Page 17 of Poison Evidence

He was losing something important here. But that was nothing new.

Maybe, when this was all over, after he was long gone, she’d come to see him as something other than a villain. He knew of one person who could tell her a story that might paint him in a lighter shade of black.

He’d also hoped the same person would watch out for Sophia and Yulian when the time came. Not because he owed Dimitri—he didn’t—but because he was a good man.

Three days ago, when he’d read the article about Ivy and CAM, he’d figured others would zero in on her and her brilliant toy. After all, he wasn’t the only one searching for Russia’s missing tech. The waters of Palau were about to get crowded, forcing him to make a decision. But he couldn’t simplycallLuke Sevick and ask for his help.

Sevick had been lauded as a hero after that November night. He was the “Sully” Sullenberger of SEALs—the go-to man the media wanted to interview when anything remotely related to the Navy, NOAA, or SEALs made the headlines. Dimitri had no doubt that Ivy would listen to the former SEAL, even if she did believe the other man on the Interceptor that night had been a Ukrainian terrorist.

Dimitri always kept tourist cards on hand for the rare guest who wanted to send snail mail home to family instead of posting a selfie to Facebook. After reading the article on Ivy, he’d grabbed a card featuring Jellyfish Lake, the single biggest tourist attraction in Palau. The lake was in the Rock Islands—the place where all the hunters would gather.

The message he wrote on the card had to be cryptic. He couldn’t simply sign it, not when it would go through scrutiny at Luke’s work, and he didn’t have the man’s home address.

In the end, he’d decided on the one message Luke would recognize as clear as a signature. He’d written the combination of numbers they’d used to save the world on the inside of the card and slipped it into an international express envelope and mailed it.

Given the time difference, Luke might, in fact, be receiving the card right now, which wasn’t a moment too soon, given that Ivy had said Thor had a Russian accent. A wild card had been thrown into this clusterfuck of a snipe hunt.

Days ago, he’d worried at the risk in bringing Luke into the loop, but after tonight, his doubts were gone. Once Ivy’s predicament became clear, Luke would come to Palau. He’d be here to protect her should something happen to Dimitri.

Now he crossed the salon to the small library and game shelf. Not that his clients ever read or played games. They drank and fucked and complained. He had no problem with the first two, but when vacationing in paradise, one should at least bother to look at the scenery once in a while. Then again, he’d never tried to pull in respectable clientele.

He flipped through the cards, finding another Jellyfish Lake image. Was a second card to Luke warranted, or would it overplay his hand?

With express mail, the card would arrive in two to three days, but from Ivy’s boss’s call, he knew word of what happened at the party had already made headlines across the Pacific.

Dimitri had avoided the news cameras when he hurried to the garden to find Ivy, but plenty of people in the ballroom knew Jack Keaton. That name was probably all over the news. Luke was smart. He’d receive the card and watch the news. He’d put together two and two without a second nudge.

When Luke arrived in Palau, he’d need direction. Dimitri held on to the card. He had one errand beforeLibertycould depart. He set off down the dock. When he reached the end, his gaze paused on the flower garden that edged the shoreline. Moonlight shone on the orchids, and the memory of Ivy in his arms hit him like a fist.

But what he was about to do wasn’t about Ivy. It was about a four-year-old boy he’d never met, and likely never would, but whom he loved fiercely all the same.

He would see this plan through for Yulian and Sophia.

He finished his task. After that, departure was simple. He’d been prepping for this for weeks. He glanced at his dive watch—a gift from Sophia when he joined the Coast Guard, and the only item he’d retained from his life as Parker Reeves—it had been less than fifteen minutes since he’d left Ivy in his bed, and alreadyLibertywas pulling out of her slip. By the time she woke, it would be too late.

The dark tinted windows in the captain’s stateroom couldn’t compete with the bright, tropical morning. Ivy woke slowly, taking stock of her surroundings before she committed to keeping her eyes open. The bed felt lonely, and she reached toward Jack’s pillow and found it empty.

Disappointing, but she smiled, thinking of ways to convince him to return to bed.

She rolled to her side. Her body was sore, both from the assault and the lovemaking. She focused on the good aches and tried to ignore the bad.

Her sleepy gaze landed on a note and a flower on Jack’s side of the bed. She smiled and held the peach-colored orchid as she read the note.

Ivy –

I will never look at a peach moth orchid again without thinking of you. We need to talk about what happened at the party, but if we try to talk in my stateroom, I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself. Join me for breakfast on the upper deck when you’re ready.

– DV

“DV” must stand for Death Valley, which made her laugh. She was eager to see him. Eager to touch him. She’d promised him it was a one-night hookup. Was it wrong that she wanted to extend it a few days? Maybe even for the rest of the time she was in Palau?

But the Palau end date would be firm. She’d promised herself that once CAM was running, she’d attempt artificial insemination, so this was hardly the time to entertain fantasies of a relationship. No, this was about sex, pure and simple.

She found her toiletries on the shelf in the master cabin bathroom. Head, she corrected herself. On a boat, the bathroom is called the head. Cabins are staterooms. The living room is a salon, and the kitchen is called the galley. She’d thought Patrick was pedantic over boating terminology, but she’d learned he wasn’t unique or even extreme. Boating people were sticklers for language.

She washed up and dressed, then took the orchid with her when she left the stateroom. The curtains in the salon were closed tight, leaving most of the room in shadow. Sunlight poured through the rectangular hatch above the steep steps that were more ladder than stairs to the upper deck.

She climbed, her bare feet silent on the treads as she emerged into the brilliant, blinding sunlight of morning in the tropics.

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