Lightning split the night sky in frenzy. And with every crack of thunder, Jess tensed with her heart in her throat. Rain pelted her windshield, hard. She’d been tempted to pull under an overpass to wait the storm out, but that felt like a waste of time. With visibility poor, she had to lower her speed to a crawl.
She drove until the signal became faint. She turned around at an overpass and headed south again, but before too many miles realized it was time to divert off the interstate and head east. Rather than arbitrarily picking a route, she decided to drive the frontage road that paralleled I-57 to see where the signal was strongest. Soon it became clear that a farm road heading east, a route meant for local traffic, was the most promising. And she couldn’t see any lights in that direction, not even a farmhouse. Had they lost power in the area?
“Damn it.”
Any other time, she might have followed the road without hesitating, but she’d made a promise to Seth…and to Sam. She pulled into an abandoned gas station situated next to the turn off, with the interstate clearly in sight. Harper would see her headlights from the highway if he knew where
to look. And the station’s overhang gave her a break from the steady rain. A good spot to wait. She took a deep breath, thankful for the relief.
“Okay, Seth. Let’s find out where you are.”
She tried his cell phone. With the bad weather, service was marginal. After a couple of tries she got his voice mail and left a message. In a few minutes she tried again and got through. When he answered, she didn’t bother with formalities.
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Where are you?”
She gave him her location, using exit numbers and estimated mileage. Although the old gas station wasn’t much, it made for a decent landmark.
“I’ll keep my car running and the headlights on. As you’re heading south, I’ll be on the frontage road to your left, the east side of the road. This place looks like one of those old funky gas stations from the fifties.”
“Looking at the mile markers, I’m only a few minutes away. That’s great.”
“Can you read the signal, Seth? You should pick it up, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. You did good, Jessie.” He sounded relieved. “Stay put. I’m almost there.”
She ended the call, but had to admit it felt wonderful to hear his voice, and knowing he was minutes away felt good too. She kept her eyes on the interstate, looking for that damned blue van. The rain blurred everything, but she kept watch anyway. When he got there, she’d get them both suited up in Kevlar. No sense taking any risk. She had a couple of vests in the trunk.
But when the transmitter signal suddenly got stronger—out of the blue—it caught her by surprise. She shifted in her seat, focusing all her attention on the tracking gear.
“What the hell?”
Now the signal was steady and clear. If she didn’t know
any better, she could swear she was right on top of the thing. Seth said that once they found the location, they’d know it, without a doubt.
But this? She was in the middle of nowhere. It made no sense.
“What’s happening?” Her hands groped the control panel in the dim light off her dashboard.
But a sharp tap on glass jolted her heart.
“Shit!”
She turned and the glare of a flashlight blinded her. She shielded her eyes. What was Harper doing? How did he…? It dawned on her too late. No way Seth could have gotten there so fast. A motion across the headlights caught her eye. And to her right, another flashlight invaded the darkness. A group of men surrounded her car. She couldn’t see how many.
They were dressed in black like a paramilitary unit, and their faces were covered. But one man approached from the shadows near her front door. In his hand he held something she recognized.
The black computer bag.
“Oh…my…God.” It was all she had time to say.
Jess reached for her Colt Python, but the man with the bag beat her to the punch. She stared down the barrel of his weapon, knowing she couldn’t beat the odds. For a heartbeat, she left her hand on the butt of her gun, but soon raised her hands. She swallowed, unsure she could even breathe. The man gestured for her to open the door.
Slowly, she looked down. Yes, her door was locked, but it went against all her survival instincts to give in. How could she help them? When the man decided she wasn’t moving fast enough, he took matters in his hands. He shouted an order.
Crack!
The passenger window exploded.
Glass shattered across her face and hands. She felt the sting of cuts. In defense, Jess wrapped her arms over her
head. From both sides her car doors flew open. They’d unlocked the doors. Hands groped her body, tugging at her. The men yanked her from the car, kicking and screaming. Like a pack of animals, they came at her, punishing her for resisting. They dragged her into the cold rain. And a fierce chill took over, making her teeth chatter out of control.
One of the men shoved her against a hard surface, an edge cutting across her back.
“Arrgghh.”
A sliver of hope. That’s all she had. If she held out long enough, Harper would see what was happening and call for help.
“Who are you?” She tried stalling. “What do you want? There’s been a mistake.”
The men circled her now. No one answered her questions. Their shadows eclipsed the light from her headlights. One man looked to be the leader. The tall one with long hair. When he stepped closer, she thought he might speak, but instead he reached out and gripped her by the throat with one hand, the move quick. With brutal force, he pressed hard and shoved her against a wall, smacking the back of her head. She nearly lost consciousness. Blood slithered down her neck.
She felt her body lift. Her feet no longer touched the ground. She couldn’t breathe. Struggling for air, she clawed at his arms—punching and kicking him—but the others held her down. Stars burst like fireworks behind her eyes. And the blackness came. He was going to kill her…right here…right now.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
The rain had finally tapered off, and Seth took the change to be a good sign. He dialed back his wiper blades to stop the annoying sound they made on high speed. Finding Jess had become his top priority, so when he noticed a change in the transmitter signal, the notion barely registered; he dismissed it.
Maybe the rain and the dark made him worry more than he should, but Jess had a way of attracting danger. Even in the short time he’d known her, he could tell that she lived on the edge. And something drove her from deep inside—something she held close.
Lucas Baker had been different from the other scumbags she hunted for bounty money, but there had been no time to talk about it, assuming she’d open up to him at all. He’d never met anyone like her.
A road sign caught his attention. This was it. According to Jess, at the next exit he would follow the frontage road to the overpass and hit the turnaround to catch her on the other side. She’d also told him her headlights would be on and he could spot her from the interstate.
Seth peered through the rain, finding the old gas station,
as she’d described it. And he grinned when he saw her car with headlights blazing. But his smile quickly faded. In the dim light, off to the right, a group of men huddled—some kind of fight.
“Damn it!” He hit the accelerator, gripping the wheel with both hands.
His eyes searched the dark for the exit, then went back at the old gas station. He’d never make it in time. Jess needed him now. There was only one thing for him to do. He veered to the left lane, looking for a spot to cross. When he hit the median, his van almost bottomed out. He didn’t have time to search for level ground. And with the excessive rain, his tires hit mud and spun. A high whine mixed with the sound of heavy splatter.
“Shit! Not now!” he yelled. “Not now!”
Finally, the van lurched forward, nearly jostling him out of his seat. When he got to solid road, he reached for the cell phone clipped to his belt and hit redial.
“Come on…come on.” He prayed Sam would pick up. She couldn’t be far behind, not after he’d called to tell her where Jess would be. When she answered, he blurted out, “Jessie’s in trouble. Those men—they have her.”
“What’s happening, Seth? Talk to me.” Sam heard his panic and it gripped her heart in a tight fist. In reflex, she gunned the gas pedal and barreled down the interstate, looking for the exit. “Seth? Can you hear me?”
She heard road noise over the phone and Seth cursing in the background, but he sounded far away. After what seemed an eternity, he got back on the phone.
“They took her car. She’s gone, Sam.”
Now she heard fear in his voice.
“Who took her, Seth? What’s going on?” she asked. Archer leaned toward her, concern on his face.
She punched the accelerator as she spotted her exit ahead.
“I’m almost there, Seth. Hang on.”
But he didn’t hear her. “Sam, I’m keeping my cell phone open, but I gotta drive. And I can’t do it in the dark.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“I know where they went. I followed their taillights, but now I gotta drive without my lights so they won’t see me. And I’m already too far behind, I may lose them. They’ve taken a farm road east, the one near the gas station. You’ll know it when you see it. And I’m driving a blue van, but Sam? In case something happens to me, track my phone. I’ll leave the line open.”
Seth’s meaning was clear…and ominous. Now all she could do was listen to him drive, but she had to keep the connection open. The gas station was ahead to the right.
Turning to Archer, she said, “Please…make a call to Detective Garza. He should be on his way.”
She gave him the number, hitting the turn onto the farm road and gunning the engine. But unlike Seth, she kept her headlights on, trying to make up time. Archer made the call using his personal phone and handed it to her. When Garza got on the line, Sam filled him in.
“Jess is in trouble.”
“Wow, something new. I’ll alert the media.”
“I don’t need your sarcasm, Ray. Seth Harper is following the men who’ve taken her. Have someone trace the GPS on Harper’s phone, we may need it.” She gave him the phone number for Seth’s open line. “I’m on the farm road by the gas station. Heading east. Find me.”
Sam ended the call and handed the phone back to Archer.
“Sorry I got you both into this.” She wasn’t sure what else to say to Archer and Tanu. If anything happened, she’d get them to safety first, but she’d cross that bridge when the time came.
Archer fixed his gaze on her, his profile silhouetted by the dim lights off her dash.
“If these men have Nikki, then this is my fight too,” he
said. “Don’t apologize. I just hope your friend is okay. She sounds like a gutsy woman.”
Sam kept watch for Seth’s blue van, but she couldn’t get her mind off Jessie.
“You have no idea.”
Jess opened her eyes, her head spinning and in pain. Everything blurred around her, fading to blackness then in bright focus again. Bile rose from her stomach. She heaved but nothing came. And behind her eyes, pinpricks of light spiraled out of control, making it difficult to see anything at all. From experience, she suspected she had suffered a concussion, judging by her symptoms.
And the cold, her body ached from it. She gasped for air, her throat bruised inside and out.
“What…?” She tried to speak but only a raspy whisper escaped her lips.
When her eyes cleared enough for her to trust what they saw, she found a harsh light hanging overhead with nothing but darkness around her. She sat propped against a wall, her wrists cuffed above her head. And they had stripped her and taken her clothes. She surged into a sudden and uncontrollable panic, tugging at the handcuffs until her wrists nearly broke, screaming as loud as she could. Primal fear for survival had taken over.
“
Aaarrgghhh
…noooo!” She felt the warm trickle of blood down her arms. Her hands and wrists were already numb.
Her body reacted in frenzy and she couldn’t stop it. A flood of desperate memories clouded her mind, yanking her back to a time she only wanted to forget. No longer a grown woman, she was forced to suffer the unimaginable torment of her childhood once again. And the jagged scars across her body—faded with time yet fresh in her mind—were plain for anyone to see. Over the years, she had grown to
hate seeing them in the mirror, but here she was completely exposed.
She would have no secrets from her captors.
None!
“Imagine my surprise…” A man’s voice came from the dark. “Such a beautiful woman…yet so scarred.”
She stopped her struggle and listened, her heart pounding and her chest heaving.
It took her a while to place the accent. Distinctly Russian, once she calmed down enough to reflect on it. She shifted her head right, then left, trying to catch a glimpse of the man. His footsteps echoed in the large room. And she followed the sound with her eyes, her lips trembling.
“You are a woman with secrets, yes?”
Finally, the Russian walked into the light, and she recognized his shoulder length hair. He was one of the men who had abducted her, the one who almost killed her. She swallowed, nearly choking on her next breath.
“Perhaps we share more than you know,” he whispered.
He kicked her legs apart and knelt between them. Slowly, he ran his hands up her thighs, not taking his eyes off her. The man looked like a coiled rattler ready to strike, and she couldn’t turn away. She tightened her jaw, grappling with fear.
“You wanted to know more about what goes on here. Now you will find out for yourself.”
He yanked at her knees and pulled her hips toward him, taking away her leverage to fight back. His body reacted to her nakedness. She felt it. He ran his hands over her breasts and squeezed until she cried out. Now, pinning her to the floor with his weight, he lowered his mouth to her nipple, taking it in his lips. She waited for the pain of his bite, but it never came—
only the degradation
. When he pulled back, he had a sick, twisted smile on his face.
“I get what I want…no matter. You tell me what I want to know and you decide. Pain or not?” He rose and leaned on an elbow, glaring at her. “Who is Seth Harper? He is not
an easy man to locate, but with or without your help, I will find him.”
“Then you don’t need my help.”
Judging by the look in the Russian’s eyes, her feeble defiance struck a nerve. The man took a knife from a sheath on his belt. The blade glinted under the light. He traced the craggy scar along her eyebrow and ran the tip of his blade across her lip, cutting her. She winced.
“A pity that I will not be your first.”
She knew exactly what he meant. The man had the mark of a longtime abuser. She watched for the trigger, the instant the Russian would lose control and take what he wanted. She’d seen it before, too many times. The man stared at her now, perhaps reading her mind and torturing her with his restraint.
“You are…nothing,” he whispered, his face twisted with abuse. She felt his breath on her skin. “This…I think you know. I see it in…those eyes.”
The Russian dragged the blade under her right eye, and she held her breath. He was in complete control and she knew it. He had reminded her how weak she had always been. And no matter who she’d become, she knew a part of her would always be powerless. She had her trigger too, the point where she would give in to whatever happened. The Russian had seen it for himself. He lowered his mouth to her body and she shut her eyes, blocking everything out.
It was happening again and she’d never be free. When his hands groped her body, she fought back tears welling in her eyes. She gritted her teeth and detached herself from what was about to happen.
But a voice bellowed from the dark.
“I’ve got something you need to see. This won’t wait.” Another man called out from the back of the room, his voice in panic.
Jess couldn’t have been more grateful. Tears drained down her cheeks in relief, but to her shock, the Russian
didn’t stop. If anything, he grew more determined. She heard the sound of his belt buckle and felt the urgency in his body. She struggled under him, bucking under his weight. She resisted the only way she could.
“Stas, we don’t have time for this,” the man shouted. She heard his footsteps come closer. “Put her with the others. I need you. Now.”
The Russian abruptly stopped—out of breath and seething with anger—the crazed look still in his eyes. In a move she didn’t see coming, he slashed across her chest with the knife.
“Aarrgh,”
she cried, pulling her knees in tight.
The cut wasn’t deep, but he had left his mark. Blood seeped from the wound and rolled off her body. Cold chills raced across her skin.
“We are not done. You will see.” He rose from the floor and stood over her, pointing his knife. “And next time, you will wish we had finished here.”
After the Russian left, two men freed her hands and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, but not out of compassion. They hauled her down a long dim hallway, past a door that got her attention.
Two uniformed men stood in the doorway, taking orders from the Russian, who glared at her as she passed. Across the room another man was talking on the phone. Although she only got a quick glimpse of him, she recognized his voice. He was the one who stopped the Russian from raping her. She didn’t get a good look, but the dimly lit room was filled with computers and high-tech control panels. A silent red flashing alarm spiraled its light through the room. The setup struck her as strange, but she was in too much pain to focus.
Down the hall, her captors tossed her into a dark room. When she fell, she scraped her knees and elbows, her body wracked with pain. Something else had been thrown on top of her, but she hurt too much to check it out. For a moment
she lay where she’d fallen, curled into the blanket as best she could. But a sound from across the room forced her to listen.
A whisper. Very faint.
“Are you okay?” The whisper came again, stronger this time.
Jess rolled toward the noise and peered through the murky darkness, her only light coming from under the doorway. In the corner of the room, along the far wall, a shadow moved and then another. Others were with her. She wasn’t alone.
“Who are you?” She kept her voice low. “What’s happening?”
One of the shadows moved again and crawled toward her. A young girl. When she got closer, the girl spoke quietly.
“These aren’t much, but you should put them on. It’s cold in here.” The girl picked up what the men had tossed onto the floor beside her, nothing more than cotton drawstring pants and a shirt. “There’s more of us here, but the others are too scared to say anything.”
“How many others are here?” Jess asked as she dressed. Each move made her wince, but the girl helped her put the loose garments on.
“There’s only five in this room, including you, but I have no idea if there’s more. I haven’t been here that long.”
“Wait a minute. What’s your name?” Jess asked.
“My name’s Nikki. Nikki Archer. Who are you?”
Jess wanted to cry, but her tears at having found Archer’s niece were tinged with the hopelessness of their situation.
“I’m Jessie Beckett.” She stroked the girl’s hair with both hands. “Nikki, your uncle came to Chicago looking for you.”
“What? Uncle Payton?”
Before she could explain, the girl collapsed into her arms and let go. Without the fear of someone hearing her, she sobbed uncontrollably, her body trembling. Jess knew
exactly how she felt. Long ago, she had experienced the overwhelming relief when she knew her physical torment had finally ended.
But unlike what happened with her, no one was here to rescue Nikki—no one that mattered anyway.