Moonrise by Anne Stuart Read Free Book Online Page B

luxurious vacation spot.”
    She was used to luxurious vacation spots, he thought sourly. With Win’s handpicked escorts. “Take your time in the shower,” he said with an affability he was far from feeling. “I won’t be back for about an hour.” He didn’t want to lay it on too thick. The shower was in the middle of the house. She’d be safer there than any place else, and the sound of the water might drown out the noise of gunshots. His Beretta was equipped with a silencer, but even the top of the line was pathetically noisy. He’d have to work fast and hope she wouldn’t notice.
    He stepped off the porch, surveying the tropical morning as he listened to her moving around. He lit a cigarette, taking a deep breath of the ocean air, the subtle scent of foreign sweat on the breeze, as he waited for the sound of the shower. He figured he had ten minutes at worst, up to twenty if he was real lucky. In the old days he could take three operatives out in less than half that time. But this wasn’t the old days, and he was feeling tired and angry. Emotions always slowed him down.
    Another day in paradise, he thought sourly, taking a deep drag off his cigarette. He could hear the birds in the distance, edgy and disturbed by the presence of strangers. The hush of the ocean surf penetrated through thethick, jungle-like underbrush. There were a hundred places a man could hide in an overgrown place like this. And he felt a brief flash of that hateful, seductive anticipation.
    He found the first one behind the house, his gun drawn, sneaking up toward the back porch. James came up behind him and broke his neck, quickly, efficiently, letting the body drop with a silent thud onto the soft, spongy ground.
    Two left, he thought with clinical detachment, moving around the side of the house. The first one had been too easy. The next intruder was more of a challenge, staying just out of reach.
    He was moving toward the house, James realized with only a brief moment of concern. No matter how good the operative was, he wouldn’t be able to get to Annie. He’d have to come out in the open if he wanted to enter the cabin, and James could pick him off with a single shot.
    The attack team might have brought a short-fused explosive device. Then they’d have to run like hell, and James had little doubt he could take them out and defuse whatever little present the company had come up with for one of their own.
    At least his compatriots, perfectionists and professionals though they were, had nevergone in for suicide missions. Staying alive had always been more important than getting the job done. Too bad this latest batch would accomplish neither objective.
    There was only one slight difficulty. He still hadn’t figured out where the third operative was.
    His quarry made the mistake of stopping his determined advance toward the cabin. James found him squatting in the bushes about ten yards from the front porch, loading extra 9mm clips with hollow-point bullets. If it hadn’t been for the bullets James might have considered letting him go, but those bullets were meant to maim and hurt. The man must have sensed his presence. He looked up, and there was a flash of recognition between the two. James had never seen him before in his life. But he knew him, as well as he knew himself. He shot him at point-blank range.
    One left. He’d tossed his cigarette, and he could smell the coppery scent of blood, the iron smell of death on the air. And something else, something he recognized.
    “Fuck me,” he muttered.
    “Not this time, James.”
    He turned, slowly, to face the third and final operative they’d sent after him. Mary Margaret Hanover. A woman with the face of an angel and the soul of … hell, she didn’t have a soul.
    “You’ve been your usual efficient self, James,” she said coolly, moving around him with extreme care, her gun pointed directly at his crotch. “I would have expected no less. I tried to warn the others, but they