She was so lost in the thoughts that at first she didn’t hear the footfalls on the sand behind her. When she did, she spun around just as someone grabbed her wrists and started dragging her farther into the water. She tried to see who it was, but the man’s body was black and his face was covered by a ski mask.
All she knew was that he was strong and she couldn’t resist his pull. The cold water rose to her waist and stung her skin, made her breath burn in her lungs. She tried to scream, but he shoved her face into the water.
The salt burned her eyes and throat. She had to get to the surface, had to get air, but he pushed her deeper and deeper. She could hear him cursing now, screaming obscenities. Finally the pressure on her neck and head gave way and she floated to the top. She opened her eyes.
The mask was gone. She could see the man’s face in the moonlight. It was him. The dark stranger. She’d been right all along. He’d come to kill her and the baby.
Chapter Four
“Megan. Hold on. I’ve got you. Just hold on.”
The brute was dragging her again. She managed one kick. Her feet scraped against the sand. They were going back to shore, but he was holding her head out of the water. She choked and spit out a stream of water.
“That’s the way. Clear your lungs. Here. Let me help.” He supported her forehead with his hands while she coughed and sputtered and spit up water. Air rushed into her lungs in a sweeping, caustic sensation, and she grew so dizzy that the man’s face blurred and became two.
“Why are you following me? Why are you doing this to me?” The words came out chopped and hoarse. She tried to pull away, but he held her against him.
“Listen, Megan. It wasn’t me who tried to kill you, and you better be glad I’ve been following you. If I hadn’t been, you’d be sleeping with the fishes tonight.”
“Get away from me. Now.” She tried to scream. He stifled her with a broad hand over her mouth.
“Would you just pipe down and listen. I’m an FBI agent and I’m not trying to kill you. I’m trying to keep someone else from doing it. I almost slipped up, big-time.”
He was crazy. No one wanted to kill her except this lunatic. She was weak and her head was pounding, but she had to get away from this man.
“I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth, but don’t scream.”
She begin to cough again, the taste of seawater making her sick. When she finally stopped coughing, she pushed at him again, only she was trembling and so weak the effort was useless. “Get away from me. Please. Leave me alone.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
She tried to scream, but again he cut off her cries with his hand over her mouth. “Megan, you have got to listen. I’m not lying. I’m with the FBI. You have to trust me.”
He pulled her against his chest and kept her wrapped in his arms. His mouth was at her ear. “You’re Megan Lancaster. You work at Lannier. Your supervisor is John Hardison. The baby you’re carrying belongs to Jackie Sellers Brewster.”
“How do you know these things.” She was stunned.
“Because I’m who I say I am.”
“Why would you be investigating me?”
“I’m not. I’m investigating the explosion that caused Ben and Jackie Brewster’s deaths.”
“Please, just let me go back to my house.”
“I’ll take you back.”
Her head was spinning. Nothing he said made sense. She couldn’t trust him. He’d tried to kill her. Yet everything he said was true, everything except the part about Jackie and Ben. The explosion had been an accident.
“Just try to relax. I’m going to carry you back to the house and put you to bed. If you need a doctor, we’ll call one. But you can’t tell anyone that I’m from the FBI or why I’m with you.”
“You can’t carry me. I’m huge.”
“I’ll worry about that.” He scooped her up in his arms without groaning once. “Now, just relax. You’ll be home before you know it.”
Relax? Fat chance. She was having a nightmare. She’d wake up in a minute and the dark, strong stranger who knew everything about her would evaporate like the steam from her teakettle.
But, for now, she was so tired and still dizzy and a little nauseous. She rested her head against his shoulder. He smelled of seawater and musk. Her hair was dripping wet. So was his. Drops of water rolled down his neck and chest. The wind whipped though her wet clothes, but she was too numb to feel the cold. Or maybe a person didn’t feel the effects of weather in a nightmare.
He stopped at the front door of Pelican’s Roost. “I’m going to put you on your feet. Hold on to me if you feel weak or dizzy, and give me your key so that I can unlock the door.”
She dug deep in her pockets. The key was missing. “I must have lost it in the water.”
“Do you have another one hidden somewhere?”
“No.”
“I can break a window.”
“Don’t you dare. Get my cell phone from my car. I’ll call the housekeeper and have her come over and unlock the door.”
“And then we’ll have to come up with a story to explain our being soaking wet.”
“You can get out of sight while she’s here. I’ll tell her I was wading in the surf and fell. As awkward as I am with this body, she’ll believe it.”
“Let’s see if you get her before we work out the details. Breaking the window is no problem, and I can fix it tomorrow.”
Only she didn’t want him around tomorrow. She leaned against the door as he bounded down the steps and retrieved the phone. A minute later she had Fenelda on the phone.
She said hello but interrupted Fenelda’s usual string of small talk. “I lost my key while I was on the beach. I thought maybe you or Leroy would run one over to me.”
“No use to do that. There’s a key taped under the third step. Your grandmother put it there after she locked herself out a time or two. Check there, and if you don’t find one, I’ll get Leroy to bring you mine.”
She held her hand over the speaker end of the phone and repeated the instructions to Bart. She was shivering now, the cold finally seeping through the shock. Bart showed no signs of the recent ordeal. He bounded down the steps, bent and ran his hand beneath the third step. When he stood up, the key was in his hand, and he gave her the thumbs-up sign.
All her worry about who had a key and there had been one beneath the step all the time. If half the town had a key to this house, the other half probably knew where to find the spare. She’d have the locks changed first thing in the morning.
Bart turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. When he tried to help her inside, she pulled away from him. “I’m okay.”
“I think you should call your doctor, tell him you fell in the surf. See if he thinks you need to go to a hospital and get checked.”
“He’ll think I need to have my head checked for walking in the surf at eight months pregnant.”
“I agree with him, but I’ve seen you out there, wading almost knee deep.”
The man had been watching her every move, following her, just as she’d thought. She’d have to learn to trust her instincts more. At least it was nice to know she wasn’t losing it, falling into a state of stress-induced paranoia.