by Liz Johnson
Every moment she drove plunged her deeper and deeper into the wooded darkness. Away from the familiar. Away from safety. Away from Mac, who was likely completely unaware of her situation. She was at Myles’s mercy now.
That truth shook her very core.
Send Mac. Please! Send someone to rescue me! God, I need his help right now! I think Myles is going to kill me.
Admitting that she believed she was going to die scared Kenzie beyond belief and caused her to slam on the brakes.
Myles’s large body crashed into the back of her seat, sending her into the unforgiving steering wheel. He grumbled loudly. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything!” she screamed. “You’re going to kill me! I’m going to die, and you’re making me drive to my burial ground!” She clamped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide, realizing what she had just said.
Oh, she’d been doing so well, holding herself together, searching for an opportunity to escape. But when fear and anger mixed, she could not be held responsible for what came out of her mouth. She put her face in her hands and let out a single, wild sob. Thankful that the car had stopped when she’d slammed on the brake, she dropped her forehead and rested it against the steering wheel.
Her shoulders shook, and each trembling breath required a concentrated effort not to expel a sob.
With amazing agility for such a large man, Myles squeezed between the two front seats and over the center console. Slipping into the passenger seat, he pulled her quaking form into a tight hug. His arms wrapped around her, subduing her trembles. One of his large hands cupped the top of her head and smoothed down her hair until it wrapped around the nape of her neck. He used his nimble fingers to force her to look up into his face.
The only lights came from the dashboard and the headlights pointing into nothingness. They cast a small glow inside the car, and she could see one of his eyes looking right into her face.
“Everything’s going to be okay.”
Even now, she found that she wanted to trust him, to look into his face and believe that he was telling her the truth. He was strong and capable. But he was also a hardened criminal, an escaped convict and her abductor.
He couldn’t be trusted.
“D-don’t,” she stammered pushing against him. His proximity was too close, too personal, too intimate. She didn’t want to be this close to someone so dangerous. Someone who made her heart beat frantically in fear. Someone who, at the same time, made her feel something very different than fear.
“Don’t what?” Myles rumbled. He didn’t move back even a fraction of an inch, and his breath fanned her face, invading her space all the more.
“Don’t try to make me feel better after you—you—you kidnapped me!”
“Aren’t you a little old to be kidnapped?” He chuckled.
“That’s not the point and you know it! You got out of prison, now let me go!” Her voice rose in aggravation, but kept an even pitch. She tried to push against him again, tried to create more space between them, but he was immovable. “You’re in my bubble,” she finally said, her temper making her respond completely inappropriately to an armed felon.
He laughed out loud, a deep, rich sound that would have been contagious in any other situation. “Your bubble?”
“Yes, my bubble!” she said, indignation rapidly rising. “My space, my personal space. You’re invading it.”
“Are you trying to tell me to back off?”
“Yes!”
He laughed again as he let her go and leaned back into the passenger seat. Stretching his long legs out as much as allowed by the compact car, he propped his hands behind his head and said, “Drive on. We’ve got a ways to go yet tonight.”
The infuriating man! She stomped on the gas pedal, sending the car bouncing into the inky night. The thick tree line on their right began to thin as they plunged headlong into the darkness.
Kenzie tried to focus on finding another road or sign of life in this wilderness. Any sign of civilization could save her.
Her eyes scanned feverishly back and forth to no avail. All she could see was the ditch on the left side of the road and sporadic pine trees on the right.
Suddenly a small deer darted through the headlights, and she slammed on the brakes for the second time that night, just missing the little creature. “Probably just running from a mountain lion,” Myles mumbled, sounding half-asleep.
How could he be falling asleep? He was kidnapping her, and he was falling asleep?
She took a deep breath and pushed her indignation aside. All the better for her if he wasn’t paying attention—it meant he wouldn’t notice her planning her escape.
Her focus on just that plan, she looked for intersections crossing the road. But there were none. No mailboxes along the gravel indicating a house down a driveway. No street signs. Nothing. No indication of where they were, or where they had been. Miles and miles from Evergreen or any other town.
Would Myles be caught before something terrible happened? Would they ever track and find him? Whatever his plan was, it seemed to be working. They probably didn’t even know he was missing from the prison yet. And she had no plans for the evening, so no one would report her as missing until the next day. Everything seemed to be going his way. Even the fine gravel conspired to keep them from being tracked, billowing up behind the tires and then settling down over their tracks.
But Mac would find her. He always did.
A movement beside her drew her attention. Myles rubbed his left knee, kneading the muscles of his thigh directly above his kneecap, as though in pain. His eyes appeared to be closed, and a grimace wrinkled his forehead and pinched his lips. His long fingers spanned his knee and massaged the tendons on either side.
He made no other indication that he was awake.
Kenzie turned back to the road ahead, her eye catching for an instant on the green digital clock on the dashboard, reading 12:17 a.m. Had they really left the prison more than two hours before? How long ago had they left the paved road? She had no idea! She mentally kicked herself for not paying more attention to such an important detail.
“Lamebrain,” she mumbled.
“You say something?” Myles asked, his voice not even husky from sleep.
“No.” She sat ramrod straight, turning the car along a slight curve.
Silence reigned for several more minutes. Suddenly Myles said, “Stop here.”
“Where?”
“Right here.”
She slowed to a stop and peered through the windshield, searching for the reason he told her to stop.
And suddenly she saw it. A small log cabin straight ahead of them. How had he known where to stop? This entire scenario was altogether too strange. How had she gotten caught up in this? Why had Myles chosen her?
She was an easy mark. She made herself an easy mark. That’s why he chose her. She had let down her guard in his presence, and he took advantage of it.
“Here we are,” he announced, getting out of the car after snatching the keys from the ignition. “Let’s go.”
Myles took a step out of the car, and his left knee almost buckled beneath him. He stumbled, but caught himself before falling all the way to the gravel. As he swiped at the keys that he had immediately taken from Kenzie then promptly dropped, his knee screamed again.
He hated the stupid high school football injury. His dream of being a navy SEAL had crashed around him the moment his ACL snapped when the Yuma High Criminals’ defensive lineman sacked him in the city championship game.
Now the doctors said that the scar tissue from the original repair surgery was inflamed and would keep him in pain until they did another surgery. But then he got this assignment. It was hard to get good medical attention in prison. It was hard to get much of anything in prison. But the mission would be over soon. They were only a hundred miles from the safe house. And he had a good feeling about Whitestall. He would wrap up this investigation quickly.
Righting himself before Kenzie even exi
ted the car, he stalked toward the cabin’s front door. His knee cooperated by sheer force of his will as he berated himself for squatting for so long.
A jumpy Kenzie slowly followed him toward the cabin, her eyes darting around the blackness. Natural beauty would soon surround them in the golden glow of the sunrise.
Now the moon cast an ethereal radiance around the young woman’s tiny frame. Her usually angelic features hardened as she glared into his face. She hated him. He tried to convince himself that it didn’t bother him.
“Why won’t you let me go?” she tried again.
“I can’t. Not yet.” It was the truth. Well, mostly the truth.
Lost in thoughts of the truths he hadn’t told and tugging at the water-warped cabin door that refused to open, he almost missed Kenzie’s sudden spin and quick steps toward the woods on his right. His hand shot out, and he grabbed her elbow. “Not so fast.”
When the door opened with a pop, he pushed her inside, following so closely that he could smell the lingering remnants of her citrus perfume. Lemon and lime.
He led her to the only seat in the room, a wooden rocking chair next to the hearth, and let go of her arm as she sank obediently between the arms, worn smooth from years of use. She looked like a child, staring at him as though he had all the answers. But he didn’t. He just prayed that Whitestall had the answers they needed to save them both.
A movement in the doorway leading to the bathroom caught his eye and he turned toward the white-haired woman in the flannel nightgown walking toward him.
“Grams.” He sighed, pulling the plump woman in his arms.
“Myles, what on earth are you doing here?” she asked, pulling back to look between him and Kenzie. Her brow furrowed, but she left her hands resting on his forearms. “It’s the middle of the night!”
“We’re—” he began, but was instantly interrupted by another voice.
“He kidnapped me! Please, you have to help me!” Kenzie charged across the room, imploring his grandma for help. Kenzie’s fingers folded over each other as though almost in prayer, and she looked like she would fall on her knees at any moment.
Myles gazed into his grandma’s face and spoke to her the whole truth without saying a word. His eyes beseeched her to understand the situation, to trust him. He had given her nothing to worry about for years. She could trust him.
But he also knew that Kenzie could be persuasive, and if he wasn’t careful, Grams would reveal too much before he could get Kenzie to the safe house and convince her that everything he’d done, he had had to do to protect her.
Grams’s eyes squinted back at him for a long moment. He squeezed her arms gently and smiled. She nodded and looked back at Kenzie.
“You’re safe here, dear,” she said, reaching out and taking Kenzie’s hand.
Kenzie looked dumbfounded, her eyes huge in her face, her eyebrows reaching toward her hairline. “But he’s kidnapped me. From the prison. He was in prison. Don’t you understand?”
“You were in prison?” Grams asked, looking over her shoulder at him and quirking an eyebrow.
Myles grinned and shrugged. “It’s a long story. I’ll explain later.”
Grams nodded and turned back to Kenzie. “I’m Lenora Borden. And you are…?”
“Kenzie—Kenzie Thorn.” She tripped on her words.
“Well, welcome. You must be starving. He’s always starving.” She indicated Myles with a nod of her head. “I’ll run down to the cellar and bring up some homemade beef stew. We have just a few jars left from last season’s canning.”
“Thanks, Grams,” Myles said, giving her a peck on her cheek. “Sounds great! I’m going to make a quick phone call.”
Grams nodded, then disappeared out the front door, leaving Kenzie looking so shocked that Myles pushed her gently into the rocking chair before her legs crumpled.
“Don’t move,” he commanded as he stalked to the telephone sitting on the kitchen counter. It was the only phone line in the house, the only way of communication. Cell phones didn’t work this far out of town. And he’d never bothered to have the Internet installed. Being in touch with the outside world defeated his usual purpose for being in the cabin, and it would serve him well now. Even if Whitestall tried to trace the call, he’d have a hard time finding this place. That was what made it so perfect.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Kenzie settle a little deeper into the chair. A quick swipe through the pocket of his jeans produced another item the guard had given him. The tiny slip of paper contained only a single telephone number, a way of contacting the guard when the job was done.
Punching in the ten digits, Myles tapped his foot impatiently.
“Hello?” The man’s voice on the other end of the line quivered slightly.
“Boss, it’s Parsons.”
“Parsons? Is—is everything taken care of?” For the first time in his experience with the prison guard, Myles thought he heard a bit of apprehension in the other man’s voice, but Whitestall quickly subdued it.
“Almost.” He shot a look in Kenzie’s direction. She sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap, prim little sweater wrapped around her shoulders.
“What does that mean?” The other man whispered so softly that Myles pressed the receiver harder to his ear and focused intently on his words.
“I’m just finishing up a few things. You know. Taking care of details.”
“So it’s done? I mean, you killed her?”
“That is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Silence hung on the line for several long seconds. “Of course it is. I told you to take care of her. Get her out of the picture. They want her gone.”
“Who’s they?” Myles tried to ignore the tug of loathing he felt for the man’s contempt for life in general and Kenzie specifically. Instead he focused on discovering the leader behind the contract to kidnap and murder Kenzie.
“They. Them. They…they told me to take care of it. He said if I didn’t, I’d be fish food. And I believe him, but—” Whitestall’s voice cut off, almost like the phone line had gone dead.
“Boss? You still there?”
“I’m here.”
Myles tried to choose his words wisely. Could he draw out the other man’s concerns about the plan without alerting him to the fact that he was doing so? That “but” had been a loaded one. It spelled fear. And maybe something more. “You ever think maybe you know too much? Maybe you’re not safe, either.”
No noise from the other end of the line. Had he pushed too hard? Finally, “Yeah, I thought of that.”
“But there’s nothing tying you to my escape or the murder. You’ll be fine.”
“Maybe. Maybe no-ot.” The lilt in his voice at the end of the last word told Myles that he’d pressed too hard, frightened the guy beyond opening up. That fear was the first break in Whitestall’s armor. He may be a rough and intimidating prison guard, but he was still human. And now Myles had a gut feeling he was going to run.
For his life.
Suddenly the line went dead, and the force of an unexpected blow to his left knee sent Myles crashing to the ground, howling in pain and clawing at the counter on his way down. His hands caught onto the base of the telephone and ripped the cord from the wall just as his cheek met the rough wooden floor. Tears immediately sprang to his eyes, blurring his vision of Kenzie’s shoes beating a hasty getaway and the cabin door slamming behind her.
FOUR
Just follow the gravel road. Follow the road. There has to be another cabin. You’ll find someone to help you.
God, please let there be someone else out here. Please send help. Send Mac.
She repeated the words over and over in her mind, never forgetting that finding help equaled freedom. Safety. Mac.
Kenzie’s hands still shook violently. She’d never been in a fight before, but this was no time to back down. She had kicked Myles in the knee as hard as she could and run for all she was worth. And she was still going at full speed.
She ran between the trees lining the cleared road, but the top branches all but blocked the moonlight. She could barely see to put one foot in front of the other and couldn’t see the drooping limbs that scratched at her face and arms, snagging her sweater and ripping at her cheeks and forehead. But she was afraid to run on the road. She would be far too visible to Myles if he pursued her in a car.
She ran as fast as she could manage in the uncomfortable dress shoes she’d worn to match her black skirt. A rush of thankfulness swept through her as she realized that she could be fighting the high heels she had considered wearing, even if they broke a prison rule. She had wanted to be taller than usual, to appear more intimidating with Myles in her classroom. But the uneven ground plus the heels would have equaled disaster.
Still, the impractical shoes pinched her toes with each step. The slick soles slipped along the moist earth, rolling over twigs and leaves as she raced toward freedom. Sliding over a piece of moss, she lost her balance and fell to her hands and knees.
Mud caked on her hands and skirt, and she pushed herself up. She took another deep breath and ignored the stitch in her side. The woods were silent, other than the leaves and twigs crunching under her footsteps. No sounds of Myles’s pursuit. But he wouldn’t just let her get away. He wanted something from her, she was certain. But what? What could she possibly give him?
Her skin crawled to think.
She could not think about those things. Not right now. She had to run.
After what felt like hours, her lungs burned too badly to continue, and she lunged for a nearby tree, seeking the protection of its wide trunk. Knees weak, she sagged against the rough bark.
“Oh, God, what is going on here?” she whispered.
None of it made sense, especially not Myles’s grandmother, who seemed completely oblivious to her cries for help.
