Page 77 of Dangerous Passion

Rutskoi had known Drake long enough, had studied him long enough, to know many of his pseudonyms, which he’d feed to Terabyte, together with a database of the companies Drake owned that he knew of.

It was entirely possible that with Terabyte’s help, he could track Drake to wherever he was located on Earth, very soon.

The woman would slow him down, make him vulnerable. She would be the death of him.

Chapter Fifteen

Bed. He was lying on a bed.

It was raining.

Drake opened his eyes briefly, then shut them against the pain in his head. But not before he’d seen a ceiling. Gray, low, cracked. The cracks ran diagonally across the tiny room like a big river with tributaries running off it.

He opened his eyes again, ignoring the sharp pain, taking stock.

Small room, maybe five meters by five meters. Walls painted a dusty tan a long time ago. A small TV high up on a wall bracket, chained to the bracket. A cheap plastic wardrobe missing a handle on one door. A desk, a chair. An open door giving on to a small, white-tiled bathroom.

The mattress under him was as soft as a sponge, guaranteed to provide a restless night’s sleep.

Where were they? In a cheap motel room, obviously, butwhere?

He turned his head to the bedside table and had to wait for the room to stop spinning before reaching out to the notepad next to the old-fashioned rotary dial telephone. It took him a couple of tries to coordinate his hand’s movements. Finally, he had the pad in his hand and brought it to his face, trying fiercely to focus.

Jordan’s Motor Court, he read.Wallis, South Carolina.

He’d never heard of Wallis, but he knew where South Carolina was.

Where was Grace? That he was alone in the motel room could be seen at a glance.

He had no memory of how he got here and understood that he must have been out for at least eight hours, probably more. If Grace had stopped, it was because she was too exhausted to go on.

So … where was she?

Drake felt a sharp ache in his chest that had nothing to do with wounds and everything to do with missing her. He would survive his wounds. His body was already knitting itself up, he could feel it. The headache and muscles pains were nothing.

But he needed Grace like he needed water and air. Ferociously.

Where the hell was she?

He rolled over in bed, relishing the small surge of strength he could feel returning to his body and that was when he saw it.

The trolley, lying by the left hand bedside table.

Open.

She hadn’t even bothered to close it.

Drake’s heart gave a sharp blow in his chest. Pure, lancing pain, such as none he had ever felt before exploded inside him.

She’d left him.

Of course.

He was a hunted man. His enemies had almost killed her twice, had killed a dear friend and driven her out of her home and out of her life. She must have thought his enemies would eventually get her, too.

And there was the trolley, full of enough money to keep someone like Grace for two lifetimes.

He didn’t even blame her. Any other woman would have done the same. If there was anyone in the world who understood the imperatives of self-preservation, it was Drake. Grace would have to be crazy to stay with him, a hunted man, a criminal. Wounded, perhaps dying, for all she knew.

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