Melissa Cutler - Hot on the Hunt

Cursing at the messiness of it all and how screwed up her vengeance plan had gotten, she made a break for the hotel. What she really needed was a quiet place to log on to her computer. Maybe that was less glamorous than stealing a car and scouring every inch of the island, but Alicia could cover a lot more ground that way, so to speak.

She could tap into the local police phone line and radio and let the police and civilians do the grunt work. If what she’d seen on St. Thomas as the helicopter lifted off was any indication, St. Croix’s main town of Christiansted would be crawling with police and soldiers, too, so the less visible she was, the better.

In the resort’s parking lot, she scanned for a sign of Rory or any indication that he’d been through. She didn’t expect a top-rate operative like him to leave a trail, and he didn’t surprise her with one. She jimmied open the door of a rusty, early 1990s model American-made sedan—the kind that only took the touch of a screwdriver to the engine’s solenoid starter to jumpstart and so were, statistically, the favorite choice of auto thieves the world over—that probably belonged to one of the resort’s employees.

With another look around, she pulled the driver’s door closed, but it caught on something and bounced back open. Her gaze shot sideways to see a man’s black boot propped on the bottom of the door frame.

Squelching a gasp, she pulled her gun and twisted to aim at him, but the man was faster. Cold metal of a gun muzzle jabbed at her neck. Didn’t karma have an ironic sense of humor?

“Not the best idea, Phoenix.”

There were only a handful of men in the world who called her that, and none of them owned that smug, smooth voice. She followed the boot in the doorway up past a pair of black cargo pants, black leather belt and gray T-shirt concealing a lean, fit build to the smirking face of a man who looked a few years older than her thirty-two. It was going to take some effort and strategy to best him and escape, but she had no doubt that she would.

Her first strategic move was to bide her time and wait for an opening. Blanking her expression, she released her gun into her lap and raised her hands in a show of surrender. “What do you want?”

He cocked his head and looked sideways with mocking amusement. “You and I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. Do you know who I am?”

A navy SEAL, she’d bet, given his clothes and high and tight haircut—and, if the gleam in his eye was any indication, one with a mean streak. “Should I care?”

His lips twitched into a smile. “I think you’re going to want to remember my name. ICE Special Agent Logan McCaffrey.”

ICE. That was not the agency she expected to catch up with her first. How did they get to the islands so fast? And why target her? She would’ve thought that if she had any remaining allies in the government, they would be the men and women she’d worked with for twelve years. She guessed loyalty and an exemplary service record didn’t count for much after she’d broken their most notorious corrupt agent out of prison.

The name Logan McCaffrey didn’t ring a bell, but then again, she’d been out of the loop for a year and a half. As if she’d ever paid much attention to the loop the first place. Their black ops crew had operated largely as a solitary unit, their identities classified, which had kept them isolated from the politics and flow of employees within the government bureaucracy that paid their salaries.

McCaffrey tightened a hand around her upper arm. “That was quite a show you put on with Rory Alderman.”

To test his strength, she tried to jerk her arm out of his grip, but he clamped his hand harder around her. Okay, then, he was as strong as he looked and with reflexes to match. The faster she separated his gun from his possession, the better her odds of success. She lowered her gaze to her lap, where her gun lay. So close, yet she’d never be able to wield it before he reacted.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a show.” It was supposed to be quiet and fast, elegant even. Not the spectacle it’d turned into, thanks to John.

“Nevertheless, I’ve been waiting for you to make that move for a long time. Alicia Troy, it’s my pleasure to place you under arrest.”

Chapter 4

John didn’t have time to worry about Alicia, especially with his fate hanging in such limbo. He had enough to think about with hunting down Rory and dodging the military and coast guard vessels that swarmed the water surrounding St. Croix as he considered where and how to sneak ashore.

He’d hitched a ride back to his boat from the yacht owner who’d heard his gunshot, and though his clothes were almost dry and his bag of guns and money had been right where he’d left it on the floor of the boat, it had been a pride-swallowing, tough slog of an hour.

With military and federal forces descending on the island and the dark, threatening clouds of Hurricane Hannah forming in the distant horizon, John doubted Rory would linger there long. There were only a few ways one could get on and off St. Croix, and John had no doubt the airport and main port in Christiansted Harbor were already on lockdown.

The next closest island was over a hundred nautical miles away. Since there was no way Rory would chance returning to St. Thomas, he would have to hire a private charter or steal a private helicopter, plane or a boat large enough to handle the choppy open waters. Even then, the coast guard and military would have satellites and radars to keep tabs on the water and airspace surrounding the island.

As far as John was concerned, he was in the best position to find Rory, not only because of his intimate knowledge of both St. Croix and the man who was his former best friend, but because he was in the ironic position of being the forgotten one, the ghost operative. There wasn’t anyone in the world who cared enough about John’s movement to pay attention to where he was or what he was doing.

The only person who even knew John was an interested party in what happened to Rory and Alicia was his ICE buddy Logan, and even if Logan thought he might go after Rory, he had no idea how close John had been living to the unfolding events or how quickly he was capable of responding. With any luck, he would slip onto the island undetected, nab Rory, extract a confession from him, then turn him over to ICE before Hannah’s wind speed hit fifty knots.

John’s plan not to think about Alicia was easier said than done, though. Because the moment the luxury estates and resorts dotting the green hills of St. Croix’s coast got near enough that he could make out balconies and artfully arranged palm trees in courtyards, all he could think was that she was out there, too. The same 134 miles that trapped Rory with scores of federal agents and U.S. troops also trapped her.

Had she already found and killed Rory? He hadn’t forgotten her hesitation back on St. Thomas to do just that, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. On their black ops team, there was no getting around necessary violence when their duty to defend their country demanded it, which occasionally meant making a kill. Alicia’s conviction to do what was right for her country and her lethal grace were two of the things he loved about her. Perhaps, now that duty to country had been stripped from her job description, her moral compass had changed. Unless...

Unless what if she’d lost her touch? Post-traumatic stress disorder was common in victims of violence. Either that or there was some reason, deep down inside her, why she wanted Rory alive. Regardless of why Alicia had done what she did, it was time to set his musings aside and admit the very real danger that she wouldn’t have the chance to try to kill Rory again because she’d be apprehended by authorities here on St. Croix, if she hadn’t already.