The footsteps drew nearerâ¦
Sweat beaded her brow as her fingers gripped the sheets. Inching to the edge of the bed, she rolled onto the floor and crawled away.
A hand grabbed her ankle.
As she flailed her arms, her hand touched fabric, a knit cap she ripped off. In the moonlight she saw his face.
âYou saw me. Now I have to kill you.â He yanked her hair and she screamed as pain shot through her. Who was this man? Diego had said something about switching cabins before she got here. Had this man come for Diego?
His hand clamped her throat, cutting off her air. As the room spun, she heard a thud and then the pressure released. She hit the floor, gasping. Strong arms lifted her and pushed her out the window. Diego.
Outside, he tugged her hand. âRun. Hurry.â
Shaking, she struggled to speak. âWhatâ¦is going on here?â
âI donât know.â
But she knew. Sheâd stepped into a nightmareâ¦and if her assailant had his way, she wouldnât live to wake up.
ONE
Diego Cruz peeked through the open door of the resort dining and kitchen facilities.
The woman mopping the kitchen floor didnât look like a good prospect for conversation, but after days of isolation on the primitive island resort off the Washington coast, Diego hungered for any kind of human contact. He was an extrovert by nature. This much time alone was making him loco.
He stepped across the threshold. âNeed some help?â
She jumped, placing a palm over her heart. âYou scared me.â She shot him a hard look before returning her attention to dragging the mop across the floor.
So she wasnât exactly amistosa. He didnât care. Even a hostile conversation would be better than pacing the floor of his cabin. Three days ago, heâd been a confidential informant for the FBI, working his way up the ranks through years of undercover work until heâd gained the confidence of the number two man dealing drugs in the Northwest. Someone had outed him, putting his life in danger. The Bureau responded by holing him up in no-manâs-land until they could find the source of the leak.
Until the woman had disembarked from the ferry yesterday, the only people on the island had been Diego and a caretaker, an unfriendly old man named George who spent most of his time wandering into the forest with an easel and paints. George informed him the island was designed for people who wanted to detox from electronics. Diego suspected they didnât have the green to update, so being low-tech became the new marketing angle for the run-down getaway. To Diego, it meant no cell service and more boredom.
When Diego stepped toward the woman, her back stiffened. He smiled at her anyway. âSo youâre in my old cabin,â he said.
She turned her back to him and slammed the mop in the bucket. âWhat do you mean?â Every word held a tiny punch, an effort to push him away.
âI started out in that cabin, but picked a different one. The view is better in the one Iâm in now.â The truth was the sight lines for the first cabin were bad. He was pretty sure the Bureau knew how to hide a man, but if he was found out, he wanted to see his assassin coming so heâd have time to grab his gun and defend himself.
She turned so he saw her profile. She was pretty, in an uptight, prep school sort of way, hair the color of dark honey, delicate bone structure. Despite the effort at dressing down in a flannel shirt and turtleneck, the clipped tone of her words and that perfect posture said sheâd been raised uptown.