Kitabı oku: «Bodyguard»

ONE

If the Everglades didn’t kill her, her uncle would.

Either way, Esme Dupree was going to die.

The thought of that—of all the things she’d leave behind, all the dreams she’d never fulfill—had kept her moving through the Florida wetland for three days, but she was tiring. Even the most determined person in the world couldn’t keep running forever. And she’d been running for what seemed like nearly that long. First, she’d fled witness protection, crisscrossing states to try to stay a step ahead of her uncle’s henchmen. She’d finally found her way to Florida, to the thick vegetation and quiet waterways that her parents had loved.

Esme wasn’t as keen. Her family had spent every summer of her childhood here, exploring the wetland, documenting flora and fauna as part of Esme’s homeschool experience. She preferred open fields and prairie grass, but her parents had loved the shallow green water of the Everglades. She’d never had the heart to tell them that she didn’t. By that time, her older siblings were grown and gone, and it was just the three of them, exploring the world together.

Funny that she’d come back here when her life was falling apart; when everything she’d worked for had been shot to smithereens by her brother’s and uncle’s crimes, Esme had returned to a place filled with fond memories.

It was also filled with lots of things that could kill a person. Alligators. Crocodiles. Snakes. Panthers. She wasn’t as worried about those as she was about human predators.

Her uncle and the people he’d hired.

The FBI, too. If they tracked her down, they wouldn’t kill her, but she’d put her hope in them before, trusted them for her safety. She’d almost died because of it.

She wiped sweat from her brow and sipped water from her canteen. Better to go it alone than to count on people who couldn’t be depended on. She’d been learning that the hard way these past few months.

Bugs dive-bombed every inch of her exposed flesh, the insect repellant sweating off almost as quickly as she could spray it on. Things hadn’t been so bad when she’d been renting a little trailer at the edge of the national park. She’d had shelter from the bugs and the critters. But Uncle Angus had tracked her down and nearly killed her. He would have killed her if she hadn’t smashed his head with a snow globe and called the police. They’d come quickly.

Of course they had.

They were as eager to get their hands on her as Uncle Angus had been. It seemed like every law enforcement office in the United States was keeping its eyes out for her.

Thanks to the feds, the organization that had sworn to protect her. Witness protection was supposed to be her ticket out of the mess she’d found herself in. She’d hoped it would be. She’d probably even believed it would. She’d entered the program because she’d seen her brother murder a man in cold blood. She’d seen the look in his eyes, and she’d known that he was capable of anything. Even killing her to keep her quiet. What she’d learned since then was that there was no panacea to her trouble. No easy way out. No certain solution. Her best hope was in herself and her ability to keep a step ahead of her uncle until the trial.

“That might have been easier if you’d stayed with the police,” she muttered, using a long wooden pole to move the canoe through shallow water.

There was no sense beating herself up over the decision to run again. Uncle Angus’s hired guns had firebombed the tiny police station she’d been taken to after she’d been attacked. During the chaos that had followed, she’d seen the opportunity and she’d run.

It had seemed like the right decision at the time.

Now she wasn’t so sure. The sun had nearly set, its golden glow still lingering on the horizon. Mosquitoes buzzed around her head. She didn’t bother slapping at them. Her arms ached. Her head throbbed. Her body felt leaden. All she wanted was to get out of the Glades and back to civilization. She’d make different decisions this time. Head for a place she’d never been before. She’d buy colored contacts to change the bright green eyes she’d inherited from her mother. The reading glasses she’d bought and worn hadn’t hidden them well enough, and Uncle Angus had told her that was how she’d been found.

“Those eyes, kid,” he’d growled. “You can’t hide them.”

He was wrong. She could, and she would.

No more living in her delusions, telling herself that everything was going to be okay because she was a good person with a good heart who wanted only what was best for the people she loved.

A fool.

Because she really wanted to believe that good begat good and that the happily-ever-after she’d planned for so many clients would happen for her one day.

She might be a fool, but she wasn’t stupid.

If she was found again, she would die.

But she wasn’t going to be found. She’d sleep in the canoe again. Just like she had the past three nights, covered by mosquito netting, listening to things slither in and out of the water. By tomorrow afternoon, she should reach her destination—Long Pine Key Campground. She eyed the compass she’d bought before she’d left Wyoming, using a small Mag light to study the map she’d grabbed from the Everglades National Park information center.

She’d had a feeling she was going to need both.

As a matter of fact, she’d put together a survival pack, and she’d hidden it in the crumbling loft of one of the boat sheds that dotted the trailer park where she’d been staying.

She’d been able to grab it after she’d escaped the police.

Maybe she wasn’t as much of a fool as her ex-fiancé, Brent, had said she was when she’d told him she was going to testify against her brother. She was tired, though. Tired people made mistakes. Like coming to the Everglades instead of heading for Texas or California or somewhere else where no one would think to look for her.

Death.

It had been stalking her for months, but now...

Now she could feel it breathing down her neck.

She shuddered, watching the edges of the murky water for a place to pull onto the shore. She needed a spot clear of vegetation. One that would allow her to drag the canoe far away from the edge of the water.

Tomorrow she’d be away from the slithering, slapping, plopping sounds of things moving through the water. She’d leave the canoe behind and make her way out of Florida. She still had money. Not much, but enough to get her to another state. She’d start fresh, build a new business. Nothing to do with weddings or brides. Nothing that anyone she knew would connect her with.

Not even Violetta.

Her eyes burned at the thought of never seeing her older sister again, her heart heavy with what that would mean—no family, no connections, no one who shared all her childhood memories.

If she could have, she’d have contacted her sister. But she didn’t dare. Their brother, Reginald, would use Violetta’s knowledge about Esme to his advantage. He’d probably been doing it all along. As much as she loved her sister, she also knew Violetta’s weakness—greed. She liked the good things in life, and she was happy to let their brother, Reginald, give them to her. Even if his means to those ends was murder.

Esme winced at the thought, pushing aside the memory that was always at the back of her mind. She’d witnessed a murder. Her brother had been the murderer. She’d watched the victim die, and she’d known that she couldn’t keep quiet.

She’d turned on her family, betraying the deepest of all bonds.

That was what Uncle Angus had said when he’d broken into the trailer.

Turned on family, and that makes you the lowest of low. You have to die, Esme. Because family is everything.

It was a lot, but there was more to life. There was integrity, there was honor, there was faith. The last was what had enabled her to offer herself as a witness to her brother’s crimes. She had what no one else in her family did—a certainty that God was in control, that He’d work everything out for His good.

She just hoped His good didn’t involve her dying in the middle of the Florida wetland.

Esme flashed her light along the edges of the water, ready to stop for the night, to try to shut off her thoughts and get some sleep. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, the sound both alarming and comforting. She had to be on the right track, moving closer to civilization. The map and the compass hadn’t steered her wrong, but civilization meant people, and that meant more danger.

Her light shone on marshy land. Eyes peered out from thick foliage, and she tried not to let herself think about what was watching her. She didn’t mind the mammals. Mice, marsh rats, deer. Even thinking about panthers and bears didn’t bother her. It was the reptiles that made her skin crawl—alligators, crocodiles, snakes.

“Cut it out!” she whispered, her voice filled with the fear she’d been working hard not to acknowledge. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to be back in her cute little Chicago apartment, making dinner after a long day planning weddings.

Esme sighed. She did not want to be in a place where predators were waiting to do what they did best.

The dog barked again—a quick sharp sound that made her wonder if she were even closer to civilization than she’d originally thought. She’d already planned her escape route and knew—in theory—how to get from the dock at the trailer park to the closest Everglade car-accessible campground. If cars could get in, she could walk out. And that was what she planned to do.

Her light glanced off what looked like a tiny boathouse, the old wood structure gray against the lush vegetation. She checked her map, circling the camping area she thought she’d arrived at. The glades were dotted with little places like this—areas where a couple of campers could bed down for the night. This time of year, though, the water was high and the risk was greater. There weren’t as many campers. Just die-hard naturalists and explorers who wanted adventure.

Esme was neither of those things.

She liked home and books and routine.

She hated scary movies, danger, intrigue.

All she’d wanted was to plan weddings, marry her college sweetheart, have the nice life she’d been dreaming of for years.

But here she was.

Ready to bed down for another night in a place that she’d rather not be.

She steered toward the wood structure, saw the clearing beyond it. There were lights in the distance—unexpected signs that she really was closer to civilization than she thought.

Esme dragged the canoe out of the water, her waders sucked in by the muddy ground. Behind her, something splashed, and she imagined a crocodile or giant snapping turtle moving toward her.

There were no other boats, no campers, nothing human that she could see. Whatever the light had been, it was gone now. Twilight turned the world deep purple, casting long shadows across the wet ground.

She climbed into the boat, traced the route she’d highlighted on the map, double-and triple-checking her coordinates. Two more camping spots before she reached her destination. Unless she’d missed a couple on the journey.

That was a possibility.

If she had, she might be at the last stop before the road-accessible campground. Something rustled in the brush, and she jumped, scanning the area, looking for whatever had made the noise. Not a mouse or rat. This had sounded large. A panther? A bear? Her heart thudded in her chest as she pulled the bowie knife from the sheath she’d strapped to her thigh. It glinted in the last rays of the setting sun, the blade new and wicked-looking. A great weapon for fighting something close-up, but she’d prefer to keep far from whatever was lurking in the shadows. In hindsight, a gun would have been a better idea. Purchasing a firearm would have been a problem, but she could have gotten her hands on one if she’d tried hard enough.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to use one. Her parents had taught her, and Reginald had reiterated the importance of knowing how to defend herself. Probably because he’d been afraid that his crimes would catch up to him, that the people he’d hurt would come back to hurt his family.

Family was everything, but he hadn’t loved his enough to keep them out of harm’s way. The irony of that wasn’t lost on her.

The bushes rustled again—closer this time. Whatever it was, it was stalking her. She could feel it coming closer, see leaves shifting and plants shivering as something moved past.

“Please, God,” she whispered, her fingers so tight around the knife hilt they ached. “Please.”

And then it was on her, springing out from the brush in a flash of dark fur and dark eyes, her light following the movement as she scrambled back. Her knife hand moving as her brain screamed the truth—

A dog!

The thing was a dog, bounding across the open ground and stopping beside her. Sniffing at the air, at the boat, its nose so close she could have touched it.

“Hello,” she said, her voice shaking, but the dog was already bounding away, barking wildly, the bright orange vest it was wearing glowing in the beam of Esme’s light.

It took a second for that to register.

The vest.

The dog.

A search team. Either her uncle’s henchmen or the police.

Looking for her.

She jumped out of the canoe, dragged it back toward the water, her heart slamming against her ribs as she tried desperately to escape whoever was on her trail.

* * *

The lady was back in the water, tugging the canoe out of the shallows. She probably thought she could escape again, but Esme Dupree was about to be disappointed.

Ian Slade sprinted the last few yards that separated him from his quarry, his K-9 partner, King, barking ferociously beside him. Esme had to know they were coming, but she didn’t glance back, didn’t stop, she just kept dragging the canoe, splashing through the green water, alerting every predator in the area that prey was moving through.

He grabbed her arm, was surprised when she swung around, a bowie knife clutched in her free hand.

King growled low in his throat, a warning that Esme would be wise to heed. The Belgian Malinois was trained in protection. Smart, agile and strong, King had a bite as vicious as his bark.

“My partner,” Ian warned, “doesn’t like when people threaten me.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” She tried to pull away, but after three days of tracking her, there was no way Ian planned to let her go.

“What would you call it?” he replied, dragging her back a few steps.

“Defending myself.”

King growled again, and Esme’s gaze shifted, her attention caught just long enough for Ian to make his move.

He disarmed her with ease, grabbing her knife arm and twisting it until she dropped the weapon. Even then, he didn’t release his hold.

Sure, her record was clean. She made a living planning weddings...pretty aboveboard, from the looks of it. But Esme was a member of the Dupree crime family, cut from the same cloth as her brother—a man who killed first and asked questions later.

Ian knew that more than most.

She yanked against his hold, forcing her arm into an angle that had to be painful. He might not trust her, but he didn’t want to hurt her.

“Calm down,” he said, shifting his grip. “I’m Agent Ian Slade. With the FBI.’”

“And that’s supposed to be comforting?” Esme ground out as she continued to tug against his hold.

“More comforting than staying out in the middle of nowhere with your uncle still on the loose.”

“He wouldn’t be loose if your team would focus on apprehending him rather than me.” She yanked hard, her boots slipping in the muck.

She’d have gone down if he weren’t holding on to her.

She didn’t seem to realize that there was no way she was going to escape. Ian was a well-trained federal officer, part of an elite group of agents. He was also a head taller than she was and seventy pounds heavier. Maybe more. Her bones were small, her wrist tiny, his hand circling it with ease.

As battles went, this wasn’t a fair one, and he almost felt bad for restraining her.

Almost.

He knew what her family was capable of.

Until she proved differently, he had to assume she was capable of the same. Even if he’d been one-hundred-percent certain that she wasn’t, he wouldn’t have let her go. Protecting her was his assignment. Keeping her alive until the case against her brother went to trial was what he’d agreed to do.

Despite the fact that she was a Dupree.

“Do you have any other weapons on you?” he asked, his fingers curved around her wrist. She’d stopped tugging. Maybe she’d finally realized she couldn’t get away.

“If I did, I’d have used them already,” she spat.

“On a federal officer?” he asked.

“I didn’t realize you were a federal officer at first. If I had, I wouldn’t have pulled the knife.”

“Good to know. Mind if I make sure you’re telling the truth about weapons?”

“Yes. I do.”

He could have forced the issue, but there wasn’t any point. She might try to run, but he didn’t think she’d attack him to do it. She had a clean record, no history of violence or trouble.

“All right,” he said, releasing her.

“Thanks.” She started walking to the canoe as if she thought he’d let her leave.

“I’m not checking for a weapon, but I’m not letting you leave, either.”

“It would be easier on both of us if you did.” She turned to face him, the darkening evening wrapping her in shadows. He couldn’t see her expression through the gloom, but he could see the pale oval of her face, the tension in her shoulders.

“That would defeat the purpose of me and King spending the last three days hanging around Long Pine Key Campground waiting for you to show up.”

“I didn’t ask you to come looking for me. As a matter of fact, I would have preferred that you didn’t, Agent Slade,” she responded.

“Ian. We’ll be spending a lot of time together. We might as well be on a first-name basis.”

“I’m not going back into witness protection.”

“That’s fine. We’ll work something else out.”

“I guess I should have been more clear. I’m not going back into any kind of federal protection. I’ve been on my own for a few months now, and I’ve been doing just fine.”

“Until your uncle tracked you down,” he pointed out, and she stiffened.

“I was tracked down long before I came to Florida,” she responded. “Or have you forgotten that poor woman who was murdered because she was in the same state you’d hidden me in?”

He hadn’t forgotten.

None of the members of the team had.

Information about Esme’s location had been leaked to the Dupree crime family, and a woman who’d looked a lot like her had been killed. “I’m sorry that happened. More than I can express, but I’m not part of the witness protection unit. I work for the FBI Tactical K-9 Unit.”

“It doesn’t matter who you work for. I’m not spending any more time with you.”

“I wish that was how things worked, but it isn’t. You agreed to testify against your brother.”

“And I plan to.”

“That will be really difficult to do if you’re dead.”

“If I’d stayed in Wyoming, I probably would be. Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

She had a point. A good one. Esme was the sole witness to a murder her brother had committed. Her brother, Reginald, and Angus would do anything to keep her from testifying.

“We had a security breach,” he explained, snagging her backpack from the bottom of the canoe. “It won’t happen again.”

“It won’t happen again because I’m not going back into protective custody.”

“I’m afraid you are.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you ever been wrong before?”

“More than I’d like to be.”

“Good,” she retorted. “Then you won’t be upset that you’re wrong this time.” She whirled around and would have walked away, but King blocked her path, pressing in close to her legs.

She shot a look in Ian’s direction, her eyes still flashing with anger. “Call off your dog.”

“Release,” he said, and King pranced back to his side.

“Thanks.” She probably would have walked away, but he held up her pack.

“Forgetting something?”

She reached for it and King growled.

“He doesn’t like people taking things from me.”

“I don’t like people touching my things,” she responded, her focus on King. She looked scared. He didn’t blame her. At home, King was goofy and friendly, funny and entertaining. On the job, he was intimidating, his tan face and dark muzzle giving him a wolflike appearance.

“Sorry. I’ve got to check the contents before we move out.”

“I think I made it clear that—”

“You plan on going it alone. You’ve made it very clear. Unfortunately, my job is to get you to trial safely. I can’t do that if we’re not together.”

“We’re at cross purposes, then, and I don’t see us finding common ground.” She stepped back, and he thought she might be looking for an escape route. One that King wouldn’t be able to follow.

“The common ground is this—we both want to keep you alive. How about you let me do what I’m trained to do?”

“Which is?”

“Protecting people like you.”

King growled, the sound low and mean.

Esme froze, but Ian could have told her the growl wasn’t directed at her. It was a warning. One that sent adrenaline shooting through Ian’s bloodstream. He grabbed Esme’s wrist, dragging her close.

“What—” she began, but Ian held up his hand, silencing her so that he could listen. The evening had gone eerily quiet, King’s rumbling growl the only sound.

He pulled Esme to the thick brush that surrounded the campsite, motioning for her to drop down into the cover it offered. She slipped into the summer-soft leaves silently, folding herself down so that even he could barely see her.

King swiveled, tracking something that Ian could neither see nor hear. He wanted to think that it was a panther, a bear, an alligator, but King was trained to differentiate between human and animal threats. Besides, thanks to former team member Jake Morrow, the Dupree crime family seemed to always be just one step behind the K-9 team. There was every possibility that one or more of Angus’s henchmen was wandering through the Everglades.

He thrust Esme’s backpack into her arms, leaning close to whisper in her ear. “Stay down. Stay quiet. Don’t move.”

She nodded, clutching the backpack to her chest.

King’s growl changed pitch. Whoever was coming was getting closer. It wasn’t local law enforcement, and it wasn’t a member of the K-9 team. They were back at headquarters waiting for word that Ian had finally found Esme’s trail.

That left only one other option.

Angus Dupree or his hired guns.

Ian acted quickly, shoving the canoe into the water with just enough force to keep it moving. He gave King the signal to heel and went with him into the shelter of thick vegetation. Mosquitoes and flies buzzed around King’s head, but the dog didn’t move; his attention was fixed on a spot just beyond the clearing. Ian knew the area. He’d walked it several times the past few days, certain that Esme would arrive there eventually.

She was smart.

There was no doubt about that.

Ian had done his research. He knew as much as there was to know about her childhood, her schooling, her college years. He knew she’d built her business without the help of her older sister, that she’d never taken a dime from her brother. Everything she had, she’d earned on the right side of the law by using the brain God had given her.

The fact that she’d escaped witness protection and had stayed under the radar for months was even more proof of her keen intelligence. Smart people didn’t go into situations without a plan. Ian had visited the trailer she’d been renting at the edge of the Everglades. He’d seen the old boathouse and the dock, and he’d known she’d had an escape route in mind when she’d chosen to rent the place.

All he’d needed was a map and a highlighter. He’d done some calculations, tried to think of how far someone like Esme would be willing to travel in a hostile environment. It hadn’t taken any time at all to figure out that the quickest, most direct route out of the Everglades brought her here.

He’d staked out the area, walking a grid pattern every day, waiting for her to show.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who’d been haunting this place looking for her. She was smart, but she’d have been better off leaving the area. She hadn’t had the backpack with her while she was in protective custody with the local police, and she hadn’t visited any of the local outdoor supply stores, either. He had to assume that she’d returned to the rental to retrieve the pack. Which meant there was something she needed in it. Money seemed more likely than anything.

King’s growl had become a deep rumble of unease. Scruff standing on end, muscles taut, he waited for the signal to go in. Ian waited, too. He didn’t know how many people were approaching or what kind of firepower they’d brought. Backup was already on the way. He’d called in to headquarters as soon as he’d seen Esme paddling toward the campsite.

A shadow appeared a hundred yards out, and King crouched, ready to bound toward it. Ian gave him the signal to hold, watching as two more people stepped into view. A posse of three hunting a lone woman. If Esme had been bedded down for the night, they’d have been on her before she’d realized what was happening.

An unfair fight, but that was the way the Duprees did things.

One of the men turned on a flashlight, the beam bouncing across the camping area and flashing on the water. Twenty feet from the shore, the canoe floated languidly.