by Dale Mayer
He sat down at the table to see a chat box had brought up more information. He quickly jumped back into his research, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the warm and incredible woman he’d been holding for the last twenty minutes and how much he wanted to go back and hold her all over again.
Chapter 10
When Amanda woke up later that same morning, she lay in bed, her mind still hazy and fuzzy. She had memories of warm arms wrapped around her, and it took her a moment to take stock and to realize she was alone in her bed. So, had that been a dream? She cast her mind back to earlier this morning, remembering the number of times she’d gone over to Brandon to soothe and ease the child back into sleep.
And her related conversation with Kerrick popped into her mind. She flushed, remembering how much she’d wanted him to come and lie beside her, wanting, like Brandon, to feel safe and secure, if only for a moment. And the fact that Kerrick had? … It had helped as she’d dropped into a deep sleep and even now felt one hundred times better. Her body and her mind would still take some time to recover, but she’d come a long way and all because of a good sleep. She slowly sat up and yawned. And looked over to see Griffin. She stretched and yawned again.
He smiled and said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she said in a low voice, realizing from the light in the room that it was morning. “What time is it?”
“It’s after nine,” he said. “You slept well.”
She stared at him in surprise and softly exclaimed, “I never sleep in.”
“Well, there were extenuating circumstances this time,” he said with a smile.
She nodded. “I’m glad to see Brandon is still sleeping.”
“Absolutely. Kerrick’s gone to shower and change,” he said. “At ten o’clock we’ll eat, whether Brandon’s awake or not.”
She chuckled at that. “It’s guaranteed to wake him up if you bring food in here.” She laid back down on the bed, content to just lie under the covers, feeling the softness under her back, knowing that her time in that nightmarish prison was over with. “Did you guys get any more answers?”
“Some but not too many. There’s no sign of your ex or Hinkleman, but our people are watching for them. We’ve got the research on your company happening, and, according to the administrators, Hinkleman has taken a three-month leave of absence.”
She snorted at that. “A sabbatical?”
“I don’t know if you can call it that when it’s from a company, at least one like this,” he said. “But it’s a leave of absence. That’s all they would say.”
“Well, I might be able to get them to say more, as a shareholder, but you probably have as much access as I do,” she said, losing half the words in yet another yawn. She repeated her statement and then said, “But I need to be a little more awake for that.”
“Well, I can offer you instant coffee or instant coffee,” he said cheerfully.
She struggled with the concept and carefully said, “Caffeine is caffeine, and I can’t afford to be choosy right now.”
“True enough.” He got up and put on the teakettle. “When I said it was nine, I really meant it was nine-twenty. So, it’s almost nine-thirty now. Caffeine will help to get you awake and alert.”
Amanda nodded, went into the bathroom, and washed her face. Her hair was a mess, having slept on it while wet. She hadn’t even braided her shoulder-length locks. It was almost too short for a braid now, though, having cut it a few weeks before she had been taken prisoner. She ran her fingers through it, to loosen it up, and then took the brush to it. She smiled as she held the brush. The guys had a bag of toiletries for her, but none for Brandon. After all, they were only expecting to rescue her. By the time she brushed out the tangles in her hair, she felt a little bit better and a little more cognizant.
As she stepped out of her bathroom, Kerrick walked out of the bathroom in his adjoining motel room. Once all four of them were together in their rooms, the adjoining door had never been closed between them. He only had a towel wrapped around him as he sorted through clothes on the bed. She immediately averted her gaze but not before she saw the lean muscle, the sculpted abs, and that careful, and yet, very contained can-do determination on his face. She didn’t want her first meeting with him to be awkward, but now it felt even more awkward.
She walked back to her bed, quickly made it up under Griffin’s curious eyes, and then sat down at the table across from him. He nudged a cup of black liquid toward her. She stared at it and tried hard not to curl her lip.
“I know how you feel,” he said, laughing. “But remember that coffee is coffee right now. When we get some food in you, we can get some of the real stuff too, but …”
She nodded and tugged the cup a little bit closer. When it was cool enough, she lifted it and took a small sip. Like he said, coffee was coffee, and she really had no right to complain after the sludge she’d been fed the last couple days in her prison cell. As she sank back into her chair, Kerrick joined them on this side and cast her a curious glance. He didn’t appear worried by the previous event in the wee morning hours and didn’t look bothered by the daytime recognition of having slept together, in the strictest sense, where she felt both, only for different reasons.
“You look better,” he said.
She nodded. “I finally managed to get a deep sleep. Thanks.” She tried to keep her tone neutral and noncommittal. If he could talk to her like they were friendly strangers, that worked for her too. It’s not like they were any more than that. The fact that he was a stunning male and had held her so gently so she could go to sleep wasn’t something she wanted to bring up with Griffin here. But she appreciated it nonetheless. She motioned toward Brandon. “He’s still sound asleep.”
“The innocence of a child,” Kerrick said. “Oh, now we’re back to instant coffee too?” He looked at Griffin, raising a brow.
“You can go,” Griffin said. “The fresh air will help you out. I want to finish tidying up these notes first.”
“What are we going for?” she asked.
“Coffee and breakfast,” Griffin said without lifting his head.
“Do I get to choose what I want for breakfast?”
“As long as it comes from one of the two fast-food chains around the corner, yes,” Kerrick said cheerfully.
She winced. “I need a lot of food though. I’m really hungry.”
“I doubt it’s anything compared to what Brandon will need,” Kerrick said. “I’d ask if you wanted to come with me, but I don’t want you outside. We need to keep you hidden. We can’t take the chance that somebody is tracking you.”
“Could they find me if I was just walking around the corner?”
“It’s an intersection,” Griffin interrupted. “And that could quite easily mean cameras. And we use the street cameras ourselves for facial recognition to track anybody we can, so I suspect they will too.”
“Do we really think it’s that high class for Hinkleman and his crew?”
“No,” Kerrick said. “I doubt high class has anything to do with it. But a lot of money and time went into outfitting that prison and keeping you all fed. There were pallets and pallets of food in the loading docks, so chances are quite a few people are involved. And it wouldn’t take much to have security cams and traffic cameras searched. I’ve already done it myself to find the vehicle you were kidnapped in. That’s ultimately how I found you at the sanitorium.”
She looked at him in surprise. “We never did go over those details, did we?”
He gave her a half smile, paired with warm eyes. “You were a little tired.”
“And weak, true,” she said. “But that’s hardly an excuse.”
He cocked his head curiously. “You don’t let yourself off the hook much, do you?”
“I feel like I’m always playing catch-up,” she said, then smiled and nodded. “Well, I would much prefer to come along for the walk to get the food. But if you think it’s that dangerous …”
“We
can’t take the chance right now,” Griffin said, his tone a little brisker. “Kerrick, if you want to go now, we’ll try to rouse Brandon. In the meantime …”
Kerrick laughed and took the hint. He was out the door within seconds.
Amanda glanced at Griffin. “Is it safe for him to go alone?”
“It’s not safe to leave you guys alone,” Griffin answered quietly. “So, we stay together as much as possible, but one of us will always have to leave to run various errands.”
She nodded and sipped her coffee again. “I don’t even know anything about the two of you or how you came together or who sent you after us.”
“Unfortunately I have yet to find anybody who’s reported Brandon missing, not even his dad, Mr. Coleman,” he whispered, changing the topic. “I’m not sure how long Brandon was there either.”
Her gaze dropped to the sleeping boy, and she shook her head, whispering, “I only met him yesterday. He tapped Morse code on the floor of his cell, which was the ceiling of my cell, and I answered.”
“And how many people in the world,” Griffin said with a headshake, “could communicate via Morse code?”
“Well, thankfully he tried,” she said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known he was there.”
“How many doors did you try on his floor?”
“All of them,” she said immediately. “Also I tried every door I came to on my floor, but they were all locked except for one, a broom closet. Then I went up one floor, did the same, and found another closet where several coveralls were stored plus some keys, including the master key.”
He leaned forward and asked, “You serious?”
She got up and felt her pockets. Down at the bottom, she pulled out the key and held it up. “That’s how I got into Brandon’s cell.”
He looked at it and whistled.
“We need to go back and see if anybody’s left in that place,” Amanda said, sitting down hard and staring at him. “And we’ve wasted the rest of the night and this morning sleeping instead of helping them.”
“No need. Another group, like me and Kerrick, was there, keeping watch.”
“Well, they shouldn’t have let the kidnappers leave with those victims. The other team should have gone in and found as many of the victims as they could.”
“They’re also tracking where the kidnappers are taking their victims now. And I know that’s hard to hear, but this is more than just finding those kidnapped people. We have to go to the evil beginning of all this.”
She sagged into place, staring at him, and then shook her head. “Not if still more people are there.”
“If they haven’t already done that third check of the facility, I can get this key to somebody who will send in a team, and they’ll check every room.”
“I feel so terrible,” she whispered. “I should have remembered this last night.”
“Hey, this key is not the end of the world. Most of the guys in my world can get into those doors without a key. I know that a search was done, so let’s hold off until I can get more information.”
She nodded, but inside she felt sick to her stomach. “For those people to stay even one more night, it’s too much.”
“And the kidnappers are being followed and tracked too, but we also can’t afford to get involved in heavy gunfire where some of these patients might get hurt as collateral damage. You also have to consider that maybe they’ll kill some of these people in order to stop them from talking.”
“According to Brandon, they were all unconscious.”
“Which begs the question, why weren’t you and him?”
She frowned at him, but her mind was agile. “I was knocked out originally.”
“So maybe they didn’t need to drug you because you already couldn’t fight back.”
“Or because Hinkleman needed me lucid, at least at certain times.”
Just then Griffin’s phone went off with a weird buzzing sound. He lifted it, looked down, and smiled. “Kerrick’s ordering.”
“Can he carry it all back?”
Griffin nodded. “But it’ll be a lot just because of Brandon’s appetite.”
“Fine,” she said, “but I’d rather have news about that prison.”
He typed away on his laptop, and she stared at him suspiciously, wondering if he had access to information that he wasn’t sharing. But, of course, he did. She didn’t even know what group he was affiliated with. “What country do you work for?”
He lifted his head, stared at her, and smiled. “And why would you assume that I’m from another country?”
“Because of your accent,” she said.
“And what accent do I have?”
“American,” she said decisively. “Is this a US-government operation?”
“Well, if it is, it sure had better be with the agreement of England’s MI6 and MI5 divisions.”
She sank back on her chair. “Good luck with that. Everybody does the secret spy stuff. I wonder how much any country knows what goes on in another country, much less in their own backyard.”
“Just as a courtesy,” he said, “we always operate by letting people know where and what we’re up to.”
“Sure you do,” she said with a knowing smile. “But that doesn’t mean that they’ve acknowledged it or allowed it, have they?”
“We are here with the full agreement of your French government, the UK government, even Norway’s government.”
She wondered about that. “So my father’s behind this? Didn’t somebody say that he contacted you?” Griffin was silent on that, but she nodded. “Kerrick said something about that. He told me that my father put out the call.”
“Are you close to him?”
Her smile flashed. “Yes, we’re very close.”
“How close?”
She sipped her coffee several more times and studied him over in the rim of the cup. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“Would he have had a hand in keeping you as a prisoner?”
She shook her head in an instant. “No, of course not.”
Griffin didn’t say anything. He just continued to watch her steadily.
She could feel the flush walking up her cheeks, but she remained adamant. “No, he would not have been behind this. I’m surprised he still doesn’t have one of his security details following me around all the time, like he did during my college days. Because of his wealth and his life in politics, he’s become very defensive.” She stopped, inhaled a gasp, and stared. “He still has a security detail on me, doesn’t he?” Her gaze widened. “That’s how he knew I was missing, isn’t it?”
Griffin’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s something we can check.”
“We need to and then find out how they lost me. I believe Hinkleman said,” she recalled, as the memory flooded back in, “that somebody was trying to punish my father, I think. Or maybe it was blackmail.” She rubbed at her temples. “Sorry, the details are really fuzzy. I don’t know what damn drugs they gave me, but I’d wake up in the morning to realize that people had been in my cell while I was out cold. It’s a very disconcerting feeling.”
“How did you know?”
“The chamber pot had been emptied,” she said with a grimace. “I was really surprised at that, but they were full, so what can you do?”
“Well, if they wanted to keep you healthy, then they had to keep you disease-free. And that means emptying chamber pots,” he said with a nod. “The drug was probably just something to help you sleep deeper, so that they could come in and do what they needed to do without you waking up.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but it’s an awful feeling to wake up and to know that somebody has been there, looking at you while you sleep.”
“That stage of your life is over now. I’m surprised you slept as well as you did.”
She flushed but didn’t say anything. A voice from one of the beds saved her from that moment as Brandon called out, “Hello?”
What a painful and lonely cry, as if Bra
ndon were still at the prison. Amanda immediately stood, headed to the bed, and said, “Hey, glad you’re awake.”
He rubbed his eyes and sat up. “We really are safe, right?”
She nodded. “We really are, yes.”
He opened his arms, and she reached down, sitting on the edge of the bed, and hugged him.
“Thank you for helping me sleep in the night,” he said. “I kept waking up, thinking somebody bad was there, but it was always you.”
“Hey,” she said, “not an issue. I’m just happy that you’re doing okay. It was a pretty long night.”
“Yeah,” he said. He yawned and then rubbed his face back and forth against her shoulder. “And I’m still tired.”
“That’s because it’s been a rough couple days. Do you know how long you’ve been in that prison?”
“Nine nights.”
Amanda glanced at Griffin. He stared at Brandon in surprise. “So,” Griffin said, “you didn’t come in at the same time as Amanda?”
Amanda shook her head. “I was only there a few nights, I think. I honestly can’t tell you that because I don’t know how long I might have been drugged. For all I know, I was brought in the same time as these other people, and what I thought was my first day when I finally woke up could have been my second or third day there.” She frowned at that, not liking the idea at all. “What day is it?”
Griffin smiled. “Tuesday. The Tuesday after your kidnapping on the previous Sunday. So you were with the kidnappers about thirty-six hours.”
“Seemed longer,” Amanda said, turning to Brandon. “I’m so sorry you were there for so long.” She hugged him again. “The darkness distorted all my senses. Not to mention the drugs. So my stay felt interminable.”
Griffin said, “Let’s get you a little more awake, Brandon. Kerrick is coming back with food any moment now.”
