Free Silver Linings by Jayne Ann Krentz Page A

sound.”
    “Yes. I understand.” Mattie felt her fingers trembling on the flashlight she was holding. Hugh was telling her this was going to be a dangerous piece of work.
    “Right.” He stood up and hoisted one of the string bags. He handed her the other one. “First sign of trouble, we drop these. They might come in useful once we're off the island, but we can survive without sun-dried tomatoes and brie if we have to. Ready?”
    She glanced at the pistols he was carrying. One was stuck in his belt. the other was in his hand. Aunt Charlotte's pet wolf was ready for the hunt.
    “Yes,” Mattie said, her pulse thudding in her veins. “I'm ready.”
    “You going to be okay in the tunnels?”
    “I think so. If we hurry.”
    “We'll hurry,” he promised her. “Come on, babe. Stick close to me.”
    Mattie closed her eyes briefly as they stepped back into the tortured passageways. It was not going to be any easier this time than it had been the first time, she realized instantly. She bit her lip and concentrated on Hugh's moving form ahead of her. She struggled desperately not to think about old dreams, old failures, and old fears.
    There was only Hugh and right now he was the sole point of focus in her narrow, confined world.
    Hugh glanced back once or twice during the endless journey, but he said nothing. Mattie was grateful. It was difficult enough dealing with the feeling of being trapped inside the mountain. She did not think she could have handled sympathy from Hugh on top of it.
    She was bathed in sweat by the time they reached the twin waterfalls that marked the entrance to the maze of caves. But she had managed to refrain from screaming, she thought, not without pride.
    Hugh edged out from behind the waterfalls and plunged into the jungle.
    It seemed to Mattie that they walked for hours through the dense, alien green world, but in reality it probably was not more than forty minutes before they emerged into a wide, sandy, picture-perfect cove.
    A shaft of moonlight revealed a handsome, powerful-looking boat bobbing languidly beside an old run-down wooden dock.
    Hugh stopped at the edge of the jungle, surveying the cove and its surroundings. He leaned down to whisper into Mattie's ear. “Straight to the boat. Get on board. Lie down on the bottom and stay there. Got it?”
    “Got it.”
    And she did have it, Mattie thought as she obediently started forward out into the open. In fact, she was doing just fine until Hugh whirled around, grabbed her, and yanked her back into the dense undergrowth.
    “Shit,” he muttered.
    The next thing she knew she was being shoved face down into the warm, humid earth.
    In that same instant gunfire crackled across the beautiful moonlit cove.

CHAPTER

Four

    Silence.
    Unnatural, terrifying silence.
    Too much silence.
    Mattie lay motionless, unable to breathe, her face buried in a pile of decayed vegetation. She was crushed under Hugh's weight as he sprawled on top of her, gun in hand. She could feel the battle-ready tension in him.
    “Don't move.” His voice was a mere thread of sound in her ear.
    Mattie shook her head quickly to indicate she understood. She struggled to breathe. There did not seem to be much point in mentioning the obvious fact that she could not have moved, even if she had wanted to do so. The man weighed a ton.
    The ominous silence that hung over the cove continued. It seemed to Mattie it went on for months, weeks, years, eons. She finally began to wonder what would happen next. After the initial terror wore off, the suspense became somewhat boring.
    Finally, just when she had begun to think she was going to have a permanent reduction in the size of her already small bustline, she felt Hugh move.
    There was no sound, but Mattie discovered the grip of the Beretta being pushed into her hand. Her finger was guided to a small mechanism.
    “Safety. You take it off before you pull the trigger. Got it?” Again, Hugh's voice was a whisper of breath directly in her