Her heart pounded violently, consuming what little oxygen she’d gulped into her lungs before going into the salty, cold ocean. She tried to punch his vulnerable parts, but his arms were so long, he prevented her from reaching.
Play dead.
Just ... be dead.She fought until she thought she might actually suck in seawater. Her lungs burned, then she gave up as if dead.
And floated.
Letting the ocean take her, she drifted along with the waves washing in, then back out, then in again. Salt burned her eyes as she peered underwater, searching...
His boots kicked up sand. He was still there. A few more heartbeats and she would die if she didn’t breathe.
She had no choice.
And he finally disappeared, so she lifted her head to the side, sucked in oxygen, then once again let the ocean carry her. Her body drifted with the current, back and forth, slowly toward the shore, until she washed up onto the beach.
Like a lifeless body.
Play dead.Let him think she’d drowned. Had this ever worked before? If he wanted her dead, he could have shot her, but why do that when she could just drown and that would be the end of her story? No investigation required.
Limbs numb with cold, pebbles cutting into her palms and arms, she crawled forward on the wet sand. Gut and lungs heaving, Cressida coughed up brackish seawater, then she let herself remain in the sand, unmoving.
Tears leaked from her eyes to mingle with the grit and salt water clinging to her face. Grateful that the ocean had spit her onto the beach, she couldn’t fight back the pure terror still racing through her.
Let him believe she was gone. Let the danger be gone.
2
Straddling his Ducati Supersport S, Detective Braden Sanders leaned into the curve as he ascended the steep hill, the motorcycle roaring beneath him. The rainforest was a blur of green streaks as he raced along the two-lane highway. At the crest, he throttled forward, feeling the machine’s power vibrating through him. Descending the other side, edging over the legal limit, he thrust his knee out to maneuver the switchback that carved into the foothill.
Just the rush of adrenaline he needed to hammer out the indignation coiling around his chest. At this speed, nothing else mattered except the snaking road before him.
Until he was forced to slow behind a line of vehicles. It was summer and tourist season, after all, and those thoughts he’d wanted to avoid found their way in, bombarding him.
Keep her secret, she’d said.
For the sake of the country, she’d said.
Right.
While Braden was working as a special agent with Diplomatic Security Services, he’d had the fortune, or misfortune, depending on how you looked at it, to work with a very elite and powerful figure in the State Department.
Octavia Dane had offered him a chance at life, and he’dtaken it. In return, all he had to do was move to the Olympic Peninsula and work as a detective in a small county. He’d gotten the job quickly enough and suspected she’d made those arrangements.
Once again, he tried to ignore thoughts of Octavia and focus on nature. He steadied his breathing and concentrated on the asphalt, the lines, the curves, the trees to his right, the glimpses of ocean to the left. That hundred-foot drop about thirty yards ahead where the marine fog hovered, not quite rising to the highest elevations yet.
He never dreamed he would be sent to the middle of nowhere USA. This peninsula at the edge of the United States might as well have been the edge of the earth—mountains, a rainforest, one road in and out. A coastline he could not believe. And the vast Pacific Ocean. In fact, Cape Flattery, part of the Olympic Peninsula, was the most western location of the contiguous United States. And one of the most stunning places he’d seen.
At first, he’d thought he’d been sentenced to a kind of prison in such an isolated place with large swaths of zero cell service. Eventually, he’d come to appreciate it. Loved the region so much he didn’t want to leave. But too many factors outside this dream world would eventually pull him far from here. Besides, he wasn’t here for his personal enjoyment.
He had a purpose. A mission for which he was here to wait for instructions. Hence, he was working as a detective.
As his cover.
For months now.
To complicate matters, Octavia warned him that he should watch for something unexpected. How was he supposed to do that while he worked as an actual detective? She offered no additional information, so Braden was beyond suspicious of what this could mean.
Coming from behind, a siren alerted him to move over.Lights in his mirror signaled a disturbance. He moved to the right and let the county cruiser pass him along with the line of cars in front of him.
