It was still light out, this being the middle of March, so he’d have to be damn careful. He hoped Tate was holding up all right. He also didn’t think Sands Point had a psychiatric hospital.
TATE WOKE TO DARKNESS. She lay on a mattress, her right handcuffed to something behind and above her head. Every part of her body ached as she shifted her position.
She tried to think. She’d been in the store with Elizabeth. Karen had been doing a hem. And she’d bought two shirts for her father. It was blank after that.
This was it, of course. The kidnapping. She could feel the familiar symptoms of a panic attack coming over her like a wave. Her accelerated heartbeat, her constricted throat, the narrowing of her vision as she felt as if she was going to die.
“Please,” she said, but her voice broke and turned into a sob. “Please, stop this.”
She wept and struggled for breath as her stomach churned. It felt as if she was on the water, rolling with the waves, but that couldn’t be.
All she wanted was to go home. She’d been crazy to think this was a good idea. It was her worst nightmare come to life. “Please,” she said again, this time louder, but no one answered.
He hadn’t covered her eyes though he’d said he was going to use a blindfold. But it didn’t matter because she couldn’t see anything but dark and she couldn’t hear anything but her own silent scream. Her body spasmed and she barely felt the pain in her wrist. Everything was too closed, too tight, and she couldn’t breathe. If she could just get outside, stop this pounding in her chest… She would die, and then Michael would never know. He would only remember her being so stupid. God, please, make it stop. Please, please. Can’t breathe. She was going to throw up, she knew it. She would die like this, in this small room, and she hadn’t lived at all.
A light burned her eyes and she struggled more, desperate to get out, get free. Someone was over her, touching her, holding her shoulders.
“Please stop it. Stop. I don’t want this. I have to get out, please!”
“Quiet, you damn fool. You’re bleeding.”
She opened her eyes, adjusted painfully to the light. The man was dark and small and she didn’t know him. She’d never seen him before. It wasn’t Brody. Brody had promised…
“Stop struggling. You’re tearing open your wrist.”
But she couldn’t. The more he pressed on her shoulders, the more desperate she became. The smell of liquor made her gag, and he stepped back. She opened her mouth, ready to plead, to beg, but she screamed and screamed.
He slapped her hard across the face, and it was as if she’d been doused with cold water. She stopped screaming and for a moment, a horribly vivid moment, she was clear, she was there, in this strange room with the awful man.
“Shut the hell up. You’re gonna piss him off-and you don’t want to do that.”
“Let me go,” she whispered, barely recognizing her own voice. “Stop this now. I’ll pay you. You won’t lose any money, but please let me go.”
“You’ll pay, all right, but there’s no way we’re letting you go.”
“Where’s Brody?”
“Who the fuck’s Brody? Just shut up. Be still and it’ll be better for you.”
“What?”
“If you calm down, I’ll put something on your wrist.”
“Who are you?”
He smiled, and his teeth were large and his eyes were small. “Don’t matter who I am. What matters is who you are.”
“You’re not Brody.”
He shook his head. “You want to bleed to death, that’s okay with me, only he don’t want his bed all filled with blood, see?”
“Who is he? Where am I?”
“Listen to me. Just give me your father’s phone number, okay? That’s all you have to do. Then everything’ll be just fine.”
“What?”
“The phone number. There’s nothing else you need to worry about. Just give us the number.”
“Why?”
“Look, just give it up. You’re a pretty lady. You don’t want to get hurt now, do ya?”
“Oh, my God. You’re not Brody. This isn’t the plan. You’ve kidnapped me. You’re going to kill me.”
“Now who said anything about killing you? We just need the number.”
She’d awakened from her nightmare straight into hell. This was the real thing. She’d been kidnapped. Every bad dream she’d ever had was true and right now, and there was no bargaining, no going to a safe place. She would die and all she could think as she closed her eyes was that she hoped it wouldn’t hurt too badly.
She’d never even asked Michael into her home. And now she’d never get the chance.
5
NO LIGHTS WERE ON inside the house. From where Michael was hiding, behind a band of large elm trees, it appeared that no one was home and that the exterior lights were all connected to a security system.
Getting to the back of the estate was going to be tricky. The last thing he wanted was a police cruiser catching him trespassing. He supposed he could tell the truth-that he was trying to prevent a fake kidnapping-but he doubted the officers would let him continue on his way.
If it had been his place, he knew just where he’d focus his motion sensors and where he’d put the cameras. There was a very narrow window between this estate and the next where motion sensors became a pain in the ass. It wasn’t wide enough for an automobile, but it would work for him as long as the fence held out. There was only one way to find out.
He took off, wondering who owned this place. Now that he was here, he couldn’t picture Brody living here. The house was ornate, ostentatious. It spoke of old money with its sculptured gardens and heavy drapes behind the closed windows. Brody was modern and eclectic and he would always want to be seen as avant-garde. Unless this was somehow his wife’s estate? That didn’t fit, either.
He made his way back far enough that he could hear the ocean. The salty scent had been in the air for a while, but the sound of water lapping against a pier or a dock or a boat…He’d been in enough oceans to have some discernment, but he’d never been a SEAL.
Would he have taken her to a boat? Was that all part of his plan? If so, it was goddamn stupid. A woman with a panic disorder and the ocean didn’t mix. It was far too easy to picture an ugly death in a boat.
But perhaps there was some other building behind the main house where he had her. He hoped so. It had been too long since she’d been taken. He doubted Tate was handling things well.
Shit, by now her disappearance had to have made a stir. She was Tate Baxter, after all, and the kidnapping had taken place in broad daylight in a very expensive section of Manhattan. William would be going insane and he would want his security chief’s head on a platter.
Well, it had been an interesting job while it’d lasted. Once he got Tate back home, he’d resign and he’d distance himself as much as possible from his team. They didn’t need to collect unemployment just because he’d been suckered.
The edge of the main house came into view, and behind it he could see the ocean. There was a yacht, at least a 65 footer, moored at the edge of a small pier. Parked right by the dock was a white van with muddy plates. Lights glowed from inside the yacht, and as he ran faster, he could see a man’s silhouette.
There was no other building. They had her on the water. But not for long.
“WAKE UP.”
Tate fought to stay cool, but the sharp pains in her wrist and on her arms were more insistent than the man. She opened her eyes. There were more lights on, and she could now see him clearly.
He was of some mixed heritage, maybe black, maybe Hispanic. His eyes were almost golden, which didn’t make much sense. He looked intent and excited; he was smiling as he shook her, and his teeth were crooked, large. He exhaled garlic in her face, and she tried to move her head, which hurt worse than her wrist.