Page 10 of Hell to Pay

Rafe’s voice sounded in my ear. “Nighty-night, Captain.”

Nolan and I stepped into each room on the way down the hall — Nolan in the rooms on the right while I took the rooms on the left — clearing each one as we went. I had to force myself to focus on my three-foot world, a concept we’d learned in SEALs training to compartmentalize, to focus on immediate threats instead of what might be farther ahead.

We got closer to Lilah with every room we cleared, and it was hard not to rush forward, to tear the place apart looking for her instead of taking it a step at a time like we’d been trained to do.

Finally we reached the end of the hall and the last room on the left.

Lilah’s room.

Except instead of a closed door, it was wide open.

A quick glance inside revealed an empty bedroom, the sheets disheveled on a full-size bed, a collection of shattered dishes and glassware littering the floor along with what looked like chicken and mashed potatoes.

And then, right under my feet, a long smear of blood.

10

LILAH

At first,it had been disorienting to find myself in the hall. I’d been unconscious when I’d been put in the room, had been drifting in a contextless sea.

Now I heard shooting somewhere above me and ran for the stairs I could see at one end of the hall.

I’d had no idea how big the boat was when I’d been locked in my room, but I could see now that it was huge. The same one I’d been driven to by the German woman? I couldn’t be sure.

My legs felt heavy, like they had when I’d been running through the snow the night I’d been chased by the snowmobiles. My heart wasn’t working right. I needed my meds.

I was running out of time.

Move, dammit.

I braced myself against the wall as I made my way to the stairs, then started up them. I was surprised when I reached a landing, another hall leading in one direction, the staircase continuing upward in another.

The boat had at least two levels.

A muffled thump sounded from right above me. The deck?

I had no idea what was happening. It sounded like some kind of gunfight, which wasn’t hard to believe considering I’d been abducted by human traffickers. Not a great scenario. Any way I sliced it, I was on my own.

Better to let the fight play out and try to find a way off the boat without getting in the middle of it.

I decided to take the hall since it was quiet. Maybe there was another way to the deck, one that would let me avoid the firefight just above me.

I was gasping, holding on to the walls as I started down the second hall, moving toward what seemed to be the bow of the yacht.

The hall was lined with rooms, some of the doors closed, some open to reveal bedrooms, the furnishings tidy, beds neatly made. Twice I saw men in black lying on the floor, blood seeping from under their bodies.

I’d almost reached the end of the hall when I came to an open door. Except this wasn’t a bedroom. It was some kind of control room with two screens on a metal work desk showing grainy images of what I assumed was the boat’s exterior. A closed laptop sat at one end of the desk, a hard drive plugged into it.

I hesitated, then ducked inside. Maybe the security cameras would give me an idea of what was going on, help me find the best way off the boat.

There were two images on the screen: the back of the boat, the ocean dark beyond the deck, and the front of the boat. There was a shadow on the bow, and I used the trackpad to expand the image, then saw that it was a person.

One of the guards, unconscious or dead.

My breath was shallow and a wave of lightheadedness hit me as adrenaline flooded my body. Was the enemy of my enemy — the person or persons who’d killed the guard — my friend? Or was this some kind of rival situation where I was about to be kidnapped by a different group of criminals?

Shit.

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