Risky Baby Business

by Debra Salonen

  He’d only taken two steps when the beam from a flashlight hit him squarely in the eyes. “Eli, cut it out,” he barked, momentarily confused. Hadn’t the boy gone home before Crissy?

  “If you mean the kid, you got the wrong person.”

  David froze, his blood stalling about midway to his heart. He didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew who the person on the other end of the flashlight was. Someone sent by Ray to kill him.

  He’d stayed too long. Let down his guard. Convinced himself the fire was an accident—the result of a malfunctioning water heater. He’d been a fool and now Liz was in harm’s way.

  Liz. He had to warn her. He hurled the garbage bag in his hand, like his namesake taking on a giant. But his aim wasn’t as good. Just as he let go, a sharp prick exploded in his shoulder. He sank to his knees as the quick-acting tranquilizer pumped through his system. “Take me. Just me.”

  He didn’t know if the words made it out or not.

  LIZ WANTED to leave. She needed to check on David. No, that was a lie. She wanted to grab David by the hand and pull him into her bed so she could thank him properly. What an amazing man he’d turned out to be. Thoughtful, kind, creative and genuinely interested in others. Not many men would have done what he’d done—helped her make peace with her neighbor.

  “I think this might be the start of something good, don’t you?” Crissy said, her tone tired, but slightly wistful.

  Liz hadn’t been listening too closely so she was afraid to act too enthusiastic. She was pretty sure Crissy wasn’t still talking about the skate park idea Liz had brought up. “Pardon?”

  “Elijah never made it easy for me and Eli to like each other. Understandable, I suppose, given the fact that they don’t see each other on a regular basis. Every time Eli showed up, our lives would turn upside down. That isn’t right, either. But with this new arrangement, I think Eli and I will be able to build a relationship that’s not adversarial.”

  “From what I could see, he’s a normal kid dealing with normal kid things, plus trying to fit in with two families. Be patient.”

  Crissy gave Liz a quick hug. “You’re really such a nice person. I blame myself for making Eli think you were different. Not intentionally, but when he was talking to the counselor about why he said those things to you, I could almost hear my voice in the background.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Crissy’s face turned crimson. “Stupid stuff. Unfeeling. I remember saying something like ‘People without kids don’t have a clue about the real world.’ I know that’s not true, but your life does change when you have children.”

  Liz couldn’t argue with that. She didn’t even have her daughter yet, but her life had changed dramatically.

  “And I assumed that your roommates were paying rent. I didn’t know you were helping them out by giving them a place to stay. I remember grousing about you not wanting to do the beautification project. I probably called you cheap. I’m sorry. God, I was an ass.”

  Liz was surprised by Crissy’s honesty, but since she’d held her own preconceived idea about Crissy and her life, she really couldn’t point fingers. “Wars have been fought over less,” she said, with a shrug. “At least we’ve cleared the air. Now, I’m dirty and pooped. Time to call it a night.”

  “Okeydokey,” Crissy said with a corny giggle. “I’ll let you go. Tell David I really can’t thank him enough. ’Night.”

  Oh, I’ll thank him all right, Liz thought as she started toward the backyard. She had several methods in mind. She’d just stepped inside the rear gate when she stopped short and looked around. Her Gypsy sense told her something wasn’t right, even though her newly landscaped backyard looked great. Only a white trash bag, lying cockeyed against the fence, seemed out of place. It was squishing one of her new hedgehog cacti, the same kind she’d run over with her car the day she met David.

  “That’s odd,” she murmured under her breath.

  The immediate stillness seemed ominous, despite the familiar sounds of the city around her. Bells and whistles went off in her head. Bells and whistles she’d ignored once before. This time she listened.

  She turned and started running as fast as she could along the sidewalk between her garage and Crissy’s fence. She didn’t look back. She didn’t know what or even if someone was chasing her. She made it to Crissy’s porch and had her hand on the clapper when a voice said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  She didn’t know the voice, but she knew the tone. Cold. Hostile. Deadly. She’d heard it before—in Iraq. The sound of a man who had nothing to lose.

  Chapter 15

  “I was going to kill only him, you know,” said the man behind the wheel of Liz’s car. David’s former boss, she’d discerned from watching him give orders to the thug who’d been standing over David’s prone body when Liz entered her garage at gunpoint. “The fire should have done that. I watched it burn, expecting to see him run out of the building, screaming in pain with his clothes on fire. Like in the movies. Only it didn’t happen. That old bag next door called the cops too soon, and Paul wasn’t in there anyway.”

  Liz found it disconcerting when the man called David Paul, but she made herself focus. If they were going to survive this, she’d need to play it smart. And listen.

  They’d been driving for what felt like hours. A cloth of some kind was bound tightly around her eyes. A thread, dangling above her upper lip, had been driving her nuts until she finally managed to catch it with her teeth and snip it off.

  Stupid thing to be distracted by, she thought. I’m tied up and stuck in the backseat of my own car with my lover. She could hear David’s shallow breathing and recognize his familiar smell, but other than that, she knew nothing. Was he injured? Bleeding? Dying?

  Her life should have been passing before her eyes, and she was distracted by a ticklish string. “Stupid,” she muttered softly.

  “Eh? What’s that, Gypsy Girl?”

  That’s what the nutcase who’d kidnapped her called her. David was Paul, and she was Gypsy Girl.

  “My name is Elizabeth.”

  “Oh, I know your name. I know everything there is to know about you.” His low laugh gave her the creeps. “Well, not everything, but I always left the nitty-gritty intense research to Paul.”

  “His name is David.”

  The voice laughed again, only this time it was colder, less indulgent. “No, Gypsy, the man beside you is Paul Andrew McAffee. A poor, unloved orphan who came to me right out of college, filled with ambition, brains and not much else. I paid for his graduate school courses, his travels, his research. I molded and shaped him into a man who was poised to introduce to the world a drug so novel and revolutionary people would kill to own the patent.”

  People would have been killed if you’d had your way, she thought but didn’t say out loud.

  “Where are you taking us?”

  She tried to wiggle her fingers. Her hands were bound behind her back, which made sitting upright a challenge. The digits were starting to fall asleep, the blood flow compromised by the thin strip of plastic holding them tight. She was sure the chafed flesh at her wrists was bleeding, but inching sideways toward the door had taken a little pressure off her arms.

  She couldn’t move far though because David, who was unconscious—well, unmoving—beside her, had fallen sideways. His head had rested against her shoulder until the driver took a sharp corner. Then his body had plopped forward, facedown on her knees. She’d spread her knees as much as possible so as not to block his access to air but, given the similar plastic band around her ankles, she could only pray that he didn’t suffocate.

  Her abductor ignored her question and resumed talking about his first attempt to kill David. “As I was saying, after the fire was out and the cops were standing around, I figured maybe they just hadn’t found the body. Nicely barbecued. A crispy critter,” he said with a morbid chuckle. “But then you showed up, driving this little car. Four-wheel drive. Perfect for taking off-roa
d, right?”

  Liz didn’t answer. She hadn’t had time to go camping or playing in the desert since she’d moved back from India. Her cousin Enzo had salvaged the Honda after an accident and rebuilt it with her in mind. The price had been right.

  “I saw Paul get out of your car. When he was dressed in the old man’s getup—that tan jumpsuit, I wasn’t sure it was him, but the night of the fire, he had on a tie. He looked like a science professor, and that’s when I knew I’d found the right guy—and he definitely hadn’t been asleep in his bed.”

  “You set the fire without knowing for sure that David was the man you were looking for?”

  Her scandalized tone apparently amused him. He let out a loud roar that coincided with the car leaving the pavement. Liz was jostled from side to side. The pain in her wrists was excruciating. David’s head bounced up and crashed back to her knees. She thought she detected a low groan from him, but the noise of the tires crossing dirt and rock made it impossible to be sure.

  “Here’s what you need to know about me, Gypsy. I don’t suffer liars, cheats or betrayers. And when I set my mind on something I never stop until it’s accomplished.”

  Liz knew better than to argue with a maniac. Plus, the off-road path they’d entered was deeply rutted, making conversation difficult. She was thankful for the seat belt that his accomplice had clicked in place despite her twisting protests. His comment had been “Don’t want to attract police attention, do we?” But poor David wasn’t as lucky.

  His groans were getting louder with each bump, she thought. She had no idea how long they’d been on the road, but maybe whatever drug the crazy guy and his henchman had used to stun David was wearing off.

  Liz’s first thought when she’d seen David facedown on the floor of her garage—arms and legs trussed up—was that he was dead, and she was going to be next. She’d turned to look at the man holding the gun. David’s nemesis didn’t look anything like she’d pictured.

  Bald, with pale skin that obviously hadn’t seen the sun in ages, he had the sickly appearance of an invalid. But what struck her most was the taut skin around his eyes. He’d had some kind of cosmetic surgery. She’d have staked her life on it.

  “Why are you doing this? Why me?” she’d asked, her brain frantically searching for a way to get loose and call for help.

  “Because Paul has the hots for you,” he’d said, apparently enjoying the moment. “And that’s when it occurred to me that simple death was too easy for Paul. No, the real payback comes when I see the look on his face as he realizes that the woman he loves is going to die because of him. Is that not sweet revenge?”

  “You’re sick.”

  His laugh seemed pleased, as if the word were praise.

  “Gypsy Girl, Paul here is my last loose end. For four years I’ve endured painful surgeries the likes of which make reality TV come off as kid’s stuff. I’ve spent my recuperative hours searching for some sign that the man I’d grown to love as a son was still alive.”

  “So you could kill him?” Liz cried.

  “So I could hear him beg for his life.”

  “That will never happen.”

  “Maybe not. But I betcha anything he’ll beg for yours.”

  The driver was now humming some country-and-western tune Liz couldn’t quite place. She pushed the memory of his gleeful comment out of her mind. Things had turned ugly fast after that. The other man—a larger, bodybuilder type—had overpowered her and tied her wrists and ankles then placed her in her car. This was the one thing that gave her hope. After all, Zeke had installed some kind of tracking device in the Honda. Surely the madman and his accomplice hadn’t thought to look for one. Why would they?

  Because they’re paranoid psychos who have been outrunning the law for four years, a part of her mind had answered.

  But no one had mentioned finding the bug, she comforted herself.

  What good the device would do, she had no clue. She hadn’t asked Zeke how the darn thing worked or if it was even turned on. “Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered under her breath.

  At least, she knew part of the bad guys’ plan because she’d overheard them talking outside the car right before they parted company and both drove away, the boss behind the wheel of her Honda.

  “Follow me to the junction then wait. Once I drop them off, I’ll meet you and we can dump this wreck at McCarran. Even if someone finds it, they’ll waste time trying to see if Paul and the girl took off somewhere. Too bad I don’t have time to arrange a fake wedding. That would really throw the cops off.”

  A fake wedding. Just a few days earlier she and David—she really couldn’t think of him as Paul McAffee—had been dancing at Kate’s wedding. She’d invited him into her life and look what had happened. If she didn’t get free and find her way back to safety, all would be lost. Prisha would never get the help she needed. The little girl would become another statistic. The sparkle in her beautiful eyes would dim and eventually disappear.

  Stay focused, she silently ordered. She’d taken a survival course before her assignment overseas. The instructor had discussed hostage situations. The first rule was not to panic. “People who panic, die. Your brain is a tool. Use it. Stay alert. Be prepared to take advantage of any opportunity that comes your way, no matter how small.”

  She slouched down until her fingers touched the seat cushion. Her normally pristine car had been seriously neglected the past few weeks. Every time she took her roommates somewhere, they had to stop for some kind of fast food. Happy Meals were a favorite. And Arby’s sandwiches. Some of the Arby’s wrappers were shiny. Shiny things could be used as a signal, right?

  But finding one proved impossible. She couldn’t reach anything on the floor. And she had to assume her captor would check her waistband to see what was making the material of her pants so lumpy. But she did find one small treasure—a metal nail file that Lydia had complained about losing weeks ago. Liz used her thumbs to slip it down her pants. Would it be sharp enough to cut through their bindings? Who knew, but she’d take what she could find. A couple of soft, rubbery objects she guessed might be old French fries went in her pants, too. And a screw top lid from a water bottle.

  The driver hit the brakes and David’s body was suddenly launched forward. He gave a loud groan when he landed on the floor, his face near her feet.

  “Oops. Big rock. Don’t want to blow a tire. We’re not far enough in, yet. Can’t have some miraculous rescue by a couple of day hikers, now can we? You just stay down, Paul, my boy. If you think you can play the hero twice in one lifetime, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  Paul—David—moaned, but didn’t move.

  “We’ll be there soon. You just relax and enjoy the sights.” His laugh was so eerie, Liz shivered. Tears squeezed past her eyelids, soaking into the fabric of the blindfold. Panic rose and she had to fight back a scream.

  Silently, intently, she focused her thoughts on reaching the man at her feet. David. David, stay with me. Keep breathing. I need you. Don’t leave me. Please. I love you. I need you. She kept up the silent litany, praying it might reach him.

  THE URGE TO VOMIT was so powerful it woke David up like a slap. He fought to keep his roiling stomach under control, but motion sickness and whatever had been in the tranquilizer was a potent combination. His mouth flooded with spit. His head felt as if it might explode. He opened his eyes and could see nothing but black. His vertigo intensified.

  He tried to move and realized his arms and legs were bound. Lifting his chest up gave him some sense of where he was—on the floor of a vehicle that was bouncing over a rough road. The abuse had taken a toll on his hip bones and ribs. Every inch of his chest and abdomen hurt, but the pain was good. It meant he was alive.

  He turned his head to listen for any sounds beyond the motor, drivetrain and road noise. Within seconds, he realized he wasn’t alone. A coldness grabbed his insides and twisted. Liz. The bastard had Liz, too.

  He rolled over, ignoring the shaft of pain that shot u
p his arms. Parts of his body were asleep from lack of circulation. But he had to find out if she was alive. He had to touch her.

  His head bumped bone and denim. He rubbed his chin up and down. A low gasp gave him hope. She wasn’t dead, but she was undoubtedly trussed up just like he was.

  What Ray had in mind was anybody’s guess, but David was pretty sure it didn’t involve bloodshed. Ray wasn’t above ordering someone to kill, but David had never seen his former boss handle a gun.

  Of course things might have changed in four years. Ray’s looks certainly had. David had only caught a distorted glimpse of his ex-boss’s face when Ray helped his hired goon drag David’s body into the garage, but he’d been shocked at the changes. Even Ray’s voice had been altered.

  He moved again trying to find a position that inflicted less pain. If Ray left them alive in the desert, they still had a chance. Not much of one, granted, with no water, but four years of hunting cacti had taught David a few things about desert survival. He’d take his chances with Mother Nature any day over dealing with a madman.

  And though he wanted to touch Liz, to comfort her and reassure her that everything would be okay, he wasn’t a hypocrite. He was the reason she was here. He was the reason she might die. If they made it through this, he vowed to do the right thing. He’d leave and never come back. She deserved a whole hell of a lot more than he had to offer—starting with the assurance that she could work in her backyard without being kidnapped at gunpoint.

  Despite the rough road and frequent bottoming out that tortured his joints and added new bruises on top of old ones, David dozed off and on—probably from the residual drug in his system. He didn’t fight it. He’d need every ounce of strength to protect Liz once they stopped.