Dakoda's Revenge Page 4

  He sat on the edge of the bed beside her, his breathing labored. There was no telltale sign of a bullet burn in her light pink t-shirt. Her skin was cool to the touch. His eyebrows knitted together in a frown as he lifted the fabric away from her stomach. His palm rubbed against satiny smooth skin. She was so perfect. The swell of her breasts teased him invitingly and her expression was of blissful peace, an emotion that had eluded him since Abby's death. He shook his head to freshen his thinking. He couldn't allow himself to think of Abby when Odessa needed his help. Abby was beyond help. Odessa wasn't.

  He peeled the shirt farther up her stomach, but there was still no sign of a bullet hole, let alone any sign of blood. Had the bullet gone clean through her back? It couldn't have. She hardly wore any semblance of a bra. The black silk barely covered her breasts and her nipples were visible through the thin fabric. He felt as if he was being tempted by a djinn who had come out of a bottle wearing next to nothing. Still, he found no sign of injury.

  Frustrated, he rolled her over gently to examine her back. The waistband of her black pants rolled down, leaving the cleft of her backside visible. He swallowed hard. And gulped. His hands, large and tanned, looked almost too big for her frail form, although she had already shown she was far from being delicate. She would probably slap him if she knew what he was thinking. He wanted to undress her completely, to inspect every inch of her body. No matter how he searched, he found nothing to indicate where the bullet had hit.

  His thoughts jumbled together. Why wasn't he able to find the bullet hole's entrance? Had he wrongly assumed that the bullets had been old-fashioned ones the attacker had used, or had he used some new-fangled weaponry, something more lethal, faster in its end result? Was history repeating itself? Would he watch Odessa die, as he had watched Abby, and be unable to help her? She appeared to be fully human, but on Romaydia, it was difficult to tell if a being was wholly human or not. For the last thirty years, humans had interbred with other species. Sometimes the resulting offspring were hardly different than full humans. At other times, the offspring made him cringe.

  "Is she dead, Harley?"

  The muscles of Harley's upper arm beneath the sleeve of his leather jacket hardened with anxiety at the sound of the deep, grating voice. Slowly, as if he had been expecting the Murrach to summon him, he turned to face the small screen set in the glass of the small dining table.

  "I don't believe so, Murrach Pardua.” He knew without a doubt that the Murrach didn't ask after Odessa's health from any true concern for her welfare. The realization angered him, made him feel helpless and vulnerable. The Murrach did nothing that didn't first benefit his scheming to become the ruler of the universe. He killed without mercy, no matter how close the perceived traitor was to him. Rumor on the station was that the lord had executed his own brother in a fit of anger when his brother had dared to contradict him over some trivial matter.

  The egotistical man's piercing, brown eyes seemed to sear through Harley's mind. His shoulders were relaxed, but he seemed to release energy even as he sat still. He had spies—human, alien, and electronic—everywhere on Romaydia. Harley doubted Pardua didn't know each movement he had made in the last twelve hours, from going to sleep to eating his light breakfast of oranges and cereal.

  "Good. She's my link to Baylon, and with her dead, I may not be able to find the scum-sucking leech. How is she faring?” Pardua was dressed simply in unadorned black, an unostentatious man, although his living quarters were luxuriously appointed and art—both from Earth and other Galaxian planets—lined the walls.

  "She is well enough, Murrach,” Harley lied, keeping his expression bland.

  The older man by a year nodded. “Good. When she has gathered her small wits about her, bring her to me. She and I have some matters of importance to discuss.” On his side, the man deactivated the screen, which went black and died, much as Harley envisioned the Murrach doing when GDA justice was handed down to him. If only Harley could find the secret as to how the Murrach controlled the population on Romaydia, he might be able to break the link that bound the self-styled lord to the station's people, thus making his own task easier.

  The room suddenly made Harley feel hemmed-in. His chest constricted. He wanted nothing more than to ride his stallion, Rainbow, out on the wide-open fields of the Texan range, to feel the wind riffle through his hair, and to feel the searing, punishing heat of the sun on his skin. He sighed, recalling he had promised himself that the assignment with Abby would be his last, but he had a bone to pick with Baylon. Until he avenged himself for her life, there would be no peace, no riding his favorite horse, not doing any of the things he most enjoyed doing. Baylon owed him. Baylon would pay with his own blood if it took the rest of Harley's life to accomplish that feat.

  Before he turned back to Odessa, he slipped a small towel over the screen in the dining table, knowing that the Murrach had probably placed more spying devices in the small chamber. For Pardua, trust was a commodity hard to come by.

  Chapter 5

  Odessa gained consciousness to hear the two men talking. She lay still feigning sleep in the hope of garnering the information to get off this space station. She had heard Harley speak to the man he called Lord Pardua. The name meant nothing to her. Why would he want to speak with her?

  Well, she had a question or two to ask him. The first would be how to get off this station, and the second, why did the women think they couldn't get off except with one of these Sekalians?

  Her stomach threatened to spill its slim contents but she remained silent. She felt odd, as if she had been hit over the head with a large metal pot. Her ears rang, and even as she lay motionless on the bed, the room seemed to spin in a mad dance. A breeze across her midriff made her wonder in what state of dress she was in. A wave of apprehension coursed through her.

  The bed sagged, announcing Harley had sat down beside her. What was he intending to do? Violette's words came back to haunt her. Men only wanted one thing on this station.

  To her horror, she felt Harley's broad, warm hands slide up towards the bottom edge of her bra. He had big hands with calluses on his palms and the pads of his fingertips, but she knew better than to allow him to continue his exploration now that she was fully awake. How long had he been investigating her body?

  She flashed her eyes open and slapped his cheek hard. Her hand connecting with his flesh echoed in the small room. He made a noise—half snarl, half cry of surprise. That would show him for taking advantage of her! She was up and flying toward the door.

  * * * *

  Holding his palm against his cheek, Harley opted not to chase after her. He didn't doubt he could find her without too much trouble if he wanted to. The slap had been wholly unexpected and reverberated along his jaw and cheekbone. He puzzled over the fact that she had been shot in the stomach and yet she showed no signs of injury. Commonsense told him it wasn't possible to have a life-threatening injury and yet race away at full speed. It was out of the realm of possibility. Was she a Delorican, a creature that was partly robot and partly alien? But their women weren't known for such satiny skin and cantankerous behavior.

  Harley raked a hand through his hair. In the early days after Abby died, he had wanted to exchange places with a Delorican who were known for their lack of emotion. Two years ago, the brains behind the GDA arrived at the tropical Pacific island Harley had been confined on, purportedly for debriefing.

  "I know the pain of losing the only woman you think you'll ever love is unbearable. Time and space will heal some of that,” Justin Torrance had said. He faced the blue-green ocean and the palm trees waving in the breeze—a true Paradise, but without Abby, what did the natural beauty mean?

  Harley said nothing. All he had energy for was to sit in the folding lawn chair and stare sightlessly at the pounding surf.

  "I also know,” the old man said, brushing a wisp of hair from the side of his head, “that you want to get back at whoever killed Abby."

  Harley sat straight up.
“Have you ever been married, Torrance?"

  "Once. Long ago. When I was your age. It didn't work out, but it doesn't mean I don't miss her still."

  Harley pursed his lips. “So what do you know about the perfect woman?"

  "Not much,” the other man admitted in a husky whisper.

  "Put me back on the job,” Harley pleaded.

  "I can't do that. Your loss is too fresh and might impair your judgment on your next assignment when your partner needs you the most."

  Like Abby, Harley thought.

  "When your shrink has assured me you've dealt with this satisfactorily, I'll send you on an assignment. But not before that."

  Harley squared his shoulders. “What do you mean by satisfactory? That might be years.” He'd never get over Abby. She was his light—the being that kept him going during the darkest hours. He admitted that sounded as corny as a sappy greeting card, but it was true.

  "Just as long as it takes.” Torrance spread out his hands in front of him. “It's up to you how long that will take."

  Harley grunted. He wasn't about to tell Torrance he'd kill the son of a bitch who had killed Abby. He didn't need the GDA director's permission for that.

  "Don't ruin your career, Harley. I know what you're thinking."

  Harley worried his lower lip, frustrated with the man's unrelenting determination not to let him back on the job.

  "You know I lost another agent, not just Abby. I can't afford to lose more of my finest people."

  "Someone betrayed us. Someone knew we were going to be in the warehouse. Roland Baylon was our informant. He was the only one who knew we would be in the warehouse that night."

  "That's only speculation. That particular fact doesn't make him the guilty party."

  "It's a lot more than speculation. Abby whispered his name as she died. She knew who the traitor was.” The four-week-old memories resurfaced to torment Harley. A raw emptiness persisted in his gut. He would never forget how the warehouse exploded, leaving stumps where Abby's sexy legs had been.

  "I'm not saying she didn't.” Torrance finally directed his wandering gaze to Harley. “All I'm saying is we have no evidence of who turned on us. It could have been Baylon, or it might not have been."

  "I have proof. Abby told me,” Harley shot out.

  "Possibly. Simmer down, son. There's nothing you can do to bring Abby back."

  Shortly after the older GDA man had departed in the helicopter that had flown him to the island named Lost Paradise, Harley hatched his plan for revenge. The knowledge made him feel marginally better.

  Now, Odessa strongly reminded him of Abby, but Odessa was more feminine—without the rough edge Abby had cultivated to deal with the tough GDA assignments.

  Harley sighed, got to his feet slowly as if he were three times his age, and sank into a chair at the dining table. If he had carried a videograph of Abby, he would have dug it out of his black carryall and examined her face. Lord, he couldn't remember exactly what she looked like or how her skin felt against his searching hand. All he saw was Odessa Grante's eyes flashing a dazzling blue as her anger flared to life.

  Goose bumps trickled along his forearm. He groaned in dismay. She had overheard the Murrach's conversation with him. Or had she? She had given no sign she was awake when he had sat on the bed to finish his examination. He knew a bullet wound when he saw one, but he had seen nothing on her. Yet she had specifically told him the bullet had hit her.

  He sighed and clasped his hands together for a moment before running his fingers along the hard wood of the chair's arm. What exactly had happened? Was her passing out a ruse to get into his quarters? No matter how innocent she appeared, he sensed a strength about her that didn't show up on first impression.

  The indecisiveness ended as he rose and slapped the “Speak” button on the screen on the dining table. He refused to lift the towel, refusing to allow prying eyes in his quarters. He hated to seek information this way, but how else would he find out if anyone knew what Odessa was doing on the space station?

  "Ralph,” he said without showing emotion. “Find out if Roland Baylon's ship has been located yet and what his destination is."

  "Yes sir,” the man replied with a hint of insubordination.

  Harley nodded and shut off the speaker. If the Murrach were listening in, then he wouldn't think anything was amiss if his lieutenant was searching for the woman. Minor things went wrong all the time on Romaydia. Harley hazarded a guess that the end was still the same in Pardua's opinion. As long as the miscreant was caught, there was no harm, no foul. Harley had been given several bonuses in the last year and personally been congratulated, but time away from the station was still in the future. Not that Harley wanted that—not from a drug lord, he wanted Odessa to tell him where Baylon was, and not only bring down Baylon but Pardua as well. All the pieces of the complicated puzzle weren't yet in place. Pardua wasn't a man who made many missteps. When he did, his underlings paid the price with their lives. Those were the men who usually did spill the goods on their lord. However, dead men didn't volunteer information.

  Perplexed and agitated, Harley ran his hands over the sides of his head. He was alone here on the station, the only good guy among thousands and thousands who routinely trafficked in drugs or stolen merchandise or pimping. He felt dirty and cheapened in his quest for revenge. Isolation wasn't a bad part of his life since he didn't want to associate with non-criminals—that action alone would raise Pardua's suspicions and Harley might be dead within the hour.

  The minutes ticked by. Harley paced back and forth across the confines of his room. Twenty steps one way, twenty back. He counted them before he got bored, fell to his hands and knees, and began exercising with a vengeance. One hundred push-ups. Two hundred. The exertion often relieved the stress of waiting. Sometimes it didn't. The speaker rang. Harley was at the table before it could ring again. Uncovering the screen, he barked, “Yeah?"

  "Here's the info you requested,” Ralph replied in a voice that lacked inflection. It was as if he had memorized everything he had said and was repeating it over and over again. “The Drifter was logged in as leaving the station at oh-eleven hundred hours.” Which made it eleven a.m. “The captain of the spaceship left alone but did not log a destination. According to the monitoring sensors, there were two persons aboard the ship when it arrived this morning at oh-eight hundred hours.” He glanced down, scanning a printout he was reading from.

  "Did the passenger take quarters here or did he leave?"

  "The passenger is a woman whose name is unlogged, but I've been able to discover is Odessa Grante from the planet Earth. Did you wish me to keep an eye on her?"

  Harley didn't like the sound of that. A sudden protective urge, like the one he had experienced in the concourse when the bullets were flying and Odessa was in his arms, overcame him. “I'll take care of that myself.” He resisted the urge to run his fingers through his hair, a sign of nervousness, and he couldn't afford his actions being misinterpreted in case Ralph was a double agent reporting foremost to Pardua. Ralph appeared harmless enough, yet on Romaydia, the term ‘harmless’ had a variety of meanings, with only one that signified what the word actually meant.

  "By the way, sir,” Ralph continued, “the Murrach thought you should know that the man who was piloting The Drifter was Roland Baylon. The Murrach asked me to notify you he stole a valuable cargo of Gr'iis. We are in the process of searching for the ship to bring Baylon back with his cargo."

  Irritation set in. “Why wasn't I informed of this earlier?” Gr'iis was the deadliest narcotic in the galaxy, able to destroy brain cells in a matter of minutes after initial use. If the widespread use of Gr'iis could decimate the galaxy of its young people, who would be left? Only those who used less harmful substances like the one the Murrach used to control his people. Was Pardua behind the trafficking of Gr'iis too? At this point, the idea made Harley's stomach churn. Pardua had to be knocked off his seat of power, but with his perpetual guards surrounding
him and guarding his every move, most men never had a chance to get near him. If they carried a weapon, they were dealt with summarily on the spot.

  "The Murrach was only informed a few minutes ago, sir.” The man's gaze darted back and forth from the screen to something on his left.

  So that's why Pardua was searching for Roland Baylon's passenger. Odessa was now probably on the Murrach's ‘most wanted’ list. He had to get to her before the Murrach did, or else his hopes of reaching Baylon first to exact retribution would fail. He sensed that whether Odessa Grante knew it or not, she was the key to this operation. If Pardua found her first, there was no telling what cruel method he would use to extract the information he wanted.

  The implications were staggering. Harley hit the screen's ‘off’ button. If the Murrach found Odessa first, he would spirit her away and either break her body or her spirit if he didn't get the answers he wanted. On the other hand, Pardua might also use Odessa as a hostage to force Baylon to return.

  Harley changed his black leather jacket for a navy-blue windjammer. Pardua wasn't kind to the women he captured, and that fact bothered Harley more than he cared to admit, especially since one of those women could be Odessa.

  Chapter 6

  Odessa had no idea where she was headed as she threw the door open and hurtled down the corridor. How dared Harley think he could take liberties with her? How had she ended up in his room and in his bed?

  She slowed her pace once she concluded he wouldn't chase after her and made an attempt to blend in with the crowd milling in the public area. Where would she go? Where was a safe place on Romaydia? She had been trapped in a concourse with no hope of getting out when she had decided to take the initiative and ran out. Dodging bullets was preferable to staying in the passageway and having the air siphoned out of her lungs. She recalled seeing a man who was barely visible aiming a gun straight at her midriff. She heard the gun go off with a blast and knew unerringly that the bullet was headed straight at her heart. Everything had happened so suddenly.