fine. There was enough adrenaline to keep me plenty warm.” Joshua kicked off his boots and brushed the snow from his hair. It was light brown, the color of maple syrup, short on the sides as she’d expect of a soldier, but just long enough on top for someone to run their fingers through. The eyes that now searched her face were the same hazel-green as a forest pond. Muscles rippled through his shirt. But somehow they didn’t make him look hard, only strong. An old-fashioned coffeemaker stood on the counter. He filled it with water. “I was going to make myself coffee. But would you rather have tea or something like that? There’s a whole box of different colored ones around somewhere. Also, there’s fresh banana bread. I threw it in the bread maker last night.”
“Coffee is perfect, thank you.” A slight smile crossed her lips. “Your mother raised you well.”
“Nope.” His smile grew tight. “Grew up in an all-bachelor home with just my gramps and dad. But they taught me well enough.”
Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, like she should apologize. But before she could even start to figure out what to say, he kept talking.
“The closest hospital and police station are over an hour away.” He leaned back against the counter and slid his hands into his pockets. “But Alex used to be a paramedic and Zoe’s probably giving the police directions on how to get here as we speak. Now, you said you have no idea what happened or what you’re doing here?”
“That’s right,” she said. “I’m a journalist from Toronto. My job is researching and fact-checking mostly. Making sure those hotshot Torchlight reporters can actually back up what they’re writing about with cold hard facts. I was heading into work this morning to grab a tablet when I was abducted. But I don’t remember what happened exactly and I don’t know what whoever did this to me wanted.”
Light dawned behind his eyes and with it came an almost reflexive grin that warmed something inside her.
“If you’re a reporter,” he asked, “does that mean you work with Olivia Ash?”
“Yes! Olivia is my editor at Torchlight.”
“This is her country house.” His eyes grew wider. “My friend is her husband.”
No doubt she’d feel terrified later about what that could mean about the motives of the men who’d kidnapped her. Right now, she was just too relieved to discover she was in the home of someone she already knew and trusted.
“They’re staying at their apartment in the city until the baby’s a little bigger and the roads improve,” he added. “Which you probably know given you work together. I’m just thankful that I was here, and the house wasn’t empty.”
She dropped into a chair as the sudden joy she’d been feeling evaporated just as quickly. “Yeah, me too.”
“So, I’m guessing whoever did this to you wanted to get your boss’s attention and didn’t know Olivia wouldn’t be here. Did she have you working on anything dangerous?”
“I see pretty much every story before it goes to the press,” she said, “and I fact-check all the big ones. I’m like the factual safety net for our front-line reporters. It’s my job to comb through each article and circle every fact with a red pen that a reader might question, just to make sure our backs are covered. Of course, our reporters write about everything. But in my job, almost everything I work on involves something criminal. I even built what they call an ‘intranet’ database, called ATHENA, that pulls all of our stories and background research together in one place on our online server, where only Torchlight reporters can see it. It even includes pointers on understanding human behavior, criminal pathology and body language to help reporters figure out whether or not the people they’re interviewing are telling the truth. It’s like a simplified version of the ways police detectives learn to analyze criminal traits.”
But what would police make of her inability to remember how she’d even gotten there? She couldn’t remember a single thing about how or where they’d grabbed her.
It had been the same back in college when that guy from her floor had broken in. She’d barely remembered anything afterwards. And while they’d eventually caught the culprit and he’d admitted to being high at the time, thanks to her faulty memory they’d only given him a slap on the wrist. She’d been forced to switch schools and start over.
Then, the nightmares had started.
Joshua pulled his right hand out of his pocket. There was something gold and glittering between his fingers. It was a ribbon. And with a start she realized it must’ve been the same one that her abductor had gagged her with. He looked at it carefully, holding it by the very edges.
“If you were on your way to work, it’s entirely possible they were after any Torchlight staff they could get their hands on, and you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “But it’s also entirely possible this has nothing to do with the newspaper you work for and someone tried to abduct you for a completely different reason. Does this mean anything to you?”
He laid the ribbon over the table in front of her and for the first time she saw blurred streaks of what looked like Magic Marker. Between the snow and the struggle whatever had been written on the ribbon was smudged beyond recognition, except for the last two words:
always,
Magpie.
His eyebrow rose. He didn’t even have to ask the question.
“I have never heard of Magpie.” She could feel her lower lip quivering but it was more from frustration than fear. She should know. If there was someone out there upset enough at Torchlight’s reporting to abduct and threaten one of their journalists, she was exactly the one person who should already have a whole file of stories and research on them in the ATHENA database. “I have no idea who or what that is.”
“Neither have I,” he said. “Someone twisted enough to kidnap a woman and plant a land mine under her doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere. Is there anyone else you can think of who’d want to hurt you? Work situation? Family? Relationships?”
“My parents are retired and live in Montreal. They’re pretty awesome people and I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to hurt them.” Tension pulled along her shoulder blades. She could tell he was probably trying to help but sorting out her own mind was hard enough without having someone firing questions at her. “Work is great, really. I’m probably what some people would call workaholic, but to me that’s a good thing.”
“A land mine is a very specific weapon,” he said, “and using the Christmas ribbon was very specific, as well. Someone was clearly trying to send a message. Any other problematic relationships?”
“No. No relationship problems.” Unless someone counted the fact she got completely tongue-tied every time she tried to explain to Eric that she just wasn’t hotwired to spend that much time with an enthusiastic extrovert. “Really, I’m just a happy, quiet workaholic with no enemies.”
Except the dangerous and unknown Magpie. Why don’t I know who that is?
There was a knock on the door frame. She turned. It was Alex. He glanced down at the ribbon warning lying on the table. “Sorry to interrupt. Zoe got through to the police. They’ve asked us all to stay put and to please try to keep from talking to each other about what happened until we’ve all been interviewed separately by police. I’m guessing they don’t want us colluding
