by Desiree Holt
“Knock it off,” Reid said.
“What’s the difference? She won’t be able to tell anyone.”
A knot of fear twisted itself inside her stomach. “What is he talking about?” She looked at Reid, who seemed to be in charge. “I want to know exactly what’s going on here.”
“I told you. You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded. As her brain cleared, her strength returned. “And why didn’t this man—whoever he is—just call me like everyone else does?”
But neither man answered her. Reid picked up his tablet from the table attached to his seat and began scrolling through it. The other one, Fred, sat in one of the other chairs, holding a mug of coffee.
“I want answers,” Lauren pushed, anger rising inside her. Who did these men think they were? “You can’t just kidnap me like this. There are people who’ll be looking for me.”
And soon, I hope.
Reid’s smile held no humor. “They can look all they want, but it won’t do them any good.”
As quickly as the anger had surged through her, that fast fear knotted into a hard ball at the pit of her stomach. She twisted her fingers together in her lap.
“I demand you take me back. Right now.”
The two men looked at each other. Fred gave his nasty laugh again.
“You can forget that. And we’re through answering questions.” He checked his watch. “All your questions will be answered shortly anyway.”
No matter how many questions she asked, neither of the men answered her. Fred occupied himself watching something on a private screen while Reid continued to work with his tablet. Finally, frustrated, she sat back on the couch and tried to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, nothing took root in her addled brain. The men continued to ignore her, and she did her best to tamp down the fear spreading through her. She had to believe that Troy would find her. He and Phoenix had the ability to do anything. Now she needed them to use those resources for her.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, trying to force herself to relax.
“Better not go to sleep.” Reid’s voice broke the silence. “You need to buckle your seat belt. We’ll be landing in a few minutes.”
Lauren felt around on the couch until she found the two parts of the seat belt retracted into the cushions behind her. She locked them together, then folded her hands in her lap. Taking several slow breaths, she forced a calm she really didn’t feel. But she knew she’d need every one of her wits about her if she was ever going to figure out what was going on here and find a way to get out of it.
The landing was so smooth she barely felt it, and she wondered exactly what kind of plane she was in. When the aircraft had come to a stop and the whine of the engines ceased, the two men rose from their chairs.
She had no idea where they were or where they were going but the fear she was battling rushed back again with sickening force.
Troy! Hurry! I need you.
* * * * *
Troy couldn’t stop pacing in Lauren’s kitchen. Larry and Paul had been thanked for their help. Now the five Phoenix partners were assembled at the large kitchen table, the air filled with the tension radiating from them. Each was focused on his specific task. The atmosphere was the same every time they prepared for a mission, but for Troy this one was personal. He had an idea now how Faith had felt waiting for the team to pluck Mark from a terrorist camp in the Peruvian jungle.
They had all thought the danger was past when the stalker was caught. He and Lauren could make plans for their life together. Now she was gone, and he felt as if someone had shoved a knife into his heart. He knew if anyone could find Lauren and rescue her safely it would be these men, his partners. It didn’t make the waiting any easier or lessen his dread at all.
Dan and Mark had their laptops open, reviewing yet again, frame by frame, the video they’d downloaded from the exterior cameras, analyzing the traffic patterns and frequency of various vehicles to see if any of the vehicles had a pattern. Andy was still analyzing the material he’d already received and running traffic probables.
Rick was checking private airports within a hundred-mile radius.
“They had to get her out of here somehow,” he told Troy. “It’s a safe bet they didn’t hang around San Antonio with her. That means a private jet somewhere, one that waited for them and took off within the last couple of hours.”
Mike D’Antoni had hacked into Lauren’s computer for the records she kept on her patients, easily breaking her password code. Although she never charged for any of her sessions, she meticulously recorded everything from the initial phone call to the final results. There were even notes from people she had turned down, and those were the ones he looked at first. There could be someone out there so desperate they’d resort to kidnapping her to force her to help them. All these people had been checked during the search for the stalker, but now he came at them from a different angle. As he added his notes to each record, he emailed it to Andy, who was running the names through Dragonslayer.
Kat, his wife, had shown up with him, in the hope that her remote viewing skills could help them. She’d been the turning point in rescuing her sister and others from a Mexican drug lord. Now she sat in near-darkness in Lauren’s office, a photo of Lauren on the desk in front of her, as she tried to summon up images that would help them pinpoint a location.
Troy had given her a big hug. “Thanks for coming to help,” he told her in a tight voice.
“We’ll find her and get her back,” she told him with quiet assurance. “That’s a promise.”
“I don’t know how long we can keep this from her family,” he said now, pouring himself yet another mug of coffee. “Her parents almost never call after they know she’s done a healing session. Both of them, especially her mother, are dead-set against it and try to talk her out of using it.” He took a swallow of the bitter brew. “But her brother calls her once a week. We’ve got maybe two days before we hear from him. What do I tell him?”
His emotions had never been in such turmoil. Anger, fear, desperation, dread and a few things he couldn’t identify whirled around in his system like a poisonous cocktail. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt a situation spinning out of control like this. He wanted to do something, but he couldn’t make himself concentrate long enough to be of any use.
“Got something,” Dan called.
Everyone stopped what they were doing. Troy nearly spilled his coffee in his haste to see what Dan had found.
“Look.” He pointed at the image on the screen.
Four sets of pictures were grouped together, each in one quadrant of the screen.
“You think these have something to do with Lauren’s disappearance?” Troy asked, afraid to even hope they’d found something. “Why them? What made them stand out?
“A lot of things.” Dan glanced at his tablet, where he’d taken notes. “These cars showed up at least a couple of times every day during the media frenzy. But after everyone was gone, they kept driving by. This house is almost at the end of the block so I sent these to Andy to compare to what he’s got. He can enlarge the license plates and run them. Make sure they aren’t homeowners. I just sent him the file. As fast as he is, I should hear from him pretty quickly.”
“Jesus.” Troy raked his fingers through his hair. “I thought we were being so diligent here. How did my antennae not pick up something like this?”
“Because we were focused on something else,” Mark reminded him. “And once we caught the stalker, we let down our guard. Our bad, but we didn’t think Lauren was still in danger.”
“I smell mercenaries,” Rick put in. “The C-4. The explosion. And the way those two guys executed the snatch-and-grab in under two minutes. They’ve had military training. I’m even guessing Special Forces.”
Troy blew out a breath of frustration. “I just can’t figure out a connection between mercs and any of Lauren’s patients. Maybe I
need to personally contact some of them. Starting with the most recent.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Rick agreed. “Maybe you’ll pick up a strange vibe or two.”
“That’s why I want to start with the Hausers. I got an itchy feeling when we were in the hospital room with them.” Troy rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t tell you why. They are two of the most innocuous people you’d ever meet. But there was just something off. About her, especially.”
“Want me to come along? See if I pick up anything too?”
“What about the airports?”
“Andy’s got what I could find. He’ll need the Dragonslayer to get us a list of private plane activity in the last twenty-four hours. They had to bring the plane in, park it and be ready to take off at any moment. So let’s do this together.”
“Thanks. I’m sure not thinking as straight as I should right now. And I could use someone to keep me from blowing up at the Hausers if I smell something wrong.”
Troy knew his nerves were too close to the edge right now. His judgment could be clouded, or he could blow up at someone unnecessarily. Anyway, he’d be glad to have Rick along. The man had been a rock in some extreme situations and also had an uncanny ability to read people.
He was staring at the pictures again when his cell phone rang. He looked at the readout. Mia Romeo. He frowned, wondering why she’d be calling him and not her husband.
“Mia?”
“I tried calling Dan but he’s on his cell, I guess. I need to tell you something.”
Troy clutched the phone. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“I was working in my office, trying to finish research on a project for a museum when I sort of zoned out. You know. Like I do sometimes?”
“I know. Get to the point, okay?” He let out a breath. “Sorry, Mia. I’m just a little tense here.”
“No problem. I understand. So here it is. I had what I call a waking dream. Everything else blacked out and an image of a bird flew across my field of vision.”
Troy’s eyebrows lifted. “A bird? Any special kind?”
“I think it was a falcon. I used to know someone who raised them.”
“A falcon,” Troy repeated.
“Yes. And it had a small O painted on its body.”
“Jesus, Mia.” He rubbed his chin. “That’s totally weird.”
“I know. I’m just passing it along for you to share.”
“Of course, we’ve had weirder things to work with,” he reminded her. “I’ll pass this along to everyone so if we come across anything that remotely resembles a bird or looks like the letter O we can try to analyze it. See where it fits.”
“See what everyone makes of it. Sorry I couldn’t give you more.”
“No, no, don’t worry. I’m sure this means something. We just have to figure out what. Thanks, Mia.”
“If anything else pops into my brain, I’ll call.”
Dan ended his call with Andy. “Was that my wife?”
Troy nodded and relayed the information from Mia.
Dan rubbed his forehead. “Everything she’s given us before has always been a real clue, but what the hell does a falcon have to do with this?”
“What did Andy have to say?” Mark wanted to know.
“He was about to shoot the same list to us.” Dan looked at the notes on his tablet. His mouth twisted in a wry grin. “Except, of course, he also discovered not only that they’re all rental cars, but he also gave me the names of the agencies and who rented them. I’m sending the info to everyone’s phone.”
Mark stood up and pulled on his lightweight jacket. “I’ll hit the car places. See what we can find out about the men who signed for the vehicles.”
“Mike, anything on any of the other patients that you’ve found?” Troy asked.
“I wish.” Mike pointed at the list on the screen of the laptop he was working at. “She keeps very good notes but I haven’t run across anything that sticks out at me. I’ll keep at it. Keep feeding it to Andy. And let us know what you find out with the Hausers.”
“Will do. Meanwhile I’ll see if Kat can come up with anything based on what little we’ve got.”
“And I’ll be command central here,” Dan told him. His eyes met Troy’s. “We’ll get her back. Soon and in one piece. It’s what we do.”
Troy couldn’t say anything, his throat had closed so tightly with emotion. He just picked up his keys and headed out of the house with Rick, Mark close behind them.
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m not going anywhere else with you,” Lauren snapped. Her brain was finally waking up. “I want to know where we’re going and who is responsible for this. Right now.”
The man called Reid unbuckled her seat belt and lifted her from her seat by her elbows.
“I don’t like to manhandle women,” he told her, his face expressionless, “but I have a job to do and delivering you is part of it. We can either do this nicely, or I can knock you out and take you that way.” He reached into a pocket in his jacket and lifted a tube containing a syringe. “Your choice.”
The thought of being unconscious again, of not having control of herself, frightened her even more than what might await her at her final destination.
She lifted her chin. “Fine. I’ll go. But I want some answers as soon as we get there.”
Neither of the men said a word to Lauren as they hustled her across the tarmac to the waiting helicopter. The interior of the cabin surprised her. She hadn’t thought helicopters came outfitted so luxuriously. But this was just a smaller version of the very high-end plane she’d been flying on.
Reid nudged her to one of the leather seats and buckled her in. As the helo lifted off, she took in once again the luxury of the cabin. Whoever had “sent” for her obviously had an unlimited amount of money to spend. She ran her fingers over the brass logo embedded in the wall of the cabin. Sikorsky. She’d heard of them. Maybe read about them somewhere. She knew they made helicopters for the military.
But this was no stripped-down bird. This one smelled of big money.
The two men buckled themselves into vacant seats, neither one of them engaging her in conversation. That was fine with her. She’d save her questions for when she finally met whoever had set this all in motion.
The helo lifted off and her stomach dropped momentarily, then settled as the aircraft did. Lauren tried to distract herself by looking out the cabin window and guessing where in the United States they were. The landscape below her showed a decent-sized town before morphing into mountains and valleys and giant trees. The flight from San Antonio had been just over two hours, but she didn’t know if they’d flown east or west.
Before she found any distinguishing characteristics, they came over a mountain ridge and her breath caught at the sight. A mammoth stone house rose from lush forests, its many windows reflecting the sunlight. Surrounding it was grass greener than she’d ever seen and landscaping that looked as if a crew of gardeners spent all their time maintaining it. There were several outbuildings, as well as a large concrete pad near the house. A high wall surrounded the house and the manicured lawn, but Lauren also saw it stretching into the forest.
Was this to keep the owner in or other people out? What kind of person needed this kind of security? And talk about money! Lauren had been in the homes of wealthy clients before, but this defied anything she’d ever seen.
As they swooped in over the property, she saw two men exit the house and stand at attention on the patio, their posture almost military. But the thing that really caught her attention was the rifles they held across their bodies, ready for use. Did they plan to shoot her? But why bring her all the way here just for that? No, there was something else going on.
Fear began to thread itself through her. Whoever owned this definitely had more money than a small country, and certainly the power that came with it, but what did he want with her? And how could Troy and the others even find her in such an isolated and protected place?
She was still trying to sort things out in her mind when the helicopter hovered over the concrete pad and slowly set down. The man called Reid unfastened his seat belt and motioned for her to do the same. The other one, Fred, slid open the cabin door and jumped down to help her out.
When she was on the ground she took a deep breath, wondering what was coming next. She stared at the house and the two armed men standing there, a bank of French doors behind them. One of the doors opened and a man dressed in black shirt and trousers emerged, walking toward her with purposeful strides. He was a large man, bulky but not fat, with very broad shoulders and long legs. His dark hair was shot with silver, his jaw slightly elongated, and from behind wireless glasses light-colored eyes shot her a piercing look. Despite his size, he moved with a certain animal grace. As he came closer, she sensed the enormous power that radiated from him. This was a man used to getting his own way. As he approached, Lauren tried to read his face, but he wore no expression at all.
Until he stood right before her. Then his lips shifted to a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He held out a hand to her.
“Miss Cahill? Kurt Olberman. I am very pleased to welcome you to my home.”
The name meant nothing to her. Whatever circles he moved in didn’t touch hers. She ignored his outstretched hand and dug deep for courage. “I demand to know who you are and why I’ve been kidnapped and brought here. And I want to go home. Now.”
She thrust her hands into the pockets of her jeans to hide their trembling. She had no idea who this man was but she automatically sensed that he’d pounce on any sign of weakness.
He let his hand fall back to his side, his mouth still stretched in a phony smile. But the pale-green eyes he assessed her with looked cold and cruel. There was no warmth or friendliness there.
Don’t panic. Don’t show him fear.
“Why am I here?” she asked again.
