Dark Warrior by Rebecca York

miscalculation on your part.”
    Ames took a step back, but Rafe had already raised the cylinder and depressed the button on top, sending a cloud of spray into Ames’s face. Seconds later, he keeled over and lay still.
    Rafe picked him up and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of horse feed, then carried him to the garage and dumped him into a four-wheel-drive SUV. Next he drove the van into the garage. He’d have to get rid of it later, after he took care of Ames. Maybe he’d drive it over a cliff into an arroyo.
    With the vehicle hidden, he went back into the house to change.
    When he was ready, he headed into the desert, to a desolate area where few ventured.
    After unloading Ames onto the red dirt, he sat down in the shade of a cedar tree while he waited for the malaka to wake up.
    But his mind was busy. He was thinking about the vet—the guy who had fought Ames. Was he really the other Minot?
    There was a hitch in that theory. He’d apparently gotten into the Ionian compound with no problem. More than once, if Ames was telling the truth.
    And that would be impossible. Wouldn’t it?
    “Impossible,” he said aloud. Yet if he wasn’t the mystery Minot, who was? And what was special about him?
    Well, it shouldn’t be hard to get the horse doctor’s name, then look up information about him, see if he had any background that would mark him as a Minot. Could he capture the guy and find out what the hell was going on?
    Before he got rid of him.
    He thought back to the encounter in the desert. Not his finest moment. Perhaps it wasn’t smart getting close to the man again. Maybe the thing to do was finish his business here and get out. He’d have to come up with another plan for getting Tessa, but he still had a spy on the property—which gave him a source of information.
    Finally, after about forty-five minutes in the hot sun, Ames began to stir.
    “Where am I?” he groaned as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.
    Rafe got to his feet and stood a few yards away. When Ames spotted him, he gasped.
    “What’s going on?”
    Rafe wore athletic shoes. Comfortable shorts and a tank top. He could have been out for a run, except that he was holding a hunting knife.
    Fear flashed in Ames’s eyes when he spotted the knife.
    “Please. Don’t,” he wheezed.
    “I’ll give you forty minutes’ head start,” he said. “You can take that bottle of water lying next to you. If you can get away from me, you’re free to go.”
    “Please, just let me go. I did everything you asked, but it didn’t work out the way we thought.”
    “I would have asked you to leave the state,” he lied, “if you’d completed your assignment. It wasn’t all that difficult, but you screwed it up. Twice.”
    “Not difficult! You try getting in there with those bitches. They’re all spooky.”
    “Stop whining and get out of my sight,” Rafe spat, “before I change my mind and gut you right now.”
    With a look of utter terror, the man grabbed the water bottle and ran.
    Rafe sat down to relax again. He had no doubt he could track Ames, and when he caught up with the sorry bastard, he was going to have a good time killing him slowly. With the knife.
    Then he would make other arrangements for keeping tabs on the Ionians’ compound.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    IT WAS WELL into the evening before the sisters got their guests settled down after the frightening experience with the fire. As it turned out, they’d been lucky. Damage to the spa was minimal, and they’d been able to move all their activities into another wing of the building.
    Then all but the women on duty and the mothers gathered in their private lounge.
    Nobody had been harmed except Jason Tyron. Still, they were shaken by the experience.
    When some of the people staying at the spa had said they were leaving, the sisters gave them full refunds. They didn’t depend on the spa’s revenues for their income. Long ago they’d invested their wealth in many diversified stocks, bonds,