by Dale Mayer
Charlotte rolled over just then. She sat up and looked at him groggily and then collapsed again.
He got up, walked over, and gently patted her shoulder, stroking her arm before picking up her hand and lacing her fingers with his. “Take it easy,” he whispered, hating the deeply confused and fearful gaze that stared back at him from almost an owl-like face. He smiled, seeing that her makeup hadn’t come off in the shower, and she’d been just too damn tired to even notice.
She blinked at him several more times and then whispered, “Is it safe?”
“You’re still safe,” he whispered. “We are still in the hotel. Four of us, including our prisoner.”
At the word prisoner, her gaze widened. She rolled over to look at the man who had kidnapped her, still sitting at the table all tied up. She sank back down, closing her eyes and letting out a light groan. “I was hoping this was all a bad dream.”
“Well, a bad dream it still could be,” he said quietly, with a note of humor. “On the bright side, you were rescued and are now freshly showered and had a short nap and are in a hotel room with two guys to look after you.”
The corners of her lips kicked up. “Good points,” she said with a smile, speaking softly. This time her gaze was more aware and intent as she studied him. “Did you guys find out anything more?”
“Not too much, no,” he whispered. “The prisoner’s not talking, and we’re still waiting on further information.”
“Okay,” she said. “How about flights back home? Did you get those booked?”
“Not sure we want to let the world know that you are flying back yet,” he said, speaking softly. “At the moment you’ve missed your scheduled return flight. Did you consider that?”
She frowned. “No, I didn’t even think of it.”
“Which is a good thing, in a way,” he said, whispering. “And we don’t want to change that status quo, in case other people are involved in this. We need to flush them out. Otherwise you’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life.”
“And that’s not something I want to do,” she said firmly. “If I have to move to hide out, a cabin by a lake ten minutes from town would suit me fine.”
“You don’t worry about four-legged predators?” he asked curiously. He knew a lot of women wouldn’t leave the security of town limits and their four walls where she had every available amenity at her fingertips.
But Charlotte smiled and whispered, “I like the four-legged predators. They’re decent about leaving you alone, if you leave them alone. It’s the two-legged ones you have to watch out for.”
He agreed with her. He just found it interesting that she was of the same mind-set. “If you can go back to sleep,” he said, “then I suggest you do.”
She laid here with her eyes closed for a moment, but she shook her head gently and whispered, “Don’t think I can.” Her stomach growled just then, and she opened her eyes. “Any chance of food?”
“It’s coming,” he said. Just then came a knock on the door.
Immediately she cried out and huddled against the headboard.
He reached for her hands again. “It’s likely food. Just stay quiet.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide as she bit down on a trembling bottom lip.
“Remember. Be strong.”
She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I think it’ll take a little time for my nerves to not panic every time I hear something that surprises me.”
Nico watched as Keane opened up the door to a trolley full of food. Then Nico hopped up and walked over to help his buddy. “Hope I ordered enough.”
“Looks like you ordered enough for six men,” Keane joked.
“One starving woman and the two of us,” he said. “I’m not wasting food on the prisoner.”
As Keane walked over, he caught sight of Charlotte’s face. He hid his grin quickly, but not before she saw his obvious amusement.
Knowing it was the right thing to do, Nico walked back over and gave her a hand up to her feet. In a low tone, he said, “Go to the bathroom and clean your eyes. Looks like the mascara didn’t come off during the shower.”
She raised an eyebrow, walked into the bathroom, and let out a cry. “Oh, my word,” she said. “You didn’t say anything.”
“I just said something now,” he protested. “You were sleeping before.” He could hear her running water and obviously trying to clean off her eyes, which was fine by him. With Keane’s assistance, they picked up the prisoner and moved him off to the far corner. He protested, but they wouldn’t have anything to do with it. “You’re in the way,” Nico said. “We need the table space.”
“You could let me eat too,” he snarled.
“Not happening,” Keane said cheerfully. “Not part of my kidnapping plan.” Then he gagged their prisoner. “Enough talk from you.”
Nico looked up as Charlotte came out of the bathroom. Her face was clean, and she looked brighter and happier. He smiled at her and said, “Much better. Come. Sit down.”
She eagerly walked toward him. “Food would be good. But a way to get home after this would be even better.”
“One thing at a time,” he said. He lifted the lid off the trays of food which filled the table. To her gasp of delight, he grinned. “I have no intention of shorting you on food. So eat up. We need to be ready because we don’t know what’s coming.”
She looked over at him and said, “It won’t be a nice and simple flight home, will it?”
“No,” he said, but he wouldn’t say any more. Not with ears listening. He had no idea if anybody else would attack them, but what he didn’t want to do was give their prisoner a tip-off as to their plans. He wasn’t even sure who to turn this guy over to yet. He was waiting on that answer from his team. He figured that somebody would come and collect him soon enough. The problem was, Nico didn’t want to hand him over to just anybody. It needed to be somebody helping them get Charlotte back home again. He’d rescued her, but she was a long way away from being out of danger.
They each filled up a plate and ate quietly, focused on the food.
Another knock sounded on the door. She froze, and he looked over at her, then smiled reassuringly, but he had already pulled his weapon from his holster and had her behind him. Keane raced to the door and stood behind it as Nico walked nearby and said, “Hello?”
“Let me in,” came a voice from the other side.
Keane snorted. Nico stepped into the bathroom, pushing Charlotte down into the tub, and said, “Why would I do that?”
“Because you have something I want.”
Immediately he cocked his handgun, still with the silencer in place, and held it up. “It’s not something I’m willing to turn over.”
“Well, if you don’t, you’ll be sorry,” came the threat.
“So will you,” said Nico. He looked over as Keane adjusted his stance. “If you want to talk, that’s fine. Talk. Otherwise I’m not too interested in talking.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll talk.”
Keane silently grabbed the handle of the door. And, with Nico holding his gun at the ready, Keane suddenly opened the door. The stranger’s gun came up out of nowhere, and Nico took one shot. The man standing with a handgun and a silencer fell forward with a surprised look on his face. He wasn’t quite dead though, and he tried to raise his arm to fire, but Nico’s second shot interrupted that thought.
Immediately Keane took a look down both ends of the hallways, then pulled the gunman into their hotel room, out of the way, and shut the door. As soon as he had him inside on the floor, they reached for towels to staunch the bleeding.
“I shot high,” Nico muttered, “but he was shorter than I expected.”
“You should have aimed for his eyes anyway,” Keane snapped.
“Well, I figured we wouldn’t get any answers that way.”
With the bleeding somewhat slowed and the gunman lying on the ground, apparently unconscious, his breathing hard and raspy, Nico
looked up to see Charlotte standing in front of them. “I don’t even recognize him,” she said. “What’s he got to do with this?”
She stepped back, then turned toward the prisoner and asked, “Do you know him?” The prisoner couldn’t quite see from where he was, so he shrugged.
Keane pulled out the shooter’s wallet from his back pocket, but, outside of cash, there was no ID. “Hired gun?”
“I don’t know what else,” Nico said. “They’re trying to distance themselves from this to clean up.”
“So what is he? An amateur?”
“It’s professional equipment though,” Nico said, kicking the gun off to the side.
“And gloves. But that’s almost standard.”
“The real question is, did he do anything to the cameras?” Nico asked. With Keane trying to staunch the blood and to keep the guy alive, Nico walked to his laptop and quickly told his team what had happened and to arrange for a medic. And to find the camera feeds immediately for this floor. It took less than thirty seconds to get a link, and, as the link came up, there came an image of the guy’s face. Yep, that’s him, Nico said. Track him down and follow the cameras back and see how he got in here. There could be somebody in the garage waiting for him.
Only if he succeeded came back the answer.
True.
A name popped up. Thomas Galloway. Walked into the underground lot on his own.
Nico looked at his prisoner and asked him, but the prisoner shook his head. He mumbled something further.
Keane stood and took off his gag. “Repeat that.”
“They said they were talking about bringing in some extra help, but I don’t know that man.”
There followed a simple rap sheet of breaking and entering and holding up a convenience store one night. “He’s a petty thief who wants to be a bigger bad guy,” Nico said, reading the doc, then he joined Keane.
“Well, whatever he was doesn’t matter now,” Keane said, pointing at the gunman. “He’s dead.”
“Of course he is. Managed an easy out for himself after all.”
Chapter 4
Charlotte didn’t even know what to think about the men’s casual attitude. But, since the gunman had come in firing, she knew there really hadn’t been any other response. And she could see that any attempt to shoot reasonably high would have taken out his heart. Nico was obviously affected, although the big strong guy inside wasn’t allowing him to show anything. She walked over and slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. “Well, I, for one, appreciate it.”
“The question is,” Keane said, alongside the dead gunman again, as he sat back on his heels and looked up at the two of them, “was he after you, Charlotte, or was he after our prisoner?”
“Oh, I never thought of that,” she said. She glanced over at the prisoner. “That’s possible too, isn’t it?
“Particularly if they’re cleaning up,” Nico said, staring at his prisoner.
The guy blanched. “There’s no reason for him to send a gunman after me. I already warned you that her life is in danger.”
“But you didn’t tell us why,” Keane said.
When a series of raps came on the door, she let out a light cry and stepped behind Nico. He reached for her hand reassuringly and said, “It’s okay. We know this one.”
Keane opened the door, and, within seconds, the dead man was carried out. The men didn’t introduce each other, and they didn’t say hi. Nothing. They came in, set the gunman into a body bag, loaded him onto a body trolley—or whatever the hell that was which they used at hospitals—and took him away. Somebody else came in right behind them to clean up the blood. Not a word was spoken.
She watched in amazement at a complete industry that she had no clue even existed. When the guy was done, he left, taking all the mess with him. She looked at Keane and then whispered to Nico, “Does this always happen this way?”
Keane walked into the bathroom and washed his hands. “If you mean, do we shoot guys and have invisible teams show up and take away the body? No.”
“So this is unusual then?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Okay then,” she said. “I wondered what crime-scene cleanup happened before the cops even got here.”
“No police involvement here,” Keane noted. “And we prefer not to corrupt a crime scene when they will be called in.”
After a moment, when she couldn’t find the right word, she said, “That was unnerving.”
Nico wrapped his arms around her and walked her to the table. She kept glancing back at the door. Keane came out of the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel. She looked at him. “Are you okay?”
He tossed her a grin. “I’m fine.” Then he turned to Nico and said, “We need to move.”
Nico nodded and looked down at the food, but their plates were mostly empty, having had the time to eat. He glanced at her and asked, “Did you want to take any of the extra food with you?”
She looked down at the fruit and picked up an apple. “Where are we going?”
He gave her a hard smile. “Anywhere but here. Obviously we’ve been made.”
She stopped, stared at him, and realized what he meant. “So we have to leave? And it won’t be on a flight to go home, is it?”
He shook his head, but he already moved his packed bag to the front door. At an odd series of knocks on the door, he opened it and let in two other men, who quickly removed the rest of the dishes.
Nobody looked at the prisoner or made a comment about the fact that they had a man tied up or about the fresh smell of bleach either.
Nico turned to her and asked, “Do you have anything here you want to keep?”
She looked at the few bits of clothing that she had changed out of and shook her head. “Those probably need to be burned.” As soon as she said that, her clothing was packed into a small bag by this newest crew and removed along with the food. The rest of the bedding was also stripped, even as Nico pushed her forward into the hallway.
“And what about him?” Charlotte asked, pointing to their tied-up prisoner. “He’s being taken somewhere else too?”
One of the new guys walked up to the prisoner and smacked him hard under the jaw. When he went out cold, the new guy quickly untied him and picked him up over one shoulder, then walked him out of the room.
“This is highly illegal,” she whispered in horror.
“So says you,” Keane said. He nudged her forward. “Come on. We only have two minutes with the security cameras. Let’s go.”
Still wrapping her mind around what was going on, she was half dragged while she half ran down to the far end of the hallway, where they ducked into the staircase and went up. As soon as they reached the fourth flight of stairs, she was getting tired, on top of already feeling shaky from what was going on. Adrenaline only carried one so far. She both wanted to run around in the same place and collapse at the same time.
“It’s the adrenaline,” Nico said at her side. “When it’s pumping through you, it’s powerful, but, when it’s gone, the weakness is just as bad.”
“Why are we standing on a landing in the stairwell?” she wailed. “I’d love to sit down.”
“Waiting for this camera to go off.”
Just then they received a beep on a phone or a watch or something. She couldn’t even see what made the noise, and they didn’t look to confirm, but immediately they opened the door, and she was taken to the room straight across the hallway. Once inside, they locked the door and then turned and smiled at her.
“Now you’re safe again,” Nico said.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Sit down and eat your apple.”
She stared at the apple in her hand, took a big bite, more because she needed something to stop her jaw from clenching than anything. She collapsed on the bed closest to her and said, “What was that all about?”
“Obviously somebody knew where we were and where the prisoner was,” Keane said coolly. “We had to make sure that
, if our prisoner or our gunman or his driver had had time to get a message out, nobody would find us before we changed locations again.”
“Shouldn’t we get out of this hotel then?” She glanced around at the walls closing in on her. “Surely it’s not safe to be here at all.”
Nico smiled and nodded. “We’re making that happen too.”
“Good,” she said. “An airline right back home again works for me, by the way.”
“Well, it won’t work so well for us,” he said. “Again we don’t want your face on any of the customs and immigration points of entry.”
“Why not?”
“So nobody knows where you are,” Nico said. “The best thing for you is to just rest.”
“A little hard to do,” she said. “My nerves are on edge.”
“Well, there’s a minibar,” Keane said helpfully. “How about a shot of whiskey?”
“How about coffee?” she shot back. “I didn’t get to have mine.”
“We can get you some room service again,” Nico said cheerfully. “But I highly doubt caffeine will help with the nerves.”
“I’m not sure I care at this point,” she said. “Coffee’s a comfort as much as anything.” Then she got more comfortable on the bed and wondered about what exactly just happened. What really blew her away was the efficiency with which things happened. “So, if you can make all this happen—dead bodies disappear, et cetera,” she said, “you do have a plan to get me home, right?”
“Right,” Nico said. “It’ll be a little unorthodox though.”
“I don’t care how orthodox it is,” she said. “I still have my passport, so I can get into the country from any point of entry.”
“Exactly,” he said. “So it might surprise you which point we end up choosing.” But he refused to say any more.
That bothered her too, but she couldn’t do a whole lot about it. She found herself shivering as she laid here on the bed.
Nico made a grunt and came over and picked up a blanket from the other bed, then tossed it over her. “It was adrenaline. Now that’s shock,” he said. “Curl up. Know that you’re safe and that we’ve got this.”