She shook her head. It had been horrible. “I was aiming for his heart.”
“Well, that was a hell of a miss.” He paused, giving her a long look. “You look a little pale. You aren’t going to throw up or anything, are you? It’s all right if you need to. Lots of guys do their first time.”
She shook her head. She felt something. Numb, maybe? A little cold? But not ill. “I don’t think so.”
“Good. Give me a minute. I want to get rid of them in case someone is behind us.”
The path along the harbor that would take them back to the village had the sea on one side and a two-lane road, houses, and a hill on the other. The men had obviously been waiting in the shadows of one of the houses.
After quickly patting them down and pocketing the guy’s wallet and phone, Dan dragged the guy who had attacked him across the path and pushed him under the railing of the concrete walkway onto the rocks and beach below. He did the same with the man she’d shot, and Annie had to admit, she was glad when the prone body disappeared over the side where she didn’t have to look at it anymore.
“The tide will be coming in soon,” he said. “With luck they’ll wash out to sea.”
“Without luck?”
He shrugged, apparently not worried. “They won’t be seen until morning, and it will take them time to determine identities and time of death. We should be well on our way to Glasgow by then.”
“They were the same guys from the beach,” she said.
He nodded. “They must have come straight here, figuring we’d head to the closest major port.” He thought for a minute. “They either had someone watching at the airport or were able to tap in to the computers and realized we hadn’t flown. Have you seen either of them before today?”
She shook her head.
He took out the wallets and flipped to the identities. “Hans Richer from Germany and Jonas Meier from Switzerland. Mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. I assume they are aliases.” He pulled out the phones, which were cheap disposables, and started to toggle through the mailboxes. “No recent calls or texts on this. I’m sure they’ve been careful, but I’ll check the trash just to be sure.” He finished the first phone, and went on to the second. A moment later he swore, and his expression darkened.
“What’s wrong?”
“This one has a text. It was sent about fifteen minutes ago. He must not have had a chance to delete it.”
“What does it say?”
“Nothing. It was a picture.” He paused, and she could see the self-recrimination burning in his gaze. “Of me.”
Twenty-nine
Annie knew Dan was furious. What she didn’t know was whether he was angry with her. Did he blame her for the man getting a picture of him? She didn’t know why it was so horrible that he had done so; she just knew that it was. Actually, from the look on his face, it wasn’t just horrible; it was catastrophic. And they both knew that if he hadn’t come to her aid, none of this would have happened. Whatever had forced him into hiding had obviously been serious, and by helping her, he’d revealed himself.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shook his head, seeming to take away some of the anger with the movement. “It’s not your fault.” He reached out to take her hand. “Come on. We should get out of here, and I think we could both use a drink.”
That might be the biggest understatement of the week—which was saying something.
They walked quickly back into town. As he didn’t seem the hand-holding type, she was surprised when he didn’t release hers. Instead he wrapped it in his big palm and tucked it in his Baja sweatshirt pocket as if he wanted to keep her close.
Which was fine by her.
Though small by American standards, Oban was a decent-sized town in the Highlands. The harbor was at the center, and most of the businesses hugged a half mile or so semicircle of coastline with the ferry terminal to one side. There were a number of restaurants and hotels right along the waterfront, including the fancy-looking one that they went into.
“I thought we were on a budget,” she said after they walked by the imposing-looking doorman into a large reception hall that seemed to be wall-to-wall marble. Not the new and shiny kind, but the old and stately.
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I figured we could both use a few creature comforts, and I’ll have access to more funds in Glasgow.”
She would have asked about that, but the attractive woman behind the desk asked Dan if they were checking in. He smiled, obviously going into his charming mode again, which he was definitely better at than Annie would have anticipated. Although when a guy was that built and good-looking, he could pretty much smile and that would be enough.
