Bringing Baby Home

by Debra Salonen

  “His name is David.”

  The voice laughed again, only this time it was colder, less indulgent. “No, Gypsy, the man beside you is Paul Andrew McAffee. A poor, unloved orphan who came to me right out of college, filled with ambition, brains and not much else. I paid for his graduate school courses, his travels, his research. I molded and shaped him into a man who was poised to introduce to the world a drug so novel and revolutionary people would kill to own the patent.”

  People would have been killed if you’d had your way, she thought but didn’t say out loud.

  “Where are you taking us?”

  She tried to wiggle her fingers. Her hands were bound behind her back, which made sitting upright a challenge. The digits were starting to fall asleep, the blood flow compromised by the thin strip of plastic holding them tight. She was sure the chafed flesh at her wrists was bleeding, but inching sideways toward the door had taken a little pressure off her arms.

  She couldn’t move far though because David, who was unconscious—well, unmoving—beside her, had fallen sideways. His head had rested against her shoulder until the driver took a sharp corner. Then his body had plopped forward, facedown on her knees. She’d spread her knees as much as possible so as not to block his access to air but, given the similar plastic band around her ankles, she could only pray that he didn’t suffocate.

  Her abductor ignored her question and resumed talking about his first attempt to kill David. “As I was saying, after the fire was out and the cops were standing around, I figured maybe they just hadn’t found the body. Nicely barbecued. A crispy critter,” he said with a morbid chuckle. “But then you showed up, driving this little car. Four-wheel drive. Perfect for taking off-road, right?”

  Liz didn’t answer. She hadn’t had time to go camping or playing in the desert since she’d moved back from India. Her cousin Enzo had salvaged the Honda after an accident and rebuilt it with her in mind. The price had been right.

  “I saw Paul get out of your car. When he was dressed in the old man’s getup—that tan jumpsuit, I wasn’t sure it was him, but the night of the fire, he had on a tie. He looked like a science professor, and that’s when I knew I’d found the right guy—and he definitely hadn’t been asleep in his bed.”

  “You set the fire without knowing for sure that David was the man you were looking for?”

  Her scandalized tone apparently amused him. He let out a loud roar that coincided with the car leaving the pavement. Liz was jostled from side to side. The pain in her wrists was excruciating. David’s head bounced up and crashed back to her knees. She thought she detected a low groan from him, but the noise of the tires crossing dirt and rock made it impossible to be sure.

  “Here’s what you need to know about me, Gypsy. I don’t suffer liars, cheats or betrayers. And when I set my mind on something I never stop until it’s accomplished.”

  Liz knew better than to argue with a maniac. Plus, the off-road path they’d entered was deeply rutted, making conversation difficult. She was thankful for the seat belt that his accomplice had clicked in place despite her twisting protests. His comment had been “Don’t want to attract police attention, do we?” But poor David wasn’t as lucky.

  His groans were getting louder with each bump, she thought. She had no idea how long they’d been on the road, but maybe whatever drug the crazy guy and his henchman had used to stun David was wearing off.

  Liz’s first thought when she’d seen David facedown on the floor of her garage—arms and legs trussed up—was that he was dead, and she was going to be next. She’d turned to look at the man holding the gun. David’s nemesis didn’t look anything like she’d pictured.

  Bald, with pale skin that obviously hadn’t seen the sun in ages, he had the sickly appearance of an invalid. But what struck her most was the taut skin around his eyes. He’d had some kind of cosmetic surgery. She’d have staked her life on it.

  “Why are you doing this? Why me?” she’d asked, her brain frantically searching for a way to get loose and call for help.

  “Because Paul has the hots for you,” he’d said, apparently enjoying the moment. “And that’s when it occurred to me that simple death was too easy for Paul. No, the real payback comes when I see the look on his face as he realizes that the woman he loves is going to die because of him. Is that not sweet revenge?”

  “You’re sick.”

  His laugh seemed pleased, as if the word were praise.

  “Gypsy Girl, Paul here is my last loose end. For four years I’ve endured painful surgeries the likes of which make reality TV come off as kid’s stuff. I’ve spent my recuperative hours searching for some sign that the man I’d grown to love as a son was still alive.”

  “So you could kill him?” Liz cried.

  “So I could hear him beg for his life.”

  “That will never happen.”

  “Maybe not. But I betcha anything he’ll beg for yours.”

  The driver was now humming some country-and-western tune Liz couldn’t quite place. She pushed the memory of his gleeful comment out of her mind. Things had turned ugly fast after that. The other man—a larger, bodybuilder type—had overpowered her and tied her wrists and ankles then placed her in her car. This was the one thing that gave her hope. After all, Zeke had installed some kind of tracking device in the Honda. Surely the madman and his accomplice hadn’t thought to look for one. Why would they?

  Because they’re paranoid psychos who have been outrunning the law for four years, a part of her mind had answered.

  But no one had mentioned finding the bug, she comforted herself.

  What good the device would do, she had no clue. She hadn’t asked Zeke how the darn thing worked or if it was even turned on. “Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered under her breath.

  At least, she knew part of the bad guys’ plan because she’d overheard them talking outside the car right before they parted company and both drove away, the boss behind the wheel of her Honda.

  “Follow me to the junction then wait. Once I drop them off, I’ll meet you and we can dump this wreck at McCarran. Even if someone finds it, they’ll waste time trying to see if Paul and the girl took off somewhere. Too bad I don’t have time to arrange a fake wedding. That would really throw the cops off.”

  A fake wedding. Just a few days earlier she and David—she really couldn’t think of him as Paul McAffee—had been dancing at Kate’s wedding. She’d invited him into her life and look what had happened. If she didn’t get free and find her way back to safety, all would be lost. Prisha would never get the help she needed. The little girl would become another statistic. The sparkle in her beautiful eyes would dim and eventually disappear.

  Stay focused, she silently ordered. She’d taken a survival course before her assignment overseas. The instructor had discussed hostage situations. The first rule was not to panic. “People who panic, die. Your brain is a tool. Use it. Stay alert. Be prepared to take advantage of any opportunity that comes your way, no matter how small.”

  She slouched down until her fingers touched the seat cushion. Her normally pristine car had been seriously neglected the past few weeks. Every time she took her roommates somewhere, they had to stop for some kind of fast food. Happy Meals were a favorite. And Arby’s sandwiches. Some of the Arby’s wrappers were shiny. Shiny things could be used as a signal, right?

  But finding one proved impossible. She couldn’t reach anything on the floor. And she had to assume her captor would check her waistband to see what was making the material of her pants so lumpy. But she did find one small treasure—a metal nail file that Lydia had complained about losing weeks ago. Liz used her thumbs to slip it down her pants. Would it be sharp enough to cut through their bindings? Who knew, but she’d take what she could find. A couple of soft, rubbery objects she guessed might be old French fries went in her pants, too. And a screw top lid from a water bottle.

  The driver hit the brakes and David’s body was suddenly launched forward. He gave a loud groan
when he landed on the floor, his face near her feet.

  “Oops. Big rock. Don’t want to blow a tire. We’re not far enough in, yet. Can’t have some miraculous rescue by a couple of day hikers, now can we? You just stay down, Paul, my boy. If you think you can play the hero twice in one lifetime, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  Paul—David—moaned, but didn’t move.

  “We’ll be there soon. You just relax and enjoy the sights.” His laugh was so eerie, Liz shivered. Tears squeezed past her eyelids, soaking into the fabric of the blindfold. Panic rose and she had to fight back a scream.

  Silently, intently, she focused her thoughts on reaching the man at her feet. David. David, stay with me. Keep breathing. I need you. Don’t leave me. Please. I love you. I need you. She kept up the silent litany, praying it might reach him.

  THE URGE TO VOMIT was so powerful it woke David up like a slap. He fought to keep his roiling stomach under control, but motion sickness and whatever had been in the tranquilizer was a potent combination. His mouth flooded with spit. His head felt as if it might explode. He opened his eyes and could see nothing but black. His vertigo intensified.

  He tried to move and realized his arms and legs were bound. Lifting his chest up gave him some sense of where he was—on the floor of a vehicle that was bouncing over a rough road. The abuse had taken a toll on his hip bones and ribs. Every inch of his chest and abdomen hurt, but the pain was good. It meant he was alive.

  He turned his head to listen for any sounds beyond the motor, drivetrain and road noise. Within seconds, he realized he wasn’t alone. A coldness grabbed his insides and twisted. Liz. The bastard had Liz, too.

  He rolled over, ignoring the shaft of pain that shot up his arms. Parts of his body were asleep from lack of circulation. But he had to find out if she was alive. He had to touch her.

  His head bumped bone and denim. He rubbed his chin up and down. A low gasp gave him hope. She wasn’t dead, but she was undoubtedly trussed up just like he was.

  What Ray had in mind was anybody’s guess, but David was pretty sure it didn’t involve bloodshed. Ray wasn’t above ordering someone to kill, but David had never seen his former boss handle a gun.

  Of course things might have changed in four years. Ray’s looks certainly had. David had only caught a distorted glimpse of his ex-boss’s face when Ray helped his hired goon drag David’s body into the garage, but he’d been shocked at the changes. Even Ray’s voice had been altered.

  He moved again trying to find a position that inflicted less pain. If Ray left them alive in the desert, they still had a chance. Not much of one, granted, with no water, but four years of hunting cacti had taught David a few things about desert survival. He’d take his chances with Mother Nature any day over dealing with a madman.

  And though he wanted to touch Liz, to comfort her and reassure her that everything would be okay, he wasn’t a hypocrite. He was the reason she was here. He was the reason she might die. If they made it through this, he vowed to do the right thing. He’d leave and never come back. She deserved a whole hell of a lot more than he had to offer—starting with the assurance that she could work in her backyard without being kidnapped at gunpoint.

  Despite the rough road and frequent bottoming out that tortured his joints and added new bruises on top of old ones, David dozed off and on—probably from the residual drug in his system. He didn’t fight it. He’d need every ounce of strength to protect Liz once they stopped.

  Which, finally, they did.

  David woke up fully when Ray killed the engine. He couldn’t see anything, but he listened hard, trying to follow every movement Ray made. Now he could hear the low tuneless humming that always indicated Ray was focusing on a problem. Ray was thinking. Nothing good ever came of that, David thought.

  The driver’s side door opened and closed. A moment later, the door near David’s feet opened. “Ah, the boy fell down,” Ray said in a childish, singsong tone. “Too bad.”

  A second later, rough hands grabbed David around the shoulders and forced him to sit upright. Ray yanked off David’s blindfold, taking a painful clump of hair with it.

  Blinking, David saw that night had fallen with a vengeance. The only light came from the car’s headlamps. The overhead dome light wasn’t turned on even though the door was open.

  Still, David craned about to see Liz. She was sitting, her chest pushed out, her hands behind her back.

  “Let her go,” he pleaded. “She doesn’t have anything to do with our business. I only met her a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Braggart,” Ray said. He took hold of the plastic zip tie that bound David’s legs and tugged brutally. There wasn’t room for David’s hips to fit through the opening straight on, but twisting on his side meant slamming his ear against the raised drivetrain shaft. Even the car’s carpeting couldn’t ease the pain that shot through his head. He tried not to moan, but couldn’t stifle the sound completely.

  “David? Are you okay? What’s happening?”

  “I’m fine, Liz,” he said, even as his knees crumpled beneath him. Lack of movement had rendered his feet numb. He fell on his shoulder and rolled on the rocky ground, hoping he wouldn’t smack into some unseen boulder.

  He had no idea where they were, but they appeared to have reached a dry wash of some kind. The glow of the car’s high beams illuminated a rock formation as high as Liz’s SUV. No wonder Ray had stopped, he thought.

  The door slammed and Ray disappeared around the rear of the car. “Okay, Gypsy Girl, time for you to join Lover Boy.”

  Ray was a big man—nearly as tall as David and at one time had weighed fifty pounds more. No longer. He was thin, but obviously not lacking in strength. David sat up and tried to move to his knees, but the pins and needles in his legs made him want to scream. “Liz? Are you okay?”

  There was a soft grunt and a sob, but she didn’t answer. Fury filled every inch of David’s body and he fought to a kneeling position.

  “Oh, relax, hero. She’s fine. Just heavier than she looks.” Ray half dragged Liz’s body around the car and dumped her in front of David. She curled up in a fetal position, as much as her restricted movement would allow.

  David cursed. “You rotten son of a bitch. Why God let you live is beyond me!”

  “God?” Ray hooted. “He and I parted ways years ago. Guess He couldn’t take the competition. And if it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been richer than God, and worshipped by more people. I was going to give them youth. Till you, Judas, sold me out.”

  The truth struck David harder than the back of Ray’s hand, which knocked him sideways, so he landed closer to Liz. His former boss was totally crazy. He’d read about a condition called narcissistic personality disorder. He’d even heard the term mentioned in regards to Ray, but at the time, he’d told himself the truly gifted, the movers and shakers of the world were entitled to an inflated ego. But few of those types believed they could replace God.

  Ray squatted a few feet away. “Here’s how this going to go down, my boy. I’m going to take Gypsy Girl’s blindfold off. The two of you can huddle together for the rest of the night. Exchange sweet nothings. Weep and moan together. If no hungry coyotes wander by, you’ll probably be okay until say…two or three tomorrow afternoon. By then, you’ll be roasted and toasted and dehydrated.” He made a bridge with his hands and cracked his knuckles.

  “I’ve heard that death from exposure is a really nasty way to go. Your tongue swells up and your lips crack and your eyeballs sorta pop out of your head. If there is a God, He’ll make sure she dies first. Not because I give a damn about her suffering, but because I want you to watch her agony and know that you’re responsible. Too bad I won’t be here to watch, but knowing that you’ll be tormented with guilt until you take your last breath is almost a fair trade for all the billions you cost me. So long, Judas.”

  Choking on Ray’s dust as he backed up the SUV and pulled away was the final indignation. But all too soon, the darkness closed in on them an
d Liz and David were alone. In the desert. With only the clothes on their backs and their wits to save them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Survival.

  Liz knew they didn’t stand a chance unless they could get free of their bindings. She wasn’t going down without a fight, but in the silence after her car drove off, she had a tough time getting hold of her emotions. One hiccup of a cry turned to a sob. Tears followed.

  “No, Liz,” David shouted, his voice panicky. “No tears. Tears are moisture. Your body’s going to need every ounce to survive. Don’t cry.”

  “Go to hell. I’ll cry if I want. I hurt all over and I’ve been left to die in the desert. This is when people cry.”

  She kicked at him with her feet. Thankfully the bastard who left them here had removed her blindfold before he drove off. So David could see her eyes bug out before he took his last breath, the disgusting creep had said.

  “Your ex-boss is a certifiable whack job. How could you possibly have worked for a man like that?” Liz heard the hysteria in her voice.

  “He’s changed,” David said. “They say genius and dementia are closely related.”

  “They could be blood kin for all I care. If we make it out of this predicament alive, I vow to do everything in my power to see that psycho monster brought to justice. If we survive.”

  “We’re not going to die,” he said passionately.

  The only light came from the stars, which though plentiful, had little impact over such a vast openness. She could make out shapes, though, and David’s body was the most obvious, since he was inching back and forth to get turned around.

  “Ha,” she snarled, her tears drying up as anger became her predominant emotion. “We’re gonna be bugs under a magnifying glass once the sun comes up.”

  The word reminded her of the bug Zeke had planted in her car. Would someone in Zeke’s office notice that her car, which was normally parked in her garage, was driving all over the place tonight? Would they call Zeke?