find out. If the man was dead, in a few days his housekeeper would find the body, somewhat rancid by then. If it was the latter, he was short on time to get the fuck out of here.
He picked up the gun and the briefcase that he’d dropped and raced for the garage. He was sweating profusely and shaking so much he bumped into the car, the briefcase slamming into the fender. He yanked his keys from his pocket, hoping he was steady enough to drive. He jumped into the most innocuous of his vehicles, a gray Mercedes, and hauled ass down the driveway to the road.
When he made the turn onto the highway, he spotted a black utility vehicle parked near the trees with a man in the front seat.
Fuck!
The driver, spotting Graham’s car, pulled out onto the road just as his partner, wobbling slightly, came racing down the driveway.
I should have hit him harder.
Lucky for Graham the few seconds the driver stopped so his partner could jump in gave him a miniscule lead, but not much. Graham punched the accelerator and hauled ass down Seacliff Road. He had a small window of opportunity to get the fuck out of here, and he wasn’t wasting any of it. That SUV would be on his tail any minute.
Faster! Faster!
He glanced at the speedometer and saw he was doing a hundred. He hoped he didn’t wreck the car and kill himself just when he was nearly out of here. He was so focused on reaching the marina that it wasn’t until he touched his pocket that he realized his cell phone wasn’t there. Fuck again! What the hell had happened to it? If the wrong person found it and managed to restore it, his ass would be grass. Of course, first they’d have to find him. Right?
Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe. Almost there.
All the way to the harbor he kept checking the rearview and side-view mirrors. The road twisted and turned around the shoreline so at times his view of the rear disappeared. There. Was that a black SUV? No. No, it was a pickup and it turned off into a strip center before it caught up to him. He was definitely going to vomit first chance he had.
Jesus, Graham, don’t lose it now.
Or any more than he already had. He just had to get to the boat before they caught up with him. Then he’d be safe. He always kept the smaller of his two boats provisioned and ready for anything, as part of his emergency plan. Just in case. He also made sure he had all the equipment on board he’d need.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Too late now.
He rounded a curve in the road and there was the marina up ahead. He could see Princess Devon now, its twin hulls bobbing in the water at its berth. Almost there. Still no SUV in his rearview mirror, but it could appear around the curve at any moment if those two guys had gotten their shit together.
At last he was parked and headed down the pier where the boats were docked. All he needed was another few minutes. A few more steps…
Chapter 1
“Your father is missing.”
Devon Cole tightened her grip on her cell phone and tried to make sense of what Sheridan March had just told her, as fear swept through her. Maybe she hadn’t heard right.
“What do you mean, missing?”
“The Coast Guard found the Princess Devon drifting five miles offshore early this morning,” the Arrowhead Bay chief of police explained. “But there’s no sign of him anywhere. And no clue to anything in the house. We went through every inch of it. The alarm was fried, probably needs to be replaced, but otherwise the place was clean as a whistle.”
Devon clutched the phone. “Was there anything on the boat? Something he might have had with him that could give us a clue?”
“Nada.”
“Where’s the boat now? Would the Coast Guard hold on to it?”
“In its slip at the Bayside Marina. After the Guard went over every inch of it, they had one of the men on the cutter bring it back in and berth it. I have the keys.”
Devon swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat. “When was the last time anyone saw him?”
“Sunday,” Sheri told her. “As soon as I got the word from the Coast Guard we began checking with his friends. The last time anyone saw him was when Cash Breeland had lunch with him at the Driftwood.”
“That’s the same day I talked to him.” She rubbed her hand nervously on her jeans. “He didn’t say a word about going anywhere. Did the Moorlands say anything about seeing him?”
Ginny and Hank Moorland owned both the Driftwood Restaurant and Bayside Marina.
“Hank was in Miami for a couple of days but Ginny was there. She said she never laid eyes on him.”
“And
