The Other Lady Vanishes (Burning Cove #2)(75)

He crossed the room to where she stood, and closed his powerful hands very firmly around her. His eyes were no longer enigmatic. They were very fierce.

“We’re in this thing together. Don’t ever forget it.”

“Right. We’re partners. I should come with you tonight.”

“No,” Jake said. “I’m going to take you to the safest place in Burning Cove.”

“Where is that?”

“The Paradise Club,” Jake said. “Luther has a small army working for him. You’ll be well protected there.”

“Hah, the last time we were there you were drugged.”

“Trust me, Luther’s security people are on guard now.”

The tone of his voice told her there was no room for argument.

“Jake,” she said. She stopped because she could not think of anything else to say.

He covered her mouth with his own. The kiss was as fierce as his eyes.





Chapter 43


The pier was located in a sheltered cove a few miles outside of town. It had been built for the owner of the summerhouse perched on the low bluff above the beach. The owner was not in residence, however, so the house was dark.

There were no lights, but the night was clear and the moon was still nearly full. There was a boathouse and a shed designed for hooks, nets, ropes, and other boating gear.

Jake waited in the shadow of the boathouse.

“Think he’ll show?” Luther asked from the darkness beside the shed.

“He sounded desperate,” Jake said. “He’ll show.”

They had arrived by boat an hour earlier because they knew that Massey would expect Jake to come to the meeting point in a car. The first rule when rendezvousing with a contact who promised to provide important information was to change the rules. That was especially true when you had a reason to think that the person who had set up the meeting was probably planning to kill you, Jake thought.

It occurred to him that he was feeling remarkably good considering that he was there to meet with a man who might try to murder him. Adelaide had changed everything, he thought. He had stopped drifting through life. He had a sense of purpose. He was starting to think about his future. For the first time since the nightmare of his doomed marriage had ended, he felt as if he was no longer trapped in a bad dream.

He had the feeling that he was not the only one who might be slowly surfacing from an old nightmare.

“I was surprised to see Raina Kirk with you at the club tonight,” he said.

“I told you, she’s investigating a small problem for me,” Luther said.

“At midnight?”

“Well, I do operate a nightclub. Most of the action happens around midnight or later.”

“I couldn’t help but notice that the two of you were sitting in your private booth.”

“The location provides an excellent view of the bar. My problem involves the theft of liquor.”

“Yeah?”

“Look at it this way: Adelaide won’t have to spend the evening alone while she waits to hear what happens here at the pier tonight. Raina is keeping her company.”

Before Jake could think of anything else to say, headlights lanced the night. A vehicle lumbered down the rutted dirt road that led to the dock. He couldn’t see beyond the glare of the beams but he knew from the rumble of the car’s engine that Massey had not driven a speedster to the late-night meeting. It sounded as if he had borrowed an unremarkable Ford for the occasion, the sort of car that no one would remember later.

“We’ve got company,” Luther said.

The Ford was nearly at the bottom of the access road. In another few seconds the headlights would illuminate the pier.

The vehicle came to a halt but the driver did not turn off the engine or the headlights.

A few more seconds passed before Jake heard a car door open and close.

“Truett? Are you here? You’re supposed to be here, you bastard. Where are you? It’s all gone wrong because of you, but I’m not going to let you destroy me. Do you hear me? You can’t have her. She’s mine.”

Massey sounded as if he’d had a few martinis to work up his courage for the meeting. His voice was too loud and very blurred around the edges. It was probably sheer luck that he hadn’t driven into a ditch or gone over the edge of Cliff Road on his way to the pier.

“I’m here, Massey.” Jake did not move out of the shadows behind the boathouse. There was no way Massey could see him.

“Where are you?” Massey shouted. “Show yourself, you son of a bitch.”

Jake put his back to the wall of the boathouse and took a quick look around the corner. Massey was a dark silhouette against the glare of the headlights that now illuminated the pier. The object he gripped with both hands was not a flashlight. It was a gun.

So much for the faint possibility that Massey really had come to make a deal.

Massey might have been drunk, but he wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t see Jake briefly revealed in the headlights.

“Damn you, you’re not going to stand in my way,” he yelled.

He lunged forward, firing wildly. The thunder of the pistol shattered the unnatural stillness of the night. Again and again he pulled the trigger. Most of the shots went wild but Jake heard a couple plow into the wooden boathouse.