“Sorry, Vicente,” Quinn said, sparking another spurt of annoyance in her; if anybody should get an apology, it should be her, shouldn’t it?
Teague yelled something Hayley couldn’t hear well enough to understand, but Quinn must have, because he turned his head to answer. Then he reached out and picked something up from the empty front seat. If she had any guts, now would have been a chance, while he was turned away. She could lunge for the door, get away. Problem was, she didn’t think she could undo the belt, hang on to Cutter and get the door open fast enough. She—
Quinn turned back, and the moment was lost. To her surprise, he jammed himself onto the floor at her feet, although he was tall enough to make it a tight fit. It took her a moment to realize he was staying to keep an eye on them, rather than strapping himself into the vacant seat beside the pilot. That must have been, she thought, what that exchange she hadn’t heard was about. And what he’d picked up was some kind of headset, perhaps something that enabled him to talk to the pilot, or at least muffled the noise that made normal conversation impossible.
And then she felt the undeniable shift as they went airborne into the midnight sky, and it was too late to do anything but try not to shiver under the force of the sheer terror that was rocketing around inside her. Why on earth had he done this? She’d done nothing, had been more than willing to vanish back into the woods and let them go. All she’d wanted was her dog....
She clung to her furry companion, his thick, soft coat warming her hands. If there were lights inside this thing they weren’t on, but she didn’t need them to visualize the dog’s striking coloring, the near-black face, head and shoulders, fading to a rich, reddish brown from there back. The vet said he looked like a purebred Belgian breed, but since—despite being the smartest dog anyone she knew had ever seen—he hadn’t shown up with papers, she didn’t know for sure.
And as comforting as the dog’s presence was—even if he did seem inordinately fond of their kidnapper—she regretted it now. The dog was indeed clever, sometimes to the point of seeming unnaturally so. More than once since the day he’d appeared and proceeded to fill the void in her life, she had wondered if he was really just a dog. He seemed to sense, to understand, to know things that no ordinary dog did or could. And because of that, he would be safer on the ground, able to survive on his own. At least for a while.
She didn’t want to think about the possibility that it might be longer than a while. Much longer. That it might be forever, if these men had lethal intent.
She hugged the dog so tightly that he squirmed a little. What had her bundle of energy and fur gotten them into? The dog didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that he was airborne. He seemed to be treating it as if it were merely a more exciting version of the car rides he so loved.
She ducked her head, pressing her cheek to Cutter’s fur. In the process she stole a glance sideways, to where her neighbor was seated, carefully strapped in. She still couldn’t see much of him, just the gleam of the silver-gray beard, and a faint reflection from his eyes. He’d said nothing else through this, in fact after his query had seemed to shrink back against the side of the noisy craft, as if he were wishing he could vanish as he had on the two occasions she’d come across him outside his house. She wondered what he was thinking about her sudden intrusion into his affairs, inadvertent though it was.
But at least he’d made a token protest. She supposed that counted for something.
Vicente. She’d never known his name. And from the way he’d asked the question, hesitantly, it seemed clear he wasn’t in charge of this operation, whatever it was. Was he rich, was that what this was all about? A kidnapping for ransom? But if so, why was he so cooperative? Not that guns didn’t engender cooperation, but he’d seemed awfully willing.
Besides, why would somebody who could afford an aircraft like this one need money so badly they’d commit a crime like kidnapping? Unless of course that was how they afforded it.
Maybe they were drug dealers, she thought, barely resisting the urge to look around and see if there were drugs piled in the small space behind her. Did helicopters have separate cargo spaces? She had no idea. She pushed the media-inspired image of wrapped white packages of cocaine out of her mind.
There were other possibilities, of course. Terrorists, for instance. They didn’t look it, but what did she know? Maybe Vicente was some sort of master bomb maker, maybe they—
The helicopter seemed to lean sharply, cutting off her careening thoughts. Just as well, she told herself, you were getting silly.
At least, she hoped she was getting silly. But what simple explanation could there be for being scooped up in the middle of the night by strange men, along with her possibly stranger neighbor?
She lifted her head, realized Quinn was staring at her from his spot on the floor. She had no idea what he might be hearing in that headset, but there was no doubt about what he was looking at. As with Vicente, all she could see was the reflection of what dim lights there were in his eyes, and a different sort of gleam on the dark, thick hair.
Since talking and asking the myriad of questions she had was impossible, her mind was free to race to turn over every rock looking for possibilities. This was not necessarily a good thing, she realized. She’d never thought of herself as particularly imaginative, but the things that tumbled through her mind now could be called nothing less. In the light of day, anyway.
Quinn seemed focused on her, as if he wasn’t worried about Vicente at all. And if that were true, that confirmed her neighbor was part of this, in some way. It made her shiver anew to think what the man might have been up to just a couple of hundred yards away from her home. That he might have had very good reason to stay hidden.
Cutter returned the scrutiny, keeping his eyes on the man on the floor, occasionally stretching out toward him with his nose, apparently still in love at first scent. It really was strange, the way the dog had reacted to this man. Under other, normal circumstances, she might be inclined to trust the dog’s judgment; more than once he’d been wary of someone she’d later learned was worthy of the distrust. And if he liked someone...well, at the moment the jury was out on that.
And it finally occurred to her to wonder why the man had brought the dog along. He’d only hesitated a fraction of a second before picking him up and putting him in the helicopter after her. Had he assessed that quickly that she’d do what she had to to protect the animal? Including cooperate with him?
The more she thought about that, the more it frightened her. That he had realized, that quickly, that Cutter could be the key to her cooperation told her more than she wanted to know. Clearly whoever and whatever he was, he would use any tool that presented itself.
She stared back at the man, her mind providing an image of what she couldn’t see in the darkness, filling in details she’d glimpsed in the deck light. The strong jaw, the stern mouth, the dark brows with the slightly satanic arch—
Okay, that’s enough of that, she ordered herself, and looked away. At least his image would be clear enough to tell someone what he looked like, she thought.
Someone? Like the police?
Her breath jammed up in her throat, unable to get past the sudden tightness as the obvious belatedly hit her. She’d seen them. All of them. But why hadn’t they just killed her on the spot, then? Had they been in too much of a hurry to get away? Or had they just not decided her fate yet?
More likely, she thought grimly, they had a place where they disposed of bodies, and it was easier to wait until they got there.
And all her imaginings suddenly didn’t measure up to the horror of the reality, and even the darkness couldn’t make it any worse.
They flew on and on, until her half-crazed mind would have sworn it had been days if it weren’t for the fact that they were still and ever in darkness.
And underlying it all was the grimmest imagining of all, that she mi
ght never see the light of day again.
Chapter 3
“Coming up on the airport in about ten.”
Teague Johnson’s voice came through loud and clear over the headset, with none of the crackle or hiss the old headsets had been prone to. Worth the price, Quinn Foxworth thought as he lifted the flap on his watch that kept the dial’s glow from being seen. 0315 hours. Not bad, well within the parameters they’d set despite the...complications.
“Fuel?” he asked.
Normally it wouldn’t be an issue, they planned carefully, but they were carrying an extra passenger. And a half, he added with a grimace. That dog....
“It made a difference,” Teague answered. “It’ll be close, but we’ll make it.”
“Copy.”
He went back to his study of their unplanned-for passenger, while that half-passenger continued to study him. The dog’s dark eyes never left him, and he didn’t have to be able to see in the dark to know it, although his night vision was remarkably good.
He knew little about the workings of the canine brain. And had no idea why the dog seemed so...taken with him. It would be amusing if it wasn’t so puzzling.
His owner, on the other hand, wasn’t taken with him at all, Quinn noted wryly. Too bad. She wasn’t bad-looking. At least, from what he’d seen. And felt, during his cursory pat down and when he’d put a hand on a curved, tight backside to shove her aboard. It had startled him, that sudden shock of interest; there’d been little time for women in his life for...a very long time.
And there was no time now, he told himself. They’d be on the ground soon, and vulnerable for the few minutes it would take to refuel. And it had better be only a few minutes; they’d paid enough extra to guarantee it. They could have avoided this by using a plane, with longer range, but in this semirural area it would have meant transporting Vicente by ground to an airstrip, and then from an airstrip to the location on the other end. And that would have made them even more vulnerable.
The unexpected intrusion of woman and dog hadn’t delayed them much, since he hadn’t wasted any time dithering about what to do. But it was costing them more fuel; even though she looked to weigh maybe one-twenty at most, the dog added another forty-five or fifty pounds—five of that fur, he thought—and together that was the equivalent of another passenger about Vicente’s size. On an aircraft this small it mattered, not so much in space as in fuel efficiency. But their timetable, and getting Vicente out of there, had been the most important thing.
And secrecy. The man was a valuable commodity, and they couldn’t risk leaving behind somebody who could tell anyone anything.
He felt the shift in angle of the chopper, knew they were approaching the small airfield where they would refuel. He saw the woman’s head come up a moment later, as she apparently realized it, too. Her gaze shifted to the port window, then, obviously able to see nothing but night sky, shifted forward, as if she were trying to read the controls for a clue.
Could she? Did she know something about helicopters, or aircraft gauges? She didn’t seem to be affected by the flight, no sign of air sickness or dizziness when they had made any quick changes. Unlike Vicente, who had required a serious dose of motion sickness medication to tolerate the flight. Quinn had been glad to give it to him; drowsiness was a side effect, and that was fine with him.
He’d thought about making the woman take some, too, under the guise of not wanting her to throw up in his helicopter. But there hadn’t been time, and getting it down her would have been too much hassle. Besides, he wanted a chance to assess her under controlled circumstances. And there weren’t many more controlled circumstances than strapped into a helicopter seat at ten thousand feet and a hundred and thirty-five knots.
So far, she hadn’t been trouble, but he wasn’t about to turn his back on a woman who rushed a man with a drawn weapon. And even when her face had been hidden as she clung to that damned dog, he couldn’t escape the feeling that she was thinking like mad, and that didn’t bode well for keeping things simple.
As they dropped lower she became more alert. He smothered a sigh; as if he could hear her thoughts, he knew she was trying to figure out a way to escape. He reached out and slid down the built-in shade on the porthole she’d been looking out; the more ignorant they could keep her of the surroundings, the better.
He flicked a glance at Vicente, who seemed to be sound asleep, propped in his corner. He was a tough old bird, he’d give him that. He’d barely turned a hair when they’d shown up in the middle of the night and taken over. But given his history, that wasn’t surprising.
But this young bird, this wary, watchful female of the species, he didn’t know. So he had to assume the worst.
“It’s all yours when we touch down,” he said into the headset.
“Problem?”
“The old man’s asleep. Our uninvited guest is plotting.”
“What’d she say?”
“Nothing. And how do you know I didn’t mean the dog?”
He heard the short laugh. “The dog clearly thinks you’re some kind of dog-god. The woman, not so much.”
“Figures,” Quinn muttered.
Another laugh, and as if in punctuation they dropped rather sharply.
“Got the signal light,” Teague said.
Moments later he set the craft down with the gentlest of thumps, barely perceptible, nearly as soft as he himself could have managed. He’d have to let the guy fly more often, Quinn thought.
The noise lessened as the rotors slowed. The fuel truck was already there and waiting, as planned, a good sign. He would have preferred to keep her running, but the crew here wasn’t trained for a hot refuel so they had to shut down. They didn’t want the kind of attention flouting the local rules would bring. The anonymity of the small field was worth it, they’d decided.
Teague waited until the rotors had stopped, then opened his door and stepped down to the tarmac. There was a floodlight on the side of the hangar they were closest to, and it brightened the interior of the helicopter. Quinn glanced at Vicente, making sure he was truly sleeping; he hadn’t seemed to stir at all, even when they’d landed. The old man better not be getting sick on them. But his eyes were closed and Quinn could hear, in the new silence, the soft sound of snoring. Maybe the guy just was particularly susceptible to those meds, he thought.
The quiet seemed deafening, nothing but the brief exchange between Teague and the fueler and the sounds of the process audible in this dead time between night and morning. He’d read somewhere that more people in hospitals died at 3:00 a.m. than any other time, that it just seemed to be the time people gave up.
Not sure why that had occurred to him just now, he wondered if he could just leave the headphones on and stave off whatever she had in mind. But the moment it was quiet enough to be heard, she dove in.
“I need a bathroom.”
Ah. So there it was, her first approach, he thought. Short, to the point, grounded in reality, and hard to deny. But deny he would; they couldn’t risk it. For what it told him about her, he filed it away in his mind in the section he’d labeled “uninvited guest.”
“Hold it,” he said, brusquely, taking the headphones off. He stood up, even though he had to hunch over; he needed to stretch his legs after the hours of being cramped on the floor.
“I can’t.”
He nodded toward the dog. “If he can, you can.”
She drew back slightly. When she spoke, her tone was that of teacher on the edge of her patience to an unwilling-to-learn child. “He’s a dog, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Definitely got a mouth on her, Quinn thought.
“I noticed,” he said drily. And now that he could see her better, could see that his earlier impression had fallen short of the reality, he silently added, and I noticed you certainly are not.
He felt another inner jolt, a flash of heat
and interest, more intense than the first time, fired further by thoughts of that mouth. He clamped down on it harder, angry at himself; he never let anything interfere on a job. It was why jobs kept coming.
“Then you should know he can hold it longer. How do you think they wait all night inside a house?”
“I never thought about it,” he said, although now that she’d said it, it sparked his curiosity. “Why can they?”
She seemed startled by the question. But she answered reasonably. “My guess is it’s because when they were wild, they had to, to hide from predators. Now will you please find me a bathroom?”
“Hold it,” he repeated.
“I’m a human, not a wild animal,” she snapped.
“You think humans weren’t wild once?”
“Some,” she said pointedly, “still are.”
He ignored the jab. “So hold it,” he said a third time, trusting his instincts and her body language that this was just a ruse to get out of the helicopter and onto the ground, where she likely figured she could make a run for it. Not a bad plan, and just about the only one possible given her circumstances.
“Humans haven’t needed that talent since we hit the top of the food chain,” she said.
Oh, yeah, a mouth. And a quick wit. If he wasn’t otherwise occupied, he’d like to find out just what else went on in that mind of hers.
And he interrupted his own thoughts before they could slide back to that mouth.
Teague was back then, announcing they were all fueled up. As he started to climb back into the pilot’s seat, the woman turned her plea on him. The younger man looked startled, then disconcerted, and Quinn had to admire the way she switched to the younger, possibly more vulnerable target.
“Bathroom?” Teague echoed. He flicked a glance at Quinn.
“She can wait.”
“How would you know?” There was the faintest change in her voice. Her snappishness had an undertone now, just a slight flicker. But he recognized it; he’d heard it too often not to.
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