The following is an excerpt from the Mike Scott thriller Return to Cayman: Paradise Held Hostage.
###
“Michael,” Frankie said, breaking the silence. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m trying to figure out the best way to get a look inside the building and see what’s going on,” Mike said. He tore his eyes away from the warehouse to face Frankie. “I need to figure out how many people are in there. How many bad guys and how many people are being held captive. We know about Matt and Trina. And we can assume Bill and the two girls he was with; Miranda and Sherri. That’s a lot of people to watch. Unless Jay has a big team, it will be difficult to keep them all under control. I need to know how they’re keeping them captive and what they’re doing.”
“I can help.”
“Frankie, listen, I’ve done this sort of thing before. You haven’t. I can’t let you risk it.”
“I don’t recall giving you that choice. If you remember, we’ve been through this sort of thing together. We confronted a mad man with a gun. And then a couple more mad men. And a couple more after that.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “I think I handled myself pretty well. I’m going to help.”
Mike looked at Frankie and saw the steely determination in her eyes. He was about to argue, when she gave him a final look that told him he was going to lose.
“I know you want to protect everyone. You want to save everyone else, no matter what it does to you. I get it. It’s in your DNA. But no one asked you to be the hero. At least not all the time. We’re all here to help you.”
Mike laughed.
“All right, Dr. DeMarco, what do you have in mind?”
“Well, there is no reason to be that way,” she grinned. “And frankly, my idea has a lot less to do with me being Dr. DeMarco and a lot more to do with me being Frankie, the Italian tourist.”
Frankie quickly sketched out her idea. The men working for Jay and guarding their friends were, after all, men. Although Frankie did very little to accentuate her own physical attractiveness, she wasn’t completely oblivious to the effect she had on men, especially men who thought of women more as possessions than people. She was making an assumption, but the rough look of the men working for Jay told her that they weren’t the kind who liked long walks and talking about their feelings.
“So, I’ll go play the lost tourist looking for the party in the warehouse. Sort of a rave or something. That should give you time to look around and see what’s going on.”
“Can’t say I’m thrilled about dangling you in front of wolves, but that should work. I shouldn’t need a lot of time. Just be careful. Please.”
“Michael, you would almost make a girl think you care.”
Mike growled in mock frustration.
Frankie hopped out of the jeep to get ready. She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt already. There wasn’t much she could do with her clothes. But this was a tropical island. And the more skin, the better. Frankie was wearing her hair in a pony tail, so she let her long black hair out and shook it out so it flowed down around her shoulders. She pulled her shorts up, folding the waist line down over itself, showing off more of her long, tanned legs. Then she took the pony tail holder and tied off her t-shirt at her hip. That had the double bonus of pulling the shirt down and showing off a bit more cleavage while exposing a hint of her flat, toned stomach. From her bag, she pulled out some lipstick and gave her lips some highlights.
“What do you think?” she asked Mike with a smile that said she knew exactly what his reaction would be.
“I, umm, wow. That’s about all I got,” Mike said. He looked her up and down. “I see how this plan might just work.”
“Might? Really, Mike? Might?”
“Okay, I’m sure it will work. Getting you away from there might be the problem,” Mike said with a laugh.
“Don’t you worry about that. We women have our ways,” Frankie said. “You spent all of your time watching me. Do you know how you are going to sneak in there and get a look around?”
“That much I got covered,” Mike said. He turned his attention, regretfully, back to the warehouse and the matter at hand. “But we might just have to discuss you and this look again later.”
“Why, Michael, I’m afraid I don’t have a clue what is on your mind.”
“Yeah, right.”
###
Get your copy of Return to Cayman: Paradise Held Hostage today, in softcover or Kindle. It is also part of the Mike Scott Boxed Set that includes the first five novels and two short stories.