No better time than the present to find out, right? Not like she had anything better to do.
“Why am I here?” JJ asked the blonde girl, one of the nut jobs responsible for this wackadoodle kidnapping job.
She had to give them props for trying, though. Theyhadtechnically gotten her from Coyote Ridge to … wherever the hell she was now. If it hadn’t been for the blindfold the guy insisted she wore during the drive, she would’ve known exactly. Instead, JJ figured she was about forty-five minutes outside of Coyote Ridge. Or perhaps she was still in the town proper, and he’d driven around in circles for forty-five minutes. Since he didn’t seem especially adept at coming up with an elaborate kidnapping plot, JJ wouldn’t put anything past him.
“During the first stages of a kidnapping,” JJ explained, “it’s usually good to share with your captive why they’re here.”
“Really?” Molly asked, sounding ridiculously sincere as she glanced up at her partner in crime.
Clearly, she’d never done this before. Not that JJ had either, but it seemed reasonable, right?
“Yes, really,” JJ assured them, wondering whether she should be amused or scared. The jury was still out.
“Do you know who I am?” Molly inquired, walking toward her.
In the movies, that question would’ve been barked with venom from a big, burly guy with bad breath and dead eyes. That wasn’t the case in this awkward scenario. Molly Ryan looked like a high school cheerleader with her blond ponytail and big doe eyes. She wore a pair of white shorts with cuffs and a blouse that looked like she possibly got it from the little girl’s department. Molly wasn’t very big, but she could’ve used one size up. As it was, the buttons on the blouse were pulled tight across her minimal boobage.
“Molly,” JJ said in answer to her question. “Of course I know who you are.”
Oddly, that seemed to please her immensely.
“Sebastian told you about me?”
And yes, there was a hint of a sigh in the question. Disbelief? Hope?
While Molly stood there with stars glittering in her eyes, JJ weighed her options for how to answer. Baz hadn’t really told her much at all about Molly Ryan, the girl who had pretended—for the better part of eight months—that she was pregnant with Baz’s baby. That didn’t mean JJ hadn’t done her homework. Or rather, Luca Switzer had. The man whose skills rivaled JJ’s behind a keyboard had pulled up a very creepy dossier on Molly Elizabeth Ryan, born November 29, 2002, which made her … JJ did the math in her head. Ah. Right. Twenty years old. She’d been barely nineteen—posing as a twenty-one-year-old—when Baz met her in a bar, let her drive him to her apartment, had sex with her, and got her pregnant.
Only Baz didn’t have sex with her. Molly just told him they’d had wild, passionate monkey sex during his drunken stupor. And thanks to said drunken stupor, Baz had been too intoxicated to get an erection or remember anything that happened. Since Baz didn’t have sex with her, the baby she’d been pregnant with wasn’t his.
“Sure,” JJ said, gauging by Molly’s expression that an affirmation was the only correct response. “He … uh … told me about you.”
Truth was, Baz refused to talk about Molly. He probably would have if JJ had asked, but she honestly thought they’d put this woman behind them.
Molly smiled, and her eyes warmed significantly. “What did he say?”
It was so obvious that Molly was expecting JJ to relay that Baz had confessed his undying love for Manic Molly but had settled for JJ as a second prize because … well, to be fair, JJ wasn’t that much of a storyteller. Despite all her flaws, JJ couldn’t see a reason why Baz would ever choose Molly over her.
Not that she would tell Manic Molly that.
And, of course, JJ couldn’t very well answer with the truth. Then JJ’s captor would know that Baz had pretty much told her Molly, whose parents called her Liz, was the crazy chick who’d selected Baz as her baby daddy and developed a crazy obsession with him. Not necessarily in that order.
JJ also wasn’t sure it was wise to share with Molly that she knew about the three different psychiatric facilities Molly had spent a significant amount of time in since she was eleven, or that she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age, or that she had birthed three children by three different men—one when she was only fourteen, the second when she was almost eighteen, and the third, which Molly had said belonged to Baz, not quite a year ago. The first two had been put up for adoption, but JJ wasn’t sure what had happened to the third one. She assumed the same.
The guy with the red hair and dead eyes said something under his breath, which caused Molly to turn toward him. JJ watched the exchange, doing her best to figure out the relationship between these two. Obviously, Chucky—she hadn’t yet heard his real name—was Molly’s henchman. He was the one who had cornered JJ at the bakery when she’d been walking to her car. JJ had known instantly that she was in serious trouble. More so when the creepy guy pulled out a syringe filled with God only knew what.
That was the moment JJ decided she wasn’t going to let the creep-show hurt her baby. So she’d gone with him. Willingly. Kinda. Okay, she hadn’t been willing, but she hadn’t really resisted because she feared that whatever was in that syringe would’ve killed the peanut currently growing inside her—a chance she wasn’t willing to take. And since JJ worked for one of the most highly regarded security agencies in the country—Sniper 1 Security—and more specifically, the Off the Books Task Force, which was dedicated to locating missing people, she knew as long as she stayed alive, they would find her.
So here she was.
“Yes,” JJ heard Molly say. “I’ll be fine with her.”
JJ noted the way Chucky looked at her, as though sizing her up, so she put on her best victim expression. It wasn’t hard to do since, technically, JJ was the victim here. She was tied to a chair. A big chair. With fluffy arms and a cushy seat. It was nicer than JJ’s desk chair at HQ. Maybe she could take a nap while the two of them figured out what they were going to do. Or perhaps she should tell them she was hungry. Which she was. But thinking about food only made her think about Baz waiting at home for her. He was probably going out of his mind right about now.
Okay, so she had to stop thinking about Baz. And food.
If she could get Molly talking, perhaps she could figure out a way to end this standoff peacefully.
To do that, she would have to find out what Molly wanted. And if the girl said Baz … well, JJ would have to get creative because she damn sure wasn’t giving up the man she loved.
