Dancing with Fire

by Susan Kearney

  She edged closer. Despite her soaked pajamas and the light breeze, she broke into a sweat. Inch by inch, she stalked her prey.

  When he angled his back slightly and leaned against the car, she made her move. She lifted the oar, but she must have made too much noise, because he turned. Kaylin slammed him upside the head, and he dropped like a rock.

  She hit him again, making certain he wouldn’t get up anytime soon. Then again. Inside the house, Lia screamed.

  Kaylin’s plan to run across the street for help changed. That scream chilled her to the bone. It sounded as if someone was hurting the girls. She frisked the downed man for a weapon but found nothing except the guy’s lighter, which she kept. It gave her an idea. From the garage shelf she swiped a can of WD-40. As she raced through the garage and kitchen, she prayed the can wasn’t empty.

  In the great room, Lia and Mitzy sat on the couch, bound and gagged. Becca was still free, but a masked man was about to tie her, too. Another intruder was slapping Mitzy; the sickening sound of his leather glove against her face made Kaylin furious. Randy had hidden under a corner table and barked frantically.

  Ragged and bloody, Sawyer somehow freed himself. The man beside Becca drew his gun, but she slammed his arm into a wall, and he dropped the weapon. While Becca tried to prevent the man from regaining his gun, Sawyer fought two others. He ducked under a blow, knocked over a lamp, and slammed his fist into a throat. His injured opponent staggered toward Kaylin.

  Without hesitation, Kaylin sprayed the lubricant into the air and lit the lighter. The makeshift torch worked better than she’d expected, setting his sweatshirt on fire. Flames blazed up and burned his face, and as he screamed and dropped to the floor to put out the fire, she charged with the torch straight toward the man who had been slapping Mitzy.

  He drew Lia against his chest and backed toward the front door, using her sister as a shield. “Let’s go.”

  At the same time, Sawyer put his fists to good use, driving his other opponent back. But Becca’s opponent had shoved her into a wall and retrieved his gun. He fired into the ceiling. “The next person to move takes a bullet to the head.”

  Sawyer froze. So did Kaylin. But the masked leader still had Lia. He was forcing her to go with him, and although she fought, her delicate body was no match for his brute strength.

  “He’s taking Lia,” Kaylin screamed.

  Sawyer dived behind the counter that separated the kitchen from the great room. The man fired at him twice. Fearing she’d be the next target and concerned he might bleed to death if he’d been shot, Kaylin leaped over to him. “Oh, God. Sawyer, are you all right?”

  “Go. Go. Go,” the leader of the intruders called for a retreat.

  Kaylin, realizing Sawyer hadn’t been shot, peeked out from behind the counter and saw the masked leader drag her little sister with him.

  Lia would only slow them down. Surely they’d release her after they got outside.

  Kaylin grabbed the phone. The line was dead.

  Refusing to watch in horror as the four men, one badly burned, took her sister out the door, she tried to stand up, go after them.

  One of the men fired at Kaylin, and Sawyer pulled her back. “Stay down.”

  “Let me go!”

  Sawyer rolled on top of her. “Getting killed won’t help your sister.”

  She pummeled his shoulders.

  He grabbed her wrists and held them to either side of her head. “Calm down.”

  “I said let me go!”

  He didn’t budge. “As soon as it’s safe, we’ll get to a phone.”

  As an engine roared to life in the driveway, rage and fear blasted through her, and she snapped. “Don’t tell me what to do. I was going to check on Becca.”

  “Fine.” He released her wrists and moved aside so he no longer pinned her.

  She stood up to see a van’s taillights fleeing the driveway. Kaylin sprinted to the window, praying Lia would be standing on the lawn.

  The van passed under a street light. For one moment she saw Lia’s terrified face in the back window. Then the van rolled down the street. They’d taken her sister.

  “They’ve kidnapped her, and the license plate was smeared with mud. I couldn’t get even one letter or number.” Shaking, Kaylin spun around and went to Becca. She kneeled by her sister. “Are you hurt?”

  “Just banged my head. Give me a minute, and I’ll be okay.”

  Sawyer helped Mitzy free herself of duct tape. The moment she could move, Mitzy ran to the sun porch. “Billy!” In a moment, she returned to the great room in tears. “They must have taken Billy, too.”

  “Try his cell,” Becca urged.

  “He’s not going to answer,” Kaylin said. “I saw his phone on the floor under the bed.”

  Earlier, Billy hadn’t been in his room, but the intruders might have taken him from his bed before she’d rolled in there. During a struggle he could have dropped his phone. So it was possible they’d grabbed him first and placed him in the van.

  She thought hard. Had she seen Billy in the vehicle? She’d focused on her sister, not on the others in the car. She couldn’t remember seeing Billy, damn it. But she didn’t have to shut her eyes to see Lia’s horrified stare.

  I’ll find you, Lia. Hang in there.

  Kaylin had thought she’d had more time to protect her family. After the initial phone call, she’d followed the vandals’ instructions. She hadn’t contacted the authorities.

  While she’d waited for a phone call that had never come, she’d given the bastards time to plan a kidnapping.

  And now . . . she didn’t have a clue how to find Lia. Perhaps she should have called the cops. The FBI. But even now she doubted they would have believed her. After all, the authorities still thought her father’s death had been an accident, and she had nothing except her word about a threatening phone call as evidence. Would her unsubstantiated claim have been enough for them to act? And if they had believed her, what would they have done? Put them in the Witness Protection Program? She didn’t think so, not when the callers themselves had never said what they wanted.

  She still believed she’d had nothing to gain by going to the authorities and everything to lose if there’d been a leak. Still, if she’d spoken up, perhaps the authorities would have protected them. Now, the bad guys had Lia. Poor Lia, she’d looked so scared. Kaylin’s guilt ate at her. If only she’d hidden her sisters sooner.

  Now it was too late.

  23

  “I HEARD YOU lost your last stash.” Drano McVaino, nicknamed for his designer drug of choice and his collection of Air Jordans, sneered at Billy. “Why should I front you anything, dude?”

  “I have buyers, ready, willing, and able to pay cash.” Billy tried not to sound desperate. In truth, he’d begun to wonder if scoring this weed from Drano was such a good idea. If word hit the street that Billy was an easy mark, the buy wouldn’t go down at all.

  The dilapidated warehouse in Tampa that sat corroding beside an old railroad spur was the perfect site for a meet-up. Cops couldn’t approach by vehicle. No one would see them make the exchange. If Billy scored the dope, sold it, and returned with cash, he’d want a weapon next time. Homeless people slept along these tracks and camped out under the railroad bridges. There was no telling who else might be around. Watching.

  “I don’t know.” Drano cracked his knuckles. “Convince me I won’t lose out if I go with you.”

  Billy turned around and walked. “Forget it. I’ve got other sources,” he lied. He took five long steps before Drano caved.

  “All right. I’ll front you a pound. You be back here tomorrow, same time with my cash, or I send my boys looking for you.”

  Billy turned and made his voice confident. “My customers except primo—”

  Drano pulled a large bag f
rom beneath his hoodie. “I only carry sensimilla. The best.”

  If Billy moved the entire pound, he’d make just enough to pay back his first dealer. Last week he would have been certain he could handle the business, but last week he hadn’t yet been ripped off. Last week he hadn’t realized the dangers on the street. Taking the weed made him a target. Selling it made him a target. But he already had a big fat bull’s-eye on his back.

  So he opened the bag, pinched off a bud, appreciating the sweet scent and the sticky green that told him Drano hadn’t lied. His quality was top grade. Billy realized he should have brought a scale. He had no way to weigh out the bag and hoped it wasn’t light.

  He had to smarten up. For now, he’d bluff his way out of here. “I’ll trust you on the weight.” He slid the bag into his backpack. “But if you’re light—”

  “I’m not.”

  “—we won’t be doing business no more.”

  “Just bring me my money.” Drano snapped his fingers, and he melted into the darkness.

  Billy hurried off the track, feeling exposed. Vulnerable. Selling a little dope on the side to support his habit had turned complicated.

  Yet as the scent of the sweet stuff lingered in his nostrils, he wished he’d brought rolling papers. After that meeting, he really wanted to take off the edge.

  But he couldn’t afford to smoke the profit. Since he didn’t have wheels, he already owed a dude a few joints for the lift to this side of town.

  Nothing was free. Not even his home.

  If he wanted to live with the Danners, he had to fix the mess the best way he knew how. He just prayed nothing else went wrong.

  24

  LIA TWISTED in time to see Kaylin fling open Sawyer’s front door. At the sight of her sister receding into the distance as the van roared away, tears poured down Lia’s cheeks. When her nose began to run, she quivered with fear. With her mouth taped, if her nostrils clogged, she wouldn’t be able to breathe. She could suffocate in the car, and these men wouldn’t care.

  Oh God. She wanted to go home.

  These guys in their black masks didn’t speak. The injured guy they’d picked up off the driveway looked unconscious. In the dark, she couldn’t be certain. She sat in the back seat, wedged against a window, trying not to draw any attention to herself.

  The burned man seemed out of it. He slouched, his head resting on the seat, his eyes closed. His moans of pain were all the more chilling because no one else seemed to notice or care. And if they didn’t treat one of their own with kindness, that didn’t bode well for Lia.

  She wondered if she should try to escape. When the van stopped at a light, she could attempt to scramble over the half-conscious guy and out the door before the big man stopped her. But she didn’t think she could make it. Not with her bound hands.

  Yet she had to do something. Twisting at the tape, she tried to stretch it, work herself free.

  When the man beside her took out headphones and placed them over her head, cutting off all sound, she shook her head, but he paid no attention. When he placed a hood over her head so she couldn’t see, she freaked.

  She didn’t know which terrified her more, breathing through a bag, the blackness, or the lack of sound. It was like being dead. So scared she feared she might pee in her pajamas, she clamped her thighs tight. No. No. This couldn’t be happening. If only it were a nightmare. But nightmares always scared her into waking up. But this time . . . she was already awake.

  When a hand clasped her thigh, she jerked. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t know what they planned to do to her.

  She had no idea who these men were, what they wanted, or where they were taking her.

  She told herself not to cry.

  But she couldn’t stop the tears.

  And her nose began to clog again. Frantic, she twisted and thrashed in the seat. Her movements didn’t help. She couldn’t escape. Couldn’t get the bag off her head. But a corner of the tape on her mouth came free.

  She worked the tape with her tongue.

  And she could breathe better now, and that helped a little, lessened her panic, gave her hope that these men didn’t control everything.

  As they drove, she’d lost track of time and their direction. She should have paid attention, but how could she think when she was so scared? These men could do anything they wanted to her, and she couldn’t stop them.

  But with the extra air, she held onto one thought like a lifeline. Kaylin would call the authorities. And her sister would never quit looking for her. Even now the cops might be about to stop the van and release her.

  Lia just had to stay calm, keep breathing. Just like Kaylin, she wouldn’t give up, either. She might cry. She might be afraid. But she would not give up.

  25

  “KAYLIN.” Sawyer hurried to the window and closed the shades. He ached to comfort her, to hold her in his arms and tell her everything would be fine. Instead, he had to pile on another problem. He held up his phone. “When I answered this, he asked for you.”

  “He?”

  Sawyer hated to shake her up any more. Her sister had just been abducted, and Kaylin already looked ragged, pale, and trembling.

  He held out his cell. “I think it’s the kidnapper. The call came in with a private caller ID and I put him on hold.”

  “The kidnapper?” Kaylin snatched the phone from his hand and turned on the speaker. “I want to talk to Lia.”

  A mechanical device, one of those machines that changed a voice from female to male or added an accent, responded, “You go to the authorities, and she’s dead. You will do what we say. Do what we say or—”

  “You hurt one hair on my sister’s head, and you’ll never get what you want.” Kaylin hung up the phone. Her hands trembled, and she looked sick with worry.

  “Are you crazy?” Mitzy leapt off the couch and attacked Kaylin, shoving her back against the wall. “What have you done? How could you hang up on them?”

  Kaylin lifted her chin and stared Mitzy down, but didn’t lift a hand to defend herself. “I’m not talking to those bastards unless they prove to me that Lia is okay. And don’t you think I want her back as much as you want Billy? But whatever they ask for—we don’t have it. We don’t have Dad’s formula. We don’t have any money. We need to stall—”

  “Like stalling is going to get us money? Or the formula?” Becca spoke softly, brokenly.

  “Give me another option,” Kaylin snapped.

  Sawyer shouldn’t have been surprised when she hung up on the kidnappers. This was a woman who’d defended her sister like a fire-breathing dragon. He’d never forget the sight of her charging into a room full of kidnappers, lighting a can of oil, and turning it on a kidnapper like a blowtorch in order to save her sister.

  Becca lifted her head and spoke quietly. “We could go to the cops.”

  “Even if we wanted to risk it, what would we tell them?” Kaylin argued. “Masked men wearing gloves came and took Lia? We have no description, no fingerprints. I couldn’t get the license plate since they’d covered it with mud, and I’m betting that even if I told them the van’s make and model, we’d find out it was stolen. We have no clues for the cops to chase down.”

  “We can estimate their heights and weights,” Mitzy argued. “We should call the cops.”

  “No, Kaylin’s right.” Becca had obviously changed her mind. “We saw four men—”

  “Five. I knocked out the guard on the driveway with an oar.”

  “Okay. We saw five men between five-foot-eight and five-foot-eleven. I think one of them may have had a Greek accent, but I’m not certain. That’s not going to narrow it down a bunch. If you think the cops will have them locked up by morning, you’re dreaming.”

  Mitzy didn’t look convinced. “But—”

  “Yo
u think they aren’t watching us?” Kaylin argued. “They found us here—at Sawyer’s house. You want to bet Lia’s life—”

  “Billy’s, too,” Becca added.

  “You want to bet Lia and Billy’s lives that the kidnappers won’t tap into our phones, watch our every move?” Kaylin argued.

  “So we just wait?”

  “I’m done with waiting.” Kaylin raised her chin. “I’ve had it with our family being victims. Someone murdered our father, vandalized our home, threatened all of us, and now they’ve taken Lia. And maybe, Billy. We’ve suffered enough. It’s time to fight back.”

  “How do we fight when we don’t know who they are?” Becca asked.

  “We have to outsmart them.” Kaylin’s voice hardened with determination. “And I want help, official help. But we can’t just go running to the sheriff’s office when we’re being watched. So right now that means we need time to figure things out. Maybe find a go-between to do it for us.”

  Sawyer rocked back on his heels, impressed. It was as if Kaylin had gone from dance teacher mode to antiterrorist mode. She sounded so certain. A few minutes ago she’d been falling apart. She amazed him. To save her family, she’d knocked a guard unconscious with an oar. She’d set a man on fire. How had she pulled herself together so fast? Where did she find the strength?

  “How do you know what to do?” he asked.

  “I watch TV at night when I can’t sleep. Cop shows, mysteries, action adventure. You name it, I watch it. Of course, a lot of TV shows aren’t accurate or are exaggerated, but I’ve learned some things.”

  “So you’re telling us we can figure this out because you watch TV shows?” Mitzy asked, incredulously. “You think we can get them back?”

  “I know we need time to figure out what to do,” Kaylin said softly. “I just bought us some. And we can’t keep reacting to them. We have to do something. Get ahead of the curve. Find a way to notify the sheriff or the FBI without jeopardizing Lia.”