Jack Beale 00 - Dangerous Shoals

PROLOGUE
    “DID YOU GET IT ?” he whispered into the phone.
    “Yes.”
    Relief washed over him. He smiled to himself, feeling one step closer.
    “Richard?”
    “I’m sorry. Vicki, you have no idea what this means to me.”
    “When will I see you?”
    “Tonight. I’ll call you later and we’ll celebrate.”
    “Richard,” she said softly, “I love you.”
    Again, he was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I love you, too,” and hung up the phone.
    She slowly replaced the receiver and lay back on her bed. Meeting Richard had been the best thing that ever happened to her.
    * * *
    He looked at the phone as if it were a dying friend to whom he had just said a final goodbye. Daniel took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He hated what he had done, but it had all been necessary. Vicki was sweet, and it had been so easy to deceive her. For that, he felt a twinge of guilt. But it was nothing like the guilt he still felt over what he had done to Max. Of all the women he had used over the years, all the women he had professed a deep and profound love to, she had been the only one he truly had feelings for. But the fantasy of happily ever after had ended in Belize.
    The moment he had first seen the black boat, he knew that they had been discovered. There had been no doubt in his mind that it would only be a matter of time before his employer would have them both killed. Max first, just because she was with him. Her death would be used to amplify his pain before his own death. That’s the way his employer worked. His only hope had been to fake his own death, abandon Max, and disappear. He hated that he had been forced to deceive her that way, but it was the only solution. It had all gone perfectly until Jack had showed up and seen him boarding the plane.
    Now the only way he could ensure Max’s safety was to bring his employer down. Vicki was making that possibility closer to becoming a reality.
    * * *
    Richard and Vicki had dinner that night at their favorite little restaurant. She gave him the disc and they talked about how fate had brought them together. When he took her home and they kissed goodnight, she said how much she was looking forward to their life together. Only he knew this would be the last kiss.
    * * *
    “I have a job for you,” the voice on the phone said.
    “Yes.”
    “That girl in my office. You need to have a conversation with her.”
    His heart rate quickened. His soulless eyes seemed to brighten, and something between a grin and a grimace came over his face. “Talk to me.”
    “We have video surveillance in the office. She doesn’t know. She took a call. After, when she thought she was alone, she went into my office. I don’t keep cameras in there. I don’t want a record of any meetings I hold in private. She came out a short while later, and the look on her face told me what I needed to know. I need you to find out what she took and get it back.”
    His knife flicked open and he admired its blade as he listened. “Done.”
    * * *
    Later that night, sitting alone, Daniel took the disc from his pocket. As he turned it over and over in his hands, he thought about his plan and smiled. Vicki had done better than he had expected. He sat back and allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation. Women were so easy for him to manipulate. No one from his past knew that he was alive, and now with this disc as an insurance policy against his boss, he could truly be free.
    * * *
    The next morning, Daniel left his room expecting to quietly disappear. But the headline screamed at him from inside the newspaper box on the street corner. WOMAN TORTURED AND MURDERED. He stopped and stared at it through the glass. The grime on the door made it hard to read, but soon waves of nausea and panic coursed through his body. “Vicki Blackbriar, a receptionist in a small mid-town …” His hands began to shake. Frantic, he groped in his pocket for quarters. He dropped one of the coins as he tried to push it into the slot, ignoring it as it rolled into the gutter. He forced another into the slot and heard the catch release. Daniel yanked the door open, took a paper, and then without even looking at it, turned and fled as the door slammed shut. He had to get somewhere more private than the street corner to read what he prayed wasn’t true. As he walked away he already knew what he had to do.

CHAPTER 1
    SEVERAL MONTHS HAD PASSED since Jack and Max’s return to Rye from Belize. According to the calendar it