plate number, but they didn’t go very far. Just over to Reynolds Street.”
Already trying to figure out how he was going to find two skinny, short bastards in a wrecked van, it was several seconds before her words registered. “What?” he said sharply. “How do you know that?”
“Because I saw the same van pulling out of an alley at Reynolds and Third when Precious and I were on our way home. Or at least I thought it was the same van,” she added. “The streetlight on the corner was out, so I couldn’t see very well.”
“Reynolds and Third? You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “C’mon. I’ll show you. Though I don’t know what good it will do. The van pulled out of the alley and disappeared down the street.”
“That’s okay,” he replied. “It’s a place to start. Let’s go.”
Ten minutes later, they reached Reynolds and Third. “The van came out of that alley,” she said quietly, nodding toward the dark, narrow alley that disappeared between two buildings halfway down the street.
Studying the shadowy entrance to the alley, Donovan frowned. For the moment, he wasn’t concerned with where the van had gone. Instead, he found it curious that Priscilla Wyatt’s kidnappers had been in the alley to begin with. They hadn’t, in all likelihood, driven into the alley by chance. So what the devil had they gone in there for?
His mind jumping with several interesting possibilities, he said, ‘I’ll check it out. Thanks for your help.”
Tightening her grip on the Doberman’s leash, his companion grimaced. “I didn’t do much. I hope it helps.”
Wishing him good-night, she and Precious continued their walk, but as Donovan strolled down the street to the entrance to the alley and peered in, his attention was on the upstairs apartments that overlooked the dark, narrow cavern. There was only one window lit, and a ragged curtain was doing its best to block the faint glimmer he saw in the darkness. What was up there?
Later, Donovan lost track of how long he stood deep in the shadows, watching, waiting for some sign that Priscilla Wyatt was in the apartment halfway down the alley. He knew there was a good possibility that he was wasting precious time while the kidnappers spirited Priscilla farther and farther from London. With every passing second, the trail that led to her whereabouts could be growing colder. But he didn’t think so.
Something didn’t smell right, and it wasn’t just the rotting garbage in the trash can ten steps away from where he stood in the alley. It was the setup, he decided. The whole damn setup stank.
Lost in his musings, he almost didn’t see the movement of the ragged curtain shrouding the lit window. Then he saw a man peer out into the darkness…a man with a military haircut.
Bingo.
An hour later, Donovan parked in the dark alley and soundlessly shut the driver’s door of the small van he’d rented. Upstairs, there was no sign of the man he’d seen earlier, but the light was still on. If luck was with him—and he was feeling damn lucky!—Priscilla Wyatt was upstairs, waiting to be rescued, and her rescuers didn’t have a clue their bird was about to fly the coop with a little help from him. There was nothing he liked better than surprises, he thought with a grin.
Checking to make sure his pistol was loaded, he quietly slipped into the building stairwell after picking the lock to the steel door that opened onto the alley. Standing in the darkness, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the deep shadows that engulfed him. From upstairs, the muffled sound of voices drifted down to him, but none of them were feminine. Donovan was far too good a tracker to be sidelined by that. Her kidnappers might be feeling pretty cocky right now, but unless they were complete novices, they weren’t going to take any chances with her. Twenty-four hours after her kidnapping, they would still be watching her like a hawk so she couldn’t give them away.
The question now, he thought pensively as he started up the stairs in the dark, was…how the hell was he going to get her out of the flat without getting them both killed? Her captors would be armed and had the advantage of knowing the layout of the flat. He didn’t even know if Priscilla was bound, if he would have to carry her, if she would get hysterical when the bullets started flying. And there was no way to know until he burst through the door.
He was taking a hell of a risk, he silently acknowledged…and grinned wickedly at the thought. He’d always been a daredevil, which was what made him damn good at his job. If Priscilla Wyatt’s kidnappers thought they had pulled a fast one on the authorities and the Wyatts, they were in for a rude awakening. They were toast. They just didn’t know it yet.
Priscilla had never been so terrified in her life. The two thugs who had kidnapped her had removed the duct tape from her wrists and ankles, but they had other ways of keeping her captive. They’d made it clear that if she even moved toward the door or made so much as a sound, they would have one of her sisters or her brother killed.
And they could do it, she thought. They were ruthless—and in touch with someone in the States who was furious that her kidnapping hadn’t drawn the rest of the family away from the ranch to London, as planned. Her captors informed her that the orders they were given were crystal clear—her siblings would be burying her if they didn’t leave the ranch within forty-eight hours.
Her blood turning cold at the thought, she knew she had to get out of there. But her captors were in constant touch with their boss in the States. If she tried to escape, one of her siblings could be dead within the hour. How could she live with that on her conscience?
Suddenly furious, she decided right then and there that she wasn’t going to take their abuse anymore. She was in charge of her own destiny, and she wasn’t going to sit around on her hands and wait to die or let the bastards kill her family. She had to trust that Buck and her two future brothers-in-law, John and Hunter, would do everything they could to protect her sisters. In the meantime, she had to take care of herself.
Which meant, she decided resolutely, that she would kill her captors if she had to in order to keep herself and her family safe. The question was…how was she going to put them out of commission when they watched her like a hawk?
Lost in her musings, she didn’t notice her captors whispering among themselves until one of them asked, “Are you hungry?”
It was a simple question, but she only eyed them suspiciously. Of course she was hungry! She hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, when one of the men had left and returned a short while later with some pastries and a small bag of groceries. She’d been warned then that the pastries would be the only meal of the day. Leaving the flat was too risky, so the groceries they’d bought would be saved for tomorrow. So why were they asking her now if she was hungry? What kind of game were they playing? If they thought they were going to surprise her into saying something so they would have a reason to kill Katherine or Elizabeth or Buck, they were wasting their time. She wasn’t saying a word.
“Who cares if she’s hungry or not,” the other kidnapper snapped. “My stomach feels like my throat’s been cut, and I’m not waiting until tomorrow to eat.” Sneering at Priscilla, he said, “Cook us something to eat, bitch. And don’t even think about trying anything fishy. We’ve already got orders to kill you tomorrow. We’d just as soon do it now as then, so don’t push your luck.”
Nodding silently, she kept her eyes down as she headed for the kitchen so he wouldn’t see the anger she knew was reflected there. If she acted meek and afraid, maybe they would
