forgot pain, forgot everything except the deadly coldness of the eyes she saw as the man ripped her to her feet and jerked her tightly against him again. She was aware of hollowed features, dark clothes, iron strength. Rain dashed against his cheeks, sliding down as if off a slab of marble.
“Don’t do that again.” He jerked her around, pushing her down the rest of the stairs ahead of him.
Horror gripped her as she realized the van parked on the street in front of the apartment must be his. He pushed her toward it. He was going to take her away from here and do God knows what to her next. All she knew about crimes against women told her that if she got in that van, she was going to die.
Another man pushed out of the rear passenger sliding door of the van suddenly. Another man with another gun. He dashed forward, grabbed her bag and threw it in the van before turning back. Why were they taking it? Her mind reeled. There was still the rental car. When Sabrina got here, she’d find it, know she’d been here…But it would be too late.
“Get in the van,” the attacker snarled, releasing her to propel her forward toward the other man, and she caught the tip of her sandal in a break in the cement walk.
She fell to the wet concrete, hitting her knees, the impact robbing her of breath or she’d be screaming. She lifted her eyes as the man grabbed her by her hair and a dark movement flashed into her consciousness even as new pain seared her head.
“You’re lucky he doesn’t want you dead,” he snarled. “Yet.”
He? Who was he?
A screech of tires broke the wind-whipped air. Rain splattered down, harder now, as a dark sedan swung to a halt in the middle of the street. A man reared from the car, leaning over the hood, a dark object glinting in his hand. Police?
Her heart thudded against her ribs. No. Like the men abducting her, he was dressed in civilian clothes, a black T-shirt stretched over powerful shoulders. Clipped brown hair, lean-planed features, chilling eyes.
And a gun.
Rain instantly plastered his hair to his head as the drops turned into a downpour.
“Let her go,” he shouted.
The hand holding her shoved her sideways and she was back on her knees as the sound of gunfire exploded. She heard the distant sound of a door opening down the street, a startled scream, then a slam.
She realized one of the men was down, the man who’d jumped out of the van. Blood.
Her pulse boomed in her ears. She scrambled on her hands and knees for the red compact car she’d rented at the airport in Key West, pulling the door open and banging inside, desperate breaths biting her lungs. She felt the humid warmth of the leather seat, her clothes and hair dripping onto it.
Adrenaline burned her veins and she could barely think. The key.
She twisted awkwardly, shoving her hand into her back pocket. Was it there or had she dropped it in the apartment when he’d grabbed her?
Heart thumping into her throat, her fingers closed with numbed panic over the cold outline of the rental car key.
Whipping her head to the window, she could barely see the outline of the man who’d grabbed her in the apartment. He’d made it to cover behind his van and another shot boomed through the pounding rain as he aimed at the man crouched behind the sedan.
Surely the police would be on the way. But how long would it take them to get here? Did tiny Key Mango even have full-time emergency personnel?
One of the two men left was going to kill the other, and then they’d come for her. And the idea that at least one of them had sworn he didn’t want her dead, yet, wasn’t a comfort.
And as for the other one…
He looked every ounce as dangerous as the abductor and he’d just shot a man dead. They were fighting over her—or fighting over Sabrina, if that’s who they thought she was. Why? Where was Sabrina?
Panic roared through her bloodstream. She slammed the key in the ignition and sobbed when the car leaped to life. She screeched backward, plowing past the man by the sedan, striking the fender. A flash of hot blue eyes seared her as he reared back out of her way.
She braked, spun, and in the stormy blur of the rearview mirror as she floored it, she saw the abductor from the apartment seize the moment of distraction to make it around his car and leap into the van. He was coming after her!
Town. She had to head back to town. Find people. Key Mango didn’t have much, but she’d driven past a commercial strip of businesses, restaurants, small neighborhoods and a church, before reaching the touristy outskirts of beach rentals. She gulped in panicked breaths, roaring at blinding speed through the tearing rain.
And she didn’t have the slightest idea where she was going. Had she missed the turn back toward the town?
All she could see on either side of the road were jungle-thick mangroves. She’d gone into the interior of the island, but this wasn’t the road to town. Desperation clawed at her stomach. She crossed a bridge fanning over a lagoon. She must have gone the wrong way from the beginning.
Headlights broke the storm-dark behind her. She caught a sign whizzing past: Key Mango Bird Sanctuary. Ahead, through the rain, she saw a chain-link fence, the gate padlocked shut. Dead end.
The car spun, sliding sideways, tires losing traction on the wet road. She regained control and headed back, whipping past the van as it, too, spun around.
As she hit the bridge again, she saw the sedan coming straight at her. She jerked the wheel to swerve around it. She should never have left North Carolina. This was a nightmare. This couldn’t be happening. She was a university librarian. She never did anything more risky than exceed the daily recommended fat intake for a woman of her height and weight.
That was the last thought she had before she realized the car was hydroplaning. She felt the bizarre sensation of spinning over the blacktop road, then the shocking crash of breaking through the guardrail.
Dark water slammed up at her—oh, God, water!—and she struck the windshield.
Chapter 2
Cade hit the brakes, hanging on to the wheel as the sedan threatened to twist into a dangerous spin, stopping only when he crashed into the van that ground to a stop just short of following the woman’s car through the wiped-out guard rail. The impact thunked him forward hard, then back, his seat belt holding him in place.
He jumped out, tearing through the howling wind and slashing rain. The driver of the van lay against the steering wheel, blood pouring out of the side of his head.
The man moved, mumbled, his eyes flashing open. Cade landed his fist into the man’s face and he slammed back, dead to the world again.
Cade raced from the van to the edge of the bridge and dove straight in. No way was he losing his target—and the lagoon was about to swallow her whole. The passenger compartment was taking in water fast. Already, the car was more than halfway to a watery grave. His body, skin made up of microdermal ridges invisible to the naked eye, streamed into the dark water like another liquid.
He’d been six years old when his
