think we either ran away or drowned. Either way, we need to get out of here.”
The gunmen. The gunmen were gone. Good thing, since if they were still here, they’d have to kill her where she lay because she felt like one big piece of overcooked spaghetti.
“Who are you?” she breathed. “What are you?”
And then she was sure she must be delirious because for a second she thought he was going to say something like, I’m your worst nightmare. Only maybe that wasn’t true. Under the lagoon, he’d been downright fantasy-like, and the memory brought a renewed, inappropriate prickling of sensual heat, and more confusion.
They couldn’t have been underwater that long. He couldn’t have been breathing air into her lungs. That wasn’t possible.
She gathered her wits, jerked her loose-limbed, disobedient body into gear and pushed to her elbows. The adrenaline started flowing again.
“Who are you?” he grated in return, and he moved swiftly, took hold of her elbow and lifted her to her shaking feet.
For once, he was listening. He was giving her a chance. She grabbed it, desperate.
“Sienna Parker. I’m Sabrina’s sister. That was Sabrina’s apartment. She’s on sabbatical from the university. We both work there. Sabrina—” She stopped. How much did she really want to tell this stranger?
She knew nothing about him. He wanted to take Sabrina somewhere with him, and he’d been prepared to take her against her will.
“Are you some kind of…. police, or—” How much trouble was Sabrina in?
“Sabrina’s sister,” he repeated, ignoring her question, watching her, those steely liquid blue eyes of his searing her to the bone. He reached up with one hand and his warm, wet finger slid across her cheek. Something crackled inside her. He dropped his touch abruptly. “Twin sister?”
She nodded.
“Where is Sabrina?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Where is she?”
“I said I don’t know! I don’t know what’s going on. But if she’s in trouble, I want to know.”
“Oh, she’s in trouble,” he said.
His eyes on hers were so bright, so sharp, they almost hurt.
“You’re scaring me again!” Dammit, what had made her admit that?
“Good.”
He was making her angry, too.
“Let’s go,” he said. “My car.”
It didn’t sound like an invitation. It was an order.
And dammit, she followed. What other choice did she have? Walk back to Key Mango, hope she didn’t run into any gun-toting lunatics along the way?
That option wasn’t exactly viable.
The van was gone. Sienna scrambled into the passenger side of the stranger’s sedan. He slammed into the driver’s seat. Inside the car, the muted sounds of rain and wind tapped and blew. They were both soaked to the skin and she shivered despite the warmth of the island summer night. Shock.
She was in some kind of shock. She was shaking all over.
“You’re bleeding,” he said. “Your forehead’s cut. I’ll pick up a first-aid kit somewhere or that’ll get infected.”
She hadn’t even realized. She touched her head, pulled her fingertips away gleaming red in the dim light from the glowing dashboard inside the car. He started the engine and headed the car back toward town.
Her head reeled just a little. What had happened here? She’d gone to Sabrina’s apartment, been attacked, chased, run off a bridge, nearly drowned—twice. Now she had willingly gotten into this stranger’s car for lack of any better alternative.
This day was so not going well. Her head began to throb and she couldn’t stop shaking.
“Why is Sabrina in danger? What did those men want?” What did he want? “Who are you?” She couldn’t tell a lot about him in this light, but his hair was dark, clipped short, his eyes a fearsome blue. His shoulders seemed to fill the car and he scared her to death at the same time as he made her feel oddly safe.
“My name is Cade Brock,” he answered finally.
She hugged her arms around her waist. “So are you the police or what?” Cade Brock. The name buzzed at the back of her mind. Think! She had to think.
Her brain felt as if it had balls bouncing around inside of it.
“Not exactly.” He negotiated the dark, wet road like a professional driver.
“What are you exactly, then?” And where were they going? “Is there a police station in Key Mango?”
“We’re not stopping in Key Mango.”
She cut her eyes to his face again, a nervous twist in her stomach.
Cade Brock. A small gasp escaped her. It all hit her at once. “I know who you are,” she breathed harshly, adrenaline rushing her again.
Oh, God. She’d found a magazine in Sabrina’s apartment, folded over to an article about treasure hunters. There’d been a photograph of Cade Brock. He was a treasure hunter—a renegade treasure hunter, and some of the quotes in the article had suggested without outright accusation that he was the sort who lived outside the law, sabotaging, scheming and pirating his way into a fortune.
Her head reeled again. Sabrina had said she was afraid of someone, a man. Was it Cade Brock? He was looking for Sabrina. He’d thought she was Sabrina. He might have thought her name was Tabitha, but he’d certainly recognized her.
She moved to grip the door handle. The idea of rolling out of the car at this speed, possibly to her death, wasn’t appealing.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said.
Did he read minds, too?
“What do you want with my sister?”
“I want to help her.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then that makes two of us, because I’m not sure I believe much you’ve said so far either. But I saved your life, so that’s one point for me, don’t you think? And I plan to save Sabrina’s life, too. But first I have to stop her.”
“Stop her from what?”
“Have you ever heard of the wreck of the Santa Josefa? Ramiro’s globe?”
Oh, God. She felt hot and cold at once, sick. Hurting. She didn’t want to even think about the Santa Josefa and what the search for that shipwreck had done to her family. Ramiro’s globe was the legendary
