Lethal Lover Part 22

Tess's gaze flicked between her cousin and the man with the rifle.

Something about his face triggered a memory and suddenly she remembered him as the waiter from the first day at West Palm. No wonder she had not been able to find him after Selena had left their table.

He muttered something to Selena before handing her the rifle. Oh, G.o.d!

Something was so terribly, terribly wrong.

In a moment the lights went out and the deck was drenched in darkness except for a small gas lantern that left her and Selena encircled in a pool of soft light.

"I was afraid you might not come, that we had frightened you too badly,"

Selena said.

Tess opened her mouth to speak, but the shock rippling through her had stolen her voice.

"Try to understand." Selena's voice was as steady as the weapon she clutched in her hand.

"I had no choice."

Still stunned speechless and hopelessly confused, Tess saw Selena swallow a burst of emotion before she said, "I wanted to tell you, Tess. I tried to think of some other way. But they were after me. And then I heard they'd killed Andy Dianetti ... "

"Morrell?" Tess supplied, almost without realizing she'd spoken.

Selena nodded.

"Eddie Morrell will stop at nothing. He's ruthless, vengeful. I had to get away from him." Selena's eyes were shining and her voice shook.

"I wasn't just his bookkeeper, Tess. I was his lover. For three years.

But soon there were other women. And then when I met Tony and found out all the things Eddie was into--the drugs and all the rest of it--well, I had to get away. Try to understand. I never meant for you to be hurt.

Don't you see?"

Tess didn't see anything but a tangle of ugly deception. "I ... I thought they'd kill you. I was so afraid I'd never see you again. And that man, Paolo, he terrorized me! Was that all your doing? Did you send that madman after me, Selena?" Even as she made the accusation, her mind refused to believe her cousin could have done such a horrible thing.

Selena's expression was one of heartfelt regret.

"He was only supposed to frighten you, to make you believe that the threat to me was real. Just as we had to make you believe what was happening here tonight was real."

Bitterness rose like bile inside her; "Well, you made me a believer, all right! d.a.m.n it, Selena, how could you?" She'd never felt so betrayed, soused. Even when she'd believed Reed McKenna had betrayed her with her own sister.

"Tess, I'm sorry," Selena began, "but please, please try to understand.

I--I had no choice."

Tess struggled to her feet and braced herself again. qt the side of the boat, shaking her head and trembling all over as endless waves of fresh hurt mingled with grief washed over her.

"I don't want to understand!"

she blurted.

"Selena, I was nearly killed!

"And a man was killed in an explosion that was meant for me."

Her voice was hoa.r.s.e with the emotion clogging it. "Explosion?"

"Come on, Selena. It's a little late to pretend innocence."

' Something about the fear in Selena's eyes seemed real.

"Tess, please.

You have to listens It isn't what you think. I had to make you blieve I was in real danger, that my abductors had killed me. It was the only way."

Tony emerged from the darkened galley and took the rifle from Selena's hand.

Tess's eyes darted from the weapon to her cousin's face. Selena's eyes were pleading.

"We can't let you go, Tess. You know that, don't you?"

Reed! Tess's mind screamed. Please, Reed! Help me!

"Come below," Selena said quietly as though she were talking to a child.

"Please, Tess. We've got to get underway. I'll explain everything. But now we have to get out of this bay before someone sees us."

Tess stared, still disbelieving, at the man With the rifle and this strange woman with the short black hair who was her cousin. Her mouth had gone almost too dry to speak. The pain that Selena had inflicted felt like a thousand needles in her heart, and looking into the pair of blue eyes so much like her own only made the pain worse.

"Please," Selena urged, reaching for Tess's arm and closing cold fingers around it. At her touch Tess jerked away, and out of the corner of her eyes she saw the rifle shift.

The look on Tony's face was nearly as desperate as Selena's. They'll kill me, she thought with stark amazement. They're frightened.

Desperate. In her mind a dark whirlpool of fear threatened to spin her out of control. Unconsciously she began to edge toward the ladder, hoping that if somehow she could just get to it, she could find a means of ere ape "Tess, please," Selena said.

"You must cooperate. I really don't want to hurt you."

"Then take these d.a.m.n handcuffs off," Tess demanded with a strength she didn't know she postony glanced at Selena and she nodded. After handing her the rifle, he moved around behind Tess and unlocked the steel cuffs.

The feeling rushed into Tess's hands like a jolt of electricity.

"Why couldn't you just leave Morrell, go to the authorities and strike a deal?" Tess asked, partly because she wanted to know, but mostly to buy precious time.

"n.o.body just leaves Edward Morrell." Selena's voice was bitter.

"That's why I thought if I could convince you I'd been abducted and murdered, then you'd convince everyone else. He'd have to believe it, too."

Tess shook her head.

"And there were other ... considerations," Se-lena's voice cracked.

"Other ties, things you know nothing about."

"Selena," Tess began, scrambling for the right words with which to reason with her cousin.

"None of it matters anymore. Whatever you did, whatever trouble you're in, I would have helped you work it out.

I'll still try. But you must come with me now. I promise, I'll do everything I can to help. But to go to this extreme to bring me out here and. hold me at gunpoint." Tess realized she was on the verge of tears.

"We set it up so that when the time came, there wouldn't be any doubt?"

An ominous note had crept into Selena's voice.

"Selena, I'm getting off this boat," Tess said, her voice steadier and more resolved than she felt.

"Don't try it, Tess," Selena warned. Her voice was unrecognizably hard and her eyes shone with the desperation that had pushed her to this terrible extreme. "I don't know if I can kill my own cousin, but I can't let you go.

We've come too far and there's too much at risk.

And believe me, Tony will kill you if he has to." She made the declaration almost proudly.

"He'd do anything to protect me, to protect our future together."

This was a nightmare, Tess told herself, a nightmare from which she prayed she'd soon awaken.

"But why would you think you need protecting from me?"

Tess begged to know.

"I would never hurts you So lena! I only want to help."

"And you could have. This boat is rigged with explosives. Tony would have taken you ash.o.r.e and we would have put out to sea. When we were far enough so that we could safely escape in the smaller boat we towed with us, we would have detonated the charge." Tess shuddered.

"My G.o.d, Selena, you're crazy!"

"Maybe. But now, thanks to you, our plans have had to change. For now, we'll have to take you with US ." ' At first Tess thought she only imagined the shadow moving behind Tony, but when she looked again and saw an arm snake out and grab the gun, sudden and utter relief flooded her.

'Get back. Both of you." Reed commanded, motioning Tony and Selena into the light.

Tess stood leaning against the ra'ding where the ladder hung below.

Her body had gone so weak that her legs wouldn't carry her to him.

But her eyes met his and she knew he'd felt her touch.

"There is a coil of rope behind you, Tess. Pick it up and toss it to your cousin." His voice was low and fwm and Tess clung to his rea.s.suring control like a life preserver in a storm-tossed sea.

"Tie him, Selena," Reed instructed.

Tears streamed down Selena's cheeks as she bound Tony's hands behind him.

"Please," she cried. "Please! You don't know what you're doing.

Tess, you have to listen. It isn't just for me. it's for my baby!"

Selena dissolved in tears, while Tess could only stand staring, trying to absorb this latest blow.

"Your baby?" Tess gasped.

"Selena?"

"She's not his!" Selena screamed defiantly, like some sort of jungle cat caught in a snare.

"She belongs to Tony and me, and Eddie knows it. He only wants to take her away from me to punish me. Oh, Tess, please! Please, you have to let me go.

I've got to find my baby."

Selena fell into Tess's arms, her wracking sobs wrenching Tess's heart.

"Selena, please, please." tell me where is this baby?" Tess asked, her voice shaking.

"The county took her," she sobbed.

"The judie ordered her into a foster home until after the trial. They wouldn't even let me see her.

But I can't stand it!" She cried, her voice ragged.

"Don't you understand? She's my baby!"

Tony's voice was trembling when he explained, "We paid fifty thousand dollars to a professional to s.n.a.t.c.h her and bring her to us here on the island. But when we arrived in Grand Cayman we discovered she'd been moved' out of the home where they'd been keeping her."

"She's gone," Selena sobbed.

"But if it's the last thing I ever do, I'll find her. I'll get her back.

So help me, if I have to kill Eddie Morrell with my own hands."

Tony's eyes reached out to Selena with such love that Tess's heart went out to both of them. The desire to rescue her child from the far-reaching control of Edward Morrell had pushed Selena into this desperate and dangerous situation. Somehow, some way, Tess vowed to help her find a way out, a way to be reunited with her child--the LITTLE cousin Tess hadn't even known existed.

Reed's eyes held hers and something like regret flickered in their shadowy depths before he pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Selena.

It was a picture.

"Crissy is in Grand Cayman," he said evenly.

"She's all right."

The expression of shock that registered on Selena's face matched the frozen feeling in Tess's heart.