A crowd had gathered along the dock and suddenly there was a swell of voices among the outstretched hands trying to pull them out of the bay. Rich shot out of the water and grabbed onto the deck gulping lungsful of air. The EMTs reached for Quinn, but Ben was reluctant to let her go. He anxiously searched her neck for a pulse.
“Bennett, let them do their job.” Adam reached around him and hauled Quinn’s body up onto the dock where the two EMTs ripped the tape off her mouth and began resuscitating her.
A hush fell over the crowd as Ben crawled up onto the dock. Aunt Marnie wrapped a towel over his shoulders but he didn’t dare take his eyes off Quinn long enough to even wipe his face.
Breathe, he silently urged. Everyone around him seemed to be collectively holding their breath. Time stood still. When suddenly she began to choke and cough, it was almost as if the dock itself sighed with relief. He scrambled closer helping the EMTs to reassure her as she struggled against their attempts to get oxygen to her lungs.
“Ben.” She gasped his name between violent coughing spasms.
“I’m here.” He squeezed her hand. “Just relax. Leave the mask on and breathe.”
She shook her head agitatedly. “No,” she cried, yanking at the mask. “Need to. . . get out of here.”
“Shh,” he tried to reassure her. “It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
The EMT was inserting a line into her arm. “Her BP is through the roof. This will help keep her calm,” he murmured. “The IV fluids will stabilize her body temp.”
Ben attempted to place the mask back over her nose and mouth, but she swatted it away.
Her eyes pleaded with him, but her labored words were difficult to make out. “Must. . . disappear. Can’t know. . . I’m alive!” Her eyelids drooped as the medicine began to take effect. Her words were slurred slightly now. “Make sure he doesn’t get it. Please, Ben.”
“Who, Quinn?” Ben demanded. “Who are you afraid of?”
“She’s out,” the EMT explained when she didn’t answer.
“Make sure who doesn’t get what?” Adam asked from where he had crouched down beside him.
“Damned if I know,” Ben said. “But I’m sure as hell going to find out.”
“My guess is she has something those guys want badly enough to kill for,” Rich announced from his perch on the Seas the Day. “From the looks of it, those goons believed it was on your boat. Any ideas?”
“No clue.”
Could she have planted something on his boat earlier? Damn it. He’d been too busy lusting over her like a horny teenager to notice if she had.
The EMTs carefully loaded her onto a gurney and wrapped a thermal blanket around her body. She looked so innocent. Minutes before, she’d looked just as peaceful floating to the bottom of the bay. Nausea rolled through his belly. Those men thought nothing of dumping her in the water and leaving her to die. No matter how angry he was with her right now, he never wanted that for her.
Never.
And, right now, he desperately wanted her safe and alive because he had questions for her. Lots of them.
“How do we know those guys got what they were looking for?” he asked. “Or that they won’t come back and finish her off. We need to get her someplace we can secure.”
Adam eyed him warily. “Dude, you may not be thinking with the correct body part here. She’s clearly not as innocent as she appears. She ghosted you, remember? Are you sure you want to involve yourself in her shit storm?”
“I gave her my word,” he snapped.
His asshole buddy was wrong. Ben needed Quinn safe so he could question her about her “friend” Alexi Ronoff. That was all. He hadn’t been able to get a good look at any of the men, but his gut was telling him that Ronoff was among them.
Adam heaved a sigh. “Fine. POTUS and FLOTUS are headed to California. I can get Joss to agree to have a guest sleep over. No one can get to your runaway prom date there. But she’s under escort the entire time she’s in the Crown. Understood?”
Ben nodded.
“Hey, this woman is lucky we were right here when you pulled her out, but she’s still a victim of a near drowning,” one of the EMT’s objected. “She needs further medical attention, just in case.”
“Good thing the Crown has its own medical staff, then.” Adam pinned the paramedic with his no-nonsense sniper’s gaze.
“That’s not within our standard protocol.” The EMT refused to back down.
Ben shot his brother-in-law a beleaguered look.
Rich sighed heavily. “The feds outrank us, boys. I’m overriding protocol tonight. She goes with them.”
Adam pulled out his cell phone and began making the necessary arrangements.
“Before you take off, Ben, you might want to come up here and see if anything is missing,” Rich said.
“I got her,” Adam reassured him.
Ben climbed aboard the Seas the Day. He hadn’t been paying too much attention earlier; he was so laser-focused on finding Quinn. But Rich was correct. His boat had been thoroughly tossed. He bent down to retrieve the contents of Quinn’s purse scattered on the back deck. Growing up in a house full of females, he knew enough not to separate a woman from her purse.
“Whoa there, Bennett,” Rich said. “I’m not skipping every protocol. This is still the scene of an attempted murder. I’ll make sure that gets bagged up and returned to her.”
There was the queasiness again. Every time he thought of Quinn dying. Ben was in the process of getting to his feet when something just inside her bag caught his eye.
“Do you have evidence gloves?” he asked his brother in law.
Rich handed him a pair of latex gloves. Ben pulled them on and reached for a silver tube that looked a lot like a lipstick container, only longer. Inside was a sophisticated set of lock picks.
What does a photographer need with those?
His pulse pounded harder when he dug a little deeper and pulled out a small, but lethal, Ruger twenty-two caliber handgun. He checked the barrel. It was fully loaded. Any lingering guilt about invading her privacy disappeared. He picked up her camera and discovered the SIM card had been removed. Her cell phone was switched to the off position. Unusual for most people unless she didn’t want to be easily located.
He inspected her wallet next. It contained one credit card, a smattering of cash and a British driver’s license, but nothing else. No coupons, or discount cards. Not even a damn postage stamp. None of the things most women stuffed into their wallets.
“Who are you, Quinn Darby,” he asked quietly.
“Hey, Bennett,” Adam called from the dock. “We’re ready to move out.”
“Be right down. I just need to grab something from my cabin.”
He headed belowdecks pulling up to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the steps. The Russians were thorough. Every drawer and cabinet had been opened; the contents strewn on the floor. Wading through the mess, he headed for the front cabin. No surprise; it had been ransacked as well. He made a beeline for the fake Rubik’s Cube he kept at his bedside, frantically digging his fingers inside.
It was empty.
Fuck.
Those assholes took the copy of VOYEUR he’d stowed there earlier that day.