The Blonde Identity (15)

“Are you going to yell at me?” she shouted over her shoulder, breathing hard even though she’d only gone thirty feet.

“No!” he yelled. “Yes! I don’t know. Ask me again later.”

Which seemed like an okay plan because, at the moment, she had a lot on her mind.

Like how some of the tourists were still screaming and others were still taking pictures, not to mention the sudden realization that anyone beneath her could totally see up her skirt.

“Hey!” she shouted at a man who was aiming his camera in a most undignified way. She stomped on the glass. “Pervert!”

Mr. Hot Spy growled and made a gesture that, considering he had a gun in each hand, made the guy turn as white as the snow, and she felt warm all of a sudden.

“Aw. Thanks.”

“Any time.” Then he growled again because it was a very growly kind of morning.

“Okay,” she said as a big gust of wind came rushing down the Seine. Her hair blew wildly around her as the boat sped up, roaring away from the Russians and the bridge.

With every passing moment, Kozlov’s men got a little farther away. But it was just a matter of time until they jumped on those motorcycles and chased after them. Streets ran along the river, after all. And there were other bridges. It wouldn’t be hard to get ahead. They’d only gone two hundred yards.

“What do we do now?” she asked just as the wind caught her stolen hat and whipped it off her head. On instinct, she lunged for it, but she lost her footing on the sloping glass. In the next moment, she was sliding. She was falling. Until, suddenly, arms like steel bands wrapped around her waist and hauled her against a hard chest, blue eyes staring down at her, colder than the wind.

“Damn it! Are you trying to drown? Are you trying to die? Are you trying to—”

There was a shadow over his shoulder, long and dark and coming this way fast.

“Duck!” she yelled, shoving and tackling him to the top of the boat as they passed under another bridge.

So that’s how she found herself straddling a stranger on top of a floating terrarium while two dozen tourists took photos from below.

“At least the . . . uh . . . shooting stopped?” she tried.

“For now,” he warned. And he was right, she remembered, as they floated out from underneath the bridge and back into the sun. It was just a matter of time until the goon squad caught up with them. They’d be exposed. They’d be dead. Or nearly. They would most assuredly be pre-dead!

He must have sensed it, too, because he pushed her off him and cocked both guns.

“Any more bright ideas?” he bit out, but all she could do was lie beside him, watching as another—even lower—bridge passed overhead, old beams and arches close enough to reach.

Wait. Close enough to . . .

“Yeah. Actually. This.”

She let go of her beret, let it flutter to the icy water below as she reached up and grabbed hold of one of those ancient beams—wrapped her arms and legs around it and held on for dear life as the big glass boat moved on.

Without her.

She looked at Mr. Spy Guy . . . Hot Guy . . . Gun Guy . . . watched him drift away, and all she could think to call him was Mr. Please Don’t Make Me Do This Without You Guy.

Then he cursed under his breath and shoved his guns into his pockets and reached for one of the braces overhead and held on.

And the boat floated away.

Without them.





Chapter Thirteen





Him


“Well, this was just an excellent idea.”

“Thank you,” she said, sounding mildly pleased with herself until she turned, staring at him through the shadows. “Wait. Are you being sarcastic? Because it might be the brain injury, but I’m finding it really hard to tell if you’re being sarcastic.”

Given that they were both clinging to a pair of old, rusty beams, feet scraping and scrambling for purchase as they held themselves horizontal over the icy water of the Seine while eight-to-twelve Russian mobsters with semiautomatic weapons searched the streets overhead . . . Yeah. Sarcasm seemed okay under the circumstances.

“Well?” she asked, sounding impatient.

“Give me a minute. I’m trying to decide.”

For a moment, he savored the silence, but it didn’t last long. There was yelling up above, deep, guttural shouts that carried on the wind and seemed to echo through the old stone and rusty metal.

“What are they saying?” she whispered.

“Keep searching,” he translated softly. “Find them.”

Motorcycles roared to life and took off, probably chasing after the boat full of tourists. But Sawyer knew they might not all go. And some would certainly circle back. Soon, the banks of the Seine would be swarming with mobsters and badges. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he heard her gulp. He knew exactly how she felt.

“So we’ve got a small window.” She winced and shifted and almost lost her grip. The sharp edges of the beams were cutting into his arms. They had to be cutting into hers, too, as they held on, forearms wrapped around the metal. He felt ridiculous. But also . . . alive.

“So what do we do now?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. He could hear traffic overhead and feel the cold wind blowing down the river. A few minutes before, he’d thought they were going to have to carry him away in a body bag, so it wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful. It was more that this felt like a classic frying pan/fire situation.