They’d left the motel at the crack of dawn and had driven three hours down to a private strip of land in the Florida Keys, where Logan’s friend had arranged them to take a corporate jet.
“Yeah,” Logan said sheepishly, scratching his freshly shaven cheek. “You may have heard of him. Sawyer Hayes.”
Her jaw dropped just a little bit. “The billionaire?”
Everyone in America had heard of the man who’d become the youngest billionaire in the country at age eighteen when his parents died, leaving him as the sole heir to the entire Hayes estate. She’d been the same age and a freshman in college at the time, and although their reasons for not having family were vastly different, she’d identified with him and had thought the way the media had hounded him after he’d gone through such a tragedy was in poor taste. Then months later, he’d suddenly disappeared from the news, and she’d rarely heard his name mentioned again except in passing.
“Not anymore.” Logan tossed the keys in the glove compartment. “Some woman stole a big chunk of his money, but he still has more than anyone could spend in a hundred lifetimes.”
They got out of the car and headed up the patch of grass to the back of the palatial home where Sawyer’s plane was supposed to be waiting. Even with all her professional contacts, she didn’t have anyone who could not only give them a plane but owned a mansion with a private runway that lacked the typical security found at airports.
Must be nice to have friends in high places.
A knot settled in her stomach. “Are you sure the FBI won’t be able to trace us to this plane or to Sawyer?”
“There’s no official flight plan, and Sawyer sent one of his employees here on legitimate business. Plus any record of it will disappear a minute after we get into the air. It’s one of the perks of having friends who also happen to be the best hackers in the country.”
From what she could recall, Sawyer originally hailed from Arizona. “You mentioned you met your hacker friends in the army. Did that include Sawyer?” she asked.
“Yeah, I met him during basic training.”
That explained where he’d disappeared to all those years ago. It would be hard for the media to follow him while he served in the military, especially while overseas. Still, that seemed awfully extreme to escape the scrutiny of the media. With all that money, couldn’t he have just bought a private island to disappear?
Sticky from the morning’s heat, she lifted her shirt away from her chest a few times, fanning herself. “Why would anyone do that if they didn’t have to?”
Logan’s blue eyes darkened, his gaze colliding with hers. “I didn’t become a soldier because I had to.”
She stopped. “Really? So if your brothers hadn’t been marines, you would’ve still joined the armed forces?”
“Sawyer had something to prove, and that’s all I can say about him.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I did it because I wanted to serve our country like my father had and my brothers do. I made that choice all on my own. My family would have supported any decision I made, but for me, the only decision was what branch. Only, after a few months, I realized the armed forces weren’t for me. So after serving my four years, I didn’t reenlist and got out.”
“And went to law school.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “There are a lot of people out there who need defending. Too many innocents go to prison. They need someone to believe in them.”
Innocents like them.
The people Logan defended were blessed to have a man like him on their side. Not because he rarely lost, but because he truly gave 100 percent to everything he did. He believed in them.
Did he believe in her?
Exhaustion settled like a weight around her neck. “Do you think we’ll get out of this mess?”
Nodding, he wrapped his hand around her neck. “I do. I promise we’ll find out who’s responsible for all of this and we’ll take them down.”
She took a breath. “I’d like to believe you.”
His gaze dipped to her lips, and a flare of lust bloomed low in her belly. How could he arouse her from just a look? With a hand splayed on the bottom of her spine, Logan steered her around the corner of the house. As the plane with the Hayes Industries logo came into view, her heart flopped into her stomach, and perspiration that had nothing to do with the heat popped up on her nape.
Growing rigid, she froze. “We can’t fly on that.”
The sleek white-and-blue plane had two propellers, which meant it had two engines, so if one of them stopped working, they wouldn’t fall out of the sky. But what if they hit a bird and it took out both engines at once?
Logan frowned. “Why not?”
She balled her hands into fists, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms. “It’s not safe. He’s a multimillionaire with a private plane. Shouldn’t it be, you know, bigger, like the ones they’d show in the movies with a bedroom and a fully stocked bar? This thing would fit in my apartment.”
He slung his arm around her waist and propelled her closer to the plane. “It is perfectly safe, and it’s plenty big for the two of us. Haven’t you ever flown on a small plane before?”
“Sure.” She gulped around the lump of fear in her throat. “One of those commercial planes with fifteen rows rather than the usual forty. I prefer my plane to come equipped with flight attendants and alcohol. Lots of it. In addition to the two Xanax I take an hour before the flight just to set foot on it.”
Before the events of the past couple of days, she’d always considered herself courageous. But braving the Everglades, rogue FBI agents, and now this deathtrap on wings was way outside her comfort zone.
“Don’t worry.” Logan smiled as they boarded the plane. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“How?” she asked, stepping inside the narrow aisle of the plane. “If the pilot passes out, would you know how to fly this thing?”
A man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, board shorts, sneakers, and a pilot cap appeared from the cockpit. “Don’t worry, miss. I don’t plan on dying today, so you’ll be fine.” He laughed at what she guessed was his idea of a joke and stretched out his hand. “Captain Ivan Rothschild at your service. I take it you’re Mr. and Mrs. Smith?”
Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Did he really believe those were their names? And that they were married?
Logan shook the pilot’s hand and they spoke about altitude and flight time for a couple of minutes while she checked out the interior. There were four rows of leather seats. The seats were wider and the rows roomier than on commercial flights, but the plane itself was narrower and seemed to be shrinking by the second.
“Relax, Rachel,” Logan said, rubbing the back of her neck reassuringly. “You’re in good hands.”
Hyperventilating, she blinked a few times and realized the pilot had gone back into the cockpit already. Since she couldn’t get her feet to move, Logan helped her advance farther into the plane and into her seat. A few moments later, he waved a mini-bottle of vodka under her nose. “Take a drink.”
She knocked it back in two large gulps, the burn of it sliding down her throat and warming her belly.
Working in the high-pressure field of journalism, Rachel couldn’t show weakness or the people waiting in the wings for their chance would snatch up the opportunity to upstage her. Since she’d started at the station fresh out of college as a lowly assistant to the producer, she’d taken every precaution to shield herself from looking as if she had any vulnerabilities. It was sink or swim in her profession, and in seven years, she’d managed to keep her head above water.
But now she wasn’t only sinking, she was drowning. And Logan got a front-row seat to her humiliation.
Beside her in the aisle, he crouched, placing his hands on her knees. “Rachel, you need to breathe. Concentrate on my voice,” he said, his tone firm but soothing, as it had been the other night as he’d bound her. “I’m going to count back from thirty, and I want you to repeat each number after me.”