The closet? Yes, they’d think she had gone out the open door. She’d be safe in the closet. Quiet and quick, she hid in the small linen closet in her en suite bath, making herself as small as possible behind the towels.
Quiet…quiet…must stay quiet. She clicked off the gun’s safety.
“Elizabeth? Elizabeth? Come on, Elizabeth. Where are you, punkin’?”
Was that her dad? Here? In the house? She released the breath she’d been holding. Clicked the gun’s safety back on.
Someone knocked on the closet door. “Are you in there, Elizabeth?”
The closet door handle turned. The door opened.
“Dad.” She lunged into his arms. “Oh, Dad. I’m so glad you found me.”
Smiling, he hugged her. “So am I, punkin’. So am I.”
Standing there hugging her dad, him hugging back, brought a distant feeling of the few times he’d actually been a caring dad. The moments she’d felt like a little girl in a loving family, or at least enough so she could pretend that’s what it felt like. Those few times he hadn’t been the father with strict rules and even stricter emotions.
“Where’s everyone else?” she asked, glancing past him for any sign of Mitch. None.
A tall, bald-yet-bearded man dressed all in black stepped into the bathroom. A barrel chest and sinister eyes completed his look. “Hey, Russ. Did you find her?”
Liz pulled back from her dad’s hold. “Who’s that? Who fired the shot downstairs?”
“You must have heard the gunfire from the boat. I’d already gotten loose and was on my way in when we passed the OPAQUE guys heading out.” He motioned her to follow him downstairs.
To make sure she stayed out of the man in black’s way as he shadowed her steps, closer and closer, she glanced over her shoulder. “Who did you say you were?”
“People call me Slugger.”
“You work for OPAQUE?”
He grinned then nodded toward the steps. “How about you stop with the questions and get on downstairs before I have to help you?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Liz moved to the other side of her dad as they entered the kitchen. Slugger had switched on her creepy-guy radar, but if he was there to protect them, then she’d comply with his orders. That didn’t mean she had to like his bossy-as-hell attitude. Might not bother her dad. But sure bothered her.
“I’m glad you were able to escape Coercion Ten. From what Mitch and the others have said, they’re not a very nice group.” Awkwardly, she hugged her dad once again. Maybe this was the time for them to reconnect. Maybe she’d been wrong in her judgment of him throughout the years. “I hope they didn’t hurt you.”
There was no return tenderness this time. Instead, he grabbed hold of her short hair, fisting it tighter and tighter in his hand till he gave a final yank and released.
Just like years ago, she felt the shift in demeanor. The moment nice became mean. The moment she needed to become small and invisible. Swallowing the sharp pain, she remembered what she’d learned when she was twelve—always stay more than an arm’s length away from him.
“So, tell me what you’ve been up to besides this, Elizabeth,” he said. “I hear tell you’ve got a lot of people protecting you.”
“How many?” Slugger asked.
Thuds and shattering glass and the crash of a large piece of furniture hitting the floor sounded from upstairs.
She jumped, heart pounding with surprise, insides trembling with a flash of fear. “What’s going on?”
“Watch what the hell you’re doing up there,” her dad shouted. “We may need some of that equipment.”
Why would he be the one talking about the equipment? Shouldn’t that be the OPAQUE guy’s concern?
Slugger took a step toward the stairs. “Boss, you want me to—”
“No! Leave the son of a bitch to his work.” Her dad clenched his jaw. “He knows what he’s looking for.”
