Erick Read online

  “That’s not what I meant. I was just continuing that logical line of thought. Obviously nobody wants anybody digging around.”

  “And especially not from a couple years ago,” he snapped. He stared out the window, turned and walked back to the door. “How long are they supposed to be gone?”

  “I don’t know. They told me to stay here.”

  He snorted. “Figures.” He went back to the double French doors, opened them and stepped onto the balcony.

  She wasn’t sure what the hell she should do. He’d disappeared so fast and so easily from her room, she was afraid he’d take off again now. “How did you jump between those balconies anyway?” she called out.

  He didn’t answer.

  She was afraid to get up and look. He’d gone around the corner, and the curtains hid him, so she couldn’t tell if he was still there or not. But knowing how quickly he’d disappeared the last time, it was quite possible he was long gone. She pulled out her phone and sent Erick a text, warning him the guy was in here with her. Then she shoved her cell into her pocket.

  He came back into the room and stared at her. “Did you just contact somebody?”

  She stared at him, letting her jaw drop. “How? I’m still sitting here. I was afraid you were balcony-hopping again. I can’t imagine how you even did that in the first place.”

  He shrugged. “I’m good at it.”

  She looked at his long length and said, “Well, you are built for it. So that helps.”

  “Oh sure, take my skill and drop it down to a genetic ability. People like you make me sick.”

  And here the mood shifted yet again. She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I put a lot of time and effort into perfecting my skill. People like you want it to be a genetic gift so you don’t have to put in the time and effort to become good at something. Genetics is just an excuse. I’m tall and lean, but I’m very good at what I do because I learned how to do it, and I keep it up.”

  She frowned but recognized the truth in his words. She hadn’t really considered that, but obviously it was a sore point. “I’m sorry,” she said honestly. “I hadn’t really thought about it that way.”

  “Of course not. It’s too easy for somebody like you to just knock other people’s skills, and then it makes it easy not to have developed any of your own. Everyone’s the same,” he said dismissively.

  She heard an odd noise outside in the hall.

  He immediately held up his hand and pointed a finger at her and then pressed it against his lips. He brought out a gun from his waist and pointed it at her as he crept toward the door.

  She swallowed hard and waited, glancing around for any place where she could hide, but there wasn’t one. She could fall down on either side of the bed, but a few strides would bring him to her side, and the gun would be pointed right back at her again. She waited, but nothing more came at the door. He turned and glanced at her; she shrugged, not saying a word.

  He was just too edgy. The way he was waving the gun around worried her more than anything.

  She waited and waited. He didn’t move.

  Eventually another loud sound came from outside. She gave a tiny cry, pulling her knees tight to her chest.

  He stared at the balcony, then motioned to her. “Go to the balcony now.”

  She almost fell off the bed in her hurry to get there. She dashed outside. And froze. Laszlo was at the neighboring balcony. He held up a finger, and she pointed behind her. He nodded. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. The masked gunman arrived just as Laszlo landed on her balcony. Two shots went off, but Laszlo knocked her to the ground out of the way, and he hit the gunman full-on. The two of them wrestled until Laszlo managed to take the gun from his hand. It fell to the balcony. She snatched it up, bouncing to her feet. No point in trying to use it to stop monkeyman because there was no room. She was in danger of hurting the wrong man. Somebody else burst into the room from the hall. She thought for sure it would be Erick. Instead it was one of the bruisers from the coffee shop.

  She held up the gun and called out, “Stop.”

  He took one look at her and snorted, his large hand smacking the gun out of hers. With his other hand, he smacked her in the face. She crumpled to the ground again, darkness crowding in. In the background she could hear Laszlo swearing. And she knew the end would not be the one she—or Laszlo—had hoped for.

  More voices sounded. And she thought to herself, maybe the cavalry had come after all.

  Only she couldn’t think anything more as the darkness took her over.

  Erick raced through the hotel room toward the balcony but stopped short. Laszlo threw a punch at the masked man, but then the intruder leaped to the next balcony. Cade struggled with another man, not masked, just inside the hotel room. Cade appeared to be winning. Erick spun, looking for the intruder, but he had already disappeared from sight. Again.

  Swearing, Erick ran out to the hall to the stairwell and vaulted down the stairs to the lobby. He headed outside, looking for the man climbing down a wall. But there was no sign of him. Cursing fluently and loudly, he studied the wall and the balconies, wondering at a design that allowed people to do something like that. It was made for breaking and entering. Absolute idiocy.

  But he saw no sign of the gunman. He wanted the asshole who had caught Honey and terrorized her. Still shaking with fury, he raced back up the stairs and into Laszlo’s room. Sure enough the bruiser was unconscious on the floor inside the room. Honey was curled up against the headboard. As Erick burst inside, she bounced off the bed and came running. He opened his arms and caught her just before she flung her full weight at him. He held her close and crushed her against him. Into her hair he whispered, “It’s all right. It’s all right now.”

  She shook so badly that he knew she wasn’t hearing him. Shock was like that. He picked her up, carried her to the bed and sat down with her. Cade grabbed a blanket and threw it at him. Awkwardly he tucked it around her shoulders. He just sat there for a long moment until she calmed down. He looked over at Laszlo, nodding to the man on the floor. “Do we know who he is?”

  “One of the three who caught me in the alleyway,” Laszlo said. “And presumably one of the men in the coffee shop.”

  He shook his head. “It might have been the third guy from the alley, but I can’t be sure of that, so …” He let his voice trail off. That was the trouble. Sometimes you thought you knocked him out for good, but some of these big guys were hard to keep down. Laszlo was a big brute in his own right.

  “Is he carrying any ID?”

  “Doesn’t matter if he is or not. We pretty well know who he is. Mason got back to us about the photos we sent. Lowlife mercs out of Africa. Tesla also ran the audio we sent her. No surprises in the translation.” Laszlo went through his pockets and shook his head. “He’s not got anything on him.”

  At that, Honey lifted her head and turned to look at Laszlo. “Is he alive, or did you kill him?”

  “He’s alive.”

  She nodded and buried her face against Erick’s chest.

  He held her close, rubbing her back and shoulders. “Can you tell us what happened?”

  She lifted her head and glanced around at the three men and then shrugged. “It was my fault.”

  “It’s not a case of who is at fault,” Erick said. “Just tell us what happened.”

  She explained how she’d propped open the door, not having Laszlo’s key, so she could go across the hall to get her laptop and come back in, and how he’d been here when she got back. Then she told the guys about the conversation she’d had with him.

  “What? He knew we were in that truck?” Laszlo asked.

  She nodded. “And he knew Talon was driving. Knew him by name. And that he drove over a mine.”

  “Hidden cache of weapons?” Erick asked.

  “Yes, that’s what he said.” She nodded. “The boss man wants you to stop asking questions.”

  “Because he doesn’t want an inves
tigation that might end up finding his arsenal?”

  She nodded. “Yes. That’s my understanding. So not necessarily the person who planted the mine,” she said tentatively. “Monkeyman did say something about the boss’s men made sure his place was secure. The boss man didn’t know anything about the land mine being used but had given his men free license to set up whatever protective measures they deemed fit. How you had no business driving where you were.”

  The men stared at each other, processing the information.

  Erick was stunned. “I never thought to consider another party could be involved.”

  “No, but it kind of makes sense when you consider these recent attacks.”

  “And how do they know we’ve been asking questions?” Cade asked from the doorway.

  “Our supplier.” Erick knew that for sure. “Not that I’ve had time to listen to the audio bug we left behind, but I’d bet anything that he told this guy we were sniffing around in that region.” He settled back. “Wow, that changes things.”

  “Does it?” she asked. “Does it really?”

  He stared down at her, brushing her hair off her forehead studying the redness on her cheek. It was going to bruise the asshole had hit her so hard. She looked like she’d had a hell of a few days and was very close to the end of her rope. Talk about a shitty conference from her end. “It does. Doesn’t mean it changes enough though.”

  She nodded. “I’m really hoping I don’t have to stay alone in my room. The chances of these guys coming back is just way too high. The last thing I want is to see any of these men again.”

  “Monkeyman appears to be extremely good at disappearing,” Laszlo said. “I wouldn’t mind having a little one-on-one with him. The trouble is, the couple times I’ve met him, he’s been doing his bloody monkey act up and down the balconies.”

  “That’s a hell of a skill,” she said. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen anybody scale a hotel wall like that.”

  “No, he’s very good at what he does.”

  “He was also incredibly insulted when I suggested he was a mercenary.”

  The men turned to look at her again.

  Erick studied her face. “Seriously?”

  She nodded. “I forgot to tell you that.” She quickly mentioned the little bit she remembered. “He said there were guys out there like that, but he wasn’t one of them.”

  The men looked at each other and shrugged.

  Laszlo said, “So what? The intruder has an employer? Is part of another army? A private army? Security?”

  She shrugged. “He didn’t say. But he didn’t have much good to say about being a mercenary.”

  “Still, he didn’t have a problem keeping you captive, did he?”

  She shook her head. “He has no respect for women. We’re all dumb blondes to him, regardless of hair color. And I definitely got the impression he would be happy to torture or kill me if he thought that would get the answers out of you guys. I was afraid, if he managed to capture you, to make you talk, he’d beat on me.”

  Erick felt his gut twist because, of course, that was exactly what monkeyman would have done. And that was the last thing Honey deserved.

  “He also made fun of me,” she added. “About the fact that I didn’t understand the kind of work you did. And in a way downplayed it or mocked it.”

  “Interesting. His accent?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know accents all that well, but I would definitely have said American. It didn’t sound British or Scottish or Asian, or anything like that. Could have been Canadian. But they even have a slight accent.”

  “So it could be one of our own guys, having left the military and now working for someone else.”

  “We’ll have to tug in these lines but it will take time.” Laszlo looked at her. “I’m sorry about your laptop.”

  Erick looked at the laptop that he’d picked up and placed on the bed. “We can probably take out the hard drive and get anything off it you need.”

  She glanced at it and nodded. “I’d appreciate that. I’ll still have to get a new laptop though. As much as anything, it’s having to reload all the software that’s the most frustrating. I use a lot of specialty software for my work. And getting all that back up and running is a pain in the ass.”

  Erick understood.

  “I can give you a hand with that,” Cade said. “You just have to get another machine, and I should be able to transfer everything.”

  “As long as the hard drive isn’t damaged,” Talon said.

  They all turned to the doorway to see Talon walking in with a cardboard tray of coffee cups.

  “Oh, what a good idea, thank you.”

  He held one out for her. She shifted in Erick’s arms. He let her realign and then closed his arms back around her to keep her on his lap. With two coffees sitting on the night table beside them, Erick filled Talon in.

  “That guy has nine lives.” Talon nudged the bruiser on the floor. “What are we doing with this guy?”

  “I’m not sure what to do with him yet,” Erick said. “I wouldn’t mind having him awake for an hour or two so we can ask him some questions.” He felt Honey shiver in his arms. He smiled down at her reassuringly. “I promise I won’t kill him.”

  She leaned back and looked up at him. “And what if he gets loose and beats up you guys again?”

  He stared at her in outrage. “Hey, it was only because of the small confines of the balcony that anybody had a struggle out there at all,” he reminded her.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not judging your ability to fight or to get out of trouble or to keep me safe. I’m worried he’ll wake up and cause us all kinds of hell. He’s not even tied up.”

  Erick smiled. “No, he’s not. But he also won’t make a jump for it. In case you hadn’t noticed, somebody is between him and each of the doors.”

  She glanced around the room and realized they were strategically placed. What she hadn’t considered was their casual stances were on purpose. She sighed against Erick. “I just want to go home and have this over with.”

  Erick nodded. “Soon. I promise it will be soon.”

  Chapter 10

  Almost an hour later Honey slipped under the covers in her own hotel bed and pulled the pillow against the crook of her neck. “Are you sure you’ll be able to sleep tonight?” she asked Erick.

  He lay beside her on top of the covers. “I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about me.”

  “Of course I’ll worry about you,” she said, exasperated. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but it seems like, since I first saw you here, I’ve done nothing but worry about you.” She punched the pillow beneath her head. “Who knew a dentistry conference could be so interesting.”

  “Happy to provide entertainment.” He chuckled. “But I think I’m supposed to look after you.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think there’s any supposed to about it. You have been worried about me, and I’ve been worried about you.”

  “So does that mean we are in a relationship then?” he asked in interest.

  “What kind of a relationship could we possibly have? This has been nothing but danger and stupidity since we first met.”

  “But I never forgot you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Just because I crushed your beautiful car.”

  “Oh, so it was beautiful. I think you called it a stupid car back then.”

  She winced and then laughed. “I’m surprised I didn’t call it something worse than that.”

  He grinned, leaned over and kissed her. “Now we go to sleep.”

  “Really? You just kissed me, and then you tell me to go to sleep. What am I—a two-year-old?”

  This time he lowered his head and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close. She wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but the spark that he’d lit was something she’d never experienced before. Her toes were curling, and a sensation rippled up and down her body.

  When he fin
ally raised his head, she gasped. “Wow, you really pack a punch.”

  He grinned at her wickedly. “And just think, that was only a kiss.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ha-ha.” She smiled and stroked his cheeks for a moment. “Does this mean you want to see me when we get back home again?”

  “I want to see you but definitely not in your dentist chair.”

  She laughed. “Understood.”

  “And, yes, I want to see you,” he said with a smile. “But tonight we’re all on watch. Because, if monkeyman got in so easily and escaped via the balconies, you know he can enter here via the balcony just as easily. So, no sleeping for me.”

  She frowned.

  He glanced at the watch on his arm. “It’s already two o’clock. Not to worry. One of the guys will come to relieve me soon.”

  “Okay, but I’m grabbing four hours while I can.”

  “You do that. When you wake up, don’t freak out if one of the other guys is sitting here.”

  “The other guys don’t need to be on my bed. They can sit in the chair,” she muttered.

  He chuckled, reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “Okay, it’s only me who sleeps in your bed—got it.”

  “Talk about cheeky.”

  He smacked her lightly on her behind. “That’s being cheeky.”

  She rolled onto her back and grabbed his hand.

  “We’ll pick up those conversations when it’s safer, back home, tomorrow night.”

  She snorted. “Who invited you?”

  “I did. You won’t be alone until we know it’s safe.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me?” She sat up and stared at him. “Surely when we get on US soil, it’ll be safe.”

  “Well, we hope so. But it’ll take a day or two to figure that out.”

  She shook her head. “No. You decide right now that I’ll be perfectly safe when I get home. You’re welcome to come over and visit. But I don’t want to be under guard because you think this will follow us home.”

  “I don’t know where it’ll travel. We just have to be prepared for any eventuality.” He motioned at the bed. “But that’s tomorrow’s discussion. Right now we both need sleep.”