Dangerous Passions. Brenda Harlen

to retrieve her own toiletries and she was desperate to clean her teeth.

      After she’d done so, she went back to the stateroom to search for her suitcase. She remembered packing it, but she couldn’t remember carrying it out of her room. She didn’t even remember leaving the hotel, and she still wasn’t entirely sure why she was here.

      All she knew was that she was on a yacht in the Atlantic Ocean on the way to God-and-Drew-only-knew-where. She frowned, desperately trying to get a handle on the direction in which they were headed. They’d been moving eastward when they’d left the marina, her senses hadn’t been so disoriented she’d failed to register that fact, but she didn’t know if they’d changed direction since then.

      Maybe she’d take a walk around and try to get her bearings.

      It wasn’t until she was tiptoeing down the narrow, dimly lit corridor of the boat that she found herself wondering why she hadn’t been locked in the stateroom. Why wasn’t Drew concerned about her wandering around the boat?

      She made her way up onto the deck and stared out at the endless expanse of ocean, the answer to her questions suddenly and painfully obvious: Drew wasn’t concerned about her going anywhere because there wasn’t anywhere to go. Everywhere she looked was water—eerily dark and ominously deep.

      She looked up at the sky, at the thin crescent moon and the brilliant array of stars sparkling in the black velvet darkness. She could see the outline of an island in the distance, faint but discernible. The Bahamas?

      If she knew anything about astronomy, she could use the stars to ascertain their direction, maybe figure out where they were going. Unfortunately, she knew nothing about the subject.

      She sighed as despair threatened to overwhelm her. She shook off the sense of impending doom. Maybe she’d be able to see something more from the other side of the boat.

      Silently she made her way around the stern, biting back a yelp of pain when she rapped her shin on a large wooden crate. As she bent to rub her injured leg, she saw that the lid had been knocked askew by her collision with it. Curious, she pushed it aside farther and stared in a combination of shock and disbelief at the contents.

      Weapons packed in a bed of straw. Lethal-looking military hardware she’d only ever seen on news reports about wars or terrorism in faraway countries.

      Then she heard voices, softly at first, distant, then growing louder as they drew nearer.

      Her breath caught in her throat; her pulse hammered.

      She glanced around frantically. There was a pile of scuba gear in the corner: wetsuits and tanks and masks and fins. She moved in that direction, crouching down to melt into the shadow of the equipment.

      “…she wasn’t part of the plan,” an unfamiliar voice protested.

      “The plan changed.” It was Drew who answered, unapologetically.

      “I didn’t sign on for this,” the other man grumbled.

      “When you signed on with the organization, Rico, you signed on to do whatever needed to be done.”

      “Not murder.”

      She’d known what Drew was planning, had seen the blood-lust in his eyes before he’d jabbed the needle in her arm, but it still shocked her to hear the word spoken and know they were talking about her.

      “I’ll do it,” a third man offered.

      “No one is being asked to do anything…yet,” Drew said. “But I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jazz, and will be sure to communicate your offer to A.J.—along with any concerns I may have about employee loyalty.”

      It was obviously a threat, and it hung heavy in the air between the three men.

      The one referred to as Rico cleared his throat. “My loyalty is, and always has been, to the organization.”

      “Good.” Drew obviously wasn’t concerned by the lack of enthusiasm in his cohort’s statement. “Because I’m leaving the two of you in charge while I return to Pennsylvania to attend Mr. Conroy’s funeral.”

      “For how long?”

      “Until I get back.”

      “But the shipment—”

      “Will be made tomorrow afternoon as scheduled.”

      “What about the woman?” It was Jazz who asked this question, obviously relishing the prospect of her demise.

      “She will pay for the role her sister played in killing Conroy,” Drew said. “But A.J. will determine when and how she dies. No one is to do anything until then.”

      They moved farther along the deck to continue their conversation, their voices fading into the distance. Shannon had overheard more than enough and she had no intention of sticking around to find out the when and the how. She had to get off this boat before “when” became “now.”

      But they were in the middle of the ocean. How could she possibly escape?

      She rose to her feet unsteadily, put a hand out for balance. Her fingers braced against the cool metal of an oxygen tank, and the first seeds of an idea were planted in her mind.

      No—it was crazy.

      She couldn’t just strap on a tank and flippers and swim back to Miami. Even if the night wasn’t dark and the distance prohibitive, she hadn’t been diving in more than two years.

      Although she’d planned to book an excursion while she was on vacation, she’d changed her mind when she’d heard a group of returning tourists raving about the incredible pair of hammerhead sharks they’d encountered on their dive. Shannon had walked away from the tour desk with no regrets, because if there was one thing she hated, it was sharks. Well, sharks and snakes, actually.

      Even if she knew where she was going and was willing to swim with the fish, there was the fact that she’d been injected with some kind of drug only a few hours earlier. She didn’t know what substance she’d been given or whether traces of it might still be lingering in her system, but she knew it would be dangerous to dive under such conditions.

      Despite the obvious and numerous risks of such an escape attempt, Shannon didn’t see that there was any other choice.

      If she stayed on this boat, she would die.

      She felt the tremor of fear ripple through her. She wasn’t ready to die. There was too much she hadn’t seen and done, too much living she still needed to do. There was no way she was going to give up without a fight.

      She’d have to take her chances in the water.

      Impatient fingers drummed on the scarred oak desktop as the second ring echoed through the handset. Each unanswered ring represented yet another delay, and there had been too many of those already.

      The organization could afford no more.

      A.J. would tolerate no more.

      Conroy’s death—so sudden and unexpected—had shaken everyone. The powerful, fearless leader taken down in a simple sting operation he should have been able to smell from a mile away. It was an unnecessary tragedy, but not really a surprising one.

      Because Conroy had been weak.

      His affection for a woman had interfered with his reason, allowed him to get caught. Or maybe it was the fault of his ego as much as his fondness for the woman, because he’d truly believed he was invincible.

      And he had been—until three bullets snuffed out his life.

      There had been widespread shock and some tears, subtle shifts of power and bold demands for vengeance. Through it all, A.J. had risen to the top and was determined to stay there.

      At last there was a click as the connection was made, then he answered. “Peart.”

      “Why are you on the boat?” The demand was made without preamble.