by Lisa Harris
“Thanks.”
Meghan smiled back at the woman, shaking off her ridiculous suspicions of being watched and followed. There was nothing to be afraid of.
“There is one more thing,” the woman said as Meghan turned away. “I don’t think you’ve met my husband.”
“Your husband?” Meghan shook her head, not understanding the sudden change in the woman’s expression.
She was grabbed from behind. A man wrapped one arm around her neck, the other around her waist. Held this close against him, she could smell the terribly familiar scent of cigarette smoke on his clothes.
“I wouldn’t scream if I were you,” the woman said calmly. “My husband tends to have a bit of a nasty streak.”
Meghan tried to pull away from him, but his grip on her was too tight. “What do you want?”
“We thought that the video would be enough motivation for your father but, apparently, we were wrong.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think you do, Miss Jordan. Your father apparently doesn’t like to play by our rules—which is a pity.”
The woman took a step forward and shoved something over her face. Meghan tried to identity the penetrating smell as she struggled to break free—nail-polish remover, starter fluid… Her mind wasn’t working properly. She felt herself falling, then slipped into nothingness.
FIFTEEN
“Tell me, Meghan Jordan, how smart is your father?”
Meghan opened her eyes at the voice and squinted in the sunlight. She blinked, willing her eyes to focus on the man standing over her. She remembered him from the lodge—bald, unshaven, and wearing khaki pants and a button-up shirt. Head pounding, she blinked again, trying to understand why her hands felt anchored behind her.
“Well, Meghan?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand the question.”
She tried to remember what had happened. Maybe their car had been in an accident, and her father… He’d said something about her father. Was he here? No. He couldn’t be.
She blinked. Where was Alex?
“Where’s Alex? We were at the hospital together.”
“Alex isn’t here, sweetheart.”
His tone mocked her. A sliver of fear snaked through her. She tried to get up, then realized her hands were tied behind her. Whoever this man really was, he wasn’t here to help her. She shifted her focus to her surroundings, trying not to panic. They were outside. She was sitting on the ground, leaning against something. She turned her head and caught sight of the rim and tires of a blue car. Behind the man was a sugarcane field. The only sounds were the pounding of her heart and a half-dozen birds chirping in the top of a tree.
“You tied me up.”
“Didn’t want you to run off.” He leaned closer until she could smell his tobacco-soured breath. “I’ll ask you again, then. How smart is your father?”
The fog holding her brain hostage was slowly starting to lift. She caught the man’s frown and tried to put together the pieces of a jumbled puzzle. She’d been at the party for the kids. Nathi had been running, chasing the ball…
He’d been bitten by a snake.
Alex had rushed them to the hospital. The doctor had told her to wait outside. She’d headed for the bathroom. The hall had been empty. Or at least she thought it had been empty. Someone had come after her. A man…and a woman.
She looked up, squinting into the sun and saw the woman standing to her right for the first time. Tall, thin, familiar. The honeymooners from the lodge. They’d grabbed her—pressed something against her face.
“Can’t answer my question, Meghan?”
She fought to focus. “My father’s smart. He’s an ambassador.”
“Which makes you the ambassador’s daughter and, in this situation, a valuable commodity. So here’s how it’s going to play out.”
A commodity?
“I still don’t understand. I have no connection to my father’s work. I don’t have any information, so I don’t see how I have any value except—”
“Except in his love for you. And a father’s love for his child can come in very handy sometimes.”
She forced her mind to work. “So the brakes on the Jeep, the hide that collapsed—and my chalet. All were attempts to show how easily you could hurt me to keep him in line and so he’d do what you wanted.”
He looked at the woman. “She is smart. Almost as clever as her father after all. Except all of our little reminders weren’t enough. Your father still isn’t playing fair.”
“What do you want him to do?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
If this was about her father, then it was connected to the threats. She needed to understand what they wanted, but more importantly, she needed to escape. Moving only brought with it a sharp pain radiating through her stomach. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain.
“My advice would be to not try to get up.”
Her jaw tensed. “What do you want now?”
“It’s simple.” He held up his smartphone and snapped a photo of her. “Now for the video segment. Tell your father he needs to follow our orders if he wants to see you again. We’re done playing nice.”
She stared at the phone.
“Tell him.”
Meghan fought back tears. “Daddy, they took me. I don’t know what they want now, but please—”
The man pressed a piece of duct tape across her mouth before she could finish her sentence. Together, the two of them lifted her into the back of the car and slammed the trunk shut.
*
Alex rushed down the outdoor corridor of another wing of the hospital. Unlike where they’d dropped off Nathi, this wing was vacant of people and eerily quiet this late in the afternoon.
Where was Meghan?
An uneasy feeling nudged him forward. Something wasn’t right. It had been almost fifteen minutes since Meghan had gone off in search of a restroom. It wouldn’t have taken him that long to start looking for her if the doctor hadn’t come by to talk to him about Nathi’s prognosis. It hadn’t been until the doctor had finished telling him they expected a full recovery barring any reaction to the medication they were putting him on that Alex had glanced at his watch and realized Meghan should have been back by now.
Realized he never should have let her go off alone.
He quickened his steps until he was running down the corridor. The woman’s restroom loomed ahead at the edge of the newly constructed wing. “Meghan?”
He pounded on the entrance, still calling her name. No answer. He shoved open the stall doors one by one. If she’d been here, she was gone. Which made no sense. She wouldn’t leave without him. Wouldn’t leave without knowing how Nathi was. Wouldn’t have left on her own.
Which meant someone had taken her.
Alex pushed back the thought. He was being paranoid. Maybe there was another way through the hospital corridors. She’d probably gotten distracted. Perhaps she’d run into someone she knew and had stopped for a chat, or decided to take some photos.
But his gut told him his paranoia wasn’t off base this time. Meghan was in trouble.
He ran through the waiting area to the small parking lot. The Jeep they’d come in was still parked beneath the shade of a row of trees. People came and went. A guard sat in a wooden booth reading a newspaper.
Out of breath, Alex approached the guard. “I’m looking for an American woman. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. Fair skin. She was wearing—” what had she been wearing? “—a pair of jeans and a yellow-and-gray-striped T-shirt.”
The man dropped his paper into his lap. “I think I saw her.”
“Where did she go?”
The man pointed toward one of the exits that led out of the parking lot. “She left a few minutes ago with a couple. They were helping her out. Practically carrying her. She looked pretty sick.”
Helping her? It sounded more as if she’d been drugged and abducted by the couple. Anger seep
ed through him. No one would have done anything to stop them, because they would have assumed the couple was helping her.
“Can you describe the couple? Their car?”
“They were white…both had dark hair. The drove off in a four-door car, I think. Green—or maybe blue?”
Alex clenched his fists at his sides. He was no longer being paranoid. He’d let his guard down and now Meghan’s life was in danger.
Who had her, and where would they take her?
He pulled out his cell phone and punched in Ian’s number while walking the perimeter of where the guard said she’d been. Ian would still be at the school, helping to finish up the festivities with the students. That meant he was less than ten minutes away. And he had contacts with the local law enforcement.
Something pink caught his eye while he waited for Ian to pick up. He bent down toward the thorny bush. Meghan’s pink zebra cell phone. She must have dropped it while they were carrying her out.
He picked it up, then turned the phone over in his hand. He’d smiled when she’d told him her favorite color was pink. Meghan wasn’t embarrassed that she loved to read romance novels or watch chick flicks, or that she could maneuver the African bush like an expert. She’d love his sisters, and he had no doubt they would love her.
But first he had to find her.
Ian finally picked up.
“Ian. It’s Alex. Nathi’s going to be okay, but Meghan’s missing. I think…I think someone took her.”
Kids shrieked in the background. “What?”
Alex heard the tension in his own voice. “She’s been kidnapped, Ian.”
He explained what had happened as quickly and concisely as he could, including the guard’s account and finding her cell phone. The bottom line was that the threats her father had received were being realized.
“Stay at the hospital. I can be there in a few minutes, and I’ll call a friend from the police department, let him know what has happened. I’ll ask him to meet us.”
A moment later, Alex hung up the call, hating the feeling of helplessness that engulfed him. Standing around doing nothing wasn’t his M.O. He held her phone between his fingers. He couldn’t call her. Had no way to track where she was. But he had to do something.
He looked around him. A handful of people walked past him. Patients, family members bringing food, hospital staff… Someone had to have seen something.
Ten minutes later he was still waiting for Ian and didn’t know any more than he had when he’d called him.
He let out a deep sigh. He’d never been big on words, but now he wished he’d told Meghan what he felt about her. Because for the first time since Shannon died, someone had managed to take his heart captive. Her disappearance made him realize how important she’d become to him. There was no way to deny the truth anymore. Meghan wasn’t just another case he’d been hired to work on.
Which seemed crazy.
But from the first day he’d met her, there was something about Meghan that was different. She’d made him laugh again. Made him believe that maybe—just maybe—there was someone out there worth taking a risk on.
He paced the circular driveway in front of the hospital, feeling helpless to do anything. He should never have let her talk him into allowing her to stay at the reserve. If they’d gone to Cape Town or Texas…
But there was no way to know if that would have been enough to keep her safe. Meghan had been certain that no one had any reason to seriously hurt her. He could only hope she was right. All he did know was that he was the one who was supposed to protect her and he’d failed.
Just like he failed with Shannon. His stomach tensed.
God, this can’t happen again. I can’t lose her.
He wished he had the resources he did back home. He glanced at the main entrance of the hospital. No cameras. No team of security guards. Which left him with few if any leads.
Because, for all practical purposes, Meghan had vanished.
*
Meghan’s head smacked against the top of the car trunk as she tried to sit up. She wanted to scream, but her mouth was covered in tape. Regardless, as far as she knew, they were in the middle of nowhere. Even if she could scream, no one would hear her except her captors. After shoving her into the darkness of the trunk, she’d heard them speaking in whispers until their voices had faded. It had sounded as if they were speaking German, or maybe Dutch? She wasn’t sure.
Then they’d left her alone. Terrified.
She shifted her legs, trying to find a comfortable position. She should have listened to Alex and her father. Taken the threats against her more seriously. She could have left until the elections were over, but now…now it was too late.
Whatever was going on, the threats, kidnapping and possible ransom were far beyond anything she knew how to deal with. She had to get out of here before whoever had taken her returned. She pulled on the binding on her wrists until the skin felt raw. Tears welled in her eyes. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Meghan licked her dry, cracked lips, and panic seeped through her veins. She might have traveled the world and grown up independent, but that didn’t make her brave. Not when it came to this situation. Funny how the only thing she’d ever really worried about on her travels was catching some exotic disease. She’d never imagined being the pawn in a political game.
Regrets surfaced one by one. Regrets toward her father over the lack of forgiveness and understanding on her part. Why did it take facing the end of her life to put things into perspective? Why was it that she had to come face-to-face with losing someone before she realized how much he really meant?
She wanted—needed—the chance for them to start over. She needed to call her father. Ask him to forgive her. Maybe she hadn’t been the only one in the wrong, but at this moment, that didn’t seem to matter.
She continued working to loosen the rope, her mind wandering back a dozen years. When she’d become old enough to understand what her father did for a living, she’d worried about him being killed in the line of duty. Eventually, she’d been able to accept that he’d chosen a life of risks to serve his county. He performed that service quietly and competently, without much fuss or fanfare but with strong integrity and dedication.
Now that she thought of it, his parenting style was quite similar. Long speeches and emotional overtures were not his forte, but he’d always been someone she could rely on utterly and completely. Had she taken that for granted?
Maybe his reasoning for bringing in Alex had not been to push her away, but to keep her safe. What if she’d missed his intentions all along? This time, anyway, while she’d tried to downplay her father’s fears, they’d clearly been right.
And then there was Mr. Cowboy. Alex had swept into her life like a rugged Texas Ranger hero out of a romance novel. He’d managed to take her heart and turn it inside out. From the moment she’d jumped into that Jeep to avoid a charging rhino, she’d realized there was something different about him. Something worth exploring despite her heart’s trepidation.
But she’d continued to push him away, when all her heart had wanted was to give him a chance. He had become the white knight who always tried to rescue her, but she’d let fear take over.
And now, if he didn’t find her, she might lose him forever.
I’m not ready to die, Lord. Not yet.
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. She needed to figure out where she was. To get out of this trunk. A plane sounded overhead. The airport? Was that where they had brought her?
A knot of fear wound its way through her. If they left the country, what were the chances that anyone would find her?
Not this way, God. Please. Help Alex find me.
Voices whispered in the distance, growing louder. They were back.
Before she could explore her feelings any further, she needed to find a way to get out of there alive.
*
Ian arrived at the hospital with Kate and a Detective Anders from the local police dep
artment.
“Ian briefed me on the way here as to what’s happened,” the detective began. “Kate had a recent photo of Meghan on her cell phone. We’ve sent it out to all of our officers. We’re canvassing the area and setting up police checkpoints on the roads out of town.”
“What about the airport?” Alex asked.
“There’s an airstrip five minutes from town,” Ian said. “I have a friend who works there. I’ll call to see if there are any planes scheduled to take off.” He pulled his phone out to make the call right away.
Alex knew the risks. The first moments after a kidnapping were crucial. Already, close to thirty minutes had passed.
“A man and a woman are scheduled to leave for Johannesburg in a private plane within the next fifteen minutes,” the detective said to them a minute later. “Here is something else. The description I was just given matches the description from the guard at the hospital.”
Alex felt his blood pressure rise. “If they take off with her on that plane, tracking her down is going to be difficult.”
Flight plans could change. If Meghan got on that plane, they could lose her. But he refused to accept that would happen this time. He had no intention of losing the woman he was falling in love with.
*
Meghan’s head felt detached from her body. They were moving her, but she couldn’t tell where. She was still battling the effects of the drug they’d given her and the fog it had placed her in. She’d heard another airplane take off, which had to mean they were close to the airport. She’d been there once before and knew that the airport was nothing more than a single hangar beside a strip of tarmac. Nothing more, really, than a landing strip in the middle of an open field. But it meant they could take her anywhere, which would make her almost impossible to track down.
They’d send the photo and video message to her father, demanding he follow their instructions or he’d never see his daughter again. Her father cared. She knew he did, but would he choose her over what he felt he needed to do for his work?
It was the question that had always haunted her. She’d always worried that she’d stood in the way of his duty. That her presence had always held him back from moving forward. That secretly he’d wished her mother had taken her so he could focus on his duties to his country.