Page 18 of Poison Evidence

She blinked and squinted. A table was arranged on the aft end of the upper deck. White tablecloth. Champagne bottle, fruit juice, and a vase filled with orchids arranged in the center. Jack stood next to the table, facing her.

Warmth flooded her—entirely different from the heat of the equatorial sun that was scorching even at this early hour. Her heart fluttered just looking at him. Remembering the feel of his hands, the caress of his lips.

She grinned and stepped forward, having eyes only for him. When he didn’t smile at seeing her, she faltered. Was he nervous about her morning-after reaction?

Or was this a fancy kiss-off?

She blinked again as her eyes adjusted to the light. She should have grabbed her sunglasses from her purse. She was half the distance to the table before she bothered to look left or right, to take in their surroundings. She vaguely remembered him moving the boat to another marina in the middle of the night.

She stopped short, and her breath left her in a rush. The sunrise was behind Jack, meaning he stood to the east. Nothing but blue water to the north. Blue water to the south. She spun around. The port must be behind her, to the west.

But no. There was nothing. Nothing but water stretched fromLibertyto the horizon in all four cardinal directions and every degree on the compass in between.

For the first time in her adult memory, she had no clue where on the planet she was.

Chapter Seven

Jack must’ve guessed how debilitating it would be for her to feel…unmoored. She was a cartographer. A GIS wizard. She was like a homing pigeon. She lived and breathed compass bearings as if mag north was implanted in her brain. And now she lacked her superpower. Wonder Woman sans lasso. Thor without his hammer.

She grimaced. Best not to think of Thor. Batman was better. Yeah. Batman without his gadgets.

But really, what mattered was she lacked the one thing she knew and understood better than anything else. She was—quite literally—adrift.Lost.

And for her, that was unique. Unprecedented. But even worse, the man who’d stripped her of her power was the same man who’d been inside her body just hours ago.

“How could you?” she asked, her voice breaking. Dammit. She didn’t want to show him hurt, didn’t want to give him that satisfaction.

Bile rose in her throat. “You’re one of them? One of Patrick’s terrorist buddies? Was this plan A or plan B?”

Oh God. She’d fucked one of Patrick’s cronies. A terrorist. A murderer.

“I’m not a terrorist.”

She crossed the deck to where he stood by the table and struck him. A hard slap across his cheek that left her hand stinging even as her body began to shake. “Don’t lie to me!”

He didn’t react to the blow, not even to grab her hands to prevent another one. “I’m not lying. I had nothing to do with the men who attacked you and the party last night.”

“You want me to believe it’s a coincidence you abducted me just hours after Patrick’s men tried to kidnap me? I’m not stupid. Odds are, my IQ is higher than yours.”

“At a verified one sixty-six, your IQ is higher than most people’s and a full eighteen points higher than mine.”

“Am I supposed to be scared that you did your homework on me? Do you know my bra size and birth date too?”

“I know your bra size.” He gave her a pointed look. “But your birth date escapes me.”

She flushed at that. Perhaps bra size wasn’t the smartest data point to use. Hard to know when she was freaking out. Fear was draining those precious IQ points. She needed to take control of this conversation. “You’ve screwed up in a big way. CAM is transmitting my location. The Navy knows where I am. And you can bet this odd blip of a location—wherever the hell we are—will be noted.”

“I’m counting on it.”

His confidence left her cold. “Is your plan to sell me and CAM back to the Navy? You know what the Navy did to the Somali pirates who demanded a ransom for Captain Philips, right?”

Before he could answer, another thought struck her. He could have unloaded CAM while she slept. Right now it could be in the hands of terrorists, and the Navy would have no more idea of where she was than she did. All the blood in her body raced to her feet. She was going to faint. Or puke. So much for her freaking high IQ.

She hadn’t seen this coming. She’d never imagined Jack Keaton was the enemy.

Puking won, and she bolted for the railing and lost the meager contents of her stomach over the side. Jack touched her shoulder, and she slapped his arm away. “Don’t touch me!”

“Ivy—”

---