Thrill Ride Read Online Free PDF Page B

share with him those same things in herself.
    He bent just slightly, his full lips so close, his sweet breath so warm…
    And then he set her away from him, pressing the penlight into her palm.
    “You take the light,” he instructed. “Just make sure to shine it at my feet.”
    With that, he turned away, and she was left with no recourse but to follow him on knees that’d turned to jelly.
    ***
    “We think we’ve found him.”
    Rwanda Don—that code name always elicited a smile—sat forward, hand tightening around the prepaid cell phone. “Where? How?”
    “Costa Rica,” announced the CIA agent who’d been working on The Project since the beginning. A tickle of excitement trilled up R.D.’s spine. “And they did it by planting a radio frequency device on Vanessa Cordero. According to reports, she’s been in the Monteverde Cloud Forest for a few hours now, and the general consensus here is she wouldn’t be there unless she’d found him.”
    Could it be? After all these months?
    “Are they going in after him?”
    “That’s the plan.” The agent’s voice sounded smug. And why shouldn’t it? They were very close to their ultimate goal of finally catching and/or killing Richard “Rock” Babineaux, assuring their secret—and illegal—activities over the last few years would forever be kept in the dark.
    Let him get killed. Please, let him get killed.
    Just the thought of the accusations Rock could make upon capture, and the possibility of the ensuing investigation, was enough to have R.D.’s stomach turning somersaults. Of course, even if someone did begin to investigate, it wasn’t as if they’d ever find anything.
    We took enough precautions. We made sure to cover our tracks.
    But only after Billingsworth, that nosy prick, had begun asking too many questions about the origins of certain campaign funds, prompting R.D. and the CIA agent to do some housecleaning. The amount of money lost in process, campaign money that’d been paramount to easily securing R.D.’s future plans, was infuriating.
    Still, there was some satisfaction, unsavory as it was, in knowing the only person who knew the true origins of that money was now dead, thanks to two of the boys from The Project…
    R.D. raked in a steadying breath. “Keep me informed as the situation unfolds.”
    The deep sigh on the other end of the line was annoying. “That’s been our deal all along.”
    “Yes. Indeed it has been.” With that, R.D. hit the end button and sat back, feeling optimistic for the first time in months.
    Of course, it wouldn’t do to get one’s hopes up. Rock was a slippery bastard if ever there was one. And if anyone could slither out from under the wide net the CIA was bound to cast, it was him.
    ***
    She actually thought he’d been about to shoot her…
    Rock pressed a hand to his aching chest as he trudged back to the spot where he’d dropped his pack. In the past six months, he’d suffered under the knowledge the Black Knights would be inclined to believe him guilty—why wouldn’t they? They’d seen the evidence against him—but he hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to bear witness to their presumption until this very moment.
    And despite all of that, despite the pain in his heart knowing he’d lost their respect and trust, what had he almost done?
    He’d almost kissed Vanessa Cordero, that’s what.
    Which just goes to show what a goddamned imbécile he really was, lower than a toad in a dry well. Because kissing her would’ve done nothing but make a bad situation worse. It would’ve done nothing but give her hope when there was no hope to be had.
    Chancing a glance over his shoulder, he quickly forgot his own misery when he saw the whites of her wide eyes shining like twin beacons through the darkness. It didn’t take someone with his particular skills at reading people, or his ability to pick up on subtle facial cues, to recognize the poor woman was scared to death. And her fear didn’t have