Page 5 of Renegade
I take a step back. “Kenzie is actually why I’m here. She and Noah need my help.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who’s Noah?”
I pause, not sure where to begin. “Noah’s the guy I thought was trying to kill her. But after I kidnapped her, she convinced me he wasn’t who I thought he was, and then—”
“You kidnapped McKenzie?” She’s looking at me like I just sprouted horns.
“I had to.” I rake a hand across my face. The last four days have been insane. “It’s a long story. Let’s get some sleep and I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”
Gemma’s eyes narrow. “Oh no, you don’t, Walker Kinkaid. I want the whole story, and I want it now.” She’s already digging through a dresser drawer, pulling out a pair of yoga pants and a tank top. “I’m hungry anyway. If we go now, we can still get food at the Tattooed Moose.” She stops to look at me, flashing me the impish grin that has left a trail of heartbroken men in her wake. “Your dick is impressive, but you should probably put some pants on. Southern women are total prudes.”
…
Twenty minutes later, we’re sitting in a scarred wooden booth in a crowded, quaint-looking pub with an assortment of taxidermied animals wearing clothes decorating the walls. At Gemma’s suggestion, I’ve ordered the club sandwich with blue cheese fries, which she keeps reaching across the table to eat. I finally just push the basket into the middle of the table.
“Okay. Start at the beginning.” She takes a swig of beer and looks at me expectantly.
“Well, right after you told me about McKenzie and the men shooting at her in Costa Rica, I decided to put a security detail on her while I did a little digging—just in case your hunch was right and someone was after her. But she was gone. Vanished. No bank withdrawals, no credit card activity, no outgoing calls from her cell phone and no way of tracking it. I was able to confirm she’d flown to Coron like you said, but after she checked out of the hotel there, there was no trace of her.”
“That’s when you called me, asking for everything I could remember that had happened with McKenzie since Liam died.” Gemma looks at me accusatorily. “You didn’t tell me she was missing.”
“I didn’t want to worry you. And at that point, I didn’t know anything. Anyway, I contacted the charter you told me she’d booked to take her sailing around the Philippines, but they said she’d canceled the trip. That didn’t sound right, and I was starting to get a little worried, so I flew to Coron and asked around at the hotel and the marina to find out if anyone had seen her. The owner said an American guy had paid him an exorbitant amount of money to rent the entire marina for a few days. His only instructions were that everyone had to vacate the premises for forty-eight hours, and spread the word that if an American woman tried to hire them, he’d pay double what she offered if they refused.
“I pulled a few strings and got a record of all the boats sailing out of Coron the time McKenzie was supposed to leave. Turns out an American by the name of Noah Payne had sailed out that day in a boat called theKairos.”
“The guy she almost hooked up with in Vegas was named Noah too.”
I nod. “Same guy. What a coincidence, huh?” I add sarcastically. “Turns out he was a former Navy SEAL, one of the best, in fact, who had gone rogue after his wife and child were killed by a Mexican drug cartel. For the past three years, he’s been working for El Gato, the head of a rival cartel called La Frontera, mostly negotiating arms deals for them.”
“No shit!” Gemma’s hand is frozen in midair between the basket of fries and her mouth.
“There have been some rumors that Liam was gunrunning—illegally selling arms to La Frontera.”
Gemma nods slowly. “That’s what Kenzie said. It’s not true, is it?”
I shrug. “It’s looking like it could be. Before you called me about McKenzie, I’d been checking into it. Hoping to find the truth so I could clear his name. He was like a brother to me,” I add softly.
Gemma covers my hand with hers and squeezes it.
I clear my throat and continue. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of evidence that he was somehow involved, starting with a shit ton of money he dropped in his bank account right before he died.”
Gemma’s nodding. “McKenzie told us about that. I’d been wondering how she was funding the trips on Liam’s bucket list. Our business is doing good, but not that good. She didn’t know where he’d gotten the money.”
I sigh. “I know. Noah brokered the deal with Liam in person. Apparently El Gato paid Liam for a huge shipment of guns, but Liam died before he could deliver them. El Gato thinks Liam’s bucket list is a map to where the guns are hidden, and that McKenzie can lead him to them. So he sent Noah to get close to her. Noah targeted McKenzie in Vegas from the beginning. She accidentally dropped Liam’s list in his room and—”
“That’s where it was?” Gemma interrupts. “McKenzie was sick over having lost it. Did he give it back?”
I nod. “He traveled halfway around the world to do just that. He borrowed his friend’s boat to sail to Coron and waited for her at the marina. He also offered to help her. McKenzie had no one to take her on the trip she’d chartered and was hell-bent on taking for Liam, so she took him up on his offer, thinking me or one of the other guys on the team had sent him to help her.”
“That fucker! He used her?”
I hold my hand up before Gemma gets more wound up. Her eyes are starting to flash in a way that usually means the shit is about to hit the fan. “Actually, he fell in love with her. And saved her life a couple of times, because it seems someone else is trying to figure out what McKenzie knows. Either that, or they want to eliminate her.”
“Shut up.” Gemma’s eyes are as big as saucers. “You go to New York for a week and miss everything.”
I can’t help but laugh at how put out she is.
She takes another fry, dips it in sauce, pops it in her mouth, and chews thoughtfully. “But Noah’s one of the bad guys. He works for a drug cartel. That’s illegal. And dangerous. It can’t work. Wait, does she love him back? And where does you kidnapping her come into the story?” She grips my arm. “Is she safe?” She pauses, then answers her own question. “Of course she is, or you wouldn’t be here.”
