by Alana Terry
With another prayer for Erika’s safety on his lips, Keith raced to the trunk, gun drawn, thumb resting on the safety, and took one last deep breath before he stepped around the bumper to the other side of the car. Empty. A rush of air escaped his lungs as he relaxed. All his imagination. He’d take one last sweep, just to be sure, and then get some sleep. Erika wouldn’t be happy if she was forced to use the potty-bucket.
As he rounded the corner of the house, a movement near the tree line to his right sent him diving behind the propane tank. “Not exactly a comforting place to take cover, Auger,” he muttered to himself as he tried to peer around it with the binoculars.
There it was again. Just a flash and then nothing. He waited. Whatever was there hid... and well. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his heart pounded in his chest as he waited, each second passing slower than a minute to his adrenaline-riddled body. Just as he thought he’d go insane with the wait, he dropped the binoculars, holstered his gun, and marched back into the house, disgusted.
“Of all the stupid rookie things to do, that has to be the worst. I can hear it now. ‘Yeah, Mark, I spent half an hour protecting her from a ferocious raccoon.’”
Keith set the gun back on the counter before replacing the binoculars back in his duffel. Erika’s dossier lay tucked beneath his spare jeans and t-shirts. Grabbing it and another pair of socks, he made a cup of cocoa and prepared to relax for a few minutes to let the adrenaline settle before he tried to sleep.
Spread out on the couch, he opened the folder and stared at the photo. Like most people, Erika Polowski’s driver’s license photo did not flatter her. She still wore her hair in the same short, dark, spiky style—the style that had required Karen to buy a wig for the extraction—but it was much more attractive in person than on the photo before him. An attempt to avoid the mug shot-look gave her face a grimace that made her look immature and bad-tempered, and her eyes, though the license claimed they were green, looked inky black in the photo.
He pulled a small manila envelope and shook out a small stack of photos taken of her at work, the grocery store, and a local bar. Keith paused at one picture of her laughing at something a man with her said. Just from that picture, he could tell she was flirting. The dossier said no boyfriend, but the pictures were only a couple of weeks old at most. Had that changed?
Another picture, this one of her talking with an elderly customer, made him smile. As he flipped through the stack, he realized that in nearly every one, she smiled. Frustrated, he shoved the photos back in the envelope. How long would it be before she’d feel like smiling again?
Once again, his eyes scanned the list for anything he’d be able to use to make her feel more comfortable. A B.S. in Anthropology didn’t give her many job opportunities, so she’d taken the job managing a popular café and had doubled the business. She was popular with the customers and played softball during the season.
Twenty-six years old, five-feet-five inches tall with perfect eyesight and two upper dental implants as a result of one of those softball games. Six months out of the year, she lived at home with her parents, presumably saving to buy her own house, and the other six months were spent house sitting for a woman who spent the winter in Australia to enjoy their summer season. She’d been in Helen Franklin’s house when they took her.
He sighed. There was nothing. Erika was an avid political activist—a champion for justice for everything from trying to eradicate the death penalty in all fifty states to preserving the natural habitat of the Mojave ground squirrel in California. “Seriously, Erika? A squirrel?”
Keith snapped the folder shut and dragged himself from the couch. Shoving the dossier under his clothes again, he grabbed his toothbrush and went to brush his teeth. His nighttime “ablutions,” as his grandma always called it, took a fraction of the time Erika’s had. “Just like a woman. Even trying to be obnoxious, she used the bathroom to do it.”
That thought made him smile again. The girl had grit—was feisty. He had to give her that. He rinsed his toothbrush, dried it, and laid it on the sink, snapping the light off as he left the room. Seconds later, he flipped the switch again, grabbed the toothbrush, and left the room again. Leaving his toothbrush for her to contaminate would be something someone like Erika could not resist.
He paused at her door, listening. Nothing—not a single sound emanated from the room. He hoped that was good. A roll away cot pulled from the closet, a pillow, and a sleeping bag made up his bed. His own yawn startled him. “Okay, Lord. Things are okay, so far. Let’s just get through this first night, okay?”
Chapter 4
KEITH FLEW FROM THE cot, tripping over his own feet, and grabbed his gun, swinging it in an arc as he tried to discover the source of the pounding. Relief washed over him as he realized it was just Erika. Maybe he’d been wrong. His confidence that he could protect her without needing someone to take watch while he slept almost seemed misplaced as he stumbled toward her bedroom. If someone had entered the house, he’d be dead. Erika would be dead.
After several fumbles, he opened the door and removed the cuff from Erika’s impatient leg. “There you go. Sorry.”
The nasty look she gave him hardly registered. Instead, his mind scrambled with a dozen thoughts at once. The agency was spread very thin. If he called for backup, someone else would be removed from an equally or more serious case. Several protective agents had volunteered to work without someone to take a night watch, and the result might be disastrous. On the other hand, it was the first night. Maybe he should give it another day or two before requesting a partner. The chances of anyone finding them in the first seventy-two hours were slim.
The bathroom door opened. “So... got food? I’m starving.”
“Scrambled eggs or cereal?”
“Seriously?”
Opening the fridge, he frowned. “There’s more stew, lunch meat...” A glance in the freezer added a few more options. “Frozen burritos, pizza, hamburger patties...”
“Did you think about things like salads? Vegetables? Fruit?”
He shoved a bowl of bananas, oranges, and apples across the short counter. “Eat up.”
“I don’t believe this!” Erika opened cupboards, fridge, freezer, and glanced around her. “I thought you said you knew everything about me.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “Well, I don’t eat like this.”
“Everything in this cabin has been on your grocery receipts for the past month, so don’t tell me you don’t eat any of this stuff.” A grin tried to edge its way onto Keith’s lips, but he fought back the temptation. “You’d give anything to slap me, wouldn’t you?”
“It is now my most cherished dream.” If her expression could be believed, it was true. “I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t love more.”
It was a risk, a calculated one but still a risk. Keith chose to take it. “Go ahead.”
“What?”
He had to force himself to stay nonchalant when he saw Erika’s stunned expression. “I’m serious. I don’t hit women, so go for it.” He shrugged as he watched her stare agape at him. “I just thought it might give you a bit of relief.”
Erika turned in disgust, took a step and then whirled and slugged him. “If my hand didn’t hurt so bad,” she gasped, “I’d say that was the best feeling in the world.”
As he watched her retreating form, Keith rotated his jaw. He’d have a bruise— a nasty one. For a split second, he’d been tempted to step aside. He’d agreed to a slap, not a slug, but just as he’d seen her stance and realized she intended to punch rather than slap, he knew he should just take it. His father’s words echoed in his memory as he watched the door slam behind her. Men have a duty to be the buffer that protects women from the harshness of the world. “Well, Dad, I don’t know if that’s what you meant, but okay.”
By the time Erika returned, Keith began spooning perfectly cooked scrambled eggs onto the plates. As he passed her a plate and a fork, Erika caught his eyes. “I’m sorry. As much as
I wanted to do that, my father taught me that violence is never the answer, and I threw that away for a few seconds worth of personal satisfaction.”
“I offered.”
“You offered a slap, and I took advantage of it. This is the only apology you’ll get from me, so you’d better accept it.” A glance at the eggs made her groan. “Do we have salt? Ketchup?”
“Oh, great. A ketchup on eggs person. How did we miss that one?” Even as he spoke, Keith retrieved the bottle from the fridge and handed it to her. “Eat up. Oh, and don’t even think about using that to hit me over the head. Plastic isn’t effective, and it just irritates me.”
LUNCH PASSED, WITH its thrilling entrée of chips and deli sliced turkey breast sandwiches. Erika ate an orange with it, but still felt dissatisfied. “What was wrong with salad greens? Fresh vegetables?”
“They go bad quickly. We had to have things that last.”
“They don’t go bad,” she spat, “if you actually eat them! Did Karen say she’d be back with food on Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“I want food. Real food. I want fresh spinach, romaine, even iceberg, cabbage, carrots, celery—”
“Got it. I’ll let her know.”
Her brow furrowed. “That was easy.”
“Look, we’re not trying to make your life miserable.” The stony look was back on his face. “This can’t be comfortable—I know that, I do—but we’ll do the best we can.”
“Because you’re here to protect me.”
“Right.”
“But you can’t tell me from who or what or why?” She couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice, no matter how hard she tried.
“No, I cannot.”
“And you’ve done this before?”
Keith nodded. “Not as much as others— I’m new in this branch—but yes, I’ve done it before.”
“And when it was all over, what did your last prisoner—” She swallowed hard when an undecipherable look flashed in his eyes. “Okay person— whatever—what did the last one think of your ‘protection?’”
“He didn’t like it—”
“But you expect me to.”
“But,” Keith continued as if uninterrupted, “he was grateful. I believe his words were something like, ‘I didn’t like losing a month of my life, but I am glad to have the rest of it to make up for that.’”
“And someone was really going to hurt him?”
“Someone was really going to hurt him.”
“Did he think anyone would?” She hurried to explain as Keith shook his head. “No, I mean when you first took him. Could he think of anyone who wanted to hurt him?”
“No. Like you, he had no idea of the danger he was in or why.”
“And you didn’t tell him why?”
Again, Keith shook his head. “No. Like you, telling him why would have, in all likelihood, put him in more danger.”
“Me knowing why someone wants to hurt me is going to put me in more danger? That makes no sense!”
Keith grabbed an apple and jerked the stem from it with one twist. Her stomach twisted at the sight of the muscles in his forearms flexing with the movement. He could cause some serious damage if he wanted to, and she’d hit him. What was I thinking?
“You’re right.”
Erika’s eyes widened as she looked up at him. “What?”
“You’re right. It doesn’t make sense.”
Hope welled up in her and she nodded. “Just tell me. I won’t be as afraid of you, where I am, and what is going on if I just understand.”
“I can’t.” Keith’s face almost looked fierce as he said it. “If it would help you, I would—even if it meant facing an inquiry at work. I’d do it. But, you’re just going to have to accept that sometimes things that don’t make sense happen. Telling you why will potentially—probably really—put you in further danger. I won’t do it.”
She watched, confused and curious, as he double-checked his gun and then grabbed his key ring. “How about a walk out in the yard?”
“I can go out there?” Her eyes lit up as her mind considered a dozen ways to trick him and escape. “Without the chain?”
“I’ve got the gun. I’m faster than you are. Yeah, you can go out there.” Just as she stepped on to the small porch, his voice interrupted her scheming. “Erika, I know you’re an intelligent woman. I know you are strong and courageous.” She turned, ready to blast him, but he continued. “But you need to remember something. This is what I’m trained to do. I’m trained to anticipate what you’re thinking and prevent you from doing anything that deviates from the plan.”
“You’re not God.”
“That’s for sure,” he agreed. “However, I am a professional. People behave in predictable ways. I can probably give you more successful ideas for how to escape in thirty seconds than you can come up with in a month.”
“I’ll take any one of them.”
Despite himself, Keith laughed, his sides shaking as he tried to repress it. There was something less ominous—more appealing even—about Keith when he relaxed. “You’re persistent. I’ll give you that.”
It was too cool for sunbathing, or she might have been tempted to rip her jeans into micro-shorts and tear up a t-shirt into a tube top. It’d be a perfect time to get a tan— and annoy the guy who was supposed to be guarding her.
Instead, she decided to use the time to get a little bit of a workout, jogging back and forth across the clearing, well aware that Keith watched every move. He looked asleep as he stood leaning against the porch post, but he couldn’t fool her. Either he really was as bored as he pretended, or he was too cocky for his own good.
She’d spent the past thirty-six hours going over every person she’d ever met, ever talked to, and ever had any disagreements with and found nothing that could remotely be construed as a danger. Customer after customer flitted through her mind, but even those she didn’t know well enough to know what they did for a living were still too innocuous to be remotely considered a threat.
Erika had narrowed her theories down to the two she considered the most plausible. The first was the most obvious. Keith worked for the FBI and they had her mixed up with some other Erika Polowski. At first, she’d dismissed the idea when she remembered how detailed their information was about her. However, when he had mentioned her shopping habits in the last month, she decided that they’d simply found her and based their “intelligence” on her rather than the Erika Polowski they really needed to help.
The second option terrified her. Thus far, Keith had been everything he’d claimed to be. Yeah, they’d kidnapped her and dragged her out into the middle of nowhere, but even with Karen gone and no one to know, he hadn’t given her a look or touched her in any way that could be considered inappropriate. She’d initially assumed that this meant she was reasonably safe from the proverbial “fate worse than death,” but a new idea had been brewing that churned her stomach. Predators were sick people. If this was all just a part of a cat and mouse game....
She glanced back at the porch once more. Trying to imagine that the guy now sitting there—with an open Bible in his hands no less—was really the kind of pervert that would do something like that.... Not hardly. As she stopped jogging to watch him, he tensed. She saw the change in his posture long before he set the Bible down and strode across the grass.
“Something wrong?”
“I was just trying to decide if you’re a sick perverted creep or not.”
“Not.”
“That’s your opinion.” A tiny part of her felt a twinge of remorse at the venom she spewed, but it didn’t last. Regardless of why he did it—altruistic or grotesque—the guy was a kidnapper and held her against her will. That constituted a crime—in all fifty states and probably nearly every country in the world.
His phone rang. After staring at it for two more rings, he finally turned from her and answered. “‘sup, Karen?”
Every instinct told her to take the distraction as an op
portunity to flee. She glanced around her, looking for the thickest area of trees, but as her eyes passed over him, she saw his head shake. Covering the phone, he called, “It won’t work, Erika.”
Even though unable to hear, she knew he was telling Karen about her attempts to escape. Well, if she couldn’t get away, and Erika was sure he was too alert to let that happen yet, she’d try to listen in on his conversation. Any information was better than none.
Feigning irritation, Erika stormed to the porch and dropped to the steps, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against her knees. When she heard Keith mention her “tantrum,” she nearly came unglued. However, she couldn’t hear the conversation if she ranted at him, so with every ounce of self-control she could muster, Erika tossed him a dirty look without the string of expletives that she so desperately wanted to spew.
“Did you locate that target?” Keith rolled his eyes at the blatant interest she showed at the word target. “I haven’t heard from Mark. I don’t think he planned to contact me.”
Was Mark the target? The only Mark Erika could remember was an employee who had quit when he transferred to Texas A&M. The kid was an accounting whiz but completely harmless. Surely, they didn’t mean him!
“Erika thinks she knows who either the target or Mark is. I can’t tell which.”
“I’m surprised you’ll admit that there’s something you don’t know.”
Another grin split his face, and he chuckled. “Apparently, I come off as an insufferable know-it-all.” His laughter increased. Covering the phone, Keith said, “Karen says she’s going to start calling me Hermione.”
Erika rolled her eyes. “I think I’d like Karen if she wasn’t in on this plot to ruin my life and get me fired.”
“You won’t be fired.”
“I—”