Tami Hoag - Heart of Gold

It was all Faith could do to keep her balance, and she half fell against her captor as the powerboat rocked. Annoyed, Strauss took her hand and pressed it to the gin pole. “Hold on to that, Ms. Kincaid. If you let go, I’ll shoot you.”

She couldn’t keep from looking to Shane for some kind of sign. He was nearly invisible with his dark hair and clothing, like a panther in the night, but she caught his almost imperceptible nod. Her hand closed around the cold metal pole, and her fingertips brushed across a loosely knotted rope. As Strauss’s attention swung away from her, she stole a glance.

A heavy block-and-tackle rig hung down from the top of the gin pole and was secured to it with nothing more than a flimsy piece of nylon. Praying wildly Strauss would keep his focus on Shane, Faith began trying to work the knot loose with her fingers. She didn’t want to think about what the madman had planned for her, but she knew he meant to kill Shane, and she had to do everything she could to stop him.

“You betrayed me, Shane,” Strauss said, raising his voice so his dramatic accusations could be heard above the wind and the sea and the creaking of the boat. He stood with his feet braced slightly apart, his Italian loafers offering footing that was less than sure on a deck slick with mist. The gun he had pressed to Faith’s temple was now leveled at Shane. “We were like brothers. You were my friend.”

Shane answered him with a curse. “I was doing my job, Strauss. I’d sooner make friends with a cobra.”

“I know differently. We’re two sides of the same coin, you and I, my darling Shane.”

The statement was so close to being accurate, it nearly made Shane sick. He had come so close to that edge, but he had pulled back. He had struggled with the darker side of himself. For a time he had felt he would never escape the shadow of it. Then Faith had let sunlight into his life, and he had felt his soul begin to heal.

Abruptly he pulled back from his thoughts. He had to concentrate, had to find some way to get Strauss’s gun away from him. Strauss had said he wanted to play on Shane’s weaknesses. Two could play at that game. Adam Strauss had an enormously overinflated ego. It was time to start punching holes.

“I’m sick of your theatrics, Strauss,” he said, caustically. He let one foot inch ahead as the deck swayed beneath his sneakers. “Besides being a lousy actor, you’re nothing but a two-bit killer with a fake diploma.”

Even in the faint light that glowed out of the cabin Shane could see the man’s eyes flash with insane outrage. “How dare you! I am a scholar-”

“What’s the plan? Kill me, dump me overboard, and make a run for South America with the woman? You’ll never make it.”

“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do, Agent Callan,” Strauss fairly spat out the words, his wild-eyed stare riveted to the harsh planes of Shane’s face. The boat lurched, and he had to grab hold of the small freezer behind him with his free hand, but he kept his gun and his gaze leveled at Shane. “I mean to kill you both. You’ll watch her die little by little, then you’ll join her-one drop of blood at a time. And I will get away with it. You of all people should know I am capable of anything.”

“Too bad for you your abilities don’t live up to your ego,” Shane said with a sneer, inching another step closer as Strauss slipped again. “You were never anything more than a pathetic little hood with delusions of grandeur. I was never your friend. I loathed you and I pitied you.”

Strauss’s control snapped. A wild, inhuman cry erupted from his throat as he brought his gun up with both hands on the grip. At that same instant Faith freed the block and tackle and swung it with all her might. The heavy rope and pulley caught Strauss across the chest, knocking his arm aside just as the pistol bucked in his hand.

Shane pounced across the deck with the grace of a striking cougar, his big body slamming Strauss’s back into the freezer. Faith bolted for the ladder but froze on the third rung, her attention riveted to the life-and-death struggle in the cockpit.

The two rolled across the small deck of the cockpit, wrestling for control of the handgun Strauss had managed to hang onto. Shane knocked the pistol free by slamming Strauss’s arm against the deck. Strauss relinquished the weapon but gained the upper hand in the fight, rolling Shane beneath him and smashing a fist into his face. His second blow met nothing but the solid deck as Shane dodged sideways at the last instant.

As Strauss howled in pain, Shane threw him aside and struggled to his feet. He reached inside the loose sleeve of his sweatshirt and jerked a.25 caliber pistol free of the small holster that was strapped to his forearm, raising it just as Strauss rushed him with a knife.

Faith’s scream split the air an instant before the Crack! Crack! of the gunshots.

The expression on Strauss’s face as the bullets slammed into his chest was one of utter surprise. Dropping the knife, he stopped in his tracks and looked down at the dark stain spreading across his silk shirt. His legs buckled beneath him.

With the smoking pistol in his hand, Shane stared down at the man who lay sprawled on the deck with his head cocked at an unnatural angle.

“And you thought you knew all of my secrets,” he said softly, unable to call up a single ounce of remorse. This man had threatened Faith’s life and would certainly have killed her. She would have been only one of many to die by Strauss’s hand. Now Adam Strauss would never kill again. “You were wrong, pal. Dead wrong.”

Faith eased herself down the ladder, her heart pounding so, she thought it would explode. In her mind’s eye she could still see Strauss lunging at Shane, his knife gleaming in the light from the cabin as the blade slashed through the air. Shane could have been killed. But he was still standing, and Faith had never needed anything the way she needed to put her arms around him. On legs that were as wobbly as noodles, she made her way across the short stretch of deck.

“Shane?”

Her voice seemed nothing more than a whisper, but he heard her. He turned and caught her as she threw herself into his arms, burying her face against his chest.

“It’s all right,” he said in a rough voice as he clutched her to him, relishing the feel of her, soft and alive against him. “You’re all right, honey. He can’t hurt you now. No one will ever hurt you again.”

Faith hugged him with what little strength she had left. “He wanted to kill you. I was so afraid he was going to kill you.”

She had been afraid for him. Guilt lashed out inside him. Faith could have lost her life because of him, because of his past, but she had been afraid for him.

“Faith,” he said as he stood her away from him.

Whatever else he had meant to say was lost in the next horrible split second.

The faint glint of light on metal caught Faith’s eye. As Adam Strauss lifted the gun that had been dropped on the deck during the struggle, she shrieked Shane’s name and shoved him aside. The pistol fired once before Strauss fell back, dead. And Faith collapsed to the deck, pain burning through her in one bright, blinding flash before darkness swallowed her up.

“Faith!” Shane screamed, the sound tearing up from the depths of his soul. “Faith!”

He fell to his knees on the pitching deck, turning her over and lifting her limp body in his arms. With shaking fingers he found the pulse in her throat, then he dug a handkerchief out of his hip pocket and pressed it to the wound in her shoulder where blood gushed freely, soaking into the white polo shirt she wore beneath her cardigan.

Tears of anguish streamed down Shane’s face. He’d done it. He’d killed the one good person in his life. He’d known from the start not to touch Faith Kincaid. She wasn’t from his world, but he’d dragged her into it, and like everything good she would be destroyed by it.