to get over him.”
Erin fell silent again, remembering all the hope she had had in those months.
“What happened?” Mark prompted after a moment.
“She stayed with me about eighteen months. I thought everything was great. Then one day I came home and found her bags all packed. She said she had had a call from Duane. He had been injured in an accident and he needed her. They were still legally married, so she was going back to him. I went a little crazy. I screamed and yelled and threatened to call the police. She was perfectly calm through the whole thing. She told me one day I would be in love and I would understand. Then she got in a taxi and left.”
“How did that lead to you ending up here?” Mark asked.
“I’m getting to that.” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “About six weeks ago, I got a call, from a man who identified himself as Duane’s personal assistant. He said he thought I would want to know that my mom was very ill. In fact, she was dying of cancer. She was in hospice and didn’t have long and had been asking to see me. He gave me the address he said was for the hospice and suggested I might like to visit her before it was too late.” She covered her eyes with her hand, fighting back tears—of grief and rage and shame.
“Did you see her?” Mark asked, his voice gentle.
“She wasn’t even sick! It was a trick, to get me to a place where Duane’s men could grab me. He showed up, too. He was in a wheelchair, with an oxygen tank. He’d clearly been messed up somehow, but that didn’t seem to lessen the power he had over everyone around him. He told me I needed to be punished for upsetting my mother so much, and that he had a job I could do to make up for all the trouble I had caused.”
“And his men brought you here.”
“First they took me to a fishing camp somewhere in the area, and we stayed there for a few days. I guess they were waiting for some signal from Duane or the stars to align or something. Then they took me to a house in Denver. I stayed there for weeks, in a locked room with the windows blacked out.” She glanced around the cabin. “At least this isn’t as bad as that.”
“Do you know why I’m here?” Mark asked. “What it is that you’re supposed to assist me with?”
“Duane always referred to you as his scientist,” she said. “A genius he had working for him, I assume on one of his crackpot schemes. What is it this time? A truth serum? Some potion that allows him to see in the dark? A new weapon?”
Mark shifted on his stool and cleared his throat. “You don’t know what kind of scientist I am, do you?”
“Duane just told me you were a scientist, and you obviously have some kind of laboratory here.”
“I’m a nuclear physicist. Duane Braeswood is holding me prisoner so I can build him a bomb. A nuclear bomb.”
Erin’s lovely face reflected all the emotions that had battered at Mark the first time he heard the terrorist leader’s plans for him—shock, outrage and finally puzzlement. She glanced around the cabin, with its sparse furnishings and makeshift lab. “How—?”
He didn’t let her finish the sentence, but sprang up, grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the refrigerator. “Let me fix you some lunch,” he said. “There’s cold cuts and stuff in the refrigerator.”
She struggled to free herself from his grip, but he held her firmly, pulled open the refrigerator door and leaned in, tugging her alongside him. “We have to be careful what we say,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I think the place is bugged.”
Her expression tightened and he braced himself for her to dismiss him as a nut. After so many months alone, maybe he was losing it, letting the paranoia take over. But her gaze remained level and she nodded. “That would be just like Duane,” she said. “He doesn’t trust anyone or take anything for granted.”
Mark released her hand and pretended to look through the packages of ham, turkey and cheese on the shelf. “I spend all my time pretending to do the impossible,” he mumbled. “Your stepfather wants a nuclear bomb that can be carried around in an oversize suitcase or a backpack, but there’s no way that can be done. Certainly not by one man in a facility like this.”
“But you’ve convinced him you can do it.” She sounded both horrified and fascinated by the prospect. “Why?”
“As long as I keep working for him, my daughter lives.” He grabbed a package of ham and another of cheese and moved away from the refrigerator, back to the table. “There’s bread in the cupboard over the sink,” he said.
She hesitated, then grabbed the bread and followed him. “You have a daughter?” She kept her voice low, just above a whisper.
“Mandy is five. She was four the last time I saw her.”
“Where is she?” Erin’s voice rose. “Duane isn’t holding her prisoner, too?”
“No, she’s safe. She lives with her aunt.” At least, he prayed that was still true. Mandy had been with his wife’s sister the day Mark left on the hiking trip from which he had never returned. He and Christy had both designated Claire as their chosen guardian for Mandy in their wills, so he had assumed his daughter had stayed with Claire after his disappearance.
“What happened to her mother?” Erin asked.
“She died two months before Duane brought me here.” He glanced up from spreading mayonnaise on a slice of bread. “Officially, it was ruled a one-car accident, but someone tampered with her car, I know. Duane wanted to send me a message about the consequences of not cooperating with him.”
Sympathy darkened Erin’s eyes. “I heard rumors about that kind of thing when I lived with him,” she said. “I wanted to believe they weren’t true. That no one would be that cruel and manipulative.”
“Oh, this is true.” When Christy had died, grief and rage at the man responsible consumed him. All these months later, he felt only numb.
“But how did you meet Duane in the first place?” she asked. “You don’t strike me as the prepper type.”
“No, I’m not. I had never even heard of Duane Braeswood when he stopped by my office at the University of Colorado one morning about eighteen months ago. He presented himself as a businessman who was interested in providing a grant for research. I was naive enough to be flattered.” How many times over the past year had he wished he had had the sense to see through the madman’s ruse and refuse to ever speak to him?
“And once he had snared you, he wouldn’t let go.” She nodded. “He’s done it before. He identifies something he wants and then uses whatever means possible to get it.”
“At first, he tried to sell me on the scientific advantages of working for him—a private laboratory with top equipment, an endless supply of resources, eventual fame and fortune, and a key role in his new world order.” He grimaced. “When that didn’t sway me, he turned to threats. I didn’t believe him. I thought he was a crackpot but harmless. I found out too late that he was anything but.”
“I’m sorry about your wife,” Erin
