tilted her head back and watched the Master climb the stairs. If he checked her room and found her missing … No, stop, he wouldn’t. He trusted her to do as she was told after so many years.
Howard kicked Smith’s chair and cursed about the missed opportunity to feed the pets.
Tessa shivered at the thought of the swamp surrounding this awful place. Howard and Brooks fed the gators regularly to ensure the beasts considered the area a generous feeding ground. Anyone who stumbled onto the property would likely never make it even close enough to enter the electronic surveillance field.
The whole compound was off the grid. No landlines for communications. Even the power was provided by a massive generator. And the water was obtained from the property and directed into the house via a state-of-the-art filtration system.
Tessa doubted there was more than a dozen people who even knew of their existence deep in the wooded swampland outside New Orleans.
But now someone did … this man, Smith. He knew. He was here and still alive.
Anticipation fired through her as Brooks and Howard stomped up the stairs. The overhead lights extinguished, leaving the room in almost total darkness. Only the dim lights from the electronic equipment provided minuscule illumination.
Did she dare question this Smith herself? Could he possibly possess information that would help her? Hope bloomed despite the years of desolation that had left her soul barren.
Smith would die in a few hours. That was a certainty.
He presented no peril to her.
Still … he could tell the Master that she’d come down here.
“Are you going to come out now?”
The air in Tessa’s lungs evacuated.
“They’re gone,” Smith said.
He’d seen her sneak down the stairs!
She chewed her bottom lip. Would he assume he’d been hallucinating if she didn’t move and didn’t say a word?
“I know you’re there,” he murmured, his voice weaker now. “You might as well come out.” He made a muffled sound, like a laugh. “I’m obviously in no position to do you harm.”
But getting caught talking to him could get her killed.
Tessa couldn’t bear to think what would happen to the child then.
That familiar ache of fear sliced through her.
“I could use a drink of water.”
Tessa blinked away the terrifying thoughts.
“Please.”
The desperation in his plea touched her heart … but he was one of them.
A man who earned money by stealing children.
She couldn’t trust him.
Defeat pressed in on her.
She couldn’t trust anyone.
Chapter Three
As much as the desperate urge to escape clawed at him, Riley’s fascination with the girl—no, the woman—staring wide-eyed at him held his full attention.
This was Tessa Woods.
He’d carefully reviewed her file. Studied the photos of the sweet seventeen-year-old with the silky blond hair and huge blue eyes. Her friends and family had labeled her sweet and kind. Intelligent and earnest. But naive and far too trusting.
Was that why nearly six years later she was still alive?
Or had she been brainwashed into becoming as ruthless as those who’d taken her while on a high school senior class trip only a few miles from her small hometown in Mississippi?
The well-worn, pink flannel gown fell loosely around her but as she’d moved toward him the soft-looking fabric had molded to her slim frame. He wanted to tell her how desperately her family had searched for her all these years. How they even now held out hope that she would return to them.
But Tessa Woods was twenty-three years old now. Chances were she was not the sweet, naive young girl she’d been when abducted by these bastards.
“Just a drink of water,” he murmured, careful to keep his voice low and unthreatening. “That’s all I’m asking,” he assured her, when in truth he was asking for the world. That she would help him bring down this operation … that she would be unchanged.
She reached up. He tensed. Slender fingers brushed her hair behind her right ear.
As slowly and thoughtfully as she’d approached him, she turned and padded barefoot across the room. He’d already inventoried the array of torture devices. There was an electrical shock station, one for water boarding and what appeared to be a carving area. Lots of box cutters and knives.
Just the sort of place a guy wanted to end up.
The woman he was convinced was Tessa Woods picked up a large beaker from the water-torture area and held it beneath the faucet. She glanced at the staircase before turning on the faucet just long enough to run a few ounces of water. Then she moved toward him once more. She was nervous. She checked the stairs twice crossing the room. Whatever her position in the organization, she obviously wasn’t supposed to be down here.
Standing before him, she hesitated before extending the beaker to his mouth. She kept her gaze on his mouth as she tilted the beaker. He watched her face, assessing her trepidation. She was definitely scared. Of him, of being caught. Maybe of the truth.
Did she remember her life before? Or had these lowlifes ensured that history was buried so deeply that she wouldn’t ever recall? Victoria Colby-Camp had told him of how her son had been brainwashed in just such a way. His memories had been twisted to the point that he had firmly believed his parents hadn’t loved him and had abandoned him. Had this woman suffered the same?
The water trickled down his chin. She drew the beaker away and he licked the dampness. Holding the glass container with both hands, she dared to meet his eyes.
“Who are you?”
His chest contracted at the sound of her voice—gentle, quiet, filled with tentative wonder. “Russell Smith. And you?”
She chewed her lip a moment before answering. “Tessa.”
Anticipation detonated deep inside him. “Tessa what?”
Another hesitation, this one far longer than the first. “Just Tessa.” Uncertainty flashed in her eyes before she looked away. “Why are you here?”
The urge to tell her he was here to rescue her, to stop these bastards, nearly overwhelmed him. But he couldn’t take the risk. For all he knew at this point, she could be one of them.
“I’m here to
