LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

and realized she’d been rescued. Then the kidnappers had hightailed it out of there.

      There was still a chance the police might recover decent evidence. But before he could give the order, one of his men said, “I’ll call in a tip to the police, Jason. Worth a shot anyway. At the very least, Miss Richardson’s fingerprints should be here somewhere, even if the kidnappers wore gloves the entire time. Her purse is here, too. That will prove she was here. And the bindings in the bedroom will be proof she was being held against her will.”

      * * *

      As the van wound its way up the mountain road, Alana shook off her semi-stupor and rattled off a string of questions without waiting for answers. “Who are you? How did you know where I was? Do you have any idea why I was—”

      The man who’d spoken before answered her last question first. “Prostitution, Miss Richardson, plain and simple. We’ve been after this triad gang for a couple of months. More than two dozen women have been abducted in nearly the same fashion—snatched right off the streets in broad daylight. We don’t know who...not for sure, although we have our suspicions. And the women are being transported to Macau, but we don’t know exactly how...not yet. But we do know why. You’re young, pretty and you were on your own in an area that made you an easy tar—”

      He broke off as the van halted suddenly at a gate that was familiar to Alana. The driver rolled down his window. “We have her safe,” he told the person who answered when he buzzed. Then the gate swung open, admitting the van, which drove smoothly through.

      Light spilled out of the open front door of the DeWinters’ home, which was Alana’s home in Hong Kong, too. “We have the room,” Dirk DeWinter had told her when she’d arrived to interview for the job as his executive assistant last month. “It’ll be more convenient for all of us, but especially you. Don’t worry—your free time is yours, and you can come and go as you please.”

      His wife, the beautiful Mei-li, who had a decidedly British accent, had chimed in with an understanding smile, “We know you want to be independent, Alana. We understand that’s a big part of why you’re here. But this will give you a safe place to live until you find your feet in Hong Kong. We can reassess in six months or so.”

      Alana hadn’t needed her beloved cousin Juliana’s sterling reference for her dear friend and former co-star Dirk DeWinter in her decision to take the job and to live in. All she’d needed was to see the way her prospective employer had looked at his wife, as if she was his world. The same way her cousin’s husband looked at her. She’d sighed a little to herself at the time, she remembered now. Envious. Because that was the way she wished to be loved someday. Not the bloodless relationship her parents had. Something passionate. Something heated.

      All at once she thought of the man who’d rescued her, and what she’d felt in his arms. Safe...but wanted. Safe...but desired. Triggering a corresponding desire that had taken her by complete surprise, especially under the circumstances.

      She dragged her thoughts away from the memory with an effort. You’ll probably never see him again, she chastised herself, unbuckling her seat belt and scrambling out of the van as her employers anxiously approached.

      “Alana!” Mei-li reached her first and embraced her. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

      Then Dirk was there. He didn’t say anything, just enveloped her in a bear hug that conveyed how worried he’d been, too, and how thankful he was she’d been rescued safe and sound. She knew it had to have brought back nightmares for him—his twin daughters had been kidnapped and held for ransom just over a year ago. That story, and the dramatic rescue, had been splashed across the front pages of newspapers, tabloids and gossip magazines, as well as the internet.

      “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry you had to go through this again. But I wasn’t careless. Honest. Those men came out of nowhere with hundreds of people around, and—”

      Dirk held her away from him at arm’s length, a frown marring his handsome features. “Don’t apologize. This wasn’t your fault. I should have warned you. And I should have made sure you knew about the—”

      Mei-li put her hand on her husband’s arm, cutting off the flow of words. “Dirk,” she murmured. Just his name, but there appeared to be some sort of unspoken communication between them because his self-recriminations ceased. Then Mei-li smiled her gentle smile. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters. RMM came through for us...again.”

      “RMM?” Alana couldn’t help but ask. Then she realized she’d never thanked the men who’d brought her here. She hadn’t thanked her rescuer, either, but at least she could ask these men to convey her heartfelt gratitude to him. She turned, but the van was already pulling away. “Wait!”

      She took two steps forward as if she was going to chase after it, but Mei-li was suddenly there, stopping her. “They don’t look for thanks,” she explained softly.

      “What do you mean?”

      “RMM. They do what they have to do to rescue the innocent, even if it means breaking the law. But they don’t look for thanks. That’s not why they do it.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      Dirk came up on her other side. “RMM stands for Right Makes Might. It’s from a quotation by Abraham Lincoln.” His smile held admiration and something more. Deep gratitude, the kind Alana was feeling right now. “It’s not common knowledge, but they were instrumental in rescuing my daughters when they were kidnapped.”

       Chapter 2

      Jason walked through the door of his penthouse condo three hours later. He and his men had quickly scoured the tiny apartment where Alana had been held, noting everything and taking copious pictures, but touching nothing that would contaminate the crime scene. Then they’d melted into the darkness when the police sirens could be heard in the distance.

      He dropped his keys and iPhone in a large Ming bowl on the credenza by the front door, then headed for the bathroom, stripping off his clothes as he went. He was naked by the time he arrived, and he bundled his clothes into the laundry hamper. Then he grabbed the jar of cold cream from the bathroom counter and proceeded to smear some across the camouflaging face paint. He wiped most of the paint off with a handful of tissues, then stepped into the shower and let soap, hot water and vigorous scrubbing do the rest.

      Clean, he pulled on boxer shorts and padded into the kitchen, where he snagged a cold bottle of water from the refrigerator and downed half of it in two gulps. Then he headed for his office, detouring on the way to pick up his smartphone in the vestibule. He took a moment to run one hand over the foot-high statue of Bruce Lee also on the credenza, a replica of the life-size one on the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui.

      The statue had cost him an arm and a leg, but like the gold medallion he wore it was a constant reminder, and worth every penny. Bruce Lee was revered in Hong Kong—and in much of the rest of the world, for that matter—both as a proponent of martial arts and as a man whose films always depicted him standing up for what was right, not what was expedient. A man who protected the innocent. Bruce had died before Jason was born, but his legacy would live forever. A legacy Jason tried in his own way to emulate.

      He settled into his leather and ebony office chair, flicked on his laptop, then keyed in the complicated encryption password. Tonight was going to be one of those nights...as usual. Sleep, which his adrenaline-sapped body craved, would be elusive. Rescues always wired him to the point where going to bed was useless, so he wouldn’t bother. Besides, he still had work to do.

      While he waited patiently for the laptop to power up, he leaned back in the chair with a creak of leather, rehashing tonight’s rescue in his mind.

      So many things could have gone wrong. Not the least of which was, he and his men could have picked the wrong apartment. GPS was good, but it wasn’t perfect. The coordinates they had in their possession had indicated that building and a

Скачать книгу