Карен Кингсбери - A Distant Shore [calibre]

Jack closed his eyes. He pictured Eliza again. Of course she hated what her father was doing, selling her into marriage. The fact that she’d told him—a stranger—made the truth clear. She was desperate, and she’d be thankful to get out. Jack stood and filled his lungs with the warm sea air. It was time to go. Eliza was going to be free soon.

Tonight was only the first step to making that happen.

IN TRAINING, JACK had learned the art of disassociation. A way of taking his feelings and turning them to facts. Facts kept you alive in undercover agent work. Feelings killed. So as he parked his Porsche at the beach lot and walked a different path to a staircase that led to the Palace, Jack refused to feel for the beautiful, broken girl he would spend the next hour with.

This was a mission. Every step was a checklist item. A week from now he could celebrate the rescue, ache for the girls inside the mansion. But right now he needed to move and act and talk with precision.

At the other side of the parking lot, a woman sat on a rock. Dressed in a bohemian floral kimono, secret agent Terri Gunther, thirty-three, appeared to be meditating. A beach hippie focused on a palm tree. But Terri had a wicked aim and beneath her oversized beach garment was a Remington 270 with the best scope on earth.

Once Jack was out of sight, Terri would take his backpack from the Porsche and return to her rock. Then she would slip into the grove of trees and train her scope on Eliza’s window until Jack returned.

If something went wrong, Terri would be the first to know.

Jack wasn’t sure if the guards could see him, but he figured yes. There were a dozen other cars in the parking lot, sickos already here for their purchases. Like a man walking into a black-tie gala, Jack took the steps slowly. Cocksure. Ready.

At the top of the stairs he bent to tie his shoe. At the same time he dropped a cell phone and a loaded Glock in the grass. Once more he went over his escape plan. If Eliza didn’t cooperate. If she screamed and tried to alert the armed guard outside her bedroom door, then Jack had a sedative-filled syringe in a plastic case in his shoe. He would keep it in his waistband once he was alone with her.

If he had no choice, he would stick her leg with the drug. It was fast-acting and would wear off in twenty minutes. Enough time for him to make his escape. If that happened, when she stopped moving, he would slip out her bedroom window, climb down, and sprint for the cell phone and gun at the top of the stairs.

A single button on the phone would signal every operative on the ground that there was a problem. By then Terri would’ve activated two agents parked on the main road, one of whom would drive into the lot. Terri and Jack would jump inside their car and an hour later—dressed as a monk—Jack would be on a plane headed for Miami. Oliver had overseen the details, so Jack wasn’t worried.

Should he need to escape, every minute was orchestrated.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight. With clear understanding of the facts he made his way to the massive front doors of the Palace. One of Anders’s housemaids answered and pointed him to a room off the foyer. The same room where—earlier in the day—Jack had been introduced to Eliza.

He didn’t have to wait long. A massive man carrying an assault rifle entered, and without saying a word he escorted Jack two floors up a spiral staircase. Jack felt his heart rate quicken. Were the guards always like this? So intense? Jack stayed cool. He’s on to me. How could he be on to me?

Never mind, Jack was ready. He memorized every detail of the walk up. Windows and hallways and the number of rooms each floor seemed to have. Guards at the end of each hallway. When they raided this place in three days, he would need to know where the exits were, and how best to handle the guards.

The burly man led Jack down the hallway on the third floor to a door trimmed in gold. Much nicer than the other doors that lined the hall. Don’t think about what’s happening behind those doors, he told himself. Just get in the room and make the pitch.

Jack’s escort opened the door. “The walls are thick. You have an hour.”

And like that, Jack was inside Eliza’s soundproof room. Alone with her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.

—Ezekiel 34:11–12

No matter how indifferent or angry Eliza wanted to appear, she couldn’t get around the truth. She was scared to death.

When Henry Thomas entered the room, Eliza rose from her enormous satin-covered bed. She stood and pulled her robe around her shivering body. Her father’s voice echoed in her head. Be kind to him, Eliza. I’ve been planning this since you were nine years old.

The guard outside the door had given her a different kind of warning.

“Don’t disappoint your father, Eliza.” That’s all he had to say. Something like hatred dripped from every word.

Eliza’s hair was a mass of pale curls, and her makeup made her look like a model in a bridal magazine. She wore a floor-length pink silk robe and she moved to the other side of the room, where she sat on a high-backed swivel princess chair. Henry Thomas closed the door behind him.

Their eyes met, but only for a few seconds before Eliza looked away. In days she’d be married to this man. But she couldn’t stand the thought of being in the same room with him. Let alone… She felt sick to her stomach.

Earlier on the beach, he had tried to be cavalier. But Henry Thomas didn’t have the eyes of a demon. After eleven years at the Palace, watching men come and go to the other girls’ rooms, Eliza knew the difference.

It was time. She stood, and as she did, her robe opened just enough to show Henry Thomas a flash of leg and her four-inch high heels. Don’t disappoint your father … don’t disappoint— If there was any way out she would take it. Instead she blinked twice and said the only thing she could say. “This… is my first time.”

Henry Thomas didn’t take his eyes off hers. He slipped out of his shoes and shirt, then he slowly crossed the room and put his hands on her shoulders. His fingers were like velvet. “Eliza.” He searched her eyes. “I’m not Henry Thomas.”

“Okay.” She forced a laugh, her robe still tight around her. Underneath it she wore a backless silk gown. But no man had ever seen her in such skimpy clothing. She would put off the inevitable as long as she could. Be kind to him… Eliza dropped her robe and leaned away from him at the same time. What did he mean, he wasn’t Henry Thomas? “You want me to call you something else? Mr. Ellington, maybe?”

“Eliza, no.” His expression changed. “Don’t scream.” He still had his hands on her shoulders. “I’m a special agent with the FBI. We’re about to conduct a raid on the Palace and close it down. We need your help.”

“What?… No!” Eliza shook her head. “Never!” Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would break out of her chest. How could this happen?

She was days from being married, days from leaving the Palace and finding a way to escape. And now this… this man had chosen her to help him take down her father? They would all die. She tried to jerk away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“Stop.” His grip on her tightened. “Let me explain.”

“Get away from me!” She knew how to take care of this stranger. She tilted her head back. “Asia! Hel—”