by Kara Lennox
Hmm. She didn’t really sound that scared anymore. In fact, she sounded mad. Had she seen through him? Had she figured out he wouldn’t hurt her?
He carried her through the living room, where red paint stained the carpet and someone had defaced the marble fireplace with a hammer and chisel.
“What happened to this place?” Elena didn’t sound like a terrified hostage should.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to get chummy with the woman. He didn’t want to get to know her. If he started to see her as a person, rather than part of the system keeping his brother in prison, he would find it impossible to mistreat her like this.
“This isn’t your house, is it?” she tried again. “Hey, you know, this is really uncomfortable. Maybe you could let me walk. I won’t try to run again. Obviously, I can’t get away from you.”
She was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. He’d give her credit—she wasn’t stupid. He suspected the tears and hysteria had been calculated to manipulate him, too. Well, no dice. He wasn’t falling for it.
The master suite was down a short hallway off the living room. This was the first room Travis had worked on, and it was pretty much finished. He’d replaced several sections of the hardwood floor, which the former owners had gouged with an ax, and installed a new light fixture. The walls had required a gallon of paint to get rid of stains left by permanent markers. Now that he’d repainted it in the neutral off-white his client had requested, it didn’t look half-bad.
The bathroom was in pretty good shape, except for a chunk broken out of the sink, probably with a sledgehammer. Travis was going to try his hand at porcelain repair rather than replace the whole sink. He’d heard about a new product that produced amazing results.
Hell, why was he even thinking about that? He’d never get the chance to finish this job. He’d be in jail.
Travis set Elena down. She balled up her fist and hit him in the shoulder, rightfully pissed off. But as she shook off the pain in her own hand—it had probably hurt her more than it had hurt him—her face instantly transformed from anger to dismay.
“You’re bleeding!” She sounded horrified.
“What?”
“Look at your face!” She stood aside so he could go to the mirror and look, and damned if he didn’t almost do it. She would have slipped out the door right behind him.
Instead, he put his hand to his forehead and felt moisture. When he drew it back, his fingers were indeed covered with blood.
“Well, what do you expect when you throw a wrench at someone?” He realized now that his forehead still throbbed where the wrench had hit him.
“You are not making me feel one bit guilty. I would have hit you with a hundred wrenches if I’d had them.” She winced. “Does it hurt?”
“What do you think?” He caught his reflection in the glass shower enclosure; he did look like a horror movie victim. Revenge of the Wrench Throwers. He probably should clean the cut and patch it up. Lord only knew what sort of germs had been lurking on that wrench.
He joined Elena in the luxurious bathroom and closed the door. Then he sat down on the carpet with his back to the door. She would have to go through him to get out.
“How about you see if the people who used to live here left anything behind in the way of first-aid supplies.” The guy who’d hired Travis said the former owners had moved out in the middle of the night, taking whatever they could haul or carry that was valuable but leaving behind some cheap furnishings. Travis had already cleared out most of the furniture and sold it to a used furniture dealer.
So maybe the former owners had left something useful.
“You think I’m going to play nurse?” Elena huffed. “Think again.”
“You don’t have to play nurse. Just hand me the stuff. I’ll do it myself. The sooner you help me, the sooner I’ll leave you alone and go take care of business—the business that will get you released.”
“Fine.” She went to the linen cupboard first and found a clean washcloth, which she soaked with warm water and handed to him. “You can use that to clean off the blood, at least.”
He scrubbed his face and neck with the washcloth while she rummaged around in the cabinets and drawers. Then he gingerly dabbed at the cut. Now that his adrenaline had spent itself, he was feeling the pain. She’d really walloped him. He was lucky she hadn’t knocked him unconscious.
“If you find any aspirin,” he said, “I’ll start with that.”
“Aspirin will make you bleed more.” She handed him a bottle of Tylenol. “Try that.”
“Thanks.” He shook out a couple of the pills and swallowed them dry.
“I was going to get you some water. But I don’t see a glass.”
“It’s okay. What did you find? Any first-aid cream or bandages?” What he needed was stitches. The cut was still bleeding.
“Found some alcohol.”
Not what he was hoping for. That would burn like hellfire. But he supposed he better bite the bullet and use it if he didn’t want an infection.
“What else?”
“You’re in luck. Butterfly bandages.”
Except how was he supposed to apply them to himself?
She dumped everything she’d found on the floor beside him, including some cotton balls. Then she closed the lid on the toilet and sat down, her arms folded, pointedly ignoring him.
He started with the alcohol, soaking a cotton ball and swabbing the cut. He did his best to remain stoic, because his ego wouldn’t allow him to cry like a baby in front of a woman. But she had to hear his sharp intake of breath. It was like being branded.
“I hope it hurts terribly,” she said.
“It does. Thank you for your concern.”
She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Good.” But she looked worried. And as he tried to apply a butterfly bandage, squeezing the cut closed with one hand and maneuvering the bandage with the other, she frowned at his ineptitude. The cut ran close to his hairline, making it even more difficult.
She stood up and took off her jacket. “Oh, for pity’s sake, just let me do it.”
He should have said no. Letting Elena get her hands on his injured self when she seemed to enjoy his pain wasn’t a logical move. But blood was dripping down his forehead and he wondered if the injury was more serious than he’d thought. And he certainly wasn’t having any luck himself. He’d already wrecked two of the four available butterflies.
Elena brought a box of tissues with her and knelt beside him. She used a wad of tissues to wipe away the blood, and then quickly, efficiently closed the cut with the butterflies.
“It’s not too bad, only about an inch long.” She sounded like a concerned nurse. “It’s not bleeding very much now. I’m going to put this big bandage on it, but you might want to apply pressure for a little longer.”
“Okay.”
She did as promised. She had surprisingly gentle hands. Her breasts were right at his eye level, and he studied them leisurely. Not overly large, but not small, either, they were about the size of large, ripe peaches. Her blue dress was fairly modest, not displaying much in the way of cleavage, but he could still see the outline of those luscious breasts. She smelled good, too, like cinnamon and nutmeg.
If he focused on the pleasant sights and scents of Elena, he found that his head didn’t hurt too much.
“I get the feeling you’ve patched up people before,” he said, hoping to get her talking. Her voice was pleasant, too—as long as she wasn’t yelling at him.
“When I was younger, I had to deal with lots of injuries. My dad and older brothers would come home from the sugarcane fields with scratches and cuts, and my mother and grandmother and I would get out the iodine.”
“Iodine. Now that stuff hurts.”
“It was what we had
on hand.”
“Was this in Mexico?”
“No, idiot. Cuba. You can’t tell a Mexican accent from Cuban?” Then she rattled off something that he actually understood. He’d picked up some Spanish from working construction, and from when he was incarcerated, too.
“I might be ignorant, but I’m not a pig,” he said.
“So, you understand Spanish. Am I supposed to be impressed? There, your wretched head is fixed for now. I think you’ll live, unfortunately.”
Her tone sounded closer to teasing than hateful, which pleased him no end. God, he was stupid, looking for crumbs of good humor from a woman he’d kidnapped. He was stupid for being attracted to her, too, but no one had ever accused him of being smart.
He’d been an idiot to shove Elena into his truck. More than likely, his ploy would only succeed in landing him in prison and wouldn’t help Eric at all. But nothing else had worked. This plan was all he had, and he was determined to get as much out of it as he could.
As Elena gathered up the trash and threw it into a wastebasket, Travis pushed himself to his feet. His eyes swam for a moment, but then the world righted itself.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. You can’t escape from here, and no one can hear you, so your best bet is to just stay calm. If your boss is a reasonable man, he’ll give me what I want, and I’ll let you go.”
“And if he doesn’t give you what you want? I doubt he will. Daniel doesn’t negotiate with people like you.”
“I’m willing to bet your welfare is important enough to him that he will.”
And if he doesn’t?
He would let her go anyway, of course. Then he would turn himself in and take his lumps.
CHAPTER THREE
“WAIT. CAN’T WE talk about—”
Travis slipped out the door and slammed it in her face. He couldn’t listen to her. He couldn’t look into those chocolate-brown eyes without feeling his resolve softening. It was time to contact Daniel Logan.
The bedroom was empty except for one straight-back chair in a corner. Travis remembered dragging it in there to stand on so he could open an air-conditioning vent. One of the chair’s slats was broken, which was why he hadn’t tried to sell it.
He could fix it; he hated throwing away perfectly good stuff that could be repaired and provide many more years of service.
The broken slat wouldn’t affect the use he put it to. He grabbed it and shoved it under the bathroom doorknob.
“Don’t leave me in here!” Elena screamed at him through the door. “Please, please, I can’t stand it.”
He turned resolutely and walked out the door.
He’d turned his cell phone off the minute he’d nabbed Elena so he couldn’t be located by the phone’s ping. He wasn’t sure how fast Daniel Logan could mobilize whatever people and resources he had, but probably pretty damn fast. The guy was powerful. Still, it was possible Elena hadn’t even been missed yet. If she had a lot of autonomy on the job, her absence might not be unusual.
Travis got in his truck and drove. He’d been driving for twenty minutes before he realized he should have gotten Daniel’s private number from Elena. The only number Travis had was for Project Justice. Well, that would have to do.
Once he was miles away from the repo’d house, in some nameless, nondescript neighborhood, he pulled over, got out his cell, turned it on, took a deep breath and dialed.
“Project Justice, how may I direct your call today?” The woman who answered had a tone of voice that didn’t match the polite words. She sounded like an older lady—probably that dragon who’d manned the front desk the time he’d dropped in at their offices, hoping to convince someone to listen to him.
Celeste, that was her name. “Good afternoon, Celeste. My name is Travis Riggs.” There was no point in trying to hide his identity. “Please listen carefully, as I’ll only say this once. I’ve kidnapped Daniel Logan’s assistant, Elena.”
“You did what?” Celeste shrieked.
God, the woman could shatter eardrums. “Please, don’t talk. Just listen. She’s safe and unhurt—for now. My demands are simple. Project Justice must take on the case of Eric Riggs, my brother, who was unjustly convicted of his wife’s murder. Have Daniel Logan personally call this number and leave a message, indicating that he agrees. Have him provide me with this detail—What piece of the victim’s jewelry went missing?—to convince me he really did investigate the case. When he does that, I will return Elena unharmed and turn myself in to the authorities. Do you understand?”
“Now, you listen here, young man. Daniel Logan doesn’t negotiate with—”
“Do you understand?”
There was a long pause before Celeste answered. “Perfectly.”
“I’ll check my messages in twenty-four hours.” He disconnected and turned off his phone. Despite the cool fall weather, he was sweating. He opened the window and cursed. Making that call had sickened him. But he had to keep thinking about Eric, sitting in that six-by-eight jail cell. And little MacKenzie, who was so traumatized by her mother’s death that she had withdrawn from the world. Now her father was gone, too.
Travis could have accepted temporary custody of MacKenzie. His brother had tried to get him to do just that; MacKenzie seemed fond of her uncle Trav, and there weren’t any other relatives except Tammy’s aged grandmother, who was in a home. But at the time decisions were being made, Travis had thought MacKenzie would be better off with foster parents who could spend time with her and help her adjust. A single construction worker who worked seven days a week—and who intended to spend any spare time he had helping Eric prove his innocence—wasn’t a fit guardian for a three-year-old.
Even if Travis had been willing to take MacKenzie, Social Services probably would have nixed the idea. Ex-cons were hardly considered prime parent material.
Now he wished he’d at least tried to take responsibility for his niece. Her foster parents were moneygrubbing lowlifes who only wanted to adopt MacKenzie so they could get hold of her future assets. Eric had been financially comfortable when Tammy was murdered, but Tammy came from serious money. When that aged grandmother died, her wealth would pass directly to MacKenzie. Without a trust fund in place, her “parents” would get control of the money.
Travis’s own brief experience as a foster kid had been positive, and he’d based his decision on that. He hadn’t counted on the foster parents from hell.
Travis got his truck moving again. He needed to get back to Elena. It just now occurred to him that if something happened to Travis—say, a fatal car accident—no one would know where to find his hostage. It could be months before anyone went through that house. She could starve to death.
He didn’t take another full breath until he pulled onto Marigold Circle and everything looked quiet and peaceful. No cop cars or news crews lurked in the cul-de-sac. Even as he pulled around to the back of the house, he half expected cops to spring out of hiding, guns drawn, as he exited his vehicle. But nothing happened.
He let himself in the back door. Hi, honey, I’m home.
* * *
ELENA TOOK STOCK of her situation once again, as it had evolved. It could be a lot worse, she conceded. She had no serious injuries; she hadn’t been molested. And as far as prison cells went, this one wasn’t bad. The sink provided running water, the toilet worked and she could even take a whirlpool bath if she wanted to.
But there was no way out. The door wouldn’t budge; she’d thrown all of her weight against it several times and nothing had happened. She couldn’t reach the skylights, and even if she could, she doubted they would break easily. She’d found a can of hairspray and had attempted to throw it with enough force to break the glass, but those windows were designed to withstand hail. Even if she broke one, what then? She couldn’t magically fly up to it and escape.
She wondered what Daniel would do when he found out she’d been abducted. He was loyal to his own people; she couldn’t believe he would allow her to be killed just to make a point that he didn’t negotiate with criminals. And Travis wasn’t asking for the world; he only wanted someone to take on his brother’s case. But currently Daniel was dealing with something more urgent than his personal assistant’s life. What if the new Logan power plant was in imminent danger of a meltdown? That was the sort of global disaster that would definitely take precedence over one person’s welfare.
If Daniel didn’t respond to Travis, would Travis understand why?
She heard a door open and close and immediately got to her feet and went to the door. “Help! Help me, please! I’m trapped in the bathroom!” It was probably Travis, returning from wherever he’d gone. But just in case it wasn’t...“Help!” she shouted again, slamming her palms against the door. Her right hand still hurt where she’d hit Travis’s shoulder.
“I’m back.” It was Travis’s voice. She slumped with disappointment even as her heart lifted slightly. It was really odd, but despite everything, she still felt sympathetic to Travis’s cause—more than when she’d first listened to his story. Was this what they called Stockholm Syndrome, when a hostage started to feel affection for her captor? Surely it wouldn’t happen this quickly.
“Hey,” she yelled. “Are you going to feed me? Because I skipped lunch. While I was supposed to be eating lunch, I was trying to get you some time with Daniel.”
“And I appreciate that. Really, I do,” he said. “I’ll get you something to eat. Sorry, I hadn’t even thought about food. I guess when your stomach is tied up in knots you don’t notice if you’re hungry or not.”
“Well, I do. And I’m hungry.”
“I’ll see what the people who lived here left behind in the way of food.”
Great. It sounded like she was in for a tasty meal of stale saltines, and maybe a can of cold soup if she was lucky. Travis didn’t seem the type who could whip up a four-star meal out of nothing.