The Only Way Out. Susan Mallery
over her cotton T-shirt and jeans. She wasn’t concealing a weapon. He flicked on the Beretta’s safety, then shoved the pistol into the holster attached to his waist.
Her breathing increased and he could smell her fear. The boy was confused, but not frightened. His mother looked as if she expected to have her throat slit.
“It has nothing to do with you,” she said, desperation adding an edge to her voice. She sidestepped him and continued moving away from the villa. “Please just let us go.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. Not after she’d seen him. Whatever kind of game she was playing with Kray, he didn’t want any part of it. Once his old enemy knew he was on the island, Jeff would be marked and hunted until they found him. Some woman with a grudge against her old lover wasn’t about to interfere with what he had to do.
She spun toward him. Blue eyes met his. He saw her panic. “Oh, God, you work for him.”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re going to kill me. No, you can’t. I won’t let you. He can’t have Bobby back. He can’t.”
She took off running. At first, Jeff was too startled to do more than stare after her. What the hell was she going on about? He didn’t look like one of Kray’s men. They dressed like businessmen and tourists. He glanced down at his camouflage fatigues. He looked as if he were going to lead jungle warfare exercises. But if she was with Kray, she should know all that. And if she wasn’t—
He loped after her, moving quietly through the dense brush. As he got closer, he heard the sound of her breathing. Bobby clung to her shoulder and stared behind them.
“I don’t see him, Mommy,” he said quietly.
“Good.”
“Was he going to hurt us?”
Jeff didn’t bother listening to her response. He circled around them and stepped into her path, two feet in front of her. She saw him and stopped instantly.
Perspiration had collected on her forehead and upper lip. A single drop rolled down to her damp T-shirt. It was barely after ten in the morning, but the temperature was already in the mid-eighties. Warm for late April in the Caribbean.
Her lips moved, but there was no sound. He realized she was praying. She started backing away from him.
“No,” she whispered. “No. No. No.” Her breathing came in rapid pants. The child clung to her.
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
This was more than a lover’s spat, he realized. She was genuinely terrified. “Who are you?” he asked, frustrated and confused. “What are you doing on Kray’s island and who is that kid?”
The woman stared at him, then bent over and let the boy slip to the ground. “Run,” she ordered him.
The child hesitated, hovering near her.
“Run!” she screamed.
Bobby took two steps away. Jeff moved toward him. The kid could get lost in the tropical jungle and not be found for weeks, if ever.
The woman sprang between him and her child. She raised her fists in front of her and balanced on the balls of her feet as if she expected him to physically fight her.
“Listen, lady, let’s just calm down.” He didn’t need a hysterical woman on his hands.
“Run, Bobby,” she called and lunged forward.
Jeff sidestepped neatly, letting her run harmlessly past him. The boy hovered by a large mahogany tree and clasped his arms tightly in front of him. He began to rock back and forth.
Jeff started toward him when he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to the right as the woman barreled into his left side. Before he could reach out and steady her, she’d curled her fingers into claws and started going for his eyes.
“Damn it, woman, be careful,” he muttered, grabbing her upper arms to hold her off.
She wrenched free of him and kicked at his knees. Great. She’s had just enough self-defense training to hurt herself, he thought grimly as he jumped out of the way and caught her neatly around her midsection. She screamed and fought him, her hands pulling at his hold. He hauled her hard against him. Her heel came down on his foot. He barely felt the impact through his heavy boots. Her elbow connected with his belly. He exhaled audibly.
Then something or someone rushed him. Small hands grabbed his shirt.
“You let go of my mommy. Let go!”
Jeff turned toward the boy. The woman took advantage of his distraction and went for his gun. He read her intentions before she even got close to the pistol, but it was enough. His brain shut down and he reacted instinctively.
His left hand clamped down hard on her right wrist. With one quick, fluid movement he jerked her arm around behind her, pinning her hand to her back. She winced in pain. He spun them both, putting the woman between him and the boy, then wrapped his right arm around her neck, cutting off her supply of air. He applied enough pressure to frighten her, but not enough to kill.
“Now that I have your attention,” he said softly, “you’re going to answer a few questions.”
He could feel the heat of her body and the curve of her breast where it brushed against his elbow. She trembled against him.
“I’m going to let you breathe enough to talk, but I’m not going to let you go. If you give me any more trouble, I’ll make you very uncomfortable. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
He loosened his hold on her throat. She gasped in a breath of air, then coughed. Bobby rushed at her. “Let her go! You let go of my mommy. My daddy will come back on his big boat and he’ll hurt you.”
Sunlight filtered through the trees and brush around them. The scent of the saltwater and the faint crash of the surf drifted toward them. Jeff stared at the boy, hearing his words, but not wanting to believe them.
The child moved closer and angrily swiped at the tears on his face. Sunlight caught the brown of his hair, then highlighted the shape of his nose and chin. Raw anger radiated from the child’s eyes. Anger so like another man’s rage.
“Let her go,” Bobby demanded again.
Jeff released the woman and stepped back. He bumped into a tree and grasped its smooth trunk for support. Bobby continued to glare at him. Those eyes, so large and expressive. So like his father’s.
Jeff swallowed hard, remembering another child with big eyes, a boy about four years old, laughing as he climbed down the plane’s steps and flew into his father’s arms.
“I crossed an ocean,” J.J. had said proudly as Jeff had swooped him up.
“Did you?”
“I wasn’t afraid.”
Jeanne had followed her son down the steps, moving a little slower, the long flight and time changes making her weary. “He’s not afraid of anything.”
Fierce pride had burned through Jeff, as though he had something to do with his child’s bravery. Perhaps he had taught him something about courage, but more likely, J.J. hadn’t encountered anything to be frightened of. He’d been surrounded by loving parents and family from the moment he’d been born.
So much life snuffed out by a single explosion. An explosion meant for his father.
Jeff stared at the boy in front of him, and at the woman crouched down beside him. She held the child to her and watched him fearfully, as if he’d gone mad. He had gone mad.
Loathing rose up inside of him until he could taste the bitterness. Hatred, anger, rage. Revenge.
He advanced slowly. “What’s your last name, Bobby?”
“C-Cochran,”