The needle descended, pricking the side of her neck.
The men held her in place, laughing at her struggles, until she felt her lungs burning for air. The room began to spin and grow strangely out of proportion. On the wall, the bland painting of daffodils started to melt, the colors sliding down the wall to pool atop the dresser.
One of the men had moved away from her, she realized, wondering how that could be possible when it seemed as if a dozen pair of hands still held her down.
She felt powerless to move against the pressure keeping her immobile. Forcing her gaze upward, she found herself staring into a pair of piercing blue eyes.
Jasper Swain, she thought, giving a start when she realized the words had escaped her aching throat in a rasp.
The blue eyes widened.
Then they bled.
And she screamed.
* * *
THE CRY DIED QUICKLY, but he knew what he’d heard. It was her. And she wasn’t alone.
He flattened himself against the wall of the ice maker alcove down the hall from her room, knowing how disastrous it would be if one of the men inside caught sight of him. But he couldn’t let them take her out of here.
He’d considered calling in a tip to the police, but the men in that room were dangerous, reckless men who’d have little compunction about leaving a small-town cop bleeding out in a hotel corridor. The cops would be more likely to get in his way than help him get her to safety.
He closed his fingers around the Glock hidden in the pocket of his windbreaker, grimacing. He wasn’t the world’s best marksman himself. But unlike local law enforcement officers, at least he knew what he was up against from the start.
How in hell did they think they were going to get her out of here? Was that even the plan anymore? He’d been damned lucky to hear about what the Swains were planning in the first place, considering how close-mouthed the people of Bolen Bluff, Alabama, could be.
He’d overheard the conversation while snooping around Tolliver Feed and Seed. Hidden in the back room, he’d eavesdropped on two Swain clansmen talking cryptically about an operation the next day, something to do with a woman at a Fort Payne hotel.
And if the Swains were up to something, it was bad news.
Down the hall, a door opened, and he heard scuffling sounds. He forced himself to remain in place as footsteps thudded down the hall toward his position.
He edged toward the ice machine, tugging the bill of his baseball cap lower over his face. He didn’t have an ice bucket, but someone had helpfully left spares stacked on top of the machine, so he grabbed one of those and opened the ice machine bin. As he dug into the ice, he heard footsteps shuffling past him at a quick clip.
Once they’d passed, he took a quick look down the hall after them. He caught sight of a mass of dark curls and his heart gave a disconcerting flip.
Two men flanked her, holding her up as she sagged against them. A third man lagged behind, watching their backs. All of them wore caps low over their faces, just like his.
They were heading for the stairs.
He waited for them to enter the stairwell before he hurried after them. Cracking the door open, he listened for a second, trying to gauge how far ahead they were.
The footsteps echoed in the cavernous stairwell, making it hard to be sure where the sounds were coming from. He slipped into the stairwell and eased after them, keeping close to the wall to stay out of sight.
He had no idea how he was going to get her away from them without being seen, but if it came to a choice, he’d risk identification to save her. Whatever it took, he was going to get Isabel Cooper away from her captors.
What happened after that, however, would be anyone’s guess.
* * *
SHE WAS IN A CAVERN. A tall, twisting cavern, painted in hieroglyphics that almost seemed like words.
Almost.
The almost-words shimmered on the walls as if they were painted with glitter. Sometimes they slid down the walls and slid back up again, making her dizzy.
And still she and her captors descended. Down, down, down, into the pits of hell.
Jasper Swain’s eyes had stopped bleeding. At least, she thought they had. He’d taken off the mask, but his cap bill was so low that all she could see of his face was a deep shadow.
And she knew he wasn’t Jasper Swain, either. Swain was still in prison in St. Clair County, not due for his next parole hearing for at least five more years. Her head was playing games with her.
She remembered a needle. They’d shot her full of something. Something potent. That was why the walls were melting and she was seeing people who weren’t there.
“What do you want with me?” she asked, raising her head to look at the one she still thought of as Swain.
He didn’t answer, and his shadowy face seemed to undulate in front of her eyes. She dragged her gaze away from the mesmerizing dance and gazed upward, wondering if someone had heard her screams.
What she saw on the landing above nearly made her racing heart stop in its tracks.
She was seeing another person who wasn’t there.
Couldn’t be there.
The face was almost as familiar to her now as her own reflection in the mirror. Maybe even more familiar, considering how much she’d seemed to change over the last six months. He’d changed little at all. A little more scruffy, as if her hallucinating mind had conjured up the beard stubble she’d secretly wanted to see on his clean-shaven jaw. His hair was longer, too, no longer combed back into a neatly groomed cut that seemed to scream “federal agent.”
Oh, Scanlon, she thought, blinking back sudden tears when his ghost disappeared from sight. A fresh sense of loss overwhelmed her, oddly energizing. Rage infused her—rage at her own sense of powerlessness, at the ravening grief slowly eating her from the inside out.
He’s gone. He’s not coming back. And you’ll be gone, too, if you don’t get your head back together and figure out how to get away from these goons.
The walls around her closed in, threatening to trigger claustrophobia. Seeing what she thought was an exit door on the next stair landing, she focused hard, making out the number two. Second floor.
She knew the first-floor door opened onto a narrow corridor from which a person could either head down the hall to the front lobby or go out a side door to the parking lot. She’d gone that route earlier that morning, when a couple of the conference coordinators had taken her out for breakfast.
If they got her to the first floor, they’d be out to the parking lot before her screams could grab anyone’s attention.
She tensed her muscles and glanced upward again, hoping to see Scanlon’s ghost. But he didn’t make a reappearance. She tamped down a rush of sorrow.
Now,
