Slick Hair didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes off Sheryl’s face. With everything in her, she tried not to flinch as he reached out and twisted a hand through her hair.
“I don’t think you’re giving it to us straight,” he said softly, bringing her face to within inches of his own. “You sure that postcard said ‘five’ days, Sheryl? Think hard. Real hard.”
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Slick Hair looked into her eyes for another few moments. “Get the needle,” he told his partner quietly.
She tried to jerk away. “No!”
His painful grip kept her still.
“It’s just a little drug we got from a friendly doc, Sheryl. It’ll help you remember. Help you get the details right.”
There was no way she was going to allow these men to stick a needle in her. God only knows who had used it before or what drug they’d pump into her.
“Maybe... Maybe it said ‘four days.’”
Satisfaction flared in the eyes so close to her own. “Maybe it did, Sheryl.”
“Jesus!” Broken Nose thumped his fist against his shiny pantleg. “That’s tonight!”
“So it is,” Slick Hair mused. “That must be why Inga sent you to us, Sheryl. She was probably in a real sweat, knowin’ Paul was coming in tonight and no one would be there to greet him. Well, we’ll be there.”
Sheryl closed her eyes in an agony of remorse. Harry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.
“You’ll be there, too,” Slick Hair finished, easing his grip on her hair. “If Paul doesn’t show, we’re gonna be real, real unhappy with you.”
The threat should have paralyzed her with fear. Instead, it slowly penetrated her despair and lit a tiny spark of anger. She hoped Paul Gunderson did show. She hoped he walked off a plane tonight and found not only these creeps, but a small army of law enforcement officials waiting for him. She hoped to hell she was there to see it when Harry took Gunderson and these two goons down.
Which he would! She knew he would! These men didn’t realize that Harry would tear the city apart when he discovered she was missing. He’d find her car, trace her to the pet store. It wouldn’t take him long to tie that visit back to Inga Gunderson. Maybe he already had.
He’d find a way to make Inga talk.
He had to!
Chapter 13
Ev Sloan waited for Harry on the steps of the Bernalilo County Detention Center. Even though the sun had dropped behind the cluster of downtown buildings and shadows stretched across the street, sweat streaked Ev’s face and plastered his shirt to his chest. As he’d told Fay just before he’d left her at the operations center, he sincerely hoped he’d never have to go through again what he’d experienced since the Albuquerque police had located Sheryl Hancock’s abandoned car three hellish hours ago.
His gut had twisted at the realization that the woman he’d worked with for the past couple of days had been snatched right off the street. As deep as it went, his worry over Sheryl’s status didn’t begin to compare with Harry’s. Not that MacMillan’s wrenching desperation showed to anyone who didn’t know him. Ev had worked with him long enough to recognize the signs, though. The stark fury, quickly masked. The fear, even more quickly hidden. The cold, implacable determination that had driven him every minute since they’d found the car.
Thank God for the crumpled piece of paper under the Camry’s front seat. Sheryl’s hand-scribbled list had led them to the pet shop and to the nervous shop owner, who’d IDed the two men who’d followed their victim out of the store. The process of identifying them might have taken a whole lot longer than it had if Harry hadn’t instantly connected them to the two strong-arms rumored to have been sighted in Albuquerque. With the FBI’s help, they now had names, backgrounds and mug shots of both men. Through a screening of Sheryl’s phone calls this morning, they also had a link to Don Ortega.
Attorney and client were waiting inside for them now. Ev didn’t kid himself. This interview was going to be a rough one. He’d known that since Harry had stalked out of the task force command center a half hour ago, instructing Ev to meet him at the detention center. But he didn’t realize how rough until he saw MacMillan climbing out of the sedan that squealed to a stop in front of the steps.
Ev’s eyes bugged at the bundle of black-and-white fur wedged under his partner’s arm. “Why did you bring that thing down here?”
The car door slammed. “Everyone’s got a weak spot in their defenses. Butty-boo here is Inga’s.”
Spinning around, Ev followed Harry up the steps. “Christ, MacMillan, you’re not going to do something stupid like strangle the mutt in front of the old woman to get her to talk?”
“That’s one possibility.”
“You can’t! You know you can’t! Ortega will have the DA, the IG, the SPCA and everyone else he can contact down on our heads!”
“Ortega’s going to have his hands full dodging a charge of accessory to a kidnapping,” Harry shot back.
He shoved through the glass doors, leaving Ev to trail him into the cavernous lobby. The dog tucked under his arm looked around, black eyes bright with interest. He must have spotted something that he didn’t like across the lobby because he promptly let loose with a series of shrill yips that ricocheted off the marble walls and hit Ev’s eardrums like sharp, piercing arrows.
“Think, man!” he urged over the noise. “Think! You can’t hurt the animal, as much as we’d both like to. You can’t even threaten to hurt it. You’ll jeopardize our case against both Inga and Paul Gunderson if we ever get them to court. They’ll say Inga confessed under duress. That she—”
Harry swung around, his eyes blazing. “Right now, our case takes second place to Sheryl Hancock’s safety.”
His barely contained fury cut Button off in midbark The sudden silence pounded at all three participants in the small drama.
“I dragged her into this,” Harry said savagely. “I’m damned well going to get her out.”
“By strangling the mutt?”
He blew out a long breath. Some of the fury left his face, but none of the determination. His gaze dropped to the dog. Someone had drawn its facial hair up and tied it with a pink bow. Sheryl, Ev supposed. MacMillan looked about as ridiculous as a man could with the prissy thing tucked under his arm.
“I won’t hurt him. I couldn’t. If I did, Sheryl would be on my case worse than the old woman. Beats me what either of them sees in the little rat.”
Despite his professed dislike for the creature, he knuckled the furry forehead with a gentleness that made Ev blink.
“Then why did you bring him here?”
Harry’s hand stilled. When he looked up, his eyes were flat and hard once again.
“If nothing else, I’m going to make damned sure Inga Gunderson knows what happens to animals left unclaimed at the pound for more than three days.”
They were heading south on I-25.
That much Sheryl could see from the back floor of the panel truck. Every so often an overhead highway sign would flash in the front windshield where her two captors sat. She’d catch just enough of it to make out a few letters and words.
She shifted on the hard floor, trying to ease the burning ache in her shoulder sockets. The movement only sharpened the pain shooting from her shoulders to her fingertips. She’d long ago given up her futile attempts to twist free of the tape that bound her wrists together behind her back.
All in all, she was more miserable and frightened than she’d ever been in her life. She hadn’t drunk anything except the water Slick Hair had poured down her throat hours ago. Hadn’t eaten anything since the poppy-seed muffin she’d gulped down before heading out the door this morning. She needed to go to the bathroom, badly, but she’d swallow nails before she asked her kidnappers to stop the truck, escort her to a bathroom and pull down her flowered leggings!
Not that she could ask them even if she wanted to. The bastards had slapped a wide strip of duct tape over her mouth before hauling
her outside and hustling her into the waiting truck.
Her physical discomfort sapped her strength. The constant battle to hang on to to her desperate belief that Harry would find her drained it even more.
How long had it been now? Nine hours since she’d walked out of the pet shop on Menaul Avenue? Ten?
How long since Harry had realized that she was missing?
Bright highway lights flashed by in the windshield. Sheryl tried to concentrate on them, tried to keep her mind focused on the tiny details that might help if she had to reconstruct events for Harry after this was all over.
Despite her fierce concentration, doubts and sneaking, sinking fear ate away at her. What if Harry hadn’t called her, as he’d promised he would? What if he’d gotten so caught up in his investigation that he didn’t have time? Oh, God, what if he didn’t even know she was missing?
She closed her eyes, fighting the panic that threatened to swamp her.
He said he’d call. He’d promised he would. What Harry promised, he’d do. She’d learned that much about him in the short, intense time they’d been together. He’d called her sometime today. She knew he had. And when she hadn’t answered, he’d started looking.
He’d find her.
Battling fiercely with her incipient panic, she almost missed the click of directional signals. A moment later, the truck slowed and banked into a turn. Signs flashed by overhead, but Sheryl couldn’t catch the lettering.
After another mile or so, Broken Nose twisted around. “It’s show time, doll. You’d better hope our star performer shows.”
Dragging a folded moving pad from under his seat, he shook it out and tossed it over her. Total blackness surrounded her, along with the stink of mildew and motor oil. Sheryl closed her eyes and prayed that she’d see Harry when she opened them.
She didn’t.
When the pad was jerked away, Broken Nose loomed over her once more. His face was a grotesque mask of shadows in the diffused light of the truck’s interior.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he whined. “You’re gonna wait inside. We don’t want no nosy Customs inspectors catchin’ sight of you in the truck, do we?”
Wrapping his paw around her elbow, he hauled her out of the truck. Pain zigzagged like white, agonizing lightning up and down Sheryl’s arm. She couldn’t breathe, let alone groan, through the duct tape sealing her mouth.
Broken Nose hauled her to her feet outside the truck and hustled her toward one of the rear doors in a corrugated steel hangar. Sheryl stumbled along beside him, trying desperately to clear her head of the pain and get her bearings. The air she dragged in through her nostrils carried with it the unmistakable bite of jet fuel fumes. The distant whine of engines revving up confirmed she was at the airport.
The moment her captor shoved her inside the huge, steel-sided building, she recognized the cavernous, shadowy interior. She could never forget it! She’d worked at rotation at the airport cargo-handling facility as a young rookie, years ago, and had counted the months until she’d gained enough seniority to qualify for another opening. Palletizing the sacks of mail that came into this building from the central processing center downtown for air shipment was backbreaking, dirty work.
Sure enough, she spotted a long row of web-covered pallets in the postal service’s caged-off portion of the hangar. Desperately, she searched the dimly lit area for someone she might know, someone who might see her. Before she could locate any movement in the vast, echoing facility, Broken Nose shouldered open a door and pushed her into what looked like a heating/air-conditioning room. In the weak moonlight filtering through the single, dust-streaked window, Sheryl saw a litter of discarded web cargo straps, empty crates and broken chairs amid the rusted duct pipes.
Her captor surveyed the dust-covered floor and grunted in satisfaction. “Ain’t nobody been in since I scouted this place out two days ago.”
Roughly, he dragged Sheryl across the room and shoved her down onto a tangle of web cargo straps. She landed awkwardly on one knee. A hard hand in her back sent her tumbling onto her hip. Her elbow hit the concrete floor beneath the straps. Searing pain jolted into her shoulder, blinding her. Tears filled her eyes. She barely heard the snap as Broken Nose pulled another length of tape from his roll, barely felt her ankles jammed against a pipe and lashed together.
She felt the fist that buried itself in her hair, though, and a painful jerk as he brought her face around to his.
“We’re gonna be right outside, see? Pickin’ up our cargo soon’s the lamebrain from Customs clears it. Everything goes okay, I’ll come back for you.”
His fist tightened in her hair.
“Anything goes wrong, I might or might not come back for you. If I don’t, maybe someone’ll find you in a week or a month. Or maybe they won’t. You won’t be so pretty when they do.”
Grinning maliciously, he stroked a finger down her cheek. Sheryl couldn’t move enough to flinch from his touch, but she put every drop of loathing she could into the look she sent him. Laughing, he left her in the musty darkness.
She lay, half on her side, half on her back, breathing in dust motes and the acrid scent of her own fear. Her relief that they’d left her for even a few moments was almost as great as her discomfort. Her shoulder was on fire. Her elbow throbbed. The metal clasp on one of the web straps gouged into her hip.
She didn’t care. For the first time since she’d walked out of the pet store this morning, she was out of her captor’s sight. Ignoring her various aches and pains, she twisted and turned, pulling at the tape binding her ankles to the pipe. The metal pole didn’t budge, nor did the tape give, but she did manage to generate a small shower of rust particles and bugs. Praying that none of the insects that dropped down on her were of the biting variety, she tugged and twisted and pushed and pulled.
By the time she conceded defeat, she was filmed with sweat and rust and wheezing in air through her nose. For a moment, the panic she’d kept at bay for so many hours almost swamped her.
Where was Harry? Why hadn’t he tracked her down? He was a U.S. marshal, for God’s sake? He was supposed to be able to find anyone. Where was he?
Gradually, she fought down her panic. Slowly, she got her breath back. Blinking the sweat from her eyes, she shifted on the pile of straps to try again. Another pain shot up from her elbow. The edge of a strap buckle dug into her hip.
Suddenly, Sheryl froze. The strap buckles! The metal tongue of the clasp that connected the web straps had sharp edges. She’d cut herself on the damned things often enough as a rookie. If she could get a grip on one of the buckles, get the clasp open...
Sweating, straining, wiggling as much as her ankles would allow, Sheryl groped the pile underneath her. Her slick fingers found a metal apparatus, pulled open the hasp. It slipped away from her and closed with a snap. She grabbed the buckle again, holding it awkwardly with one hand.
Grimly determined now, she fumbled one of the thick straps into her hand. If she could just pry the buckle open enough...
Yes!
Too excited for caution, she slid a fingertip along the edge of the hasp. Instantly, warm blood welled from the slicing cut.
The thing was as sharp as she remembered!
Her heart thumping, she went to work on the duct tape. She’d freed her wrists and was working on her ankles when a sharp rap shattered the glass in the dusty window. Pieces fell to the concrete. The small tinkles reverberated like shots in Sheryl’s head.
An arm reached inside and fumbled for the lock.
With a burst of strength, Sheryl pulled apart the remaining half inch of duct tape. She scrambled to her feet, still gripping the metal clasp. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all she had.
Slowly, the window screeched upward. A moment later, a figure covered in black from head to toe climbed through. Even before he holstered his weapon and whipped off his ski mask, Sheryl had recognized the lean, muscular body.
“Harry!”
She threw herself across
the room, broken glass crunching like popcorn under her feet. He crushed her against his chest.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice urgent in her ear.
She dismissed burning shoulders and aching wrists and cut fingers. “Yes.”
“Thank God!”
His fierce embrace squeezed the air from Sheryl’s lungs. She didn’t care. At this moment, breathing didn’t concern her. All that mattered was the feel of Harry’s arms around her. Which didn’t explain why she promptly burst into tears.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he soothed, his voice low and ragged. “It’s all right. I’m here.”
She leaned back, swallowing desperately, and stared up at him through a sheen of tears. “What took you so darned long?”
“It took me a while to convince Inga to talk.”
“How...?” She gulped. “How did you do that?”
A small, tight smile flitted across Harry’s face. “I got a little help from Button.”
“From Button!”
He hustled her toward the window. “I’ll tell you about it later. Right now, I just want to get you out of here. Then I’m going after the bastards who kidnapped you. My whole team’s outside, ready to move in as soon as you’re clear.”
“No!” Sheryl spun around and grabbed at him with both hands. “You can’t take those two down. Not yet! They’re waiting for Paul Gunderson. He’s coming in tonight, Harry. Tonight!”
“I know.”
His slow, satisfied reply sent a shiver down her back. For a moment Sheryl almost didn’t recognize the man who stared at her. His face could have been cut from rock.
Almost as quickly as it appeared, the fierceness left his eyes. In its place came a look that made her blink through the blur of her tears.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you out of here.”
Her fingers dug into the sleeves of his black windbreaker. She had to tell him. Had to let him know before he shoved her through the window and turned back into danger.
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