by Linda Turner
Her teeth starting to chatter with icy anticipation, she locked her jaw, struggling for a control that was momentarily beyond her. Sick fear twisted deep inside her like a coiling rattler. Spill her guts about what? she wondered in growing confusion as her head throbbed painfully with every beat of her heart. What could she possibly know about anything that this man would be interested in?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered hoarsely, forcing the words through her dry throat. “Who are you? What do you want?”
He laughed at that, the sound low and mocking and dangerous. “What do I want?” he mimicked. “How stupid do you think I am, lady? I want the location of that damn warehouse and you’re going to give it to me. So save the innocent act for somebody who appreciates it. I ain’t got time for it.”
Her upper arms numb from the unrelieved pressure of her position and the tight bindings at her wrist, she shifted in her seat to face him. “But—”
Her gaze lifted to his…and widened in confused horror, familiarity pulling at her, teasing her, taunting her, scaring her spitless. He had golden eyes, she thought wildly, swallowing a sob as her head started to spin. Golden, sinister eyes—just like the villain in the newest Ace MacKenzie book.
And she was bound and kidnapped—just like Susannah Rawlings’s latest heroine.
No! she cried silently, the roar of her blood loud in her ears. This was crazy. She was crazy! There was no other explanation. People only fell down rabbit holes in Alice in Wonderland. It had to be that blow to the head she’d taken—it had scrambled her brains. This might look and feel real, but she was still unconscious, still flat on the floor at the newsstand, dreaming about the last thing she’d read before she’d somehow knocked herself silly. Any minute now, she’d wake up and laugh at her own foolishness.
But long seconds passed, and with every tick of the clock, the nightmare became more and more real. With her eyes closed and all her senses attuned to her surroundings, she could feel the car sway as it took a corner, smell the heavy, cloying cologne of the man who sat next to her in the driver’s seat. Bile backing up in her throat, threatening to choke her, she started to shake.
She wasn’t dreaming!
She didn’t have a clue as to how it had happened, but she was at this man’s mercy, and one glance at his ruthless face told her that was one virtue he was fresh out of. If she so much as looked at him wrong, he would make her wish she’d never been born.
Think! she ordered herself sternly. This was all just a mixup, a stupid mistake that could be easily corrected. The man obviously had the wrong person. Once she convinced him of that, surely he’d let her go.
Grabbing on to that thought as if it was a lifeline, she turned pleading eyes to his wicked, golden ones and tried not to show her revulsion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said shakily, shattering the chilling silence. “Really, I don’t!” she cried when he only snorted in disbelief. “I just work nights at the newsstand and don’t know anything about a warehouse. The shelves are stocked by the time I clock in every evening. I don’t even know where the inventory is stored.”
“I don’t give a damn about that inventory,” he snapped impatiently, “and you know it. It’s the other I want. And you’re going to give it to me. You hear?”
“What other?” she asked, frowning in bewilderment. “I don’t know of any other.”
The look he shot her was hard and brutal and sharp as a well-honed knife. “You damn well better know, sister, ‘cause that’s the only thing that’s keeping you alive. You hear me? If you ain’t got what I need in that pretty little head of yours, then I ain’t got no use for you. Capishe?”
She blanched, panic closing as tight as a strangler’s hands around her throat. He was going to kill her. Snuff her out like a candle. Dump her lifeless body in the woods somewhere or, worse yet, fit her with cement boots and toss her in the river while she was still kicking and fighting and begging for her life. There would be no one to hear, of course, no one to help. He’d choose a secluded spot on the Jersey shoreline, somewhere that was dark and deserted, and with her hands bound behind her, there wouldn’t be a thing she could do to stop him. The water would close around her with terrifying swiftness, cutting off her screams, her air….
No!
A silent scream of denial echoing through the canyons of her head, she violently shoved the graphic scene out of her head. She wouldn’t let him do this, wouldn’t let him demoralize her with her own fearful imaginings so that she was virtually helpless with terror by the time he decided to make his move. She had to do something, had to keep her wits about her and find a way to escape. Because there was no superhero out there in the dark, no caped crusader just waiting for the chance to swoop down and rescue her.
She was thoroughly and completely on her own.
Her heart thundered at the thought, the frantic beat echoing all the way down to her toes. Feeling herself start to shake again, she dragged in a quick breath, but it did little to calm her jittery nerves. God, she had to do something, come up with a plan. Don’t just sit there like a bump on a log, for heaven’s sake! she told herself fiercely. There had to be a way out of this mess. If she could get her hands untied without her kidnapper knowing, then grab the door handle, she could jump out the next time he slowed down for a corner.
Yeah, right, a voice drawled sarcastically in her head. And then what? You’re going to make a run for it? Gimme a break. You get winded just climbing the stairs to your apartment.
She winced, knowing this was no time to lie to herself. She wasn’t athletic, and if it came to a footrace, she could be in big trouble. But her kidnapper wasn’t exactly a longdistance runner himself, she decided, studying him through lowered lids in the darkness. Not if the beer gut hanging over his belt was anything to go by. And she was quick—for short distances. If she was lucky, she’d be safely hidden in the night by the time he was able to stop the car and come after her.
If she could get her hands free.
Never taking her eyes from his harshly carved profile in the darkness, she carefully twisted her hands and wrists, silently pulling against her rope bindings. But they held tight. Her teeth clenching on a surprising oath she hadn’t even realized she knew, she tried again. And again. The rough flax rubbed her skin raw…and didn’t give so much as an inch. Swallowing a sob, she blinked back hot tears, despair swamping her, threatening to drain the fight right out of her. No! She couldn’t do this! She couldn’t give up. Because if she did, she’d be dead.
All her concentration focused on finding a way out of her bindings, Maddy never saw the battered pickup truck that came flying out of a dark alley on the left. But her kidnapper did. Swearing, he jerked the steering wheel to the right, but he was a split second too late. The pickup slammed into them, crashing into the Riviera’s left front fender.
With her arms bound and no seat belt in place to protect her, Maddy went flying. She slammed against the passenger door, her head and right shoulder cracking the window before she went careening back the other way toward her kidnapper. She only had time to cry out in fright and pain before the car started to spin. A blur of dark colors swirling before her dazed eyes, she groaned and weakly tried to brace herself for the next blow.
It happened so fast, she didn’t have time to do anything but gasp. One second the car seemed to be spinning on an axis of its own, and the next it smacked headfirst into a light pole that refused to budge so much as an inch. Hurtling toward the windshield, Maddy screamed as her glasses went flying and she found herself face-to-face with certain death.
Later, she never knew if she actually hit the windshield or not. Battered and bruised, blood trickling down her forehead from a cut near her hairline, she collapsed against the seat like a broken doll. How long she lay there, shuddering, she couldn’t have said. It could have been seconds, minutes. Urgency pulled at her, nudging her to get out of there. Now! While her kidnapper was too stunned to realize she was escapin
g!
Her heart thundering with panic, she jerked upright and shot a quick, apprehensive glance at her companion. Without her glasses, everything was fuzzy, but she could just make out his blurred figure slumped over the steering wheel.
Run! a voice screamed in her aching head.
But the punishment her body had taken finally hit and she was suddenly very uncoordinated and moving in slow motion. The door handle, she thought groggily, feeling blindly for it. She had to reach the door handle….
But before she could find it in the dark with her cold, stiff fingers, the door was wrenched open. Startled, she glanced up…and gasped at the sight of the stranger standing in the V made by the open door and the car body.
In the shadows of the night, he was larger than life, a giant of a man who towered over her like a dark, avenging angel. Dressed in black from his booted feet to the wellworn leather biker’s jacket that encased his impossibly broad shoulders, he looked hard, stern, dangerous. There was no softness to him, not in the long black hair that curled around his collar or in the lean, angular planes of his roughhewn face or a jaw that appeared to be as rigid as granite. Still, Maddy might have thought he was a good-looking devil…until she got a good look at his eyes. Dark as pitch, they could have been black or indigo or any color in between and were the eyes of a man who let nothing get in his way. Razor sharp with purpose, they were cold, determined, as unyielding as a brick wall.
Transfixed, too shocked by his sudden appearance to move, she could only stare at him. Then she heard a hissing click in the silence and saw the knife he clutched like a street fighter in his right hand. Small and deadly, it caught the light of a distant streetlight, its well-honed blade four inches long if it was an inch.
Her heart stopped dead in her chest. Her gaze locked on the switchblade, she felt hysterical laughter gurgle in her throat. First a kidnapper, and now a knife-wielding bandit. Talk about having a bad night! This couldn’t be happening. Not really. It was just a result of the combination of the pastrami she’d had for supper and a blow to the head. Any second now, she was going to come to her senses before this ridiculous dream got completely out of hand. ’ God, oh, God, please let me wake up now, she pleaded silently. Let me be safe and sound in my own bed and not worry how I got there.
But in spite of her prayer, the man before her didn’t disappear in a puff of smoke as she had vainly hoped. Instead, he appeared frighteningly real and solid. And he was reaching for her! Horrified, she whimpered and pulled back, shaking her aching head. “No! Please—”
“Look, honey,” he growled in disgust, “I don’t play Superman for just anyone, so don’t give me a hard time, okay? We’ve only got a few seconds before your friend there comes around and I’d just as soon be long gone before that happens.” Not giving her a chance to argue further, he jerked her around until her back was to him, inserted the knife between her wrists and neatly slit the rope that bound her. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”
With the assurance of a man who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed, he pocketed the switchblade with a smooth, practiced motion, grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her out of the Buick as if she were a particularly bothersome child. Tugging her over to his pickup, which sat arrogantly abandoned in the middle of the street and looked none the worse for wear despite a head-on confrontation with the Riviera, he hoisted her up into the passenger seat. At her gasp, he flashed her a wicked grin and slammed the door.
Her pulse skittering and her temples throbbing with pain, Maddy tried to grab on to one of the outraged objections buzzing around in her head long enough to force it through her dry throat, but she couldn’t quite manage the task. She had to get out of here! So what if her rescuer claimed to be the next best thing to Superman? He said himself he didn’t do it for just anyone, and talk was cheap. No decent man handled a switchblade with such practiced ease, let alone carried one in his pocket.
And he had a gun.
Her breath lodging in her lungs, she stared in horror at the pistol he pulled from inside his black leather biker’s jacket as he walked around the hood of the pickup to the driver’s side. It was small and ugly and seemed to fit the palm of his hand as if it was made for it. And he knew how to use it. Turning suddenly, he fired three times at the Riviera.
Startled, Maddy screamed and instinctively flinched, covering her ears, but her companion didn’t so much as blink. Continuing around the front of the pickup, he jerked open the driver’s door and climbed inside.
Alarmed, Maddy almost jumped from the vehicle right then and there. She didn’t know this man, had no reason to trust him. Sure, he had saved her, but for what? Himself?
Torn by indecision, the throbbing in her head intensifying so that she could hardly think straight, she glanced at the incapacitated Buick and saw the man slumped over the steering wheel groggily lift his head. A shudder of revulsion rippled through her. If she made the mistake of stepping out of the pickup, she knew he would be on her like a snake on a baby chick. And this time, no dark stranger would come crashing to her rescue. She’d be on her own. And with her glasses gone and her shoulder and head one big ache, she’d never stand a chance against him. Sinking back against the seat, she jerkily reached for her seat belt.
Beside her, she had no idea that the man at her side was watching every nuance of her expression until she glanced over and found him studying her with eyes that missed little. She didn’t say a word, but she apparently didn’t have to to have him read her like an open book. His mouth quirking with a tight, approving smile, he nodded as if she’d just passed some hidden test.
“Smart move, Snow White,” he murmured in a raspy voice. His dark eyes still trained on hers, he reached over and hit the electronic door locks, locking her kidnapper out…and her in. A second later, they were racing off into the night.
With total disregard for traffic laws, he darted down side streets, took corners at the last minute and even, on one occasion, raced the wrong way down a one-way street, weaving in and out of the oncoming cars like a marine darting up a beach littered with mines. Or a thief who had vast experience eluding the police, a voice whispered in Maddy’s head.
Her eyes locked in horrified fascination on the man at her side, she whispered, “Who are you?”
He had been expecting the question for some time and could have, had he chosen, given her any one of a dozen different names. He had IDs for all of them in his wallet and had, when the occasion demanded it, been known to go by two or more at the same time. Then he remembered the book she’d been reading when Cement Johnny had sent the magazine rack slamming down on the back of her head. Grinning slightly at the ironies of fate, he told her the truth…sort of. “Ace.”
Whatever reaction he was expecting, it wasn’t the one he got. The last of the blood drained from her cheeks, leaving her eyes huge in her suddenly ashen face. Looking at him as if he were some kind of monster who had just stepped out of her worst nightmare, she shook her head dazedly, the trembling fingers of one hand coming up to rub at her temple. “No. It isn’t possible. My head…I hit my head. That explains it….”
The angry blare of a horn snapped his attention back to his driving, and with a muttered curse, he dodged another car before swiftly turning into the correct flow of traffic on another one-way street. By the time he turned back to the woman at his side, her eyes were rolling back in her head.
“Whoa, babe, don’t pass out on me now!” Lightning quick, he grabbed her by the back of her slender neck and forced her head down to her knees. “Just take slow, easy breaths. You’re going to be fine.”
“I’m not your babe.”
The faint protest was dignified and indignant…and murmured into her lap. His grin flashing in the darkness, Ace had to agree with her. No doubt about it, she wasn’t his type, thank God. He preferred blondes, ones with a little meat on their bones who couldn’t handle too much machinery. The kind who didn’t ask questions or expect anything more from him than a couple of hours o
f mutual pleasure. From what he’d seen of Maddy Lawrence, she missed on all counts. Skinny as a rail, with mousy brown hair, she made no attempt to hide the intelligence in her eyes. As for pleasure, Ace had watched her every night for a week now and there was no question that she was as prim and proper as an old-maid schoolteacher. If a man wanted warmth, he’d do well to go looking for it somewhere else.
But the skin at the back of her neck was soft under his hand, her hair silky as it brushed his fingertips—which was something he’d rather not have noticed. Scowling, he released her abruptly and jerked his attention back to his driving. “Right,” he said flatly as she popped upright like a jack-in-the-box. “You belong to Sneakers, don’t you?” His mouth twisted with distaste. “I guess there’s no accounting for taste, but I tell you, brown eyes, I don’t know how you climb into bed with the slimeball. He must be really good between the sheets.”
“Between the—ooh!” Suddenly realizing what he was accusing her of, Maddy gasped as if he’d struck her. “How dare you!”
Not the least perturbed, he shot her a crooked grin. “You stick around me long enough, babe, and you’ll learn there’s not a whole helluva lot I won’t dare. So save the innocent act for someone who appreciates it. I’d rather hear about Sneakers.”
“Sneakers who?” she demanded, confusion warring with anger in her eyes. “I don’t know anyone by that ridiculous name.”
“Sure you don’t,” he mocked cynically. “And I suppose you don’t know anything about the warehouse, either, do you?”
Surprised, Maddy blanched, fear sliding like a chunk of ice down her spine. “Oh, God,” she whispered, cringing away from him. “Not you, too. Has the whole world gone crazy? I don’t know anything about a warehouse—I swear it! I told the other man, but he didn’t believe me. He was going to…” Just thinking about what the fat little toad had planned for her sickened her stomach. Dragging in a cleansing breath, she said faintly, “This is all some kind of weird dream—it has to be.”
