Allison Brennan - Fear No Evil

“I know things he doesn’t know I know.”

“Oh, for shit sake.” Dillon dropped her arms, leaned back into the seat, and held his head. “You’re a fool, Kate. You’re not going anywhere without me.”

Kate was trembling when she pulled the gun out of her vest pocket. “I’m sorry, Dillon. I don’t want to hurt you. Please leave my plane.”

“You’re going to shoot me and fly away? You wouldn’t.”

She nodded. “I’m not noble, Dillon. I’ll take justice any damn way I can get it. I’m already going to Hell. One more death isn’t going to change that.”

Dillon leaned forward. His green eyes burned. “But you’ve never killed anyone in cold blood.”

He snatched the gun from her hand. She couldn’t have been more surprised.

“Impressive.” Jack Kincaid stepped into the plane, sank into one of the two seats in the back. “I thought I’d have to intervene.”

“Shut up,” Dillon said.

“Don’t do this,” Kate whispered. “Please, I know what I’m doing.”

“Don’t talk to me right now. Just get this plane off the ground.”

Jack grinned, stretched his legs as best he could in the small craft, and put his left hand behind his head, his right hand holding a pistol loosely pointed at Kate.

She hated having the gun aimed at her, but she could hardly say anything. She’d had a gun on his brother.

“I’ll get a little shut-eye,” Jack said and closed his eyes, but Kate didn’t think they were really closed. “You two work out the details of the operation. Wake me when we get there.”

“No.” Kate shook her head. “No! You don’t understand!”

Dillon grabbed her chin, turned her to face him. She didn’t want to face his fury. He was too good for her. He wouldn’t compromise his soul. He wouldn’t kill in cold blood. And the only way to stop Trask was on his terms. Morals meant nothing. All that mattered was the end result.

Killing him.

She hadn’t believed men like Dillon Kincaid existed. Yet here he was, handsome and smart and angry at her. With very good reason.

She so badly wanted to trust him. But he was a novice-a shrink, for Pete’s sake-and not someone who could walk away from a gunfight. Jack Kincaid? Yeah, he might survive. But not Dillon.

Kate didn’t want his death on her conscience.

“Tell me exactly what’s going on,” Dillon said, voice low. “I will know if you’re lying.”

And he would. She had no doubt that he could see inside her mind.

“My trace program found his Internet server but I didn’t know it. He’s been tracking my every online move. He sent me a message, directing me to the proper time stamp in my program, and I saw the satellite route, traced it to a location northeast of Seattle, in the Cascade Mountains near Mount Baker.

“Then I received a secure transmission off the same feed. It gave me time and degrees-essentially, all the information I needed to determine longitude and latitude. I looked it up and the coordinates were eighty miles away from where Trask wanted me to meet him. An island, west of the rendezvous point, just north of the San Juan Islands on the Canadian/Washington border.”

“What game is he playing?” Dillon wondered out loud.

“It’s not a game. The information was coded using an FBI Academy code. Something only agents would know because we learned it at the Academy.

“I realized that Trask was planning on meeting me away from where he has Lucy. Probably because he believed I would tell the FBI. So I have the element of surprise. I’m going to the second coordinates. Lucy said she was on an island.”

“You need backup.”

“Yes, but who’s going to believe anything I say now? Your brothers and Quinn walked into a trap. If the feds go to the island, they’ll most assuredly get Lucy killed. If they go to the mountain, Trask will know. He’s expecting them, but he’s not expecting me to come in alone. It’s the element of surprise. Don’t you see? I have to go to the second location first, get there faster than I told him I’d meet him. To see if Lucy is there. If she is, I can rescue her and then still have time to meet Trask on the mountain. If she’s not there, then he kept his word and brought her with him. He promised to trade Lucy. I’ll have enough time to get to the mountain location and save her.”

“You can’t believe him.”

“I know that! But I can kill him.”

“And he knows you want to kill him! You’re blinded by revenge. You’re not seeing the big picture, Kate; you’re going to get yourself and Lucy killed.”

Dillon stared at her, his eyes bright and almost wild. “Is that what you want? Do you want to look into that man’s eyes as he rapes you? Do you want to give him the pleasure of strangling you? Or slicing your neck open? Because believe me, he gets extreme pleasure out of killing. It fuels him, satiates him, makes him feel like he has power. And because you screwed up his plans five years ago, revenge will drive him even further. You will not get off lightly. He’ll bring you to the brink of death and back again, and never even let you beg for mercy.”

Kate’s eyes burned but she refused to cry in front of Dillon Kincaid or his arrogant military brother.

She turned from him, picked up the battery, and left the plane.

Dillon caught Jack staring at him. He rubbed a hand across his face, his temper still high. He didn’t normally lose his temper. He didn’t attack vulnerable women. And that’s exactly what Kate Donovan was. For all her physical strength, her mental prowess, her training, and her determination, at her core was a vulnerable, lonely woman who was crying out for help. And he’d intentionally terrified her.

“What?” he snapped.

“Nothing.”

Dillon didn’t want the respect he saw on Jack’s face. Instead he stared out the dark window. A flash-light bobbed around the plane and he heard Kate mumbling something. A metal door clicked shut. A minute later Kate jumped back into the plane, slammed the door closed, and locked it.

“Your death will not be on my conscience,” she said. She sat down, flipped switches, and started the plane.

“What’s your plan?” Dillon said, ignoring her comment.

“We have a full tank. I can go eleven hundred miles. There are a couple small airports I can stop at to refuel in northern Arizona. Might be a little tricky, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Tricky?”

“Avoiding customs, the fact that my license expired, little things like that. But I can talk my way around it.”

“Shit,” Jack mumbled from the back.

“You have a better idea?” Kate snapped.

“I know a place south of Red Rock where we can refuel.”

“And they’ll just refuel with no questions?” Kate smirked. “Good friends.” She glanced at a map. “That’s over eleven hundred ten miles. Cutting it really close on the fuel.”

“It’s twenty miles south of Red Rock. Take it or leave it. Even with our added weight, you should be fine.”

“Doesn’t make me feel much better.” She looked at the map. “Still, that’s nine hundred miles from Seattle. We’ll make that leg easy.”

“How fast does this little prop go?”

“The Stationair is one of the best ‘little props’ Cessna makes. The 206 cruises at 164 nautical miles.”

Jack did a mental calculation. “That’s 188 miles an hour? That makes it about eleven hours when you factor in one stop to refuel. When does that put us in Washington?”

“About eleven thirty a.m.”

Dillon said, “And you arranged this meeting with Trask when?”

“Two p.m.”

“Where?”

She hesitated.

“Dammit, Kate!” Dillon slammed his fist on his knee, took a deep breath. “No more secrets. We’re in this together, got it? Jack and I are not leaving your side. We need to find Lucy. That’s our number one focus. Not Trask.”