“Do you see anything?” Regan asked.
“Swings. A teeter-totter.” He smiled at her—a clear attempt at humor to lighten her spirits.
“I mean—”
“I know.” He hunkered down and scanned the area again. “Nothing out of place. Maybe you should take a look.”
Regan took the binoculars from him. She, too, didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“What’s your plan?” Regan asked.
“I think we’ll approach the park down that road.” Colby pointed, and Regan looked that way through the magnifiers. “There’re a couple of different dirt roads that jut off from the main one. More possibilities for escape.”
Regan handed the binoculars back. “Do you think they’ll just give Olivia back?”
Colby shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m worried. If Polina were just missing or found alive somewhere, I’d feel a lot better about this whole deal. Keeping the real cure from them might actually help us. I don’t see them harming anyone until they know for sure that they have what they want.”
“They’ll test it to be sure.”
“That will take a little time, right? Which gives us exactly what we need. More time to work the problem. Keeping Olivia alive keeps you working for them. If they harm her, then there’s no reason for you to cooperate.”
“You make it sound like they’re going to take me. That this is just a ruse to flush me out with the virus.”
“It’s true. I have my doubts as to whether or not they’ll let us go with Olivia.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“I wish I could predict. If they take you, I’ll follow. I think we need to set our minds on the fact that today isn’t going to be the end. Too much is still in play. They’ll have to verify you held up your end of the bargain.”
“If you could guess...what would your best guess be?”
“I think they’ll try and take you...and I don’t think you should put up much of a fight.”
EIGHT
Regan’s heart thudded wildly at the base of her throat as Colby parked the car a few blocks away from the park. They’d grabbed a quick bite of fast food, which sat clumped in Regan’s gut. The sun was just beginning to hide behind the distant Rocky Mountains, its light casting differentiating shadows among the peaks, giving them the illusion of being one-dimensional paper cutouts of varying shades of blue.
Normally, viewing the sunset was a welcome respite for Regan. It meant the day was done, and she regularly watched the beautiful moment to help put perspective into her day—often from one of the upper floors of the hospital if she hadn’t made it home yet. Dealing with people who were in the throes of a medical crisis definitely took a toll that was rarely spoken of. The emotional currency spent on helping patients sometimes left little for other family relationships. Every bit of her reserve was given to Olivia.
Had they hurt her daughter? Would Olivia be the same as she was before?
Would any of them be the same?
“You okay?” Colby asked.
His voice pulled Regan’s gaze from the window, and she studied the calm demeanor of his face. His blue eyes were soft, questioning. His brown hair tousled but seemingly every strand in its proper place.
Smiling faintly, he reached for her hand, which held the cooler in her lap. Her skin tingled under his touch and, for a moment, she couldn’t resist staying locked in his gaze. The comfort there was something she found in few other people. The message without words seemed to be “all will be well.”
“I know it’s a weird question considering the circumstances we find ourselves in, but I need your head in the game.”
She looked back out the window. “I’m okay, considering.”
He dropped his hand, and she wished that he hadn’t, but taking his hand back seemed too forward and inappropriate considering the circumstances.
Circumstances and games. Is that what life boiled down to? What different choices could she have made to prevent her from experiencing this right now? If she’d chosen differently, would someone else have come up with a cure for glioblastoma? Would she and Olivia have a closer, deeper relationship?
Would she have met Colby?
Her faith taught her that nothing was a coincidence. That God was the energy behind everything. Each sunrise and sunset. Each breath. Each heartbeat.
If that were true, then in some measure all these things were supposed to happen for some reason. Or there was the other tenet. God uses all things for good.
But how could that be possible in this situation?
What she didn’t want to confess was how much she was beginning to rely on Colby. How she didn’t want to take a step forward without his guidance. She trusted him to get her through this even if his motive was only to save Sam.
Whatever happened in the end with Colby, as long as Olivia was alive and physically unharmed, Regan could take as long as all they both needed were to pick up the mental pieces.
Colby tapped his watch—his fingernail against the glass like someone sliding the tip of a cool knife up her spine. “It’s time. You should get into position.”
Regan placed her right hand on the door, looking back at him. “Where will you be?”
“Close. I don’t want to tell you because I don’t want you to accidentally give my position away. Just do as I instructed. Give them the cooler and get your hands on Olivia. Don’t let her go. Hopefully, they’ll just drive away and then we’ll go straight to the police and report what happened.”
“And if that doesn’t happen?”
“I’ll help any way I can. The situation will be fluid, as they say, but I’m not going to abandon you. The goal for tonight, for right now, is just to get Olivia back unharmed. We’ll deal with the rest after that happens.”
Not you but we.
That statement of camaraderie strengthened Regan’s resolve, and she opened the door and stepped out.
Colby grabbed her wrist and locked her eyes with his. “Just...stay safe. Okay?”
She nodded and eased the door closed. Turning, she began to walk toward the park like a soldier on a mission. Her stomach felt like a block of ice. Her head buzzed, trying to plan contingencies for all the possibilities that could happen.
Is this some of what Colby felt when he’d headed into battle?
Nighttime at the park was flat-out creepy. The playground equipment resembled tortured, twisted metal. The cool wind bit at Regan’s skin and she pulled the flannel shirt tight around her frame. She stood alone, the cooler gripped between two hands, in the middle of the park. Time flowed as slowly as cold honey. Regan both wished for and yet resisted the movement of time. While they had been waiting, Olivia was alive.
At least, Regan hoped beyond hope that she was.
Lord, please bring my daughter back to me in one piece. Don’t let them have harmed her in any way. Bring us out of this alive.
The sound of tires traversing gravel made every muscle in Regan’s body tense. Her body was priming her emergency response system. Run. Fight. Freeze.
Which one would it ultimately be?
The car came into view, and Regan inhaled deeply to try to stem the rapid galloping of her heartbeat. Her ears tingled at every sound and her mind tried to split those sounds to see if any were evidence of Colby drawing closer.
The car was now in full view. The windows were tinted darker than legally allowed. A four-door sedan.
Regan widened her stance to keep from toppling over and clutched the cooler to her abdomen to prevent her ill-advised dinner from traveling up and out.
The car stopped and killed its engine.
And then...just sat there.
Nothing moved. The night was as silent as the hospital morgue at midnight.
Regan bit i
nto her lip. What was she supposed to do, exactly? Approach the car? Wait?
She squared her shoulders and dropped the cooler to the ground. If they wanted it, they’d have to come get it.
The door opened, its hinges creaking like every storybook haunted house before the maniacal serial killer came out wielding a bloody knife.
Regan folded her hands together to steady their shaking.
A man stood. Even with her eyes adjusted to the darkness, it was hard for Regan to make out his features. He wore sunglasses and had a ball cap pulled low.
“Dr. Lockhart, good of you to join us this evening.”
“Where is my daughter? Where is Olivia?”
“First, I need you to walk the cooler over here.”
Colby’s presumption came to the forefront of her mind—that what these men really wanted was her, as well. She couldn’t let that happen. Regan picked up the cooler and began to walk backward, away from the car. It wasn’t what Colby had advised, but felt right to her in the moment.
“I’m not going anywhere with this cooler until I see that my daughter is alive. If I were you, I’d pull her out of that car right now.”
Regan stopped and clenched her fists. Her voice stronger than she felt—a steely edge to it she’d never heard before. Pure anger and fear fueled by a seemingly open-ended stream of stress hormones.
The back door of the car opened and another man got out, leaned down and pulled a figure from the back of the car.
Regan’s knees almost buckled. Though she couldn’t see clearly, everything about the child’s silhouette and demeanor cried to every cell in her mother’s body that Olivia was alive.
At least for the moment.
Regan pressed her lips together. She picked the cooler up and walked farther back. Her goal was to get enough distance between them for her and Olivia to run once Regan had a hold of her—the cooler far enough away that they’d be more concerned with grabbing it and its contents to hopefully give Regan enough time to scurry away with her daughter.
“Dr. Lockhart, that’s not wise,” the man called to her.
She stopped. The end of the road evidently.
“This stays back here. Olivia and I will meet in the middle. Once I have her then you can do whatever you want with the cooler.”
The man turned away from her and conversed with the other figure that had emerged from the back of the vehicle.
They muscled Olivia to walk toward Regan.
The distance between them seemed impossibly far apart. Regan left the cooler and walked to her daughter, watching every nuance of her steps to discern if she was okay. Olivia’s hair was tangled, frizzy. Her shoulders shuddered from crying.
Colby’s instructions swarmed through Regan’s mind. Walk slowly. Keep your wits about you. Look for anything that seems off...seems dangerous.
Regan’s love for Olivia dispelled any measure of safety and Regan broke into a run toward her daughter, her arms outstretched, her feet pummeling the dirt path.
A few steps away from Olivia, a sharp crack broke the still night. A sharp pain in Regan’s neck stopped her cold. She reached up and felt not blood, but something cold and metallic sticking out from her flesh.
She yanked it. Her vision blurred and she fell to her knees.
Olivia, sweet Olivia, closed the distance and wrapped her arms around her mother, weeping, unable to speak words except, “I’m sorry.”
Regan wanted to wrap her arms around her daughter. To comfort her. To speak words that would reassure her that everything was going to be okay. But her arms didn’t respond to the urgent impulses from her brain and her words came out like jumbled alphabet soup.
Regan slumped to the ground.
“Mom. Mom!” Olivia’s eyes were wild with fear as her head hovered above her.
Run. Run! The words a moan from her lips. Her vision spun wildly and she clenched her eyes to avoid the sensation of falling over a cliff.
“Olivia! Run!”
Not her voice.
Colby’s.
* * *
Colby watched, his face hot, as Regan did everything he’d instructed her not to do. Taunting criminals at a ransom drop-off had to be the first thing listed on what not to do when dealing with the underbelly of society.
He’d positioned himself approximately four hundred yards away under the small shield of three pine trees. Not great cover but enough for the little light that remained. He’d seen the car drive in off the main road.
Even from that distance, every mannerism of Regan’s body beaconed fear. Her rigid, shaky stance. Her straightforward stare. Her head barely moving side to side to see if any other threat was present.
Which was why when she ran straight toward Olivia, she didn’t see one of the two men raise his weapon at her, the shot off before Colby could even blink.
He broke from the trees as Regan reached for her neck and fell to her knees.
“Olivia! Run!”
Regan’s daughter looked but didn’t respond to his command. Colby raised his weapon and fired three successive shots over the heads of the kidnappers. Instead of turning tail and fleeing, they hunkered down behind their open car doors.
Colby was in open field with no cover to duck behind. He was ten steps away from Regan when the first projectile whistled past his ear.
He dove into the ground, sliding right next to Regan. Olivia was shaking her mom, attempting to wake her up. Colby fired three more shots in the direction of the car, mostly to keep them pinned until a plan came to fruition in his mind.
Olivia backed away from him. Could he blame her? She didn’t know if he was good or bad. For all she knew, he was simply some deranged man screaming her name from the copse of a few trees. After all, she’d already been kidnapped. Had she also witnessed what happened to Polina? Colby reached forward and pulled Olivia to the ground.
“Stay down. I’m a friend of your mom’s.”
“Is she dead?” Her voice was more whimper than question.
Colby shook his head—more as a wish than a statement of fact. He didn’t know. Didn’t want it to be true. Not only for Olivia’s sake.
But his own.
He placed his hand on Regan’s chest and felt a faint rise confirm her breathing. The distance between them and the car was perhaps a mere two hundred feet, but how did he get Regan, currently incapacitated, likely drugged, and her daughter to safety? He glanced back to the white-and-red cooler that was equally as far away.
He fired a round at the cooler. A glancing blow but it knocked it over.
“Whoever you are—that’s not a wise decision.”
“If you want the cooler, the three of us get to go.”
“Then start walking.”
“Let me see you!” Colby yelled. “Walk away from the car—hands up.”
A faint shock rolled through Colby’s body when they complied.
Something’s not right here. That was too fast. Too easy.
Against his better judgment, Colby holstered his weapon. He scooped up Regan and settled her over his shoulder.
They want to take her, which is why they drugged her. They’re not letting us out of here. I’m missing something.
Holding Regan’s body with one arm, he held his other hand out for Olivia. “Please, take my hand.”
She was shaking, crying. How could he build trust with this young girl under these circumstances?
“Olivia, take my hand right now. I won’t hurt you. I’m trying to help.”
She reached her hand out with tentative fingers and he clutched it quickly, before she could change her mind, and began to walk backward, slowly. Olivia’s steps faltered beside his, a physical expression of the uncertainty in her mind.
The two men stayed where they were with their han
ds raised. Colby picked up his pace.
He felt the sting to his arm before he heard the sound. The two men never moved. Someone else. Someone else had been waiting. Watching.
“Looks like we beat you here!” one of the two men yelled.
Whatever the drug was, it didn’t take long to course through his system and affect his muscles. He staggered and, before he dropped Regan entirely, fell to his knees and laid her on the ground.
Olivia screamed as he fell. With sloppy, uncontrolled movements, he reached up and felt the dart but didn’t have the strength to remove it.
Too late anyway.
His hand flopped across his body for his weapon. The motion drained every last vestige of energy, his head swimming violently, so much worse than when Regan had tased him.
Just before he lost consciousness, he heard gravel crunching beneath footsteps as the two men from the car approached.
“The early bird gets the worm as they say. Guess you weren’t early enough.”
NINE
The first sensation that registered in Regan’s mind was a bone-chilling coldness like she was lying on a slab of ice. Her eyes were heavy, unable to open despite her attempts. She tried to lift her cheek away from the cold, and it immediately fell back onto an unforgiving, hard surface.
Time was fuzzy. If she had to guess—she’d say it was the next morning. Day three of her life upending itself.
She pressed her hands down and attempted a feeble push-up. The strength required, she didn’t possess. Her world swam violently as if she was being held captive in a dinghy as it was violently being tossed in hurricane-fueled waves. She swallowed what little moisture she held in her mouth over a tongue that felt two times larger than normal. Her lips were dry and cracked.
Forcing her eyes open didn’t improve her situation. The room was dark. Was it night? Was it the same night? She smoothed her hand over the cement, away from her, until it bumped against something warm and squishy.
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