“Reese!” More and more frantic, she swam toward the bow but saw no sign of him. She’d been the best swimmer on her high school swim team and she used that skill now, diving beneath the surface again and again. Still, no sign of him.
Her pulse was pounding, hard and fast, and fear threatened to overwhelm her. She dived again, swam toward the bow, and dived again.
Her heart jerked when she spotted him, ten feet below the surface, struggling to free himself from the heavy piece of metal holding him under the sea.
Kenzie went up, took a deep breath, and scissored through the water, swimming back down as fast as she could. She came up beside him, reached out, and touched him as he struggled to free himself. His eyes met hers and she read the resignation. He didn’t believe she could free him. He thought he was going to die.
Terror hit her so hard, her mind spun. Her eyes burned and it wasn’t from the salty water. No way was she letting him die!
Her throat tightened and her chest clamped down as she tugged on the rough strip of metal pinning his leg against the heavy submerged chunk of wood. It didn’t budge.
His eyes were closed now and she saw the breath he’d been holding drifting in small bubbles toward the surface. Kenzie yanked frantically on the metal strip, but there was no give. Reese had kicked off his sneakers in an effort to free himself, but his pant leg had snagged and was caught tight.
Her air was gone. She shot to the surface, dragged in a quick breath, and dived again. Forcing herself to concentrate, to find a solution to the problem, she spotted a smaller piece of metal sticking out of the wood and managed to pull it free. It was sharp on one edge, perfect to use as a blade. She began sawing back and forth, trying to cut through the denim pant leg trapping below the surface.
Her breath was almost gone when she realized the whole section of wood and metal was slowly sinking, pulling both of them down. In moments, it would be too far to the surface for either of them to reach.
Griff’s sweet face appeared in her mind. She couldn’t die. She had to think of Griff! A few more seconds were all they had. Chest burning, she reached for Reese, pulled as hard as she could, and the last of his pant leg tore free.
Determined now, kicking as hard as she could toward the murky sunlight, she was almost there when two bodies surged into the water beside her. One of them pushed Reese to the surface, the other grabbed her arm and pulled her up beside him. She broke through the surface and dragged in a lifesaving breath of air.
“Reese!” Coughing and sputtering, she felt herself lifted into a lifeboat and saw Reese lying on the bottom, one of the rescuers giving him artificial respiration.
She started to shiver. Her eyes burned. “Please, God, don’t let him die.” A blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she knelt beside him, reached out, and touched his cheek. “I love you, Reese,” she said. “Please come back to me.”
They worked over him for several more terrifying minutes before he coughed, coughed some more, dragged in a breath, and expelled what seemed like gallons of seawater.
“Reese...” His name came out on a whisper of air and the tears she’d been fighting slid down her cheeks.
“He’s gonna be all right,” Tony said with the widest smile she had ever seen. “He’s gonna be okay.”
Kenzie started crying.
After that, everything seemed to blur. A Coast Guard chopper arrived and airlifted Reese and two other injured men out of the lifeboat. Reese refused to go unless they took her with them.
Inside the chopper, he held on to her hand, his eyes on her face. “I remember some of it, not all. Did I imagine you swimming underwater toward me? Was it real or some kind of delusion?”
She could still recall her terrible fear. “I couldn’t find you. I kept swimming. Then I saw you—trapped by a piece of the crane.”
“So it was you. I knew it.” He gave her one of his sweet smiles. “My pant leg was caught and I couldn’t get free. I was almost out of air. I didn’t think you could get me free in time, but...” His beautiful blue eyes glistened. “You saved my life.”
Kenzie tried to smile, but her chest was hurting and everything inside her wanted to weep with relief. She wiped away a drop of wetness on her cheek. He’s alive, she reminded herself, and a real smile finally surfaced.
“I told you I was on the swim team. I didn’t tell you I was captain.”
A soft laugh escaped, then Reese started coughing.
Kenzie squeezed his hand. “You need to rest. Just relax and take it easy, okay?”
His eyes darkened. “This wasn’t an accident.”
She didn’t argue. Too many bad things had happened.
Reese’s features hardened. “Sawyer DeMarco is dead. So is Arthur Haines. I thought the trouble was over. What the hell is going on?”
As the chopper flew toward Houston, Kenzie shivered.
FORTY
Night had settled in, warm and humid, the hum of insects the only sound in the quiet. Hawk stood in the shadows outside the house, a big two-story structure behind wrought-iron gates sitting on several acres in a rural part of Crosslake. Jeremy Bolt’s private retreat.
Or in this case, the home of Martel Ames, the reclusive, wealthy son of the late Collin Ames, a successful entrepreneur who had lived in Atlanta.
The address on North Lakeshore Drive was surrounded by open space, with the added advantage of a boat dock, a water escape should the need arise. Though the property was fenced, it wasn’t electrified.
Wearing a pair of latex gloves, Hawk used the skills he’d learned as a spec ops marine to disarm the digital perimeter alarm system, which wasn’t particularly sophisticated. Clearly Bolt didn’t expect to be tracked to his residence. And if trouble managed to find him, he trusted his skills to handle it.
Not this time.
Hawk disabled the system on the house with the same ease as the fence, pried off a screen on one of the downstairs bedrooms, and slipped inside. He had spotted Bolt sitting in front of the TV in the family room. Hadn’t seen anyone else in the residence.
Approaching the open bedroom door, he quickly stepped back out of sight at the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Bolt walked passed him; average height, with a lean frame and neatly trimmed brown hair, completely unremarkable in jeans and sneakers and a New Orleans Saints T-shirt. A man perfectly suited to blend in, to kill and disappear.
Pulling his Kimber, Hawk peeked into the hall and saw Bolt disappear into a room farther down the corridor. Moving quickly, he followed, flattening himself against the wall, peering in to see Bolt reaching for something beneath a nightstand. Then the far bedroom wall began to move, sliding open to reveal a hidden room on the opposite side.