Dangerous Tides (Drake Sisters 4)

7

"LIBBY Katherine Drake, you little hussy." Sarah Drake regarded her younger sister with a stern eye. "You stood out on the porch kissing that man for half an hour. You have whisker burn to go with the Rudolph nose."

"Elle left me alone with him," Libby said. "It's her fault. She knew I had a weakness for him and she just went into the house and left me there. I deny all responsibility."

Elle made a rude noise and took a cookie as the platter floated past her. "She's so bad she was practically tearing his clothes off on the sidewalk outside the restaurant in front of the world."

Hannah flung herself onto the floor, stretching out her long legs and smirking. "Libby has fallen."

"I have not," Libby insisted. "I don't like him. It's pure sexual attraction and nothing else. He's just so hot and I can't resist. I'm using him for sex and throwing him away afterward."

Laughter filled the room. "Right, Libby," Kate agreed. "You do that. It's so your personality."

"It is my personality. I'm the love-them-and-leave-them type."

Another round of laughter went up. "You go girl," Abigail encouraged her. "We're all behind you one hundred percent."

"Well, I'm not going to see him again," Libby said, the smile fading from her face. "It was great, you know, while it lasted, but . . ." she trailed off with a small shrug.

"Why?" Sarah asked abruptly. "It's obvious you do like him."

"Is it?" Libby blew on her tea, frowning. She couldn't very easily tell her sisters Tyson didn't like her family. "He confuses me. I don't trust such a strong attraction. I'm not like that. It actually bothers me that I can't seem to think straight when he's around. And I feel silly. He held my hand and my heart started pounding like I was a teenager or something. It's all too bizarre for me."

"Before we deal with you being chicken of the century," Sarah broke in, "I think we need to address the fact that someone is threatening you."

Libby looked around at her sisters. They were all in the room, even Joley, although she'd just performed in a show the night before in front of thirty thousand people. Joley lay sprawled out on the floor as she often did, her fingertips tapping a rhythm on the throw rug and her head bobbing to some internal song, but her mind was clearly on Sarah's words.

"It doesn't make sense that this Ed Martinelli would want to hurt Libby when he needs her to help his sick child. Maybe he's trying to scare her?" Joley guessed.

Sarah nodded. "I was wondering the same thing. If it's so important that he speak with Libby about his child, what good will it do him if she's dead? Which is probably why Martinelli's henchmen threw out Hannah's name."

"Unless he's a complete moron," Abigail agreed. "Which is certainly within the realm of possibility."

"It doesn't feel like a threat to me," Hannah said. Her hands moved in a complicated, graceful pattern over Libby.

Small symbols leapt in the air and vanished as if they'd never been there. She shook her head. "I definitely think Libby's in danger, but I can't understand why I can't get any direction." She glanced at her youngest sister. "Elle, what do you think?"

"I'm running into the same problem as you've had. I feel a menace surrounding her, but I can't pinpoint it. I can't see it at all."

The sisters all looked to Sarah. She shook her head slowly. "I can't get anything either. One moment I feel the danger to Libby and then it's gone."

"We can ask Mom and Aunt Carol," Elle pointed out. "Maybe one of them can pick up on it."

"If they haven't already," Joley said. "Mom's called twice to make certain everything's all right. I told her Libby was turning into a hussy and she'd be horrified to learn I am now the 'good' Drake sister." She winked at Elle and Hannah. "The two of you can never be the good one because you both have such bad tempers."

A collective groan went up. "As if you don't." Elle sniffed. "If it's possible, you're worse than I am. And Hannah is, too. She just looks angelic."

"So true," Hannah agreed.

"Mom will never believe you're the good one, Joley. She reads the magazines. I even cut out articles and send them to her just to make certain she sees them," Sarah said.

"Thanks a lot." Joley grinned at her sisters, completely happy with her wild reputation. "I told Mom to relax, we could handle it, but now I'm not so sure. Has anyone tried looking in the mosaic?"

They all looked down at the beautiful masterpiece on the floor of the entryway into their home. It had been made a couple of generations earlier by seven sisters in the Drake family. In addition to being a work of art, the mosaic was an invaluable tool to them for scrying.

"Let's try then," Sarah said.

"Why haven't we heard from Jonas?" Hannah asked as they all sat on the floor surrounding the large mosaic.

"Shouldn't he be telling us about this man who threatened Libby tonight? He's had plenty of time to intimidate the guy. He does intimidation so well." She glanced up at the clock, uneasiness in her eyes.

"He's had plenty of practice on us," Abbey pointed out.

"Jonas isn't working tonight," Elle said. "Jackson said he went to see his friend Brannigan in Willits."

JONAS Harrington pulled his Jeep Wrangler up to the stop sign at the junction of Highway One. The drive from Willits had gone much faster than usual with so little traffic late at night. He'd put his favorite Joley Drake CD into the player and cranked up the volume, although he'd never admit to singing while he drove. Jim Brannigan had called him earlier in the evening and asked him to drop by the forestry heliport. Jonas stayed longer than he intended before heading for Sea Haven and home.

Brannigan admitted he was worried about the harness Tyson Derrick had worn on the day of the cliff rescue. The safety harness had been cut off of Tyson and taken back to the fire station for examination. Brannigan didn't like the look of it and wanted Jonas to have the laboratory check it out. The harness was in an evidence bag in the front seat beside him. Brannigan had convinced him there was no way the harness could have torn, but the material looked as if it had been eaten through. If it was defective, the helicopter crew needed to know as soon as possible. Jonas promised to overnight the harness to the lab.

Jonas frowned as he turned onto the coastal highway, his mind replaying everything Brannigan had said. If the harness hadn't been defective, why had it failed? He accelerated on the straight away, the only car on the deserted highway. Without warning a bottle flew out of the trees and landed in the middle of Jonas's lane, exploding on impact and hurling flames into the air.

Jonas slammed on the brakes, and the Jeep skidded across the road. Bullets burst through the windshield. He yanked on the wheel in an attempt to use the passenger side of the Jeep as a shield. Tires screamed as he slid sideways, fighting for control of his Wrangler. More bullets tore through the door of the Jeep and slammed into his body, driving him against the driver side door.

It wasn't the first time he'd been shot, but he'd forgotten the intensity of pain, the feel of a bullet tearing through his flesh and cutting a path deep inside his organs. It took his breath, made him sick, so that he had to fight off waves of dizziness. He wasn't dying this way, not from a coward's bullet. There were too many things left unsaid and undone.

The Jeep hit the slight ditch on the shoulder of the road, ran up the embankment and flipped, rolling several times, throwing him around like a rag doll. The seat belt tightened as the airbag deployed and for a moment he was blind and deaf and disoriented.

Jonas tasted blood in his mouth and his chest throbbed as if a truck had smashed into him. He felt for his knife, stabbed the airbag and cut himself loose, his hand finding the familiar butt of his gun. Heart pounding, not sure where the enemy was, he kicked until the driver's door opened enough for him to drop to the ground. He fell hard, his legs rubbery, unable to support him. Using his elbows to drag himself forward, he crawled for the cover of the shrubs and grass of the embankment.

Shots sprayed the grass, thunked into a tree and slammed into his body. Jonas felt the impact tearing through his insides. He rolled the last few feet to make it behind a large rock, his only chance. He was off-duty and not wearing a vest. How many times had he been hit? There was movement b

y the Jeep but he couldn't see anyone. His arm felt numb. He couldn't feel the gun in his hand, but he had to stay alert. The Drake sisters would come and he would have to protect them.

Jonas stared at the night sky, listened to the pounding surf. The wheel of the Jeep was still spinning, but everything around him seemed to go still and silent. After a moment all he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat and the steady dripping of his blood onto the ground.

"Hannah." He whispered her name to the night.

THE Drake sisters joined hands and stared down at the complex picture, the midnight blue sky, the stars and moon, the shadows forming, beginning to whirl around the edges and creep with long trails inside toward the very heart of the mosaic. The shadow spread, darkening the sky and blotting out the star that seemed to shine much brighter than the others.

Hannah gasped and pulled back with a startled cry, her hands going to her throat as it seemed to swell in panic. She looked at her sisters in desperation. "Jonas." She whispered the name around her raw, hurting throat.

Elle leapt up and ran for the phone, her face still and set, mirroring the same fright as her sisters.

"It's too late. It's too late," Hannah chanted, rocking back and forth. "Why didn't we see this? Why didn't we feel this?"

"We did. We just didn't recognize it," Sarah said, wrapping her arm around her sister to comfort her.

Elle turned back from the phone. "I've called Jackson and he'll get an ambulance started, but we have to go now if we're going to have any chance to save him. All of us." She looked at Libby. "We'll need you again, Lib. It's going to be bad."

Hannah ran for the car. "Hurry. He's not going to die. I'm not going to let him die. Reach for him Elle. I know you can hold him to us."

"I've got him, hon, but he's weak. Very weak. We have to find him fast."

Sarah nabbed the driver's seat and the other sisters quickly joined her in the car. "Where, Elle?"

Elle closed her eyes, her face pale as she sought outside herself for information. "He was coming back from Willits and had just made the turn onto Highway One. Someone shot up the car. He was hit multiple times. He's in pain, thinking of Hannah, counting on her to bring us to him."