“You need to try to sleep or at least rest, now, on the plane too,” he told Claire. “We’re going to need, as they say, our wits about us.”
“I can not only do my best, but what is necessary. My mother used to say that. I suppose she got it from one of her books she always had her nose in. My sister and I say it sometimes to get through tough times. Nick, I wish I could have told Darcy what happened. She’s going to think I’m nuts, that I’ve taken Lexi and run off with you, like I stupidly eloped with Jace. But I had to leave her that note about us taking time away so she wouldn’t call the cops. No cops, Ames’s note said.”
“She’ll understand when you get Lexi back, when you can explain the truth, or some of it. We’ll be there soon. Trust me, Claire. Again, on my life, I swear we’ll get her back. Close your eyes. I’ve got to keep mine on this heavier traffic.”
Out of the corner of his vision, he saw her settle back in her seat. But a big 747 jet taking off overhead from the Miami airport made her open her eyes again, sit forward and look up. Her ex was an international airline pilot, so what was she thinking in that beautiful head of hers? He was afraid to ask because he knew in his gut that she and Jace still cared for each other and not just because of the endangered child they shared.
Besides, unfortunately, Jace was blond and rawboned handsome, a real take-charge guy. Emotional, even volatile for a former navy pilot, Nick thought, so that could spell more trouble if the guy was frustrated or cornered in Grand Cayman. Still, even when Jace Britten was angry, he radiated that top gun charisma women probably went for. Evidently, Claire had fallen for him and hard. She’d said she’d eloped with the guy.
After she settled herself again in her seat, Nick stole one more glance at her. Her body stayed tense. Here in South Florida, she always seemed slightly unworldly, out of place with her porcelain complexion and stunning red hair—natural red hair, the color of a sunset over the Gulf. Most tourists and Floridians were tanned like he was, and her hue of hair was so—so Irish, or like a painting of an angel.
But her delicate appearance was deceptive. She was strong, great at psyching out people’s lies and deceits and patching together the truth. She performed what lawyers called forensic autopsies, where a person, living or dead, was dissected through their statements and deeds to ferret out guilt. When he’d hired her, Claire already had a small consulting firm she called Clear Path. He wished he could find a clear path for her and Lexi—and himself—out of this looming catastrophe.
He felt guilty that he’d caused this crisis and at how much he still wanted her. He figured she knew that. And he was scared, not at how finding someone he could trust and love had finally come his way, but that, even if he saved Lexi, he had to lose Claire so Ames couldn’t hurt her like this again.
* * *
Jace cruised over Cuba in the Cirrus SR22 turbocharged plane he’d borrowed from an old buddy who was a lot richer than he was. It was legal to pass over the embargoed island in a small plane. Several of his hotshot pilot friends had faked engine problems and asked for an emergency landing there just to look around in off-limits Havana. This was one heck of an emergency, but no way he was stopping anywhere but Grand Cayman.
He planned to get there in slightly under the three-hour flight plan he’d filed back at the Marco Island Executive Airport. He’d picked that smaller facility instead of Naples Municipal Airport, hoping the spying eyes of that damned Clayton Ames would have more trouble finding him there. Jace had obviously been researched and watched. He’d been sent photos of Nick and Claire together at an address no average outsider should have, but Ames’s long arms seemed to pull a lot of strings. He felt really guilty that the guy who had snatched Lexi had resembled and pretended to be him.
The distance was just under 400 nautical miles, and he was pushing the Cirrus near its top speed of 180 knots, hovering just under its ceiling of 17,500 feet since the plane was not pressurized and he didn’t want to mess with supplemental oxygen. He wanted to land at MWCR in the Cayman Islands as if he was a tourist. He’d case the area where Nick and Claire would be staying and, no doubt, where they would be contacted. Just as when he’d flown jumbo jets to Singapore and back or when he’d gone on Middle East combat missions, he wanted to be prepared and ready.
He didn’t really have a specific plan after he landed, but he’d recon and get one. Anything he had to do to find this Clayton Ames who held his daughter’s life in his dirty hands. So what if Nick Markwood said he’d been trying to get the goods on him, even locate him for years because he moved around so much? The guy might be rich, powerful and slippery, but he was going to pay for this, even if Jace had to take orders from Markwood for a while. Even if Claire was staying with the rich lawyer in what were probably luxurious digs on a gorgeous beach on a tropical island. Even if—this really scared him too—she seemed to trust Markwood, to look at him as if...
Damn, why hadn’t Claire been content to just run Clear Path from her home office and steer clear of criminal investigations? She put her life—all their lives—in danger. This whole mess really got to Jace. It would be so easy to just end things up here over this vast blue-green water, to just disappear. Maybe Claire would talk to people he knew to try to find out if he’d been suicidal, why he’d kept changing his work flight schedule, why he’d considered giving up the international flying career he’d worked so hard for. She could use her forensic autopsy skills on him even if they never found his body.
He shook himself loose from that sick daydream. He was going to not only survive, but live. Really live. And with Claire and Lexi by his side.
As Claire and Nick’s Cayman Airlines jet dropped toward the island’s airport, Claire pressed her forehead to the window. Her beloved little Lexi was down there somewhere. Terrified? Tied up? Locked up? Drugged? Claire’s mind could not let her go further. She prayed for her daughter’s safety again, trying to send her silent reassurance and love.
“Those two cruise ships anchored there look like toys in a bright blue bathtub,” she told Nick as he leaned closer to look out too. “Amazing, long, white beaches, even compared to those in Naples.”
“That one is Seven Mile Beach. Look how close George Town is to it. Did you learn much when you checked out the islands online last night?”
“Until my eyes crossed. Like a lot of resort areas, it seems a mix of rich and poor, good and bad. For us, I’m hoping for the good.”
She bit her lower lip and blinked back tears. Except when they’d had ginger ale to calm their nervous stomachs, she and Nick had held hands for most of the flight. They pretended to sleep at times so the lady with the British accent in the aisle seat would stop being so chatty. They couldn’t put it past Ames that she was a plant. After all, he’d sent the tickets with the ransom note, so he could have bought three seats instead of two.
“And, of course, it’s a tax haven,” Claire went on, keeping her voice low. “Grand Cayman’s offshore investment reputation means a lot of those pretty pastel-and-glass buildings down there are just fronts for companies that aren’t really located here but want to escape taxes.” She whispered even lower, “I read that big firms like Apple, Walmart and Exxon do business here. No wonder...” She checked what she was going to say about Clayton Ames and finished lamely, “I read too that Osama bin Laden was a genius at stashing money offshore.” Clayton Ames was in good company here, hiding his assets, she thought. At least his Grand Cayman home must be luxurious. So Lexi might—must—be in a good, safe place.
After their aircraft taxied to the gate, they took their two carry-ons