“Yes,” he said grimly. “It is.”
She was relieved that they were finally on the same page. “I guess we have something in common after all: we’re both worth kidnapping for ransom. Maybe you shouldn’t break us loose. We’re valuable alive, not dead. But they’re probably armed. If we surprise them, they might shoot us by accident.”
Her handcuffs hit the floor with a clink. Fen sat up, flexing her hands and torn between relief and dismay. “Guess that ship has sailed.”
“You can put your cuffs back on, if you like.” He was already working away at his own. It was fascinating to watch him pick the locks of his own cuffs entirely by feel. His movements were even faster and surer than when he’d worked on hers, as if he’d practiced for that exact situation.
“Right, even discussing being cautious isn’t manly. But getting ourselves killed for no reason is a great idea.”
His handcuffs came open. Carter sat up and rotated his shoulders and neck. They popped audibly. He scowled at her. “That’s not what I— Look, there’s more going on than you know.”
“Like what?”
He ignored her and bent over his footcuffs. Ankle cuffs? They should be either handcuffs and footcuffs, or wrist cuffs and ankle cuffs. It made no sense for one set to be named for the body parts they covered, and the other set to be named for the body parts they were restraining. English was such a weird language. Not that Korean was any less weird, as far as she could tell. She wondered what cuffs were called in Korean. She could ask her father. If she wanted to speak to her father, which she didn’t.
Fen dragged her attention back to the conversation, hoping she hadn’t missed Carter saying something. “What’s going on that I don’t know about?”
From his response, either she had missed something or he was being obstructive and unhelpful on purpose. He glanced up, glared at her, and said, “Fine, have it your way. You sit here and I’ll go deal with the kidnappers.”
She ground her teeth. “You’re talking as if I decided to get myself kidnapped. It’s not stupid to want to think before we act.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, her father’s voice echoed in her mind, as loud and clear as if he was in the cargo bay with her:“Do youeverthink before you act, Fenella?”And then her mother’s, less loud but equally clear:“Dear, don’t expectthoughtfrom Fenella. She’s like a feather in the wind.”
Fen fixed her gaze on Carter, summoning thelookthat made men quail, daring him to scorn and sneer. But he didn’t. His jaw was clenched as if he was grinding his teeth too. But she had the oddest sense that he wasn’t frustrated with her, but rather with himself.
“I am thinking. I think…” He paused, then spoke as if the words were dragged out of him by force. “…you have a point. Confronting an unknown number of kidnappers with unknown weapons is dangerous. But I wouldn’t worry about guns specifically. We’re on an airplane. They won’t risk depressurizing it.”
“Great. I’d only worried about getting shot. Now I’m worried about getting depressurized, too.”
Now she could actually hear him grinding his teeth. She wondered if he slept with a mouthguard, like she did. Her dentist had said lots of people in high-pressure jobs used them.
He rapidly unlocked his footcuffs or ankle cuffs or whatever was trapping his feet, then stood up, stretched, and dusted off his long black coat. There were stains and greasy streaks on it; he looked pained when his fingers encountered them. Along with a lot of dust, bright blue hairs drifted to the floor.
“Got a blue cat?” Fen inquired.
Carter seemed bizarrely unnerved by her silly joke. “No! No cat, blue or otherwise. I don’t have pets. I’m too busy for pets. I have a job, you know.”
“Okay.” She barely stopped herself from adding,you weirdo.
“The kidnappers must’ve dumped me on a blue carpet at some point. They’re not hairs. They’re fiber strands.” He stared deeply into her eyes, as if willing her to believe. What wasupwith him?
And then she realized, and felt stupid for not getting it sooner. He was scared. He was determined to confront the kidnappers because he was afraid of what might happen if he didn’t. And he was fixating on random stuff like carpet fibers because, unlike their actual reality, that was safe and comforting.
For the second time since seeing his injuries, she sympathized with him. She was afraid of startling their kidnappers into accidentally harming them, and he was afraid of leaving them alone in case harm was their plan. They didn’t agree on what the danger was or how to face it, but they felt the same fear.
“Okay.” This time she didn’t say it sarcastically.
Carter didn’t seem to register that she’d said anything at all. He was patting down his coat and pants in very specific places and muttering to himself. “Took my gun, took my cell phone, took my beacon, took my wallet, took my flashlight. Didn’t find my lockpicks, didn’t find my mini-wrench, didn’t find my spare credit card.”
“They took my purse too. Hey, you carry a gun?”
“This sort of thing is always a possibility, in our position,” he pointed out.
She hated to admit that he was right. She had security at her company and an alarm system at her house, but she’d never carried a weapon or used a bodyguard. When was the last time anyone famous had been kidnapped for ransom in America? It wasn’t a thing that happened here.
Except, of course, it had.
He looked down at her. “Do you want me to take off your footcuffs or replace your handcuffs?”
