Booked for Kidnapping (Vigilante Magical Librarians Book 2)

by R. J. Blain

  I gasped. “Don’t you be telling lies, Bradley Hampton.”

  “We have a tub a lot like this, and there is a fireplace,” he repeated, and he grinned. “Once we are out of the tub, I’ll even show you pictures. I have some on my phone.”

  I escaped from his hold, scrambled out of the tub, wrapped a towel around myself, and headed for the vanity to grab his phone, although I dried my hands off before picking it up. I figured out how to turn the display on after a bit of fiddling to discover I needed a code to access it. I walked over, dripping every step of the way, and held out the device. “Open.”

  Laughing, he cooperated, tapping at the screen. Then he touched the screen a few more times and swiped. “There. That’s the album dedicated to our new home.”

  I sat on the ledge and checked out the photographs, which showed a kitchen my mother would appreciate, a dining room with the kind of table his mother would like, a bedroom with a rather large bed, dresser, two desks, and a badass walk-in closet, two different offices, one of which resembled the study of a book-crazed scholar, a ridiculous living room with a stone fireplace gobbling up an impressive section of wall, and a bathroom with a tub larger than the hotel’s. “There is no way that’s an apartment.”

  “I told people it was an apartment.”

  “It’s a condominium, isn’t it?”

  Bradley refused to look at me. “It could possibly be a condominium, but I’m calling it our apartment.”

  “Is it on the upper floors of some ridiculously expensive building?”

  “It’s not far from your work,” he replied.

  “So, it’s on the upper floors of a ridiculously expensive building.”

  “It comes with four parking spots.”

  “Four?”

  “Rich people have car fetishes,” Bradley muttered.

  I stared at the pictures, swiping through to discover even more rooms, one of which had a grand piano. “How many condos did you buy so you could tear down the walls and make a larger home?”

  “Why are you accusing me of buying several condos?”

  “Because you have an entire music room with a rather large piano in it?” I swiped through more photos of the gallery. “And there are two rather large tubs in this place. The only thing out of place is the lack of a second kitchen. It looks like you merged two four-bedroom condos together to make a super condo.”

  “The original kitchens were sharing a wall, so it was rather easy to merge them,” he admitted.

  “So you did buy two condos and merge them?”

  “That may have happened.” Bradley coughed. “My family hasn’t been to our place yet, as I refused to let anyone other than you see it next. So they think I live at some apartment, since I refuse to give them my address. They would show up and see it before you. I spent the first two months after you were kidnapped fixing the condo. I sparsely decorated it, hoping you’d rampage through the place and teach me the error of my ways.”

  I chuckled at that, as even when I’d lived in the Hampton residence, we’d had vastly different ideas of how to decorate. Grand pianos, which he could play rather well, were more up his alley.

  I liked books and magazines, and I hoarded them. I swiped to the picture of the office. “And this one is mine?”

  “I figured you’d like a ridiculous number of books in your throne room.”

  I snorted at that, checking out the pictures of the kitchen again. “The kitchen might be wasted on us.”

  “Your mother keeps trying to teach me how to cook so her little girl won’t starve to death.”

  “How is that working out for you?”

  “We’re at high risk of starving to death,” he informed me in a solemn tone. “She’s thinking about sending me off to cooking boot camp. I’m not sure what that is, but I’m concerned.”

  “Hell,” I informed him, thinking of several family friends who might be able to beat the basics of cooking into Bradley’s head. “You’re not allowed to tuck me in because you have to share my blanket with me.” I got up and went to work drying off and changing into my pajamas. “I’m sure you can come up with an acceptable alternative.”

  “I have noticed you have not protested a single time I’ve held you, so I am going to continue this trend.” Bradley drained the tub, got out, and took the towel I offered to him. “We are going to make sure I can go into the bathroom without you, though.”

  “I’m sure I can handle five or ten minutes of solitude without going mad. But I have found this lounging in the tub while reading to be to my liking. I even enjoyed the company.”

  He snickered, and he changed into a pair of dark pajamas, a pair I recognized as one of his favorites. He bought a new pair every year, the exact same style and color, but he only threw them out when they became threadbare. “As a fair warning, my father will probably take pictures.”

  I could live with that. “I’ve been under observation enough times at the hospital to not be bothered by this. Just don’t do anything terribly embarrassing.”

  “What counts as terribly embarrassing?”

  “Using me as a blanket is embarrassing.”

  “You’d make an epic weighted blanket, though. I volunteer if you wish to take up a hobby as a living blanket.” Bradley opened the bathroom door and peeked out. “Were you making sure we didn’t fall asleep in the tub?”

  “Not particularly. I was reading this thing called a book. Did Janette pass out?”

  “I have not passed out,” I said. “But I’m about to.”

  “Good. I’ve taken care of my calls, so we’ll get some sleep. How long do you need to be functional, Bradley?”

  “Call it three hours.”

  “I’ll set an alarm. Janette, you are under no obligation to get up when we do. We’re just trying not to completely pooch our sleep schedule. You probably don’t have a sleep schedule right now.”

  “I really don’t.” I pushed Bradley out of the bathroom, headed for the empty bed, and crawled under the blanket. “I can probably handle being left alone for a few minutes. I’ve gotten quite good at it.”

  “Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should give us a demonstration,” Bradley’s father countered. “Also, I don’t care if you decide Bradley is a bed, just let me leave the room first if you have any other plans in mind.”

  I laughed. “I think I can manage that much.”

  TWELVE

  You just want to hoard her all to yourself.

  On one hand, I shouldn’t have taken Bradley hostage through using him as a bed. On the other hand, I appreciated his inability to escape, his warmth, and how he held me in place with an arm so I wouldn’t do something foolish, including roll over him and onto the floor.

  A conversation, rather heated and involving some of my co-workers, my parents, and his mother, did a good job of preventing me from returning to sleep.

  Despite the general crankiness of everyone else, Bradley chuckled. “Waiting two weeks for Janette to gain some weight, get a checkup, and otherwise prepare for returning to normal life isn’t that much time. If we try to throw all of that at her at once, we’ll overwhelm her. Considering how she’s doing a pretty good impression of being glue right now, we need to take care. I get you all want her home immediately, but until we have a better idea of what she can tolerate, we need to take this slowly.”

  Beatrice snorted. “You just want to hoard her all to yourself.”

  “While that’s true… actually, yes. I do. I absolutely do wish to hoard her all to myself.”

  A laugh escaped before I could stop it. As I could only assume I was busted, I said, “What are you arguing about?”

  “Who gets to keep you,” Bradley informed me. “I have decided I am the one keeping you, and that’s that.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not marrying someone else. The last time I checked, the only person I was marrying is you, so that means you win that one by default.” I stretched and yawned. “But seriously. Why are you all fi
ghting?”

  “Janette!” Beatrice released her breath in a huff. “He wasn’t letting us talk to you.”

  “I was asleep. It’s difficult to talk to you when I’m asleep. I’m not asleep now. What time is it?”

  “Midnight,” my best enemy reported. “Nine where you’re at. Bradley told us you were exhausted, but you’ve been out for over twelve hours. We were trying to get intel on your kidnapping, but Bradley says you know nothing?”

  “I know nothing beyond my kidnappers having a significant interest in my foot and that one of them is an illusionist. They don’t know me personally, as far as I can tell. They didn’t provide any of my favorite foods, not once. Not a scrap of spicy goodness, either.”

  “And only people who know you fairly well are aware you’d eat peppers by the handful if left unattended.” After a moment, Beatrice heaved another sigh. “I hate that I feel we’re back to square one. We were never able to find anything on who took you or why. These people left us nothing, not even a stray hair. We just know their method, we can assume you and Senator Westonhaus were the targets, and honestly, we aren’t even sure if you were an intended target or if the kidnappers got a serious case of ethics after shooting you.”

  I wiggled on Bradley enough I could shove my pajama sleeve out of the way and peek at the scar on my arm. “I don’t see how that little thing would have justified a kidnapping of that scale and expense, Beatrice. Judging from the scar, it wasn’t that bad of a gunshot wound. More of a graze than anything else.”

  “It bled heavily, and you took a hard knock to the head when you fell. We thought you had gotten killed, since the hit to your head knocked you right out.”

  “I don’t want to see that video. That sounds embarrassing. I mean, being dragged off after being shot and having clobbered my head is definitely embarrassing. My pride may never recover.” To match my best enemy, I heaved my most dramatic sigh. “No one can judge me about the goats.”

  Peals of laughter blared from Bradley’s phone, which was on the nightstand beside the bed. I spotted no sign of Bradley’s father, but upon listening, I heard the tell-tale rumble of the jets in the bathroom. Having broken the anger and replaced it with amusement, I yawned and settled in, nestling my head on Bradley’s shoulder.

  “Still tired?” Bradley asked, giving my back a rub. “Don’t be surprised if she goes back to sleep. She is snuggling into her living pillow rather mercilessly.”

  “You’re comfortable and warm,” I informed him. “And I’m about ten to twenty pounds too thin right now to be anything other than cold. I don’t actually know if that’s true, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

  “Better target twenty-five pounds just to be sure. It is a sacrifice I will just have to endure through.”

  “I see you have accepted your engagement with open arms,” my mother stated in an amused tone.

  “He got us goats, and I heard something about a horse? I’m not sure if I actually heard something about a horse. I was tired enough I might’ve hallucinated that part.”

  My mother giggled. “We bought horses this morning, yes. There’s one for you and one for your Bradley, and I’ve been talking to physical therapists, who have all said caring for and riding horses will be good for you, especially now that your foot is recovering.”

  Fortunately for me, Bradley opted to drum his fingers on my back, which did a good job of distracting me, which spared me from a fate worse than death due to asking my mother if she’d lost her mind. “Dr. Mansfield looked you over two hours ago, and she brought a bone mender colleague over as well. I paid for their airfare and their hotel rooms. She spent the first twenty minutes cursing at your kidnappers. How dare they go against her plan for your foot? And then she spent the rest of the time cursing them because they had done a really good job with your foot. You have a ridiculous collection of metal bits in your foot, and the bone mender reported that you’ve had a substantial number of your bones in your foot replaced. Some are from a donor, which her friend was able to detect due to inconsistencies in the bone shape and density, and what wasn’t replaced with actual bone was done through pins and other fancy stuff. Honestly, I was more concerned about your foot than the specifics. The short of it is you were given top-notch care. There are a limited number of people capable of doing that sort of work in such a short period of time, so we have some suspects.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  Bradley switched from drumming to rubbing, something I enjoyed more than I expected. “Ironically, Dr. Marlene Renfold is at the top of our list. She was on your team after the crash, and she was one of the more vocal against Dr. Avers and his opinions regarding your care. She could have done the work, and she has a reputation of abhorring failure. Thanks to Avers, she feels your case was more of a failure than anything, so she has the motivation to do the work. Lauley Rivers is considered to be skilled enough to have done most of the work, or perhaps someone he taught. Essentially, the serial killer group could have done it with the right preparation and enough warning. That you were sedated most of the time would make it easier, especially since they didn’t seem concerned about your need for physical therapy. When you don’t care about patient comfort, it’s feasible to do a lot of work. Dr. Mansfield is very careful to do her work in such a way to be bearable for her patients. She doesn’t think they gave a flying shit about torturing you if it meant a successful treatment. Your frequent sedations would have made it possible to do the surgery. There are four more doctors in the United States or come to the United States often who are capable of handling the work to this skill level. Dr. Mansfield is not one of them, by the way. She’s good, but she’s stated she’s not this good, and you are her toughest case by far. She lacks the magical abilities required to fully heal your foot. But she was what you could afford, and she was good enough. And she confessed she undercharged you to make sure you could get the care you needed; you got the absolute cheapest she could charge.”

  “I need to send her another card and more chocolate, apparently. Along with another paycheck.”

  “I already took care of the paycheck part,” Bradley confessed. “I knew you’d want to pay more the instant you found out, so I took care of it.”

  I stretched, and I wiggled my toes, delighting in how my right foot emerged from my misadventures sore but not in true pain. “We have plenty of potential motives on why someone would want Senator Westonhaus to permanently disappear. Do we have any motives on why someone would want me to not-so-permanently disappear? Also, with a somewhat intact foot? I mean, mostly intact foot. I will probably still use a cane, because it gets sore easily, but I can walk. I really do appreciate that.”

  I had held hope for some limited freedom from the boot but little more than that. My reward boots would have been worn rarely, with an expectation of them causing significant pain.

  “You’re a badass?” Mickey suggested.

  I smiled that my self-professed fanboy didn’t seem to have lost his interest in my magic. “I thought I was pretty badass rescuing myself. Once I wasn’t being drugged stupid, I had a working foot, and I figured out there were some high-grade illusions keeping me contained. I didn’t like having to climb out a third-story window, though. That was not my definition of a good time. Honestly, I liked the part where I went to the library and emailed Bradley. It was right at the beach, and I spent the time gathering shells while waiting.”

  “Before you hid in some bushes and ambushed my father,” Bradley added with laughter in his voice.

  “I didn’t really ambush him. He spotted me getting up. The bushes had a bunch of rocks between them, and honestly, it hurt like hell getting up. It wasn’t a good ambush. You just hauled ass going to the beach.”

  “In my defense, I was really eager to find you, and I thought the beach made a good hiding spot. I didn’t think you’d hide in some bushes.”

  “I hadn’t walked too far to find that beach, and I didn’t want to be easily spotted by people I didn’t
want spotting me. I am willing to hide in bushes as necessary.” I faked a sniffle. “Their library is right on the beach, Bradley.”

  “I’m sorry your branch isn’t on the beach. Don’t mind Janette. She’d convinced herself she would have to find a new job. I had told her she still had her job, but I don’t think she believes me.”

  “You still have your job,” my boss said. “We’re going to have a talk about notifying others when you’re working with dangerous individuals, though. As a result of your kidnapping, I have added a new rule. All librarians hunting for donations must report when they have dinner meetings with politicians. They’re dangerous, and you might need backup. Also, you did a wonderful job, even though exactly nobody likes the gentleman you pulled out of the line of fire.”

  Oops. I hadn’t realized my boss had been on the call. “Hi, Mr. Tawnlen. I’m sorry I haven’t shown up for work in almost nine months.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for, although we’re going to have a long talk about getting into vehicles with strange politicians. We’ve done some staff shuffling, since I had to register your true aptitude rating, and you’re going to like me almost as much as you like your fiancé in a minute.”

  “Acquisitions?” I whispered.

  “Acquisitions and donations, with floor time as you can. You’re also going to get to handpick our next diversity hires. That’s from the main branch. Beatrice seems to enjoy vexing us whenever possible.”

  “She’s the best bitch,” I informed my boss.

  Beatrice laughed. “You’re just really good at melding with the lower castes, and my boss, upon hearing you’ll be coming home in a few weeks, wants you to handle hires for the entire library system in our area. That’ll let you work with the public, and if you’re cherry-picking the hires, it’s easier for us to get them in with a higher budget. It’ll work out, and it’ll let you work more from home for a while. You’ll have to go through the potential hires, so it’ll be good practice before you go back to your branch. Before getting on this call, I’d been working on getting your employment records updated with some help from the boss man here. You’re all good, and your official return date is in a month. That’ll give you some time to go through your medical evaluations and see a therapist.”