by Liz Johnson
After four rings, the phone crackled to life. “This is Vince.”
“It’s Matt. I need—”
“Sorry I missed your call.” Matt threw the truck into Park outside the house and grabbed his phone as he jumped out, running up the front walk as Vince’s voice mail finished its outgoing message.
Before entering the house, Matt spoke softly into the phone. “This is Matt. I need whatever you’ve got. Now.”
He hung up and took two quick breaths, forcing his features to relax and his heart to slow to its regular pace before walking inside. His hands were rock-steady as he unlocked the dead bolt and stepped into a beehive of high-pitched terror.
“Matthew! Matthew, someone’s taken Ashley.” Lil grabbed his arm first, her weathered fingers cold and insistent as they pressed into his wrist.
Benita joined her at his other arm, not touching him, but staring up with pleading eyes. “She’s gone. It’s my fault! Julio’s sick, and Ashley said she’d go to get medicine. I shouldn’t have let her go! But she just stepped outside and then she was gone. We heard her start to scream, and I got to the window in time to see that there was a big blue SUV, and they pushed her into it.”
“I know.”
Both women looked stunned, and suddenly all of the chatter stopped, every eye settling on him. He raked a hand down his face, eyes pinched against the throbbing in his temples.
When he opened his eyes, Lil squinted at him, her frown creating wrinkles from her fluffy white hair to her loosening jowls. “But how?”
How could he explain that he’d seen the whole thing from more than a block away but had been unable to do anything about it?
The women began twittering among themselves when he didn’t say anything right away, so he held up his hands to silence them. “I was just returning from a jog when I saw the same thing you did, Benita. I saw her get pushed into the back of the same blue Suburban that tried to run us off the road a few days ago.” Several women gasped, but he kept going. “She’s in trouble right now, but I promise you that I’m going to do whatever it takes to get her back.”
“What can we do to help?” Lil’s hand squeezed his.
Maybe she understood that he had to do this for himself more than for them.
“First, everyone needs to stay calm.” The women nodded. “The men who kidnapped Ashley aren’t really after her. They’re after someone who came through here a couple weeks ago. If Ashley doesn’t give them the information they need to find the girl they’re looking for, they may come after one of you.”
The soprano twittering resumed with gusto, but this time it was Lil who quieted them. “Ladies, please. Stay calm. We’re all safe right now.” She turned back to him. “What can we do?” she repeated.
He gave her a half smile, focused on all the things yet to be done. “Stay in one room. Why don’t we set up the living room as a fort, and keep everyone in the same place. No one goes outside. No one stands by windows. Get the kids set up in there to watch a movie or play some games or something.”
“For how long?” Benita’s voice rose above the others. “And what about Julio?”
Matt wrinkled his forehead. “Stay put until Ashley’s back. And why don’t you take him into your room and keep him there for now so he doesn’t spread whatever he has to the others?”
His phone let out a low chirp, vibrating in his pocket. “I’m going to need the kitchen to myself for a while. Can you take care of this, Lil? And maybe call a volunteer who could drop off something for Julio to bring down his fever.”
“Certainly.”
He caught her arm before she disappeared with the rest down the hallway. “If the phone rings, don’t answer it. Just get me immediately.”
She nodded slowly before continuing to herd the women toward the bedrooms, where they immediately began collecting their children and ushering them toward the living room.
He closed the kitchen door behind him as he took a call from an unregistered number. “This is Matt.”
“Matteo!”
His stomach plunged through the floor. “Tristan.” He paced the confines of the small room, the muscles in his shoulders twitching with every turn. “What’s going on?”
“We touched down about an hour ago. Just going into debriefing right now, but wanted to check on you and Ashley. She’s not answering her phone.”
“Welcome home.” His voice felt heavier than the granite countertops lining the room.
Tristan laughed, his full-on belly laugh. “You don’t sound happy to hear from me. But I’ll forgive you because you’re probably still ticked that you didn’t get to go with us.”
“Something like that.” He took a deep breath and leaned over the counter, resting his forearms between the toaster and coffeemaker. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you.”
I accidentally let your sister get kidnapped by a raging lunatic somewhere along the line, but it’s okay because the real gut punch is that I fell in love with her, too. So, you know, I’ll lay my own life down to rescue her.
It didn’t quite have the right ring to it.
“Sure thing. I’ve got to jet. But put Ash on the phone real fast. I just want to say hi.”
“She’s not here.”
He must have heard something in Matt’s tone because Tristan, who never stopped moving, was suddenly completely silent, his shallow breathing the only indication he was still on the line for fifteen seconds. “Where is she?”
Dear God, he’d failed.
And this wasn’t a failure he could hide. This one was going to stare him in the face, reminding him of his mistakes, for the rest of his life.
But it didn’t change the truth. He had to tell Tristan.
“A girl came through the shelter a couple weeks ago, and Ashley didn’t know it, but somehow she’d gotten away from human traffickers. Those guys have been looking for her, trying to get Ashley to turn her over. That’s what the first threatening note was about—and all the notes and threats since.”
He scrubbed his face with a flat palm, waiting for Tristan to say something. Anything. But he didn’t.
“I went to go check out a building on our radar this morning. It was so early, and I swear, I thought she’d just stay home with the security alarm on. I was only going to be gone for an hour, and it was still dark when I left. And I couldn’t take her with me to recon a building. But one of the kids got sick and needed some medicine.”
He cleared his throat once, pushing down the lump in it. “I was a block away when I heard her scream. She must have been outside for five seconds, tops. They pushed her into the backseat of a transport vehicle and took off. I chased them, but they disappeared.”
In that moment, Matt wished that Tristan had the same rage as his first foster dads. He could handle it if Tristan lashed out at him. In fact, he deserved it.
But the quiet, lethal voice that came over the phone was the opposite of wild, unfocused rage. “We’ll be there in about eight hours. Have a plan in place.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he sank into a kitchen chair, he stared at the phone in his hand, as though it would tell him where Ashley was.
He had eight hours—seven if Tristan was driving—to find her. Eight hours to recon the area and follow up on every lead. Eight hours to put together a rescue mission that could not fail.
It took a never-say-die attitude to finish BUD/S training. It took hours in the gym and even more hours mentally preparing to drop in behind enemy lines or rescue hostages.
But no attitude or amount of strength would bring Ashley back right now.
Leaning his head back, he stared at the ceiling for several long seconds, spearing his fingers through his hair.
“All right, God. I get the irony. I’ve been telling Ashley it’s okay to be weak, but I�
��m ready to pull my hair out right now. I’ve never felt so useless in my life. No intel. No direction. You’re going to have to step in here. Please. Please.”
* * *
Ashley jerked her hand away from the goon who pulled at her arm. “Hold still,” he growled as he slapped a handcuff around her wrist and attached the other side to a chain on the wall.
“Please don’t.” Her words vanished in the air, as useless as her cries for help had been ever since she’d come to on their drive away from Lil’s.
“Get comfortable. The boss will be around later to see you.” He pushed her arm, sending her flying across the room. She landed hard on a thin strip of cotton balls masquerading as a mattress at the same moment that he slammed her cell door closed. The threadbare fabric holding the flimsy puffs together scratched her elbows as she tried to soften the fall, sending fire up her arms.
As she tried to push herself up, the slack on her chain ran out, and she stumbled back to the floor, this time landing on her knees. Something wet and slimy coated her pants, and she rolled back onto the mattress. At least it was dry.
She rubbed her head with shaking hands, and flinched when her fingers found a bump over her right ear. Where someone had thumped her with the butt of a handgun when he’d decided she was making too much noise on the drive here.
It had felt more like she’d been shot, but since there was no blood and she was still alive, that wasn’t the case.
The only light in the cement room came from the hallway visible through a one-foot, square window in the door, lined with bars. Of course, they’d blindfolded her on the way to the cell, so she hadn’t seen the hallway. But she was, nonetheless, thankful for its light that left a small patch of hope on the floor.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled her knees up to her chest and pressed her forehead against them, trying to force her pulse to return to normal. It was a struggle, though, not to hyperventilate when she thought of how she had no one to blame for her current situation but herself.
If only this didn’t make sense. If only this had happened out of the blue.
But she’d known it was coming. She’d known she was in danger, and she’d left the safety of the house.
Matt didn’t know she was gone. Even if he’d realized by now, he didn’t know where she’d been stashed.
She didn’t even know where she was.
If she was going to get free, she’d have to do it herself. That thought, finally, was the one that stabilized her breathing and cleared her head. She knew how to be strong, even when she was scared. Now was the time to put that knowledge to use.
Giving her legs one more good squeeze, she stood and tugged on the chain. It clanked against the ground with finality, moving only an inch, its weight more than she’d imagined and certainly unbreakable.
Maybe the handcuff would release easier.
She held it into the stream of light and inspected it. It wasn’t like a normal set of police handcuffs. It didn’t have a lock and key release but rather a dead-bolt-type lock on the bottom side of her wrist. One little twist should release it.
It didn’t.
It just made it tighter.
She tried again. Same result.
Her eyes burned, and she pressed her fingers against them. Tears still leaked out, turning the dirt on her hands sticky.
This wasn’t right. There had to be a way out.
Taking a deep breath and opening her eyes, she spun to take inventory of the room, but three of the corners remained hidden in the shadows, including the one that seemed to hold the other end of the chain.
With baby steps she followed each link into the recesses. The far end of the chain connected to a ring that disappeared into the wall. Just like the prisons in old movies.
Another futile attempt.
She shook her head, refusing to give up.
It couldn’t be hopeless.
The boss—whoever that was—would come for her at some point, and she’d be able to escape then.
She had to.
For Lil. For Benita, Meghan and Carmen. For all the abused women and kids that would come through Lil’s door.
For Matt.
His face flashed on the backs of her eyelids, beaming smile, brilliantly blue eyes and wind-tossed curls. So handsome and so strong.
Why hadn’t she listened to him?
She’d gotten herself into this mess. If she’d just listened she could be safe at home with him, surrounded by the people she cared about the most.
She’d been so stupid.
She yanked on the chain and it cracked against the floor.
“Don’t do that.” The insistent voice came through the wall at her back, so she leaned toward it. “He—he doesn’t like it when we make too much noise.”
“Who doesn’t like it?”
“The boss.”
“Who are you?” Ashley held her breath.
“I’m no one. Just—just don’t make too much noise.” The woman’s voice shook with each syllable, making her sound like a child.
Then again, Joy had been little more than a child.
“Please.” Ashley tried again. Maybe this girl could help. Maybe they could escape together. Now that she knew she wasn’t alone, leaving the other woman behind wasn’t an option. “Why do we have to be quiet?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just hush. He’s coming.”
Footsteps echoed in the hall, growing louder with each one until they stopped outside her door. The lock on the door unlatched, and it flew in. A megawatt flashlight swam across the floor until it shined directly into her face.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Sawyer. You have something that belongs to me.”
She knew that voice.
FIFTEEN
Ashley lunged out of the spotlight, her eyes burning from its intensity. Holding a hand at her forehead to get a better view of her visitor, she scurried deeper into the shadows, but all she could make out was a tall silhouette with broad shoulders and shaggy hair hanging over his collar. Just as it had been the last time she’d seen him at the police station.
“Jimmy. Jimmy Swift.” Her voice filled the room, bouncing from wall to wall. Even if she didn’t feel confident, she could sound the part.
He flicked his flashlight up so that it illuminated his chin as though he was going to tell her a scary campfire story. “You got me.” His eyebrows lifted and lowered in quick succession, as a twisted grin spread across his face.
She’d seen him around for years in the small town. He was a respected businessman, and the only one who seemed to be continually prosperous and upbeat in the face of the tire plant’s layoffs. Apparently he had some extra income, and the twist in her stomach told her she already knew where it was coming from.
Forcing herself to take a step forward, she put her fists on her hips and pushed her shoulders back. “What do you want with me, Jimmy?”
His laugh, as he flashed the light back in her direction, was cheerful and pleasant—which was somehow creepier than if he’d sounded completely sinister. “I think you know what you took of mine. I want it back.”
“Her. You want her back. But you can’t have her.”
The corner of his mouth twisted again. “I think you’ll change your mind soon enough. A couple nights in here, away from your precious house and those stupid girls, and you’ll be ready to spill everything you know.”
“I’m not telling you a thing.”
“All right, then. If that’s how you want to be, maybe you just want to take her place.” He walked the few steps up to her, no longer blocking the light from the hall that spilled inside. She twitched as he brought one finger to her cheek, dragging it all the way to her chin. “I bet you’re as pure as new snow. I could get a pretty penny for you.”
The
shudder that racked her whole body couldn’t be contained at his vile words, and it made him smile. With a swipe of her arm, she pushed his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
His reaction was instant. Her cheek lit on fire before she even heard the crack of his hand against her face, whipping her head to the side. “I’ll do whatever I want. And I want to get my girl back. I have an eager buyer whose patience is running out. Understand?”
She glared at him, crossing her arms so she didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her massage the imprint of his palm on her face. She’d learned that trick with Paul. Never let him see her pain.
He snickered as he turned his back on her. “Maybe that new boyfriend of yours will make a trade for you. How much does he really love you?”
“Don’t—” The door swung shut behind him, cutting off her words, as she sank to the floor, no strength left in her legs to even make it to the mattress.
What was Matt going to do? He wouldn’t trade Joy for her, would he?
Her stomach tossed like a ship on stormy seas.
He had to know that it was useless. Jimmy would never let her live once he got Joy back. She could identify him, and he had to know that she would turn him into the authorities the moment she was free.
Maybe Matt hadn’t even returned to the house by now? Whenever “now” was. It could be thirty minutes since her kidnapping or three days. Did Matt even know she was missing?
Jimmy was counting on Matt’s love for her, but what if there wasn’t any?
She pressed a hand over her mouth, covering rapid breaths and battling sudden tears. What if he really didn’t care for her? She’d practically begged him to kiss her the first time, and then they’d never talked about it.
Oh, there was tenderness in his touch, but always a distance in his eyes, as though he was holding something back. Until he’d told her about his childhood. He’d opened up to her about that, had even admitted that he was telling her things he’d never told anyone before. But was that love?
Did it even matter? Love couldn’t unlock her handcuffs or put Jimmy in a prison cell of his own, where he belonged.
