was quiet for a moment, allowing her time to process the news. Meanwhile, his thoughts raced ahead. He didn’t believe for one minute that Kyle’s disappearance was random and unrelated to the attack on Natalie. But what was the connection? He didn’t have much background on Kyle—only that he was a public criminal defense lawyer. Could he have made a dangerous enemy? Or was Kyle the enemy? Could he have trashed his own apartment before pulling a disappearing act? Maybe, if he had something to hide. But how did Natalie fit into the equation?
“Kyle showed up for the rehearsal dinner, right?” Luke asked her finally.
“Yes,” she said without looking up, her voice tired.
“Did he seem like himself?”
She shrugged. “I guess. He was tired, but we both were. It’d been a long week with our jobs and the wedding prep.”
“Did he go straight home after the dinner?”
“There was a bachelor party. He said he’d rather go home and get a good night’s sleep before the wedding, but he didn’t want to let the guys down.”
“Do you know where they went? Who he was with?”
“A restaurant and bar in Fells Point. Just his groomsmen. It would have been a pretty tame group.”
Luke was skeptical about the idea of a tame group of young men at a bar in Fells Point on a Friday night, but decided to keep that thought to himself.
“What about the past few weeks leading up to the wedding? Was he acting differently at all?”
Natalie sighed and shifted in her seat, tugging the seat belt away from her injured shoulder. “Not that I noticed. But, like I said, we had a lot going on.”
She still hadn’t met his eyes, and Luke suspected she was withholding details she didn’t want to share.
“He certainly wasn’t acting strange enough for me to suspect he planned to call the wedding off,” she added.
“When did you get the text?”
“Yesterday morning. Fifteen minutes before the ceremony.”
Natalie rubbed the back of her neck with both hands. Frustration? Grief? She finally let her hands drop and turned to look Luke in the eyes. “It was bizarre,” she said, and there was fire in her eyes. “I mean, he had all the opportunity in the world to call things off the night before, and all morning, too—but to wait until just before the ceremony...”
Her thoughts echoed Luke’s, but they couldn’t do much in the way of investigating until they got back stateside.
“Did anyone else see him that morning?”
“I don’t know. He was supposed to meet up with his groomsmen and drive to the church together. They showed up without him, and no one mentioned to me he wouldn’t be coming.”
“How many groomsmen? And how well do you know them?”
“Three, and not that well. His college buddy, Trent. A cousin named Lee. And you probably know his friend Jordan—he works at Shield?”
“He could be a good source when we get back.”
A form finally emerged from behind the car across the lot, and Officer Perez jogged back in their direction, his head down as he slogged through the heavy rain.
The driver’s door opened and the officer climbed in without a glance back, his hair dripping, his tan uniform soaked to a dark brown. He started up the car and pulled out of the lot in a hurry, wheels skidding along wet pavement.
Next to Luke, Natalie grabbed on to the side of the door to keep herself from sliding across the seat into him, and sudden alarm fired up his adrenaline.
The interior of the vehicle was all dark shadows, the man’s face indistinguishable in the rearview, but when they passed under a lone street lamp, Luke knew they were in trouble. Officer Perez wasn’t driving the cruiser.
The driver was young and clean-shaven—and clearly on some sort of mission. Luke considered the possibility that Perez had traded out with another officer—maybe a rookie with a chip on his shoulder? He did appear to be wearing the uniform...
But something wasn’t right, and as the vehicle climbed a winding hill, wipers slashing against sheets of rain, he tried to take stock of the situation. Luke didn’t know the terrain, but he did know they hadn’t even once traveled downhill, and the route wasn’t familiar.
“Excuse me, Officer,” he said, as if he hadn’t realized what had happened.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, but said nothing.
“I think we might have missed a turn back there,” Luke said. “We’re staying at the Riu de Sueños.”
“Road is blocked,” the guy answered gruffly, his accent thick. The road ahead curved sharply left, but the man barely slowed, taking the corner hard. Natalie slid into Luke’s side, her hand bracing against the seat in front of her.
“Hey, we’re not in a hurry. Take it easy,” Luke said, forcing his voice to sound relaxed even as their reality became alarmingly clear: the cruiser had been carjacked.
The man let up on the gas, the whites of his eyes flashing in the rearview mirror.
“Right, right,” he said.
Visibility was low, the dim glow of the car’s headlights fighting with the heavy rain. It was an older model cruiser, with thick cage wiring separating the back seat from the driver. No way to get to the driver, and it would be too dangerous to try to stop the car, anyway.
They didn’t have many options out here, but if he waited too much longer, getting back down the mountain would be difficult. If they escaped now, they could take cover in the trees, call for help.
He tapped Natalie’s finger to get her attention. “Follow my lead,” he whispered. Then loud enough for the driver to hear, “Natalie, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
Her brow furrowed, but she caught on. “No,” she said, her hands coming to her abdomen. “I...feel sick.”
“We need to pull over for a minute,” Luke said to the driver.
“Okay. Next place I find.”
Natalie moaned next to Luke, clutching her stomach.
“We can’t wait,” Luke insisted. “Pull over now!”
But the car didn’t slow, confirming Luke’s suspicions that their driver was on a mission—and it wasn’t to get them safely back to the hotel.
Natalie glanced at him, her expression giving way to fear. Then she put her hand to her mouth. “I think I’m about to be sick!” she said, and doubled over.
“Pull over!” Luke yelled to the driver. “She needs to get out!”
Natalie moaned loudly, and the driver finally swerved to the right and slammed on the brakes.
