Shangri-La and its tempting Turner landscape were about a mile from the Valliard place on the same stretch of mansion-strewn beach. In daylight, the house-almost a parody of island architecture-would be a tacky flamingo color, with white plantation shutters galore. Tonight it was faintly peach in the moonlight. Kat studied the gaudy architecture and had to shake her head that anyone would build, let alone live in, something so garish.
She and Jeff had chosen to approach the mansion from the beach in extreme stealth, on the off chance that the Ghost was lurking nearby, casing the place. Hence, the two of them were crammed side by side in a hollow beneath a cluster of sharp-leaved palmettos, incidentally exchanging more information about their anatomies than she’d ever imagined possible completely clothed. Who’d have guessed a guy’s deltoids flexed like that when he propped a pair of binoculars in front of his nose? Or that a man’s thigh went quite that hard when a girl had to drape her leg over it while reaching into her waist pouch to retrieve a lens attachment for her surveillance camera.
“Having fun yet?” Jeff murmured.
Fun? This was like having a root canal without painkillers. It was so much easier to be out in the field with a bunch of women. None of these errant thoughts and sensations distracted her from the job at hand. Except she’d worked with men before, and this had never been a problem. It was definitely Jeff who messed her up like this.
Was he right? Was her life out of balance because it lacked real emotion?
Belatedly, she responded to his question in an undertone that wouldn’t carry more than a few feet. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call this fun. I feel naked without my sniper rig.”
He laughed under his breath. “Now there’s a line I’ve never heard on a date before. What’s the longest shot you’ve ever made?”
“Confirmed kill?”
“Yeah.”
“About thirteen hundred yards. But I mostly do short-range work.”
“Who’s the most famous person you’ve taken out?”
She looked over at him askance. “You keep score of such things?”
He grinned. “I’ve never been out on a date with a sniper. I’m not exactly sure how to engage in small talk with you.”
“Well, what do you talk about with the other women you date?”
“Ahh, darlin’. We don’t usually get around to doing much talking.”
If he’d had his night-vision goggles on at that moment, her face would have lit up bright white with embarrassed heat. And it obviously amused him. The cad.
He asked, “Don’t you ever feel like blowing off steam after a mission? A little hot, meaningless sex for the hell of it?”
Sex? Her? Not so much. It was too overwhelming. Too personal. Okay, fine. Too emotional. She replied dryly, “I go to the dojo and get in a hard workout if I need to burn off adrenaline. But usually I go someplace peaceful and green to meditate for a while.”
He tsked. “You don’t know what you’re missing out on. Adrenaline-pumped sex is incredible. You should try it sometime.”
She just shook her head. She could not believe she was out on a stakeout and having this conversation.
He continued, “When I come off a tough mission, I want to do something mindless and physical to remind myself that I’m still alive. I don’t know any guy who doesn’t want sex right after he came off a rough op. Maybe it’s a guy-girl difference.” He paused, then added, “Do all the Medusas meditate after missions?”
Kat suppressed a startled sound of laughter. “Not hardly. They go out and party. Or nowadays, they go home to their guys. I’m the only bachelor left in the bunch.”
“Why do you meditate instead of partying?”
“After I make a kill, I usually feel a need to re-center myself.”
Sounding mildly alarmed, he asked, “You don’t take kills personally, do you?”
“Not at all. If I didn’t do it, someone else would. I’m just the tool that carries out a decision made way above my pay grade.”
“What about when a mission goes to hell and you end up unexpectedly having to shoot your way out? Or hasn’t that happened to the Medusas?”
She answered wryly, “It’s happened more than once. Then it’s even simpler. In that scenario, it’s kill or be killed. You pull the trigger and you don’t think twice. I never look back from those kills.”
“I’ve got to say, I never thought a woman could take such a broad view of killing. I always assumed women wouldn’t get it.”
“You think we’re all wilting lilies who wring our hands over squishing a bug and have to ask a man to do it for us?”
He laughed under his breath. “Are you kidding? I’ve read my history. Some of the most violent soldiers in history have been women. Did you ever hear what Russian women did to German prisoners of war in World War II? It’s no wonder the Germans always saved one bullet for themselves.”
Kat was familiar with the Russian women’s practice of tying enemy soldiers to trees and whipping them until their innards wrapped around the trunk. Although after what the Nazis had done to the Soviet Union, she couldn’t blame the women for their rage.
She murmured, “Surely you talk with women a little bit about something besides killing when you’re out on a date with one. You know, normal stuff.”
She hoped she didn’t sound like she was fishing to find out what normal was. Even if that was exactly what she was doing. Jeff countered with, “What did you talk about on dates with boys when you were in high school or college?”
“I didn’t date in high school. Hidoshi-san didn’t pass away until I was seventeen. When I came to the States to go to college, I was so busy trying to bring my English up to speed and keep my grades up and adjust to the culture shock that I didn’t have much time for a social life.” And the few relationships she’d had with college boys had left her unimpressed with dating in general. The guys she’d gone out with didn’t have a fraction of her focus or drive, and she’d found them…frivolous.
“Why didn’t Hidoshi-san let you date?”
“Oh, he’d have let me date. But I was too busy training to spare the time for such silliness.”
“Wow. You must have been one mega-serious teenager.” He grinned over at her self-deprecatingly. “The same could not have been said about me. My high school teachers always harped at me about applying myself more. About all I applied myself to back then were sports and girls. And not necessarily in that order.”
She didn’t find that hard to believe. And yet, when the two of them had talked through possible plans for catching the Ghost, he was as focused as any operator she’d ever worked with. He seemed to subscribe to the theory of working hard and playing hard in about equal measure.
He asked, “Were you always so committed to your martial arts, even at a young age?”
“I started training when I could barely walk. I’ve done it hard-core my entire life. It’s who I am.”
“That’s a strong statement.”
“If you’re so determined to pursue a relationship with me, you need to believe me. My training runs bone deep. The physical aspects, the mental aspects, the ancient code of honor-all of it.”
“Why did you choose the martial arts as your framework for self-definition?”
She turned her head to stare at him.
He shrugged. “So, sue me. I was a psychology minor in college.”
Great. She’d fallen for an amateur shrink. She sure could pick ’em. His question was insightful, though. She finally murmured, “I had nothing else. No one else. Hidoshi-san loved me when no one else did. Becoming like him was the least I could do to show my gratitude.”
“No one else loved you? The absentee father, I understand. But what about siblings? Aunts and uncles?”
“Nada.”
He shifted the weight off one elbow and reached out to touch her cheek. Just the slightest graze of his fingertips against her skin. “Are you still completely alone?”
The loneliness aching within her radiated outward in a terrible tension that froze her facial muscles beneath his brief touch. Her entire being felt stiff as she answered, “I have the Medusas now. They’re my family.”
He nodded as if he knew the feeling well. And, given that he had a team of his own that he ran with, he probably did know the feeling. “But what about you? Isn’t there anyone in your life just for you?”
“Is all this psychoanalysis really necessary?” she asked lightly.
“You’re avoiding the question. Your grandfather has passed away, and you have no one else, do you?”
He was prodding painful places in her soul that she’d just as soon have him leave alone. She retreated into the emotionless cool she always did when people tried to get too close to her. Except this time, she felt like a coward for running away. Damn him! She’d been happy the way she was before she met him…or at least at peace with herself. Why did he have to go and tear away the veil of her lonely existence like that and show it to her for what it really was?
She answered in a tone that sounded stilted, even to her. “I don’t need anyone else, so your question is moot.”
He nodded sagely. “The lady has built her very own fortress of solitude. And here you were, doing so well at starting to crawl out of it. I’m a pushy jerk, aren’t I?”
Secretly relieved that he’d poked at her-given her an excuse to come out of her emotional cave, really-she rolled her eyes. “You got one part right. You are a jerk.” But she said it without any real heat.
He grinned over at her. “And you love me anyway.”
Stunned, she jerked her gaze back to the estate in front of her while she turned the concept over in her mind. Did she feel love for him? Was it possible? She’d loved Hidoshi. But that was different. She’d loved him as a child loves a parent or grandparent.
But Jeff? Could she love a man like him? As an equal? A mate? She stared fixedly through her spotter’s scope, seeing a blurry morass of green and peach, vividly aware that he was studying her in the meantime.
“Dare I hope?” he breathed. “Are there really feelings for me lurking behind that inscrutable exterior of yours?”
She started to lower the fist-size telescope to glare over at him, but something caught her attention at the farthest edge of her vision, and she jerked the scope back up to her eye. “I’ve got movement,” she announced. “I do believe our Ghost is putting in an appearance.”
Jeff lurched, his attention swinging back to the mansion. “Say position,” he responded tersely, abruptly back in full mission mode.
“Eleven o’clock. North end of the upper terrace. Moving in low and fast toward the shed housing the main electrical boxes.”
They’d been right, then. The Ghost was simply going to knock out the alarm and make a speed run for the painting. Earlier, they’d discussed trying to nab the guy as soon as they spotted him or waiting until he’d stolen the painting and then catching him. Their concern was that if they grabbed him before the theft, the police wouldn’t have enough evidence to hold the guy. He’d slip away from them, this time for good.
“Good eye,” Jeff murmured. “He’s practically invisible.”
“I should think any respectable thief is invisible most of the time,” she murmured back absently, concentrating hard on not losing sight of the elusive figure. Likewise, any half-decent sniper ought to be able to follow a figure like him at this distance. And she was more than half decent.
Jeff breathed, “Let’s move in closer. Full stealth. We don’t want to spook this guy.”
She nodded, rising silently to a crouch and easing off through the imitation Balinese landscaping behind Jeff. She didn’t hear a sound as they slipped through the night. Jeff was every bit as good as she was at this silent sneaking thing-and she’d been trained by the best. Hidoshi had been one of the last great ninja masters.
Jeff hand-signaled her to go around the house and watch the front doors while he took the oceanside doors. She nodded and Jeff hand-signaled. “First one to spot him leaving calls for backup. Then we move in on him.”
She nodded and glided off into the dark, at one with the night. Adrenaline sang through her veins and her body was light and responsive. She was ready for whatever came. Moments like this, where she got to fully turn her skills loose, were rare. But in these moments she was profoundly grateful to Hidoshi, to whatever quirk of fate had led her to him, that she’d been granted the opportunity to do this. To be this.
Jeff found a carved tiki pole casting a deep shadow and had just taken up position behind it when every light in the mansion abruptly came on and a piercing noise split the night.
“Time hack,” he announced. He looked down at his watch. Three-twenty a.m. on the nose. He figured they had about sixty seconds to wait, and then one of them should spot the Ghost leaving with his prize. He scanned the ground-floor doors and windows on this side of the house, watching for the slightest movement anywhere in his field of vision.
Eighty-two seconds had passed since his time hack when two things happened simultaneously. He heard the first police sirens in the far distance, and Kat radioed, “I’ve got him. He’s coming out the front door now.”
“Go get him!” Jeff ordered as he took off sprinting around the house.
And then all hell broke loose.
No less than five heavily armed men burst out of the bushes in front of Jeff, forcing him to screech to a halt and drop to the ground. “Incoming!” he whispered urgently to Kat. “Five armed men heading your way. Might be cops. Hold your fire!”
The men charged forward away from his position-toward Kat and the Ghost. A spurt of panic broadsided him. Those guys were headed straight at Kat! He briefly considered standing up and shouting at the men to draw their attention and their fire away from her. But then his brain kicked back into gear. She was a trained Special Forces operative. She knew what to do when a bunch of guys ran in her general direction.
As the men moved away, Jeff ran lightly behind them, staying well out of their line of sight and possible line of fire. Who were these guys? If they were police, they were certainly acting weird. Cops would have shouted for the Ghost to halt, would have fired warning shots in the air. Searchlights would flare to life, rows of police cars would shine their headlights, and the Ghost would be well and truly caught.
But these guys were sprinting grimly, pistols at the ready, silent, coordinated, and for all the world moving like a team of commandos closing in for a kill.
He careened around the side of the house and spied the front door gaping wide open. One of the men was just leaving the front porch to rejoin his buddies. Jeff ducked behind a lush hibiscus as the guy raced past him. The guy was wearing a black knit cap and black greasepaint on his face. SWAT team maybe, but no regular cop dressed like that.
Jeff risked whispering to Kat, “Where are you?”
“Running,” she grunted.
As a powerful engine gunned nearby, the men dropped any attempt at stealth and took off running, yelling back and forth in what sounded like something Slavic.
“Cobra! Five targets straight at you!” Jeff called urgently. He swore violently as the team of armed men sprinted right at Kat. He was too far away to fling himself in front of her but, had he been beside her, he’d have done it in a heartbeat.
She veered off to the right, smartly separating herself from the Ghost as a target. The bad guys lurched and slowed momentarily in their surprise at spotting her. But now they had her in their sights and seemed determined to bag her, too. Three men peeled off after the Ghost; the other two went after her.
It was a no-brainer which group he was going after. No way was he leaving her alone to face down these guys on her own.
Neither he nor Kat was heavily armed. Without knowing how skilled-or unskilled-these guys were, he dared not take them on directly in any kind of a fight. Besides, for all he knew, these guys were law enforcement types.
“Take cover when you can,” he ordered Kat tersely as he darted out from behind a palm tree to follow the black-clad men chasing her.
He was maybe thirty feet behind the last assailant when he spied Kat’s lithe form ahead, slender and dark, sprinting through the trees. She dodged bushes and tree trunks with incredible agility, and the armed men fell back slightly. But then the lead guy raised his pistol.
“Incoming fire,” Jeff bit out frantically. He was too close to the hostiles to be talking on the radio, but he had no choice. If they heard him and turned to fire on him, so be it. Unfortunately, he was too far away to tackle the guy with the gun.
He expected Kat to dive for the ground, to reduce her target profile to practically nothing, maybe even for her to roll on her back and fire back at the shooter. But instead, she picked up speed and literally ran up the trunk of a tree, momentarily going horizontal about six feet off the ground. She sling-shotted back down to the ground with an extra dose of momentum, zipped across the shooter’s field of fire and took a running start at a medium-size palm tree. She ran the first eight feet or so up the trunk, then in one smooth move, slung a short rope around the tree, grabbed the free end as it whipped around the trunk, and used the rope and her feet to shimmy up the tree as fast as any chimp.
Jeff stared in disbelief. He’d never seen anything like it. Apparently, neither had the hostiles, for they both slowed to an incredulous jog, staring up into the treetops where she’d disappeared.
A moment later, a black shape hurtled out of a neighboring palm tree, swinging down and out on a long frond, landing lightly in the path well ahead of her pursuers. Then Kat was off and running again, this time with enough of a head start to duck into the deep shadows and vanish from sight.
Belatedly, the men took off running again. They slowed and peered into the area where she’d disappeared, but after thirty seconds or so of fruitless searching, gave up and turned to run for the road, where their buddies were shouting. Sounded like the other team wanted these two to join them already.
Jeff was stunned. He’d seen enough cheesy martial arts movies in his youth to know Hollywood’s images of ninjas, but he’d never dreamed that any of the spectacular feats portrayed on film might actually be real. Had he not just seen that with his own eyes, he’d never have believed it possible.
A vehicle roared away, its sound disappearing into the night. Sounded like the Ghost was making his getaway on a motorcycle.
Kat panted into his earpiece. “Who are these guys?”
“No idea. They’re acting military. Say status,” he bit out.
“A van just pulled up. The men are getting in. I’m taking the car.”
Jeff swore and veered toward the main road. He was in time to see their compact sedan peel out from behind the shrubs where he’d hidden it and take off down the road at high speed. Across the street, the last black-clad man piled into an unmarked white van, and the vehicle gunned its engine. Its tires spit gravel, and the rear end fishtailed as it pulled out onto the road, accelerating hard.
“They’re giving chase,” he called. “White van. Rear license plate obscured. Blacked-out windshield. You shouldn’t have trouble spotting it. It’ll be the only thing on the road behind you doing a hundred miles per hour.”
“Thanks,” Kat retorted.
“What in the hell were you thinking, leaving by yourself?” he demanded over his radio as he took off running futilely down the road behind the fleeing vehicles. Christ. She was out there by herself now, caught between the Ghost and those commandos. And he wasn’t there to protect her. A cold fist of dread closed around his throat.
“I was thinking about not losing the Ghost,” she replied tartly. “I’ll let you know where he leads me. I just passed a moped rental place. It’s about a quarter mile from the mansion. Hot-wire one if you can’t wake up the owner. I might need backup.”
“Ya think?” he snapped.
He cursed her roundly as he ran for all he was worth. His mind churned as fast as his legs. Who were those guys? He’d lay odds they weren’t cops. D’Abeau knew they were staking out Shangri-La. The detective’s men wouldn’t have pulled weapons on him and Kat. Private mercenaries, then? Maybe hired by the homeowner to protect his art? But then why had they given chase to the Ghost and not stuck with the art collection? What private citizen bothered to or could afford to hire a half-dozen hard-core mercenaries, anyway? Such men did not come cheap.
Who, then?
They’d moved in when the Ghost came out of the house. Enemies of the thief’s, perhaps? What did an art thief do to merit such enemies? Had he robbed the wrong man? Maybe stolen something besides art in a former job?
All that came into his mind were questions and more questions. He wanted some answers, dammit! He humped the quarter mile to the moped stand in about a minute. Not long in the real world, but a lifetime when his team was split up and an op was going to hell fast. After determining that the owner didn’t live there, it took him another minute to break a flimsy chain lock on one of the mopeds and hot-wire it. A two-and-a-half minute head start for the Ghost, Kat and the mystery commandos. More than a lifetime. An eternity.
Swearing under his breath, he peeled out of the stand and threw the throttle wide open. The lights of Bridgetown twinkled in the distance and a salt breeze whipped in his face, making his eyes water. He kept his mouth shut to avoid swallowing bugs and confined his cursing to silent epithets in his head.
Far ahead, a line of flashing sirens came into sight, racing down the highway toward him.
“He just turned off the main road,” Kat announced. “Avoiding those cops, no doubt. Turn right after a supermarket sign-green letters on a white background. I didn’t catch the name.” Exertion strained her voice, and squealing tire sounds came over the radio along with her voice.
“Don’t kill yourself chasing the bastard,” he cautioned, his heart in his throat.
“Are you kidding? Offensive driving is a blast. I’d love to do this in the middle of a bunch of New York City cabbies sometime-show them what combat driving really looks like.”
Jeff couldn’t help grinning. She did sound like she was having fun. “Did the van make the turn behind you?”
A pause. “Looks like it. I see a cloud of dust behind me.”
Kat continued to call out turns and mileages over the next several minutes, and he actually started to close the gap between them. Urban driving was as much about maneuverability as it was speed, and his Vespa was extremely nimble.
He spied a pair of taillights partially obscured by dust ahead and yelled into his radio, “I’m approaching the van. Where are you?”
“Just coming into Bridgetown proper. He’s heading straight through the city. He knows we’re back here. This could get ugly.”
He snorted. Like it wasn’t already? Would those men assume Kat was the Ghost’s accomplice and take her out, too? He dared not risk it, no matter how bad he wanted to bag the Ghost. “Pull off the chase, Cobra. Lose the van. Make sure it’s following the Ghost and leaves off you.”
“This may be our only chance to catch the thief! I’m not stopping now. This island isn’t that big. We’ll corner him.”
“And the guys behind you may kill you both. If you get in their way, they may very well shoot through you to get to him.”
“I have been known to shoot back, you know. I’m not defenseless.”
“One-on-six, you are.”
She retorted rather sharply. “I’m a Medusa, not some average infantry grunt.”
He swung wide around a corner, keeping his speed up and drawing a few more yards closer to the van. He supposed she was right. If she were a SEAL or a Ranger, he’d be a lot less worried about that van full of gunmen. She deserved the same benefit of the doubt as her male counterparts. At least that was what his head said. His heart screamed in denial. She was small and weak and female and he wanted her for his own. It was his job to protect her and keep her safe from jerks with guns.
“I stand corrected, Madam Medusa,” he replied reluctantly.
“Watch the left turn in front of the school-you should hit it soon. It’s a greater-than-ninety-degree turn and the road slopes away from you. Take it slower than it looks like you ought to.”
“Roger.”
The word was no sooner out of his mouth than the sound of screeching tires made him look up sharply. The van’s grip on the road gave way as it careened around the very turn she’d just described. It teetered on two wheels and looked like it was going to settle back down onto all four when the right front fender clipped a parked car.
The van went airborne, sailing in a slow motion half roll a good thirty feet through the air. Then the front end hit the ground and the entire van snapped into a fast log roll, flying down the street sideways, flipping no less than six complete revolutions. Debris spun off in every direction. Jeff braked hard, dodging pieces of flying metal, swerving violently in and out among the litter. And then he was past the van.
He looked back over his shoulder and saw a man crawling out through the passenger’s side window. As Jeff opened the throttle once more, he glimpsed the guy in his rearview mirror, limping over to the nearest parked car and smashing the butt of a rifle through the car’s window. Those guys weren’t done for yet. Whoever had survived the crash was going to hot-wire a car and come after them.
“The van crashed. But they’ll procure another car and give chase. Where are you now?”
“Going into a residential area. A slum, actually.”
“Keep calling your turns.”
“Roger,” she replied.
“How close are you to him?”
“I’m practically riding the back of his bike. A hundred yards, max.”
She sounded distracted.
“He just took a right. First street past a crab shack. Red crab legs painted around a name on a white sign. Begins with a W or an M. Sorry I didn’t see more.”
He was amazed she was catching the details she was, what with driving like a bat out of hell, the darkness, and the adrenaline of the chase.
As the neighborhood deteriorated around him, Jeff cursed under his breath. Barbados, for all its wealth, had a few pretty rough areas. He didn’t know whether to fear for Kat or for the locals if she got into a scrape in this neck of the woods. Either way, he emphatically didn’t want her alone. “Can you slow down a little?”
“Not if you don’t want me to lose this guy. And by the way, he’s small in stature. Lean. I’d estimate five foot seven at most, maybe 140 pounds. Great balance. A hell of a motorcycle rider. Black clothes, black ski cap, black gloves. Lemme see if I can get close enough to see his face.”
A pause followed.
“Left at Old Joe’s General Store. Looks like a little neighborhood market.” And then she announced, “Third right after that, maybe a hundred yards past the store. It’s a dirt road. No landmarks or sign. Be careful, it’s narrow.”
Then she said, “He just looked back over his shoulder. Caucasian.”
Even this much information was a major breakthrough for the investigation. But Jeff would rather bag the guy and be done with it.
And then the sound of a gunning engine behind Jeff made him lurch. And swear. Looked like he had the crazy commandos on his tail now. He risked a glance back. They were still well behind him, no more than a pair of headlights in the distance. For now. Bastards were no doubt following the giant rooster tail of dust he was throwing up. But there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. At least there was grim relief in the fact that now they’d chase him and not her.
Jeff flew down the road, pushing sixty miles per hour, keeping an eye out for the turn ahead.
“He just went up a set of stairs on his bike. I’m going on foot.”
“You can’t catch him on foot!” Jeff exclaimed. “Go around.”
“I can catch him if he doesn’t have a back tire.”
Oh, crap. “Shooting is not authorized, Kat! You’re in a residential area! Chock full of civilians-”
She cut him off. “Too late. I just took his bike tire out. Our boy’s on foot. I’m closing.”
“Don’t engage him. I repeat, don’t engage!” Jeff shouted into his mike.
No answer. Damn, damn, damn!
He slowed to take the next turn, and that engine behind him got a whole lot louder all of a sudden. The gunmen were going to catch him fast at this rate.
There was the first turn. He screeched around the corner, skidding violently. He slammed a foot down on the pavement, saving himself from a nasty wipeout. He righted himself, and accelerated with a screech of tires. Old Joe’s. Old Joe’s. C’mon, c’mon.
There it was. He took the corner way faster than he ought to have. One street. Two streets. Brake. Skid wildly around the third corner…Up ahead he spied their car, parked at an angle across half the narrow street, its driver’s side door open.
He pointed the moped up the steps beside the vehicle, banging up their bone-jarring length. He burst out into an alley. Looked left and right. There. In the distance. A familiar dark, running figure disappeared around a corner. He pointed the moped that way. His back tire was getting soft. Didn’t like that flight of stairs, apparently. Hold together just a few more seconds, baby.
He turned the corner and looked around this new alley frantically. His heart dropped to his feet. Two figures ahead, up high, racing across a rooftop. Crap. The Ghost and Kat were climbing now. He didn’t stand a chance of following them up there. He rode along below them, trying to hear them above the wounded sound of his moped. It was no good. The bike was getting too difficult to control. He ditched it and took off running.
“Talk to me.” He panted into his mouthpiece.
“Heading north,” she bit out. She sounded like she was exerting herself pretty hard.
He made the next turn to head north. He passed a couple of tough-looking locals smoking weed in a doorway, but he went by so fast they hardly had time to react.
“Damn, this guy’s agile,” Kat complained. “He’s jumping gaps.”
“Don’t fall,” Jeff retorted in alarm.
“Huh.”
The alleys got darker and narrower and dingier. He dodged sleeping goats and startled the hell out of himself when he narrowly avoided drop-kicking a chicken, who proceeded to take extremely loud umbrage at being awoken.
All of a sudden, intuition washed over him, certainty as real as the dirt beneath his feet. Kat was in trouble. As the hen squawked behind him, Jeff put on a burst of speed.
“Where are you, darlin’?”
Nothing.
“Click if you’re running silent.”
He waited. And waited. Nothing. Dammit! Even if she’d gone to ground and was hiding, she should’ve been able to ease a hand up to her throat to give him a lousy click on the radio to let him know she was okay.
Purely following his gut now, he slowed to a walk. It was a bitch to control his breathing, but he forced himself to breathe light and quiet. He thought he heard a scuff ahead. He raced toward the sound, pausing in the shadow of a doorway and easing around the corner.
Aw, hell.
He spotted two grappling figures teetering on the edge of a rooftop.
He took off running for all he was worth. “Hey!” he shouted at the Ghost.
One of the figures glanced up, startled. And then…oh, God…the fighting pair overbalanced. And fell, plummeting toward the ground two stories below.
“Kat!” he shouted frantically.