with tears, and at the same time deliberately and pitifully cheerful.
“Are you okay, sweetie? They’re being nice to you?” She paused, and took a long, shaky breath. “It’s dark at night? Oh, Katie. I know you don’t like the dark.” Her voice quivered. “But remember what I told you? God wraps us up in the soft dark night to keep us safe.”
Jay winced. They were holding the child in the dark. An echo of the panic that had seized him earlier rippled through him again. He rubbed his temple where a headache was starting.
“You have Ugly Afghan? I’m so glad. Keep it wrapped tight and pretend it’s my arms, okay?”
Jay heard her voice almost break. She swallowed audibly. “Be brave, okay?” Paige continued. “No, I know you don’t like canned soup, but you eat it and stay strong. We’ll have p-pizza real soon, okay, hon—”
She stopped abruptly, listening. Jay glanced at her. Her face was still pale, her lips white with tension. “I understand,” she grated. “If you hurt her, I swear I’ll—”
She slumped. “They hung up.”
Jay glanced at the phone. Nothing showed on the display window except the battery indicator and the digital clock.
She took it away from him.
After he’d pulled back onto the road, Jay glanced at her. “So your plan is to trade me for your daughter?”
She looked at him, her eyes dark and haunted, but her chin held high. “What do you think? You’re a grown man. She’s just a baby.”
Jay allowed himself a wry smile at his earlier thought that he might be able to trust her.
“They told me they’d kill her. They’re keeping her in the dark. Katie hates the dark.” Her voice broke. “Will you help me?”
“How do you think I can help? I don’t know you. I sure don’t know them. What do you want me to do, offer myself to them?”
She met his gaze. “The Johnny I knew would have done anything in his power to protect a child.”
Jay’s heart slammed into his chest with the force of a blow. The Johnny she’d known.
“And you think I’m that man?” he asked. The effort of holding hope at bay inside him harshened his voice.
She held his gaze for a moment, her eyes wide and haunted. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know.”
An odd pang of hurt and disappointment sliced through his heart at her words.
It wasn’t hard for him to imagine how frightened and alone the child must feel. Ever since he’d awakened, wounded and lost, with murky water closing over his head, he’d been haunted by nightmarish visions of unrelenting darkness and suffocating panic.
But he’d also been comforted by the vision of a beautiful young woman, this woman. If he weren’t careful, she could make him believe in himself.
She moved to put the phone back into her pocket, and cried out softly when she moved.
“That was smart of you to record the call.”
She didn’t say anything.
Jay turned left, into what looked like a part of the swamp but was really a road. As many times as he’d driven this route, daylight, nighttime, rain, he still had trouble navigating the deep, narrow ruts.
Precisely two-tenths of a mile later, he turned again and pulled up in front of a broken-down cabin.
His safe house. It was ironic that he was here with this woman he didn’t remember who wanted him to give himself up for her child.
Paige winced in pain as the car came to an abrupt stop in front of an old abandoned shack. Ever since she’d regained consciousness and realized she was in a car with Johnny driving, she’d felt every bump in the road through her hurt shoulder. She couldn’t move it, and the pain radiating down her arm and up her neck was excruciating.
When the car stopped, she raised her head, biting back a moan. “Where are we?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, you can’t stop here. We have to find Katie—” She paused, realizing she had no idea where to even start looking.
Her plan had ended at Johnny’s door. She hadn’t considered what she would do after she found him. Now pain and exhaustion were making it hard to think.
Johnny came around and opened the passenger door.
“No, wait. Please. We have to go back. My daughter’s out there. They have her locked in the dark.”
“We can’t do anything until we see how badly you’re hurt. You’re just going to have to trust me.” He leaned down and looked at her. “Can you stand?”
“Of course I can.” Paige tried to move, but the seat belt held her trapped. She fumbled with the catch, her shoulder screaming with agony.
“Hold on. Let me.”
Johnny leaned over her and placed his large, callused hand on top of hers, stilling her desperate movements. She pulled her hand away and sat stiffly as he quickly and efficiently unbuckled the seat belt.
Then he slid his arms gently behind her back and under her knees.
“What are you doing?”
“Just let me carry you. You could have other injuries. You could have hit your head. You don’t need to be walking.”
Paige closed her eyes against the expectation of agonizing pain, and was surprised at the tenderness with which he lifted her into his arms.
She allowed herself to be carried. There was an awkward moment when he wrestled the cabin door open, jostling her shoulder, but soon he deposited her on a couch and went around lighting lanterns.
As light filtered into the corners of the room, Paige took in her surroundings. The shack was old and built of rough-hewn wood. The furnishings were sparse and stark.
At one end of the room were a wood stove and a counter with shelves that held a few plates and cups and pots. At the other end was a dark curtain that she figured must hide a sleeping area.
There was almost nothing to indicate that anyone lived here. But when Johnny lit the last lantern, Paige saw the sketches tacked to the wall in front of the couch.
These were dark slashes of charcoal, like nightmares brought to life under the artist’s pencil. Her heart twisted in compassion. How many times had he sat here, trying to make sense of the pieces of memory his mind fed him?
Her fertile imagination made her wonder if these were visions of his kidnapping. They evoked all her darkest emotions. Anger, fear, even hatred.
She couldn’t even imagine what he must have gone through. If the drawings were any indication, the place where they’d held him must have been a dark and frightening place.
She
