The rifle dropped six inches. “Con Xenakis? You son of a bitch-”

The rest was drowned out by the roar of the bike as Con took off. The bike exploded with speed, just missing the wooden gate as it slowly lifted to let them out, then he tilted so far right to get onto A1A, his jeans almost kissed the pavement and Lizzie let out a shriek.

Con righted the bike and tore into traffic, but got stuck at a light. When it finally changed, he barreled along, one eye ahead, one eye in the sideview mirror. “What was he driving?” he asked.

“Big, dark SUV. Maybe a Cadillac.”

Gerry Dix was a vindictive son of a bitch, and he’d probably figured out what Con had taken by now. Or maybe he didn’t even wait to do inventory.

He glanced into the rearview mirror and saw a black Escalade roaring up the road behind them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WHEN LIZZIE TURNED around and saw the lights of the SUV, a scream lodged in her throat.

“Hang on,” Con called.

She clutched his stomach tighter, squashing her thighs against his. Wind whistled through her helmet and smacked her face every time she leaned around Con’s bare back to look in the rearview mirror.

She did anyway. The SUV was gaining on them. He whipped to the left, accelerating to a heart-stopping speed that made her squeeze her eyes shut. The left? They were in the left. That meant…

Lizzie opened her eyes to confirm they were on the wrong side of the street, headed into oncoming traffic. The lights were a half mile away, but in an instant they’d be hit.

She gripped tighter instead of screaming, and wished to God she’d had a chance to say good-bye to Brianna.

A car whizzed by, the horn blaring. Con flung them around another car, more horns blasting. The bike swayed left and right, braiding the oncoming traffic as if the cars were merely cones in a motorcross route. The cacophony of screeching brakes and furious horns added to the insanity, deafening even over the bellow of the full-speed motorcycle.

She stole a glance to the right. They’d outrun their pursuer by about fifteen car lengths. Con rolled them to the left again, doing another tip-until-you-touch turn that stopped Lizzie’s heart, righting them as he turned left again into a side street.

“We’re not far from my sister’s house,” she said, amazed she still had a voice. “We can go there for the night.”

The blare of horns and screeching brakes drowned out his answer. She whipped around to see the Escalade doing exactly what they’d done-crossed oncoming traffic to follow them.

Con hit the gas and they launched forward, but the SUV almost caught up. Lizzie turned to see a half-bald man stick his head out the driver’s side as he managed to pull up almost next to them.

“Give me the fucking medallion, Xenakis!”

Before she realized what was happening, Con had his gun out, the muscles of his back tensing as he shot twice at the front right tire, then, if it was even possible, increased their speed to what felt like a hundred and careened through the residential neighborhood, eventually working their way back to the highway, where he tilted the bike and took a right.

“I live in the other direction!” she hollered.

“We’re not going there.”

When he slowed down to the same speed as traffic, Lizzie breathed for the first time, still checking the rearview for that big Escalade.

Finally, he pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot, rumbling to the back behind the building so they couldn’t be seen from the street, his bare chest heaving from the effort.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“We can’t stay here tonight. We’ve got to get back to that boat before Paxton takes something else, or blames us for this one.”

“Tonight?” He didn’t really think he could navigate that treacherous inlet at night, did he?

He pulled out his phone and hit one number. She thought she heard a woman’s voice answer.

“We need a boat. Fast. Have it at Sebastian Marina, ASAP. Paxton left us stranded and we need to get back on board.” There was a pause. “Big enough to get us through the inlet, but something fast.”

He gunned the engine again, rolling out.

“The marina’s about two blocks from here,” she called out, glancing up and down the road for the Escalade.

“Listen to me,” he said over his shoulder. “We’re going to move fast. We’ll ditch this bike in the lot and get to the dock as fast as possible. Not that I expect Dix to come looking for us, but I don’t want to take chances.”

They parked and he took the backpack from her, then they ran to the dock in silence. One of the marina workers was waiting with a twenty-one-foot twin outboard with a cuddy cabin in the bow, keys in hand.

Wow. When the Feds called, the marina workers jumped.

“That ought to get us through the inlet,” he said, taking the keys.

“It’ll be rough.” Lizzie climbed in, unafraid. “But you can do it.”

He gave her a sideways glance, probably surprised at the comment, thanked the dock man, and situated himself at the helm, as bare-chested as a pirate. “I’m going to need you on the bow, Lizzie,” he said, aiming the spotlight on the water.

She scrambled around the slender space of deck to climb on top of the cuddy and get into position, holding onto the safety rail as she leaned over to help him navigate.

Boats this size capsized in Sebastian all the time. There was a monster hole formed by the jetty, and the whitecaps ate up little crafts. Their’s was only half the size of what Flynn had brought through here earlier, but Con handled the helm with skill, avoiding the worst of the swells, managing the weight when they did hit one.

Still, even her seaworthy stomach rolled a few times as they battled treacherous waves and unexpected rocks.

She stayed on the bow, clinging to the rail, calling out warnings. Every once in a while, she turned to see him fighting the wheel, a gleam of sweat on his muscular chest, his silvery eyes slicing through the water like the hull of his vessel.

When they finally hit open water, she went back to her seat. When Con gunned it, she stopped trying to hide her admiration and just watched him.

Her heart swelled. If only Dad were alive, he would love this guy. This is what he’d always wanted for her. Get yourself one of the good guys, Lizzie Lou.

She couldn’t get back to that boat fast enough. Tonight, her undercover agent was going under her covers.

Con peered hard into the darkness, glancing at the compass and his GPS. After a while, he was shaking his head.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, sitting up.

“The Gold Digger.”

She looked over the bow, seeing nothing but a hundred miles of black Atlantic Ocean.

“Are we in the right place?” She stood, bracing her feet and scanning the horizon.

“Precisely.”

They looked at each other and said simultaneously, “The boat’s gone.”

Something was very, very wrong. Solange paced the second floor of the farmhouse, staring out the window, past the windmill to the blackness of the endless sea. Why hadn’t he called all day and all night?

Something was wrong. She could just feel it.

“Madame Bettencourt?” a voice called up the stairs to her room.

Her new hire was a grating woman, but the pickings were slim, especially since they were all spooked by Ana’s suicide. Gabby, another transplanted American, was one of the few people not related to Ana, not in mourning, and willing to work for Solange. As much as she liked not having a nurse hovering, she wasn’t about to live without domestic assistance.

When Solange didn’t answer-because she didn’t yell in her own home, for heaven’s sake-footsteps clomped up the ancient stairs.

“Mrs. B?” God, Solange hated that. And the incessant pounding on her door.