“So much for identification,” she muttered under her breath. Then her head shot up. “My car! The registration!” Her face dropped again. “I reregistered it when I came to Massachusetts.”
The man on her left seemed to be enjoying himself. “Keep thinking, pretty lady. See if you can come up with something we haven’t already looked over. Don’t forget, we’ve been through most of your belongings.”
Lauren’s nostrils flared, and for a minute she forgot herself. “You know, it wasn’t so bad that you sampled my perfume and fiddled with my shoes. If that’s what turns you on, okay. But myunderwear?I mean, there’s kinky and then there’s—ahh!” Her arm had been wrenched up sharply against her back. She twisted to ease the pain. “Please,” she gasped out in a whisper. “Please—that hurts!”
“I don’t have to take your smart mouth. You’re not calling the shots around here—Iam!”
“Please,” she begged, then gasped again when her arm was released. She hugged it close and alternately rubbed her elbow and her shoulder.
By this time the car was approaching the farmhouse. Lauren held her breath as she peered out the window, praying that Matt might be there, though she knew he wouldn’t be. He was in Boston, waiting for her, maybe out looking for her by now.
The driver slowed in front of the garage, shifted into reverse, backed the car around and headed for the street again.
“Weird place,” the man on her left said. “Pretty rundown. I really thought you had more class.”
Lauren bit her lip and said nothing. She gazed longingly out of the window, hoping to see a neighbor walking along the side of the road, in which case she’d force some sort of ruckus inside the car that would attract attention. But she saw no one. The road was as quiet and peaceful as it had always been.
To her amazement, they drove on into the center of town. She marveled at the gall of her keepers, until she realized that she couldn’t have made a stir if she’d tried. Large hands suddenly manacled both of her arms, just as burly legs had gripped her calves. She might have bucked in the middle, but no one outside the car would have noticed. And if she yelled—
“Don’t even think it,” the man on her left advised. “Mouse here has a mean right hook. It’ll be even meaner the second time around.”
“But if you’re going to kill me anyway, why would it matter?”
He grinned. “The pain, Susan. The suffering. It’ll be bad enough for you as it is. If you want it worse, well, then, go ahead and scream.”
Lauren didn’t scream. But she did decide that this man’s grin had to be the ugliest thing she’d ever seen. And she vowed that if she ever escaped, she’d take great pleasure in personally wiping if from his smug face!
They passed the police station, and she stifled a cry. They passed the market, and she bit her lip. “You won’t get away with this. There are two good men who are probably on our trail right now.”
“Two good men? Well, I know about the dick you hired. I suppose he’s a good man, but he won’t find a thing. As for Kruger, haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“Figured what out?”
“He’s one of ours.”
She didn’t even blink. “You’re lying.”
The man on her left shrugged. “Suit yourself. Cling to romantic illusion if you want.”
“You can say anything else and it might make me nervous. But Matt—one ofyours?Not by a long shot.”
“What do you think his quickie trip to the coast last weekend was for, if not to check in with the boss?”
“I know what his trip was for, and it wasn’t your boss he was checking in with.”
“You’re awfully sure of yourself.”
“Where Matt’s concerned, yes.”
“Why? What proof do you have that he’s not with us?”
She knew she’d be wasting her breath to mention things like love and trust. “He has the proof. Or, if you want to be crude, it was on my sheets the morning after we first made love. I was a virgin. If Matt had been with you, he’d have known something was strange. Unless, of course, your boss is some kind of eunuch.”
“A virgin,” the man on her left mused. “Kruger didn’t mention that to us.”
“Of course not. He doesn’t know you from Adam.”
When he shrugged again and simply repeated, “Suit yourself,” Lauren knew she’d scored a point.
