—just in time to see Tyler being lifted over the fence by a man on its other side. In the split second that it took her mind to process what she was seeing, blinking through the darkness and the burning curtain of welling tears that kept her from seeing anything clearly, she tried to ascertain what was what. She registered that the man who had grabbed Tyler was wearing a suit, that another man in a suit was racing toward him, and that a black car with its doors open and engine running idled at the curb, double-parked, while Big Red sat waiting directly behind it, across the street.
Two more men stood behind the idling car, barely more than shadowy outlines at first glance, two-handing pistols that were braced on the car’s hood and aimed at her house. Sam didn’t care about them, just like she no longer cared about the men who at any second now should be bursting out her front door.
Every last molecule in her body was focused on saving her son.
“Tyler!” she shrieked, her feet seeming to turn heavy as lead as she tried for every bit of speed she could summon to reach her boy in time. But it was too late, the man in the suit was handing Tyler off to someone in the car, her kid was disappearing inside . . .
“Mom!” he cried, twisting to look back at her, Ted clutched to his chest, a small hand reaching out for her.
“Tyler!” Feeling as if her heart would explode, Sam screamed his name again. It was useless. Her son was already out of sight, thrust into the car. If it drove away now . . . but the first man in the suit, instead of disappearing into the car, too, as the other man did with Tyler, ran back to drag the gate open for her.
“Move it, Ms. Jones.” Sam’s vision was so blurry that she was seeing shapes rather than details, but she was sure she didn’t know him. Whoever he was, though, he knew her—or at least her name. Tonight, in this waking nightmare that she was trapped in, it seemed that everybody did. It was horrifying, terrifying, because it meant that these men who were snatching her kid were doing it because of Marco, but then she’d known that from the first instant she’d spotted Tyler being lifted over the fence. Anyway, it didn’t matter now: whatever the cost, she was going after her child.
Darting past the suit guy at the gate, she yelled, “Give me back my son!” at him, and was surprised at the sound of her own voice: instead of being loud and demanding, it was hoarse and croaky. Her tongue and the tissues of her mouth felt bone dry. A hideous taste—she was guessing it was from the pepper spray—clung to the back of her throat. Swallowing didn’t help.
Reaching the car, she leaned down to look inside—both passenger-side doors were still open—and found herself being half lifted, half shoved into the backseat.
“No!”
Her empty, useless gun was snatched away from her. Hands grabbed and held her, trapping her inside the car, constraining her arms, her legs. She fought like a demon to get away.
“Let me go!”
“Mom!”
Tyler’s voice was drowned out as a cacophony of shouting voices filled the car. They made no sense to her in her panic. Amid the pitched battle she’d been plunged into, both doors slammed shut and the car took off, peeling rubber away from the curb. Through the tinted windows, she saw that her neighbors were not quite as deaf or indifferent as she had thought: a light flicked on in the house next door; across the street, a man holding a baseball bat stepped out onto his porch, looking in the direction of her house. At the far the end of the block, as the car bearing her and Tyler away raced toward the opposite corner then took it on what felt like two wheels, she caught the merest glimpse of the brilliant red and blue flashing lights of a police cruiser lighting up the night as it zoomed onto her street.
She wanted to scream at it, Where were you thirty seconds ago? But that would have been a waste of breath.
“Tyler!” Her desperate gaze locked onto her son. They were holding his head out the window now, doing something to him. She couldn’t tell exactly what, but they seemed to be pouring something in his face, something that splattered in a stream down the side of the car. He squirmed like a fish on a hook, his hands restrained by a dark-jacketed arm clamping his arms to his side, his head jerking as little pained cries emerged from his throat: “Ah, ah, ah!”
“Let go of me!” Throwing elbows and kicking, Sam got away from the arms imprisoning her and practically swam across the backseat—three men were crammed into it shoulder to shoulder—as she fought to reach him. “Tyler!”
“Watch the leg!” The voice, the words, scratched the surface of her panic, but she was so frightened for her son that they didn’t really register.
“Lady! Calm the hell down!” Hands tried to pin her again, then as she sank her teeth into the nearest stuffed suit sleeve just as quickly let her go. “Ow! Damn it! She bit me!”
“Let me go!”
“Sam, stop!” It was a roar, uttered as arms once again locked around hers, clamping them to her body.
“Tyler!” The man who was holding him pulled him back inside the window. Blinking furiously in an effort to clear her vision, struggling for all she was worth, she strained to get to him, to see if he’d been hurt.
“Mom, I’m okay!” Her son was rubbing vigorously at his eyes with something—something white. A rag? “You let my mom go!” He directed a fierce frown at the men holding her.
“We’re going to. Just as soon as—”
“Get your hands off me!” Pinned but undaunted, Sam twisted and bucked ferociously in an effort to get loose, then, having freed a leg, slammed a knee into the nearest rib cage.
“Ow! Damn it! Sam, stop fighting, it’s me!”
“Mom! You let her go!”
Blurry as her vision still was, Sam saw that Tyler’s hair dripped liquid and his face was shiny wet, but otherwise he did indeed seem okay. The worst of her panic began to subside. Now sitting in the lap of the man who’d held him out the window, Tyler shook his head like a wet dog, splattering drops everywhere, including a few that felt cool and soothing as they hit her face. The good news was, he didn’t seem to be hurt or even particularly afraid. As Sam realized that, the terrified haze that had held her in thrall slowly started to dissipate. Calming down enough to realize that fighting was a waste of effort, because there was going to be no escaping the car even if she did get free of the men holding her, she felt her heart, which had been beating a thousand miles a minute, settle into mere pounding, and she managed to catch her breath. At the same time she began to take in her surroundings, and saw that the entire driver’s side of the car was dented inward and the guy holding Tyler looked vaguely familiar.
“Sam, damn it, I’ve got you! Look at me.”
That’s when she recognized the voice: Marco. Blinking wildly, she managed to clear her distorted vision enough to make sure. It was him, all right, wedged in the middle of the three men in the backseat. She had scrambled across him unknowing. Now, in her quest to reach Tyler, she was practically lying across his lap. His arms imprisoned hers, and he was holding her clamped against his chest. She realized that he was taking care to keep her elevated, and off his wounded leg. For the first time since she’d been thrown into the car she went completely still, blinking up at him.
Marco frowned down at her. Their eyes met, and the fight went out of her like air escaping from a balloon. Going limp with relief, she sagged in his hold. Truth was, she didn’t think she had ever been so glad to see anyone in her life.
She felt suddenly, ridiculously (because after all, what did she really know about Marco, or any of them, except what Marco had told her?) safe. But then, safe was probably a comparative thing. As in, compared to what she and Tyler had just escaped.
And Mrs. Menifee hadn’t.
The words practically tripped over each other as she rushed to get them out.
“Our neighbor. She was baby-sitting Tyler. She’s back there in the house, with those men you warned me about. They were waiting for me when I got home. Mrs. Menifee’s hurt or . . .” Her voice trailed off. She did not want to complete the horrible thou
ght while Tyler was within earshot. The thing was, she strongly suspected Mrs. Menifee might be dead. Even knowing what she knew for sure about what had been done to Mrs. Menifee made her heartsick.
“I already told Trey about Mrs. Menifee. I told him I think they killed her.” Tyler sounded both sad and surprisingly matter-of-fact.
“Trey?” Sam blinked hard at her son, trying to bring him into focus. Discovering that she was almost too spent to move, Sam moved anyway, saying, “Let me go” to Marco and the man still holding her legs, easing into a sitting position carefully, mindful of Marco’s wound. She was blinking away, resisting the urge to rub at her eyes only because she knew that rubbing them would just make them feel worse. There wasn’t any room, so she ended up perched on Marco’s good thigh, leaning back against the solid warmth of his chest with his arm heavy around her waist, squinting in an effort to see properly. His expression was difficult to read. Her head leaned against his shoulder, making the angle odd, and anyway she couldn’t really focus still. From the way his leg shifted beneath her she thought that it wasn’t the most comfortable situation for him. But there really wasn’t anywhere else for her to go. Uncomfortable or not, he didn’t shove her off him and she wasn’t about to move onto anyone else’s lap of her own accord. Better the devil you knew, and all that.
“I’m Trey,” Marco told her, as Tyler scooted close and Sam wrapped a protective arm around him. He felt thin and frail—bird bones. In that, he was like her. Clutching Ted, her son snuggled against her side. “It’s a nickname.”
Sam ignored the questions that were dying to be asked in favor of the more crucial matter. “We”—oh, God, she didn’t want any part of this, but she had to get help for Mrs. Menifee; terror for the other woman kept her heart pounding and knotted her stomach—“have to go back. Somebody has to help her. She was hurt. Bleeding. And those men were still in my house. They still had her.”
She hoped her tone conveyed everything else that she didn’t want to say where Tyler could hear: that Mrs. Menifee had been tortured. That if they hadn’t murdered her by the time she and Tyler had escaped, she felt that they almost certainly would have done so once they saw that their primary prey was gone. But there was always a chance that Mrs. Menifee was still alive, still suffering, still being tortured for information, and while there was that chance they had to go back and do what they could to save her.
“No can do.” Sounding clearly indifferent to Mrs. Menifee’s fate, the driver made no effort to so much as slow the speeding car down. Bright lights flashing into the car’s interior, along with a glimpse of tall metal light poles and clustered service stations and fast food places, told Sam that they had reached the expressway interchange, and then they were zooming up the on-ramp onto I-64. Sam thought the driver was looking at her through the rearview mirror, but she couldn’t be sure. “You’re damned lucky we came after you.”
Sam stiffened, and Marco’s arm tightened around her waist. Tyler lifted his head, and for his sake she forced herself to moderate her tone. “You can’t just leave her!”
“Sure we can,” the driver said. “And we’re going to.”
“You’re U.S. Marshals! You have to help her.” Then Sam had a thought. “You are U.S. Marshals, right?”
The men around her all nodded. Marco gave her a look as though to say, oh ye of little faith.
“Yeah, we are. And we have a job to do.” The driver’s tone said the discussion was over. “That job is getting him”—he jerked his head in Marco’s direction—“and now you and your son, out of harm’s way. Which is what we’re doing.”
“But Mrs. Menifee—”
“The local cops are on the scene,” Marco told her quietly. “They were pulling up as we were leaving. They’ll handle it. There’s nothing else we can do.”
“I saw a police car, Mom,” Tyler said. “The police will help Mrs. Menifee. Won’t they?”
The uncertainty of his voice as he said that last made Sam’s throat tighten. He’d been through so much tonight—way too much for anybody, much less a four-year-old, to have to endure. She gave him a reassuring hug. Thank God they hadn’t found Tyler! Just thinking about it made her sick.
“Yes,” she told him. “They will. Of course they will.”
“You can thank us for that. We called 911,” the guy whose lap Tyler was still partly sitting on told her. He sounded a little defensive. “The local yokels will play mop-up. They’ll find your friend, get her to a hospital.”
“Best we can do,” the driver said.
Outside the window, Sam saw metal struts flashing past. Beyond them curved the starry night sky. Below slid the denser black that was the river. They were on the bridge, one of a number of vehicles streaming into St. Louis. The giant, imposing curve of the Arch that was the symbol of the city glowed silver just ahead. Sam reluctantly understood that there was no going back. What happened to Mrs. Menifee now was beyond her control.
She felt terrible for her kindly neighbor, shaken and sad and guilty, and deeply, deeply sorry that such a horror had befallen her because of Mrs. Menifee’s connection to her. But however reluctantly, she understood, too, that there was nothing more that she could do.
I’m lucky to still have Tyler. We’re lucky to be alive.
“Before you got in the car, Tyler told us some of what happened. He said that the bas—”—Marco broke off, cast a glance in Tyler’s direction, and corrected himself—“bad guys in your house hit you both with some kind of chemical spray.”
Sam nodded. The effects of the pepper spray were wearing off—thank God she’d gotten only a small dose, and Tyler, she was almost certain, had gotten even less—but still her eyes teared and her vision was blurry and her eyes and skin stung. She had to keep blinking rapidly just to keep everyone in focus.
“We locked ourselves in Tyler’s bedroom. They shot pepper balls under the door.” Sam swallowed, or rather, tried to swallow, remembering. Her mouth was still Sahara dry, and what little saliva she had tasted bitter. She made a face, shuddering.
“Here.” Marco passed her a half-full bottle of water that he got from the guy holding Tyler, plus a box of Kleenex. “Wipe out your eyes. Wipe your face and any exposed skin.”
“Mom shot them,” Tyler said as Sam accepted the items, then immediately took a swig from the water bottle. The wetness was heaven to her parched mouth, but the taste as the water went down made her think of Brussels sprouts mixed with battery acid. She grimaced and shuddered again. “She had her gun. She said she was going to shoot them some more if they tried to get into my room.”
“You shot them?” Marco asked the question, although all the men looked at her with widening eyes. Sam nodded as she grabbed a handful of tissues from the box, wet them, and started applying them to her eyes. Oh, the relief!
“I shot at them. I don’t think I hit any of them. I wish I had, though, believe me. Speaking of, I’d like my gun back.”
A few yeah, right looks, a couple of negative headshakes, and one definitive no from the driver were her answer. Sam thought about arguing, decided it was a waste of time, and remembered that she was out of bullets anyway. Then a thought occurred, and she quit wiping her eyes long enough to frown up at Marco. “How did you find us? How did you find my house? I never told you where I lived. In fact, I was really careful not to.”
“I said my address.” Tyler sounded proud of himself. She’d spent days teaching him his address and phone number just the month before.
“When the—bad men—first broke into your house, Tyler called your cell phone looking for you. I have your phone, remember? He told me everything that was happening as it happened,” Marco answered the look she gave him. “And he gave us your address.”
“I told you I talked to Trey, Mom. I told you he was coming,” Tyler said.
“I remember.” She managed a smile for Tyler, along with another quick hug. “You did good, baby. I’m proud of you. You saved us.”
“Are the bad men gone forever?”
Tyler asked. His voice was suddenly very small.
“I hope so,” the driver said grimly. But something about his tone told Sam that he wasn’t convinced. Then she realized: the looks she’d thought he’d been giving her through the rearview mirror? They hadn’t been directed at her at all. They’d been aimed behind her, as if he were watching for a following car. In fact, the marshals on either side of Marco had been casting quick glances behind them all along. The guy in the front passenger seat had been keeping a lookout through his side-view mirror.
“Yes, they are,” she told Tyler in a firm tone that dared any of the men to contradict her. But even as she said it, her eyes met Marco’s, and what she saw in them made a chill run down her spine.
They said as clearly as words could have done that the men who were hunting Marco weren’t going to stop until he and, Sam very much feared, now her and Tyler, too, were dead.
She hated to pose the question in front of Tyler, because she hated to plant so much as another sliver of worry in his mind. But she had to know.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“They stay with me,” Danny told Sanders fiercely, referring to Sam and Tyler. He looked at Sam, who was seated in one of a line of folding chairs placed against the cinder-block wall of a small, dimly lit office off the National Guard hangar at Scott Airfield. Drooping and pale, she looked indescribably weary, along with a number of way less relevant things, like far too young to be anybody’s mom and absurdly pretty, given what she had been through and the circumstances. She had an arm around her kid, who was curled up against her side, clutching his teddy bear and sound asleep. “Sam. You make sure you two stay with me. Don’t let them railroad you and Tyler into going anyplace without me. Do you hear?”
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