Enough. Just do it.
I snapped out of my internal freak-out and did as Nathan instructed. Why hadn’t I thought of this? It made me angry that I hadn’t. I knew I should give myself a break, that I was likely in shock, was injured and scared, but now wasn’t the time for weak emotions. Now was the time for action.
It took the map a long time to load. The screen went dark twice while I waited. I stood and began pacing, unable to sit a second longer. My knees wobbled as I walked, but I ignored it and continued moving.
Finally, my location pulled up.
Reading a map wasn’t one of my better abilities, so I took a screen shot and texted it to Nathan.
It failed the first time I tried to send it.
The second time took five minutes, but it went through. By the time the job was done, there was only thirty percent battery remaining.
I slid down into the dirt and leaned against the wall.
And I started to pray.
12
Nathan
I parked haphazardly in the yard by my house and rushed inside. I kicked off my sneakers and shoved my feet into my tan work boots. I tossed a ratty baseball cap on my head and went down into the unfinished basement and dug through my gear and loaded my pockets with everything I thought I might need.
My weapons were already in my Jeep.
Back upstairs, I shoved some vanilla-flavored power bars in my pockets and grabbed a bottle of water and a jacket on my way out the door. The sky was dark, no stars in sight, and the wind was picking up, making it feel much colder than it was outside.
I hoped Honor had some kind of protection from the elements wherever she was.
Once I was settled into the Jeep, the screenshot of the map came through my phone. I plugged my own phone into the car charger and turned on the engine. There in the darkness of the cab I studied the map.
It gave me a general idea where she was—about fifteen miles outside of the town of Slatington. She was definitely in the woods because there were no roads mapped around the little dot that marked her location.
I would drive as close as I could and then go on foot.
I decided to take the back roads, the ones least traveled. Due to the pileup, I figured a lot of the roads were going to be congested and I didn’t want to get caught in it. I was glad when I got stationed here six months ago that I took the time to drive around, learn the area, and scout out roads.
It was more or less something I was trained to do and even though it wasn’t really required for where I was working now, it was clearly proving useful.
As I drove, images assaulted me, images of the desert, of a gunfight, of blood. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. The stress of the situation was just putting my mind into overdrive.
I felt this insistent need to find Honor, to save her. Maybe it is because I wasn’t able to save them. The thought drew me up short, but once it was there, I couldn’t deny it.
It was quite possible the reason I was going off alone, rogue, to find Honor was because I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else dying—someone I knew I could help.
I turned off the main road and onto a lane that literally curved up the side of a mountain. The sign beside the gravel entrance read: Travel at your own risk.
I drove the Jeep forward. The sound of loose gravel hitting the underside of the vehicle was loud and startling in the dark. I continued up, looking at her map and cross-checking it with the one I had pulled up. The farther up I went, my headlights illuminated the narrow gravel road, and I hoped no one else was out driving tonight because only one car would fit at a time.
On the right side of the road was a steep drop. It was lined with trees and plants. I figured if something did happen and I happened to lose control and fall off, then I likely wouldn’t plunge to my death. Surely the many trees would stop the Jeep from going too far.
Off to my right were more woods. I couldn’t see very far in because it was so dark, but I figured if she was anywhere, it would be over to this side. When I realized I was around the area where she was, I stopped the Jeep and got out, walking into the trees to search for a place to put my Jeep. Leaving it out in the open seemed like a bad idea.
About a mile farther than I wanted to be was a small clearing beneath a canopy of trees. I jogged back to the car and drove it forward, using my four-wheel drive to go off the gravel road and basically four-wheel through the trees and over the uneven ground. I nudged the Jeep between two trees with low-hanging branches and then cut the lights and the engine.
I sat there a long time, listening to the sounds of the woods, wondering if anyone else was out there. The night remained still, except for the distant rumbling of thunder above.
I prayed the rain was moving away from us and not closer.
Before starting off on foot, I pulled out my phone and sent word to Honor. I think I’m close by. If you hear me call out for you, answer.
I didn’t get a reply right away and I hadn’t expected one. My service was low and I knew hers was worse. Hopefully she would at least get the message.
I palmed the pistol beneath the front seat and tucked it in the waistband of my jeans and then tucked the knife I always carried in my front pocket.
Then I pressed a few keys on my phone and held it to my ear.
Patton answered on the second ring. “Hallow,” he drawled.
“Patton, this is Reed. Don’t say my name.”
“What’s up?” he said, his tone staying the same, but I knew he was alert.
“You still playing poker?”
“Sure am!”
“Lex still there?”
He paused. I knew he wanted to ask me what this was about. I really hoped he didn’t. “No.”
I swore.
Patton stayed quiet on the other end of the line. Then I heard his muffled voice say, “I gotta piss.”
I heard the opening and closing of two doors, and I imagined the path he was taking through the door by the bar, across the laundry room, and then into a tiny two-piece bathroom beside it.
“He left,” Patton said, turning on the faucet as he talked.
“How long ago?”
“About thirty minutes.” He paused. “He seemed a little distracted after you left.”
Fuck. I probably shouldn’t have pointed out his phone was missing. He hadn’t known, and I called attention to it. I might have cost myself—and Honor—precious time. I was merely acting in the moment. I hadn’t yet fully decided if those texts were the absolute truth. But once I saw his reaction to the missing phone, added to the picture and the necklace… I couldn’t not believe it anymore.
“What’s this about?” Patton asked, and I heard the sound of a toilet flush.
“I’ll explain later,” I said urgently. I needed to find her, and fast. “Don’t tell anyone I called.”
“I won’t.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear just as I heard Patton say, “Hey.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“If you need anything, I got your back.”
“Good to go,” I replied.
“Semper Fi,” Patton said and then he cut the line.
Semper Fi. Always faithful. It was the Marine Corps way of life. I knew if shit hit the fan, I could call and Patton would be there.
I hoped it didn’t come to that.
I didn’t bother to lock the Jeep when I got out and walked into the trees. I pulled the bill of my hat down low and tucked my hand in my jacket, pulling out a high-powered flashlight that was the size of a pen.
But in this case, size didn’t matter.
This little baby would cut through the worst of the darkness tonight. Overhead, another rumble of thunder rolled. It covered the sound of a text coming through my phone.
I pulled it out, silenced the ringer, and looked down at the message.
Two words.
Two words that made my blood run cold.
He’s back.
13
H
onor
The thunder rolling through the night sky wasn’t a good sign.
“Seriously,” I muttered. “Like this day isn’t bad enough?”
I guess when it rains it pours. Literally. I had very vivid imaginations of the sky opening up to some kind of freak torrential downpour and me being trapped in this hole as it slowly filled with icy cold rainwater. Slowly freezing or drowning me…
What would be a better way to go? Freezing to death or drowning?
I’m a writer and even I never dreamed up half this shit. Well, I guess one positive would be if I survived this, I would have a ton of new material to work with.
Thunder rumbled again, and I sighed. My stomach growled, matching the ferocity of the thunder, and I realized I hadn’t eaten a thing all day. I never ate before my early runs because it upset my stomach. I usually made a pot of coffee and some kind of egg scramble after I returned home.
Then I would spend most of my day typing away at a story, social networking, marketing, and communicating with my agent.
I wondered if anyone noticed I was missing by now. I loved being a recluse, but I was beginning to think that my choice of lifestyle was a serious hazard.
Maybe I should have gotten a dog after all. A companion to have around all day might have been nice.
I paused. This was the second time today I thought of a dog. Why would I be thinking of something like that at a time like this?
I was insane. More so than usual. I was probably ready to suffer some sort of psychotic break from the stress of being kidnapped. I mean really, I thought I was stronger than that.
Or maybe you’re just thinking of the things you never got to do.
I don’t know where that inner voice was coming from, but it needed to shut up. I think I would prefer some psychotic break than sitting down here and thinking about the bucket list that was never fulfilled. I wasn’t ready to admit defeat. I wasn’t going to accept my death.
And also, I found it quite amusing that on the cusp of death, my one regret seemed to be that I didn’t have a dog.
Of all the things I could regret, that was what I chose?
I had a feeling a psychiatrist would have a field day with that.
I looked up toward the top of the hole, and though it was dark, I could make out the tops of the trees swaying in the wind. I didn’t want my kidnapper to come back, but I also didn’t want to spend the entire night down here in the rain.
I pulled out the phone again and looked at the signal. No bars. I decided to distract myself by snooping. I called up the camera roll and started going through his pictures. They looked like pictures you’d find on any regular guy’s phone. A barbeque, a baseball game, and one featuring the kidnapper front and center, with poker chips piled high in front of him.
Again, I was struck by how “normal” he appeared. How uncreepy and non-kidnapper-ish he seemed. He was the most dangerous kind of criminal of all because no one would suspect him. No one would be inclined to believe any accusations against him.
I flipped through a few more of the photos when one had me gripping the phone until the bones in my fingers ached.
It was of a young blond woman. She was smiling, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Her eyes were haunted, they were sad… and they were also a little empty.
Around her neck was the locket I’d found in the dirt—the one now in my pocket.
My stomach roiled. Bile rose up in my throat and I dropped the phone and lurched to the side and heaved violently. Nothing came up because my stomach was empty. I made hideous sounds and the pain of retching had me collapsing onto the dirt floor and curling into a ball.
I lay there for a long time, feeling the cold dirt against my cheek and keeping my eyes closed, hoping I might wake up and find this was all dream.
Eventually, the uncomfortableness of my position made me roll over onto my back and stare up at the black sky.
Only there wasn’t just black sky to look at.
There was something pale in my line of sight.
My heart rate accelerated when my eyes made out the shape of a man.
Nathan! He’d come for me after all!
“I told you I’d come back,” intoned a voice from above.
Chills crawled up my spine and I shivered. That wasn’t Nathan. It was my kidnapper.
“I had planned on leaving you down here for the night,” he called. Funny how his voice didn’t seem that far away; it seemed as though it was very close, and I reminded myself that he was up there and I was down here. For once, I didn’t mind being down in this hole.
When I didn’t respond to his comments, he spoke again.
“But it seems I have misplaced something. I came back to see if you had something of mine?”
My eyes darted to where the phone lay on the ground. It was facedown and the case was black. I knew he wouldn’t be able to see it.
“Are you talking about your heart?” I snapped. “Cause I’m pretty sure you weren’t even born with one.”
“Feisty.” He chuckled. “I like feisty. It turns me on.”
Gag. Me. With. A. Spoon.
“It seems my cell phone has gone missing,” he said. “You don’t have it down there, do you?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t still be here,” I yelled.
“Well, that’s good. Because I would hate to have to move up my timeline and just kill you now.”
His timeline?
Something told me that being killed now versus later was probably the better option.
“I’m going to send down a rope ladder. Climb up,” he said.
I wanted to laugh. Yeah, right. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my ass.
It was almost cute the way he tossed down the rope ladder and adjusted it so I could climb right up.
If pigs with mustaches and goatees were cute.
“Come on,” he instructed.
“No.”
The silence that followed my one-word reply was almost comical.
“What did you say?”
“I said I would rather sit down here and rot and die than climb up there and be any closer to you,” I spat.
I heard his rough inhale and I knew I pissed him off.
Good. He pissed me off too.
“Get. Up. Here. Now.”
“Why? So you can rape and murder me? No thanks. I’m not really feeling much like rape and murder today.”
“You little bitch.”
“I thought you said you liked my feisty attitude.” I mocked. I knew I should shut up, but I found myself with a severe case of diarrhea of the mouth.
I sat down to punctuate my intention of doing exactly what he told me not to do. As I sat, I slowly pulled the phone into my palm and then crossed my hands over my chest, hiding it beneath my arm.
“How rude of me,” he said in a conversational tone. “I realize my mistake.”
Then he disappeared, leaving the rope hanging there, taunting me with freedom. I knew better. He probably wanted me to think he left so I would climb up to my doom.
While he was gone, I shoved the phone up my sleeve and then hooked my thumb through the little hole made into the arm. Hopefully that would be enough to keep the phone hidden.
A few minutes later, something hit me in the head.
I looked up only to see something else plummeting toward me, and I ducked just in time to avoid being hit in the face.
“What the hell?” I muttered and reached out to pick up the items he chucked down the hole at me.
My hand closed around one of the slightly textured, round items. It was an orange.
The crazy ass threw two oranges at me.
“I get grumpy when I don’t eat, too,” he said, like the reason I didn’t feel like dying was because of low blood sugar.
There weren’t enough M&Ms in the world for that. An orange sure as hell wasn’t going to do it.
My stomach rumbled at the sight of it. I was tempted to peel it and dig in. But my writer’s brain kicked in.
He might have used a syringe and injected it with some sort of deadly poison.
I think I’d rather starve.
“Eat,” he commanded.
I stood and threw the orange back up at him.
I was a girl. I threw like a girl.
The orange came back down and made a plopping sound at my feet.
“I would eat that if I were you,” he growled.
I didn’t bother to reply. I was exhausted, and fighting with him made it worse. I needed to save my strength for getting away.
I sat down in the dirt just as more thunder rolled overhead. I wished it would rain. I wished it would lightning and thunder and a storm of epic proportions would rage. It would chase him away. He would be forced to leave me here and not come back ‘til morning.
Maybe by then, Nathan would have found me.
If he was even looking.
Let’s face it here. My situation was pretty bleak. I was depending on a guy that I met through my kidnapper’s phone. I highly doubted that he kept upstanding citizens as company. I more than likely texted his partner in crime. The pair of them had a good laugh at my expense and then creepy up there came back to throw oranges at my head and then murder me.
This wasn’t one of my romance novels.
A dashing, romantic hero wasn’t going to come riding up on his white horse and save me.
I was going to end up on the eleven o’clock news.
“Come on,” the man above demanded.
“No!” I shouted.
“Fine!” he snapped. “If you won’t come up, then I’ll come down. It’s a small space, but I’m sure we’ll find room.”
I shot to my feet. “I’m coming up.”
He was already descending the ladder. I calculated my chances of yanking him off and beating him up before he overpowered me. Yes, he was bigger. Yes, he had weight on his side.
But I was seriously pissed.
(And I wanted to live to get a dog.)
“Fine, then. Hurry up. Or I’m coming down.”
He went back up to ground level and stood, staring down. All I could see was the round paleness of his face against the dark backdrop of night. I walked over to the ladder and hunched over a little, acting as if I were defeated. Quickly, I pulled out the phone and shot off one last text to Nathan, taking a risk that maybe he was going to help me like he said.
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