Every Waking Moment

by Meryl Sawyer

Caleb was dozing in a chair, but Vanessa was awake.

  “Taylor hasn’t called?” Shane knew the answer to the question before he asked.

  “No,” Vanessa said.

  “He wants us to sweat, but if this is about the Web site, he’ll have her call soon.”

  “Do you think he might let her go if we do as he says?” asked Vanessa.

  “I seriously doubt it. He doesn’t realize we know he’s involved. He can’t afford to let her live.”

  “I agree,” Doyle said. “We have to find her before it’s too late.”

  “Why don’t we all get some sleep,” Shane suggested. “We want to be fresh in the morning.”

  “Good idea,” Doyle said.

  “Tomorrow at nine when the offices open, I’m going to check rental agencies,” Shane told them. “I doubt if he purchased a house, but I’m having the group check the real estate agencies, after they cover the health clubs, just in case.”

  “I had Maria make up a guest room,” Vanessa said. “You and Auggie may sleep there.”

  Shane thanked her and left for the bedroom with the report the private detective had given Vanessa after he investigated Ashton. He doubted he could sleep, but he was determined to try.

  He needed to stay as sharp as possible. He was so upset he had to force himself to concentrate.

  He read the report. Vince was right. Masters didn’t seem to be too hot a detective. He was pretty vague about many details, making Shane think he’d deliberately padded the bill.

  Masters had managed to follow Ashton all over the place. He’d seen him sell a minor amount of cocaine. There were even a few snapshots of the transactions.

  Chapter 32

  By morning, Taylor had a plan. It was a long shot at best, but it was something.

  On the bed next to her, Paul stirred. He hadn’t touched her. Thank you, God. She’d been forced to pee in the bucket, which was humiliating enough without having Paul try to have sex with her.

  “My arm hurts,” she said more loudly than necessary.

  She wanted to wake him up. She needed to get Paul to put the handcuffs on her left hand. She was much better with her right hand.

  His eyelids at half-mast, he gazed at her, grunted, then rolled over. She nudged him with her knee.

  “For Christ’s sake, let me get some sleep.”

  “It’s nearly eleven o’clock.”

  This was a lie, but it got his attention.

  He vaulted out of bed, then looked at his watch.

  “What? It’s barely eight.”

  “It seems later. I am not wearing my wristwatch.” A major mistake. If she had it on, Shane would have found her by now.

  He pulled a banana out of a grocery bag and wagged it at her. “Want something to eat?”

  “No, but please switch the handcuffs to the other side. My arm is killing me.”

  “Quit nagging. I’ll do it in a minute.”

  He went outside and she could hear him going to the bathroom in the bushes. She said a quick prayer that her plan would work.

  Paul returned and pulled the key to the handcuffs out of his pocket. “I’m going to leave them off for a minute while you call your mother.”

  He unlocked the handcuffs and put them on the other side of the bed. Next time her left hand would be tethered to the bedpost. She wiggled her fingers, trying to get back as much circulation as possible.

  Handing her a cell phone he’d taken out of the duffel bag, he said, “Call your mother. Tell her no one is to touch the Web site even to take orders. Tell her if she does it, the kidnappers will release you. Get it? Kidnappers. Plural.”

  “Why don’t you let me go after I make the call?”

  “I might.” He ran his index finger across her lips. “If you’re good.”

  He was lying. She’d be dead if her plan didn’t work. She studied the keypad on the cell phone.

  “Go on. Call Vanessa. Tell her exactly what I said, but don’t mention my name.”

  “What if she asks who has me?”

  “Say you don’t know their names.”

  Taylor dialed the number, and her mother answered on the second ring with a feeble hello.

  “It’s me.”

  “Thank God. I’ve been so worried. Are you all right?”

  Taylor detected a hallow sound, indicating her mother had put the call on the speaker phone, which meant there were others in the room. Taylor prayed Shane was there. Someone else might not understand what she planned to do.

  “Yes. I’m okay.”

  “Hurry up. Get on with it,” Paul whispered.

  “I’m going to be released if you do exactly what I tell you.”

  As she spoke, Taylor pressed the 2 and the 7 on the small cell phone pad.

  Paul didn’t seem to notice. He turned to rummage in the cooler.

  She pressed the 5, 3, and 9.

  “There’s some interference on the line,” her mother said.

  Taylor kept talking. “Mother, go to To The Maxx and make sure no one touches the Web site, not even to check for orders. Understand?”

  Paul had gotten a bottle of water. He threw back his head and drank it. Taylor again pressed the same sequence of numbers.

  “There’s a beeping noise on the line,” her mother said.

  “I don’t know who the kidnappers are, but they mean business.”

  Paul smiled, obviously pleased. He turned and searched through one of the grocery bags.

  Taylor punched in the numbers again.

  This time her mother didn’t mention it. Taylor bet someone in the room—probably Shane—had told her not to say anything.

  Paul turned to her. “Warn her not to call the police.”

  “Mother, if you call the police, I’ll be killed.”

  “I love you.” Her mother’s voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.

  “I love you, too,” she said. “Tell Shane I love him.”

  Paul yanked the phone out of her hand and hit. “End.”

  Tell Shane I love him.

  The way she’d said those words, almost a plea, brought a treacherous lump to Shane’s throat. He’d never heard that kind of emotion in her voice. It sent a shiver of sheer longing tripping up his spine.

  God, how he loved her.

  He hadn’t realized he was capable of such love. It came from a deep, secret place he hadn’t known existed.

  Doyle cut into his thoughts. “What was with the beeping? Why did you tell Vanessa not to mention it again?”

  “Taylor was trying to signal us with the phone pad, I think.”

  “It sounded like cell phone interference to me,” Caleb said.

  “No. It happened three times, and she ignored Vanessa’s comments about it. She didn’t want Ashton to know.”

  “She said kidnappers. Do you suppose there’s more than one?” asked Vanessa.

  “I doubt it. He just wants to throw us off.”

  Shane was thinking about the beeping, and Auggie was gazing up at him as if he’d recognized Taylor’s voice on the speaker phone. “I’ll run right over to the company and make sure no one uses the Web site.” Doyle walked toward the door. “I’ll make up some story about a virus.”

  As Doyle left, something occurred to Shane. “There are letters on the keypad. Maybe she was spelling out something.”

  “It was just beeps,” Vanessa said. “How do we know what numbers she was hitting?”

  Then it hit him. The Discovery channel program.

  “Each number on a telephone keypad has a slightly different tone. An electronic enhancer will tell us. Taylor and I saw it on a TV program. She was smart enough to remember it.”

  He grabbed the small tape recorder they’d used to record the conversation.

  “Recording studios have enhancers.”

  He rushed to his car and drove off toward Miami with Auggie. He used his cell phone to locate a recording studio. For a hefty fee, they would let him use their enhancer.

  Tell Shane I love him
.

  “I love you, too, babe. Don’t worry. I’m going to find you.”

  Shane looked at the numbers he’d gotten using the electronic enhancer. Taylor had pressed 2, 7, 5, 3, 9. She’d done it three times, selecting exactly the same numbers in the same sequence.

  The numbers probably weren’t a street address. It was too long for most of Miami, but he’d get Vince to check—just in case.

  The phone keypad letter clusters for those numbers were: abc, pqrs, jkl, def, and wxyz.

  It had to be a place, he decided. A word jumped out at him. The last three letters spelled key.

  Taylor was somewhere in the Keys, not in Miami at all.

  Which Key?

  There were only two letters left. They didn’t spell a complete word.

  Initials.

  It had to be initials.

  If only he were more familiar with the area. Remembering the private detective’s report, he rushed out to his car. Ashton had gone to the Keys several times to do drug deals, but the investigator hadn’t said which Keys.

  Shane took the map out of the glove compartment. There were so damn many Keys. Thirty-four major ones and countless blips without names.

  Big Pine Key jumped out at him.

  She had pressed the b and p. Had to be it.

  Why was the damn thing so big? It was one of the largest keys.

  He would search every inch if he had to. Auggie might be able to help. Another idea occurred to him.

  He used his cell phone to call Rick Masters. The PI had been down there. He might know where Ashton would go on that Key.

  Shane was surprised to find Masters in his office. The way his luck had been going, the guy might have been in Tibet on an assignment. He explained what he wanted.

  “You know, I’m not in this business for my health. I—”

  “I’ll give you my credit card number.”

  Shane yanked it from his wallet and rattled off the numbers. He didn’t bother to ask how much. If Taylor died, no amount of money could bring her back.

  “Yeah, I did tail him down to Big Pine Key a coupla’ times.”

  The detective’s voice alone conjured up the image of a Florida cracker who hated Cubans and had a beer belly slopping over his belt.

  “Fishin’s real big in Big Pine. So’s diving. There’s lots of canals—”

  “Where did Ashton go?”

  “I’m gettin’ to that part.”

  Shane heard him take a drag on a cigarette.

  “There’s this here shack fishermen used in the thirties. Since then better ones have been built. With air and fridges for beer.”

  “I’m familiar with them.”

  “I figure Mr. Ashton liked this one because it’s hidden. I had a helluva’ time tailin’ him out there ’cause nobody goes to that part of the Key.”

  Taylor watched Paul leave, her jaw still smarting from when he’d slapped her. She had known saying it was a risk, but one worth taking.

  If she died, she wanted Shane to know how much she loved him.

  She wasn’t surprised Paul had been jealous enough to hit her. “He thinks he is God’s gift to women.”

  Once she’d thought so, too. Now, she knew better.

  Shane was the kind of man a woman could count on. Masculine yet surprisingly sensitive.

  Why hadn’t she told him how much he meant to her?

  Because she hadn’t realized the depth of her emotion until it was too late. Facing death makes you take stock of your life.

  Maybe that’s why her mother had changed so much. The elitist woman was able to take in a redneck like Caleb Bassett and accept a daughter who was a stripper. When death was imminent, it wasn’t what you had or who you knew that counted.

  Life was about loving and being loved.

  Taylor tried to imagine never seeing Shane again. Never being able to share anything with him.

  She’d thought she had loved Paul, but looking back, she realized they’d had a shallow, meaningless relationship based on sex and good times.

  Shane had come into her life when she was facing crisis after crisis. He’d been wonderful.

  Supportive.

  Helpful.

  “A man of action, not just words,” she muttered under her breath.

  Her thoughts turned to her mother and Trent. Uncle Doyle and Brianna. She might never see any of them again. She might not have the chance to tell them how much they meant to her.

  The pain of what she stood to lose reverberated through her, a keening cry of despair that took sheer willpower to suppress. Her chest ached with tears she refused to shed.

  “Purge those negative thoughts,” she said out loud.

  She prayed Shane remembered the Discovery channel program and had decoded her keypad message. She didn’t know what else to do. Paul had taken the duffels with the cell phones and the guns with him.

  Even if she somehow managed to get the drop on him, Taylor realized she was still handcuffed to the bed. Maybe she could convince him to switch hands again, and attack him before he could recuff her.

  “Wait a day or so,” she told herself. “If help doesn’t come, you’ve got to give it a shot.”

  Paul had gone to someplace that had electricity so he could plug in his laptop and see which of his contacts had checked in at the Web site. When they’d all contacted him, Taylor’s time would be up.

  He wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.

  Shane followed the smarmy detective’s directions down the long highway where the ocean came within six feet of his Jeep in places. Sure as hell, he wouldn’t want to be on this road during a hurricane.

  It was dark now, the sun having set two hours ago. After decoding the message, Shane had immediately driven out of Miami with Auggie. He’d put his gun in the trunk of the car. He’d left a message for Vince on his cell phone, but he hadn’t bothered to contact anyone else.

  “No one but Vince can help me,” he told Auggie.

  He’d considered calling the police, but if Ashton even thought the police were around, he would kill Taylor on the spot.

  “I have to rely on myself.”

  And the Glock in the trunk of his car. The lightweight gun had only been fired on a practice range.

  Shane had been in some tough spots, but he’d never actually had to kill a man. He’d wounded several during a firefight in Cuidad del Este, the terrorist haven in South America.

  “This time might be different. Right, Auggie?”

  Auggie gazed at him as if he actually understood. Shane tried to remember when he’d last fed the dog.

  “I’ll make it up to you, boy. A Big Mac once we have Taylor with us.”

  Big Pine Key bustled with life as he turned off MM 33. Masters was right. It appeared to be a haven for fishermen and divers.

  He drove by Barnacle Bed and Breakfast. The sign read: barefoot oceanfront living with panache.

  Yeah, right.

  Masters had told him the B and B had been built in the shape of a star, but all Shane could see were odd angles. Nearby was another B and B. Hansel and Gretel must have designed it.

  He sped by, then began looking for the dirt side road leading out to the fishing shanty.

  “What if she isn’t there?” he asked Auggie. “What if I misinterpreted the message?”

  The dog gazed up at Shane with such soulful eyes that he almost missed the side road. It went on for over a mile, the way Masters had said, fizzling out from anything resembling a road to become little more than weed-choked tracks in the dirt. It led him into a thicket of dense shrubs, too short to be trees, too tall and thick to be ordinary bushes.

  It was darker than Hades; the only light visible came from his car. If Master’s directions were correct, he was getting close. His headlights would tip off Ashton and ruin Shane’s plans.

  He parked the car, put his cell phone on the dash, and rolled down the windows. It was night but hot and as humid as a steam room. Auggie’s brains would fry if he left him in the car with the
windows up.

  “Stay,” he told Auggie.

  He went around to the trunk and pulled the Glock out of its case. Why hadn’t he brought a flashlight? The night air sheened him with perspiration as he trudged down the dirt road into the darkness.

  Around the bend, he saw a dim light.

  Chapter 33

  Taylor stared at the cobwebs trailing from the ceiling, while Paul typed something on his laptop. She tried to calculate how long it would take for Shane to realize she’d been sending a message and decipher it.

  What if her mother hadn’t contacted Shane?

  It was possible, she decided, but Uncle Doyle or Brianna would have told Shane what had happened. She needed to stay calm. It was too soon to expect help to arrive.

  “Know what the most common crime in America is?”

  She asked the question to annoy him. She’d been doing it since he returned and it gave her a perverse thrill.

  “Cheating the IRS,” he said without looking up.

  “WRONG! That’s number two. It’s jaywalking.”

  He shot her a warning glance. “Don’t interrupt me with any more of your trivia crap. I’m trying to concentrate.”

  That’s why I’m hassling you.

  Through the grimy window, she saw a movement. It could be a nighthawk. Big Pine Key was full of them.

  She watched the window out of the corner of her eye. If it was Shane, she didn’t want to attract Paul’s attention. The window was directly in front of him. He was concentrating on his laptop, but the satchel with the guns was at his feet.

  BANG! The door burst open with a shower of splinters and the doorknob smashed a hole in the flimsy plank wall. Shane strode into the room, a gun leveled at Paul.

  A rush of relief coursed through Taylor—so intense it brought scalding tears to her eyes. In her heart of hearts, she’d never given up hope. Somehow she’d known Shane would decipher her message.

  “What the fuck?” Baffled shock contorted Paul’s face. The laptop dropped to the floor.

  “Unlock the handcuffs—now.”

  “Shane, be careful. He has a bag of guns at his feet.”

  “Hands in the air,” Shane yelled.

  Paul slowly raised his arms.

  “The key to the handcuffs is in his pocket.”

  “Slowly reach into your pocket and get the key,” Shane said.