Explosive Attraction - By Lena Diaz Page 0,4
knows, then keep an eye on her until we get this guy.”
Rafe was about to go back inside to help Jake when he realized Darby wasn’t standing where he’d seen her a moment ago. He scanned the crowd, looking for the petite brunette in the baby-blue business suit—the woman who’d tilted his world on a crazy angle earlier. The simple act of grabbing her wrist, of feeling her soft skin beneath his, had sent a zing of awareness slicing through him, straight to his groin.
Which made absolutely no sense, because he didn’t even like Darby Steele.
Daniels reached Buresh, a smile of greeting on his face. “Hey, Captain, Detective. What’s—”
“There she is,” Rafe interrupted. “Where’s she going?”
She was walking away toward the dock at the end of the street. A man was walking beside her, his head covered with a black baseball cap. The two of them were so close there was almost no sunlight separating them.
An uneasy feeling swept through Rafe. He looked back toward the crowd where Darby had been standing just a moment ago. A large manila envelope was lying on the curb. He clawed for the Glock holstered to his side and jerked his head back toward the dock.
Darby and the man she was with were about to get into a small, red speedboat, bobbing in the water. Sunlight glinted and Rafe saw what he hadn’t seen earlier.
A knife pressed against Darby’s side.
He took off running. “That’s the bomber,” he yelled back over his shoulder. “He’s got Darby!”
Chapter Two
The man with the knife shoved Darby into the small boat, making her fall to the floor, scraping her knees against the nonskid fiberglass. Ignoring the flash of pain, she scrambled back to her feet and lunged toward the side to jump in the water and escape.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” The man grabbed her ankle and yanked hard, making her fall back to the bottom of the boat again.
He crouched over her, pressing the knife against her side. “Try that again and you’re dead.”
A violent shiver shook Darby. Her breath caught in her throat. The man’s eyes were concealed behind a pair of dark sunglasses, and his hair was covered by a Jacksonville Suns baseball cap. But she didn’t need to see his eyes to know he wasn’t bluffing.
The sharp pain in her side and the warm blood seeping through her clothes told her that.
She nodded, letting him know she understood.
He waved the knife in front of her face in warning, before straightening and grabbing the steering wheel. A quick turn of the key and the engine started. With the practiced ease of someone familiar with boats, he unhooked the nylon lines tying the boat in place. The sound of footsteps pounding against the wooden planks of the dock had him jerking his head up.
Rafe Morgan was sprinting toward them, his arms and legs pumping like an Olympic runner. He was holding a large, black gun in his hand. Far behind him a uniformed police officer was running hard to catch up.
“Police, stop,” Rafe yelled. He raised his gun, but didn’t shoot.
The man with the knife cursed and moved some levers next to the steering wheel, making the engine whine as the boat pulled away.
Without slowing, Rafe launched himself off the end of the dock, landing in the boat on top of the other man, knocking him back against the bench seat in front of the steering wheel.
Darby barely managed to scramble out of the way before the men fell to the floor on the far side of the bench, wedged between the seat and the side of the boat. They grappled for control of the knife. Darby prayed the blood on the blade was hers, not Rafe’s.
Where was his gun? Had he dropped it? No—there it was, tucked into the holster at his waist. He must have shoved it there just as he leaped off the dock. He’d probably been too worried about hitting her to take a shot.
A sudden rocking motion had Darby staggering back, then slamming into the metal railing at the rear of the boat. She grabbed the railing just before her momentum would have carried her into the water, into the engine’s propellers. She shuddered and jerked back, her lungs heaving and her pulse pounding in her ears. She clutched the railing as the boat bumped up and down across the wake of other boats, racing out into the middle of the Intracoastal.
With no one at the wheel.
The two men were locked in a