style="font-size:15px;"> “No,” Boone said tersely. “It’ll lead the cops right to us.”
Doug came up behind his buddy. As the woman’s frightened eyes landed on him, Doug flipped his long hair like a vain woman trolling in a bar. “And she won’t?” he asked bitterly.
“I’ll take care of her,” Boone promised darkly.
Doug and Marty were not much older than twenty, neither was too bright, and they scared easily. All those facts had made Boone’s time here much easier than it might have been.
Still, no matter how dumb they were, he couldn’t finish what he had to do with them looking on. “Put the girl in Darryl’s car,” he said, offering her imprisoned arm to Marty. Just before Marty grabbed the woman’s wrist, he felt a deep tremble pass through her body. Sorry, sugar, he thought silently. I have no choice. “Touch her anywhere else,” he added darkly, “and I’ll kill you. She’s mine.” Marty’s grin faded rapidly, and Boone said, “I’ll be right there.”
Doug and Marty moved away, Marty with his hand gripping the woman’s arm, Doug quickly checking the front seat of the Mercedes. Darryl was occupied getting his money situated, which gave Boone the opportunity to place his fingers against the neck of the man on the ground.
He closed his eyes in relief. The man wasn’t dead. His heartbeat was strong and steady. What happened next was necessarily fast. Boone found the wound on the man’s side. It was nasty, but not fatal. He prayed the guy didn’t come to and start making noise. Darryl would finish the job if that happened.
Moving quickly, Boone removed the man’s jacket. In the process, he snagged the wallet—in case anyone was watching. The cell phone in the inside pocket dropped into his hand.
The jacket made an easy, quick, inadequate bandage. But it was better than nothing. Keeping his hands out of sight, Boone switched on the cell phone and dialed 911. He positioned the phone on the man’s chest, then concealed the phone with a flapping portion of the fancy jacket that he had fashioned into a bandage.
“Come on!” Darryl shouted, slamming the trunk of his car closed and heading for the driver’s-side door. Marty and Doug were already sitting in the back seat, the terrified hostage pinned between them.
There was no more time. If Darryl decided to come over and see what he was doing, the operation was finished. Done. Three months’ work wasted and someone dead. Either Darryl, or Boone himself and the woman.
Boone leaned forward and whispered, giving the 911 operator who had answered the emergency call the name of the road they were on. Nothing more. It would take them a while to find the exact location, but the delay couldn’t be helped. At least the man on the ground had a strong pulse and wasn’t bleeding too seriously.
“Hang in there, buddy,” he whispered.
He couldn’t afford to be caught. Not tonight. He hadn’t yet found the child the drug dealer Gurza had kidnapped, and until he did, nothing else mattered. Not this man and not the woman.
He shook his head as he strode away from the Mercedes and the man on the ground. Very faintly, he heard the tinny sound of the operator’s voice from the cell phone asking for more information.
What a night. A man shot, a hostage he was now responsible for…he was in too deep. Things were going very wrong, and once things started going wrong, they usually didn’t stop. They just got worse.
There was going to be hell to pay, but not until he found that kid and delivered him home.
Chapter 2
Jayne shook. She didn’t want the murdering kidnappers to know how scared she was, but no matter how she tried to stop the all-over shaking, it continued.
The two men who bracketed her stared straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge her presence at all, even though the three of them sat thigh to thigh in the rear seat of the dark sedan. They were obviously afraid of the one they called Becker, who kept casting dark warning glances into the back seat.
She might have been protected from the seedier side of life since birth and she was definitely frightened now, but Jayne had enough wits about her to be very well aware of what had happened. She and Jim had happened upon a drug deal. Just their luck. Of all the roads to get lost on, Jim had chosen that one. She sniffled, just a little, and fingered her pearls. Jim was dead, and she soon would be. Unless she found a way to escape.
Becker glanced into the back seat again, his eyes landing on hers briefly as they passed under a street lamp. Her mouth went dry. Her heart thundered. It took no imagination at all to realize what he wanted from her. He’d told his friends plainly enough. Her shaking got worse.
For a split second she thought she saw those dark eyes soften, and then they passed out of the light and his face was lost in darkness again. She shook her head. Any hint of softness she saw in that man was a hopeful illusion.
The car came to a stop in front of a ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere. A single low-wattage lightbulb glowed near the front door, lighting the less-than-illustrious dwelling too well. The gray paint on the walls was peeling, and the windows she could see had been covered in bedsheets, instead of curtains. There were no neighbors, but for the similar shack they had passed a mile or so back. And in truth, it had looked deserted.
She should be sipping wine at Corbin Marsh’s extravagant Arizona vacation home. Instead, she was…here.
By the time the bald thug exited the car, Becker was waiting for her. He looked none too happy as he offered his hand. Jayne refused to touch that hand as she stepped from the car. There was nowhere to go and she already knew she couldn’t run fast enough. Still, she glanced toward the gravel road.
“Don’t even think about it,” Becker said softly as he took her arm. “You wouldn’t get far.”
Because he’d shoot her? Because one of the other hoodlums would?
Jayne gathered every ounce of strength she had left and looked him in the eye. “Bully,” she said.
The other three laughed, but not Becker. The fat man who had shot poor Jim slapped his long-haired friend on the back. “I shoot her boyfriend, and you drag her back here to have your way with her, and the worst she can come up with is ‘bully’?” He snorted like a pig.
Jayne was tempted to look the fat man in the eye and deliver a criticism in his direction…but she didn’t. Becker scared her, but the man who had shot Jim and threatened to do the same to her terrified her beyond reason. She sensed that if she kept her eyes and attention on Becker, she might get through this.
They were all thugs, but the one who had claimed her as his own seemed to be the most intelligent of the four. Maybe when they were alone, she could reason with him. Offer him money to get her out of here, safe and untouched. Her father could and would pay anything to rescue her. Could Becker be bought? And if so, how much would it take?
She was led to a side entrance, where no light burned. As soon as the bald young hooligan threw that door open, she could tell that the interior of the shack was worse than the exterior. She would have thought that impossible. Becker led her through the door and into the kitchen. Fast-food bags and beer cans littered the floor, and the counter and sink were stacked high with dirty dishes. She had to step over a discarded pizza box as Becker dragged her through.
“Hey,”
