by Dale Mayer
Carolina stepped up beside Lennox. “I guess we can’t stop them, can we?”
He swore softly and steadily under his breath, barely even realizing what he was doing. “No, probably not,” he said. “The trouble is, they’re just two more pawns to be put into use. If somebody grabs them and tries to use them as hostages, what would you want me to do?”
“Well …” And then she stopped. “I would still try to do everything to keep them alive,” she said slowly. “But what are we supposed to do if they don’t want to listen, much less to cooperate? Believe me. Sharing that cage with them was no fun, what with all the complaining, whining, blaming.”
“Exactly. It also means that, if Sasha and John are taken, we can’t allow them to be used against us.”
“Right. … Of course. … So, do we have another way to get back home again?” Helena asked, as she stared back at the airport, where the two were already walking toward the security checkpoint.
“We weren’t expecting a change of plans right now.”
“Yes, you were,” she said. “You were at least expecting the possibility of it.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “Because nothing is set until it’s actually done.”
“Of course,” Helena said.
“So, now what?” Carolina asked.
“Get back in the vehicle,” he said. “We’ll go to a different airport.”
Without a word, the two women hopped back in.
With Helena’s furtive glance at the airport and then at Gavin, he shrugged.
“We can’t force them,” he said, “and they might be just fine.”
“And if they aren’t?” Helena asked, looking back yet one more time.
Gavin’s face turned grim. “And, if they aren’t,” he said, “it’s not something we can do anything about now. This is not your fault. We’ve given them the best advice we could. It’s ultimately their decision. They don’t want to listen. It’s pretty shitty, but it’s also a lot easier on us if we’re only looking after the two of you. And you both listen to us.”
“I know that too, in theory,” Lennox said, “but we had room for all six of us in our new plans.”
“They don’t seem to think that our plans matter,” Gavin said calmly, “so we do what we have to do. Now let’s go, before we don’t make our own flights.”
With a nod and an angry look at the airport, Lennox hopped in, and they drove off.
Chapter 10
“What kind of plans do we have?” Helena asked.
“It’ll be a bit of a hopscotch trip,” he said, “but, once we realized that the kidnappers’ associates had booked seats on the same flight, we knew we had to get you a long way away.”
“I don’t have a problem with that,” she said, “but where are we flying to?”
“To England before we jump the pond,” he said. “We were supposed to fly to Amsterdam first, but now we’re flying to England, and then we’ll see how we’re getting across the ocean.”
“Hopefully by plane,” she said. “That’s the fastest.”
“It is,” he said, “but it’s not always the safest.” And then, at that, he sat back and went quiet.
But she saw him always working on his phone, probably setting up the rest of their arrangements. She looked over at Carolina, one eyebrow up.
Carolina shrugged. “Trust in him. He’s kept us safe so far.”
And that was the part that bothered her. Why the hell had the other two not listened? It’s not that she really expected the kidnappers to do anything, once they realized John and Sasha had split from Lennox. So there was a good chance that John and Sasha would both be fine, now that they weren’t physically with Lennox, who was the kidnapper’s ultimate target. But why would you take that chance alone, unarmed, and unskilled to handle those people? Helena shook her head.
Still, before long, they pulled up into a smaller airport and hopped into a private plane. She smiled as she saw it. “Now this is nice.”
“It is,” Lennox said. “We’ll have to stop for refueling, and we’ll probably do that in France.”
“We could take another flight from France back the US,” she said.
“Maybe. Let’s keep to the schedule and see.” He quickly loaded their duffel bags.
They boarded the flight and took off almost immediately. One good thing about private airplanes, like this one, was how much more comfortable boarding the planes were—simple, nothing involved. The conversation on the flight was pretty light as everybody avoided the topic of John and Sasha. And even of where they were going, although Gavin did ask Carolina what her future plans were, now that she had been kidnapped. Like, if she was leaving the doctor’s program or if she would continue to work with the Red Cross.
“I’m not sure,” Carolina said. “I was contemplating doing more traveling, but now I’m not certain I want to.” She slid a glance at Gavin, and he nodded. “Particularly with Lennox’s issue right now.”
Gavin looked at Helena. “What about you?”
“I was looking at making a change too,” Helena said quietly. “Carolina and I weren’t traveling while we were married. And then, after our divorces, we both resumed traveling around the world again, more to escape than to start again. Now I’m almost ready to put down some roots.”
“We’ve already talked about it a couple times,” Carolina said, nodding at Helena. “It’s just a matter of where and what’s next for us.”
“But the whole world is ahead of us,” Helena said, comfortably rolling her head back, her eyelids heavy. “And I think I’m about ready to nod off and have a little bit of a nap. How long till we land?” Helena let her eyes close.
“We’re not too far away from Paris now,” Lennox said. “It won’t be a long stop there either.”
“Okay,” she said. She looked at Carolina and asked, “Did you recognize any of the men that he showed you?”
“Yes,” she said; then she frowned. “Did you hear us last night?”
Helena shrugged. “A little bit. Something about a bunch of faces.”
“I could identify one kidnapper. The main guy in charge. With all the scars.”
Helena looked at Lennox. “Did you know him?”
“No,” he said, his tone terse.
Helena studied his face as he worked on a laptop. “You hadn’t seen him ever?”
He lifted his gaze from the laptop, studied her for a long moment, then shook his head. “Not that I remember, no. And we’re trained to remember faces, even when disguised. Even faces that have undergone cosmetic surgery. Because some things can’t be changed.”
“Like what?” Helena asked, intrigued.
“The distance between the eyes for one thing.”
“Okay. … So why the hell would he be after …”
“I’m trying to figure that out,” he said. “I’m backtracking his history to see where we might have met—or at least had crossed paths.”
“Or,” Carolina said brightly, “what if somebody else used your name?”
Instantly silence settled in the plane. “What do you mean?” Gavin asked.
Helena got it though. “What if,” she said to Lennox, “somebody hated you. And then did something terrible and let everybody believe that he was you.”
“Well, that would be a shitty thing to do,” Gavin said.
“But we already know that this whole deal is a really shitty deal,” Carolina said.
“Does somebody hate your guts enough to do something like this?” Helena asked. “This is pretty nasty to consider. But also, if you wanted to get somebody who you hated in big trouble, this was not a bad way to do it.”
“I don’t know,” Lennox said, confusion in his gaze. “Let me think about it. You guys got off on a different angle, so leave me alone to find the connections.”
Helena looked over at Carolina with a raised eyebrow.
Carolina shrugged and said, “Naptime.” She stretched out in the airline seat and let her head drop against the wind
ow and closed her eyes.
“Not a bad idea,” Helena said and curled up in the opposite seat, using her window as well as the sweater that she had brought with her, and fell asleep.
It wasn’t very long before Lennox woke her up. She stared up at him in confusion, glanced around, and realized where she was again. “Are we here?”
“Yes,” he said. “We’re in Paris fueling up.”
“Are we getting off?”
He shook his head. “No.”
She glared at him. “Did you have a reason for waking me then?”
He grinned. “Maybe to get up and walk around, shake your legs out a little bit.”
“Or maybe just go back to sleep,” she muttered and curled back up. She closed her eyes, and the next time she woke up, again she saw Lennox. She glared at him. “Seriously?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Now what?” he asked.
“Aren’t we still in Paris?”
“No,” he said, his smile kicking up the corners of his mouth. “We’re in London now, not that it was much of an extra flight, but we needed the fuel.”
“Fine,” she replied, and then she realized what he said. “So we’re here? Now we can go home? Can we get off?”
“We are getting off, but we’re taking another flight across to the Maritimes.”
“Why Canada?” she asked, running a finger through her hair.
“So we can connect to the coast.”
She shrugged. “We can go the other way and go straight across to California.”
“We could, but it’ll take a long time.”
“All of these hops are taking time.” But she closed her mouth and just endured.
They did get off the plane and had about two hours before they hooked onto a commercial flight and ended up in Halifax, where they grabbed yet another flight that took them to Chicago. By the time they arrived in San Diego, she was tired, frustrated, and fed up. She looked at Carolina. “You know it would have been much nicer if we’d just gone to Munich.”
She nodded. “It was supposed to be that way. This time it’ll be both of us at your apartment.”
Helena shrugged listlessly. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here together now, I guess.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to fly anymore for a while,” Carolina groaned. “Oh, for a nice bed!”
“Well, we had one,” she said. “Apparently staying in it wasn’t to be.”
They stood outside this final airport in the wee hours of the morning—something like two a.m. by the time they finally cleared customs, got their luggage, and everybody had gathered outside. She tried to shrug the cobwebs off her mind. And then realized Gavin was missing. She looked at Lennox. “Now what?”
“Well, it depends if you think it’s safe enough to go to your apartment.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
He shrugged. “Because it’s still associated with you, and you’re still associated with me.”
“Well, how about your apartment?” she asked.
“That would be the worst place,” he said.
Just then Gavin drove up. They all stared at the lime-green Jeep. “Hardly a very unassuming rental,” Helena said, as she got in the back.
Gavin laughed. “This one is my own,” he said. “I left it at the airport.”
“That could have been a big bill,” Lennox said, “depending how much longer we were detained overseas.”
Gavin shrugged. “It’s a huge boon having wheels available,” he said. “You do what you have to do at the time.” Gavin pulled away from the side strip and headed back onto the main freeway to leave the airport and to get out of the traffic. Even though it was the wee hours of the morning, still plenty of vehicles moved about.
“Where are we going?” Helena asked him.
“To a safe house,” Gavin said.
“So not my place?”
Gavin shook his head. “No, we figured it was better to avoid all known places.”
“And for how long?” she asked.
Lennox answered, “Until I can find out what’s going on.”
And she sat back and shared a hard look with Carolina. “That doesn’t sound very promising.”
“Do you want to live to see tomorrow?” Lennox turned around in the front seat to level a heavy stare at her.
She didn’t have to answer that because, of course, she wanted to. But she didn’t want to be in a cage either. She didn’t know exactly what was going on, but, for the first time, she realized how John and Sasha felt. This was his problem, not their problem. She wouldn’t throw him to the wolves, but, at the same time, this felt like something he needed to handle and fast. “Okay,” she said, “you have three days.”
At that, Gavin snorted, raised his gaze to the rearview mirror, and Lennox spun around again and glared at her. “What?”
“You’ve got three days,” she announced, staring at him. “Three days to get this over with.”
“Or then what?”
“Then I’m going back to my apartment,” she said. “We’re okay to hang out because we need a couple days just to chill anyway,” she said. “But we have to move on. We can’t just sit here and be sitting ducks.”
“And how do you figure, by going back to your place, that you aren’t a sitting duck?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but that’s the time limit.”
He shook his head and said, “It’ll take as long as it takes.” Lennox checked his phone and told Gavin, “Take the next left.”
Gavin nodded and promptly pulled into the lane farthest away from any exit.
“And that will be three days,” she said, her tone inflexible. Of course she couldn’t force something like that to happen, but, if he didn’t think there would be real consequences, then Lennox wouldn’t move heaven and earth to fix this. And then she thought about that and shrugged. It was Lennox, of course, so he would move heaven and earth to fix it regardless. “And, if you need us, you have to speak up.”
“And I would need you why?”
“Well, to start with,” she said, “I’d like to see the face of this person who hates you so much. Because maybe, if we know him—or at least know what he looks like—that might let us tell you if we see him involved from here on out.”
Lennox looked at her, startled for a moment, then brought up his phone and flicked through the recent images. And then he held up his phone, reached over the front seat to give it to her. “This is the guy I had problems with.”
She looked at the man’s image with one eyebrow shot up. She held it for Carolina to see it too, and they exchanged glances. Helena said, “Definitely not the kidnapper, but… well, we do know him. Can’t say we like him either.”
He looked at her in shock. “What do you mean, you know him?”
“He tried to date both of us,” Helena said. “It was about two years ago maybe.” She frowned, looking over at Carolina for confirmation, who just shrugged. Helena continued, “It was after we were both separated, but before we headed off, traveling with the Red Cross.”
Gavin again changed lanes.
“Seriously?” Lennox glared at her. And then he spun to look at his sister.
She shrugged. “I didn’t place him. I still don’t remember him.”
Lennox now faced Helena. “How often did you see him, and how pushy was he?” Lennox asked Helena.
“He was looking for information,” Helena said, “but he seemed quite frustrated that we weren’t cooperating.”
“Interesting,” Gavin said. “It’s possible.” He made the next left, as Lennox had instructed.
“It’s bullshit is what it is!” Lennox said in disgust. “Just because he hates me doesn’t mean that he would do something like this.”
“No, but then, I hate to say it, why would he want to date me?” Carolina said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with me, but I’m still your sister.”
“But then maybe he didn’t know that,” Lennox said, grasping for str
aws.
“No,” Helena said. “Rob knew because he’s the one who said he was a friend of yours.”
“Shit,” Lennox said, looking out his passenger’s side window. “The one thing he is not is a friend. And for him to have even said that is very suspicious right off the bat.”
“Exactly,” she said, “so I suggest that you check him out.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Lennox asked in exasperation.
“Aha,” she said with a smile. “Like I said—three days.”
Lennox wasn’t sure how serious Helena was or whether she was just being snarky. He couldn’t even imagine what he would have done if he’d found out Rob and Carolina—or Helena—were dating. He would have lost it big-time. “You’ve met him before,” he said to Carolina, his arm slung across the front seat of Gavin’s Jeep as he spoke to his sister.
Carolina looked at him and shook her head. “No, I haven’t.”
“You have,” he said. “When I was on leave one day. Remember the guy who came to my door when you were over for dinner? And he tried to force his way in, and we had this big argument?”
She froze, looked at him, and said, “Yes, I do remember that. Not a lot. I didn’t get a good look at him though.”
“Well, that was him,” he said shortly.
“Why does he hate you so much?”
“He raped a young girl over in Thailand, and I turned him in.”
Silence.
“Okay then,” Helena said softly. “Well, I guess he deserved that.”
“If that’s the case,” Carolina said, “why the hell was he trying to date us a couple years ago?”
“He was drummed out of the military and jailed in Thailand,” Lennox said. “I don’t know what happened afterward. I lost track of him.”
“That’s all bullshit,” Helena said. “Why the hell would he be allowed back on the streets?”
“He shouldn’t be out of jail. Which is why I find it interesting that he tried to date both of you,” he said, twisting to look at Helena. “Why would he try to date you too?”
She glared at him. “I don’t know why.”
Her tone was just caustic enough that he realized how his question came off. He rolled his eyes. “It’s not like he would know there was anything between the two of us.”