San Diego
The van pulledout from the parking lot so fast the tires burned rubber. Had it not been the dead of night, Nicole could have hoped that the speed would have attracted some attention.
Or she could try buzzing down the window and screaming at a passing car. Make noise. Wrench the wheel and cause an accident.
Dosomething. Resist.
But they had the highest bargaining chip possible—her father. Who was right now terrified and no doubt in blinding pain, held in a hidden location. The only path to her father ran through this large, cold man sitting beside her.
And probably she wouldn’t have been able to do anything to escape this man, anyway, even if he and the intruder weren’t holding her father hostage.
The driver was vigilant. His eyes tracked from the inside and outside rearview mirrors to the road ahead, to her, ceaselessly, in a constant loop. There was only a mere second between glances, there would barely be enough time for her to bunch her muscles for a move, and he’d notice that.
No, her only hope would have been to attract the attention of someone. But there was no one around. The man in the van had waited for the taxi driver to drive off before leaning down to turn on the ignition. Nicole had watched the taillights of the cab disappear with despair. There had been no chance whatsoever to communicate with the taxi driver. The phone had been open during the drive and then she’d had to get into the car with the new man and her phone had been destroyed.
It had been her last hope—that maybe Sam could trace her through her cell phone. In the movies and in the thrillers she loved to read, a cell phone was like the bread crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel. InNCIS, Tim could trace cell phone signals down to a couple of square feet, and he could do it in the blink of an eye.
If Tim McGee could do it, Sam Reston could. Of that she was certain. If anyone could track her down, it would be Sam.
But not even Tim McGee could track a smashed and dead cell phone and even if by some wizardry he could, she wasn’t there anymore. Sam would track her down to some smashed bits of plastic and metal. The cell phone had been destroyed and she was hurtling through the darkness with an unknown man to an unknown destination. The only thing she was certain of was that they had hurt her father and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. She sneaked a glance at the driver.
He was driving fast but well, like Sam. He shared other attributes with Sam. Tall, though not as tall as Sam, very fit, with the gift of stillness and a strong aura of self-control.
But there, of course, the similarities ended. This man gave off menacing vibes by the ton. No doubt Sam could do that, too, but she didn’t think he could do that with a woman. And she couldn’t—by any stretch of the imagination—imagine him hurting a sick old man.
Where the hell were they?
Nicole tried to keep track of where they were going, with some vague idea of stealing a cell phone, surreptitiously phoning Sam and providing him with an address.
But by the fourth squealing, stomach-churning curve, Nicole was utterly and completely lost. She had no idea what direction they were traveling in and she didn’t recognize anything about her surroundings.
They were near the ocean, that’s the only thing she knew. They were on a straight stretch of road now and at the cross-roads she could see a glint of moon off coal-black water. It didn’t help her. San Diego was nothing but coastline.
They were in some kind of industrial section, only run down and deserted. She imagined a functioning port area to be busy day and night, loading and unloading the ships that arrived and departed on an hourly basis.
This place had mile after mile of derelict warehouses and industrial plants behind chain-link fencing, the buildings low and utterly dark.
Nicole sneaked a glance at the driver’s hard face, then looked away. She had no sense at all that she was in a car with another human being. He could have been a robot-driver for all the emotion he betrayed.
She tried to steel herself for whatever was coming, but waves of panic rolled over her. Even trying to make some kind of a plan—how could she, when she had no idea what was going on?
The driver was not the man who had attacked her. So there were at least two men involved. Two very hard, criminal men. Where there were two, there could be three or four. There could be an army. It didn’t make any difference. She’d been powerless against one. She couldn’t hope to hold her own against two. If there were more, it didn’t really make that much difference.
There was absolutely nothing on her person she could use as a weapon. Whatever they wanted from her, they were going to get.
“Where—” Nicole’s mouth was so dry her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She shuddered and tried again. “Where are we going?”
Ahead of them the empty road stretched, dark buildings on either side. Nicole would have no trouble believing that she and robo-driver were the last humans on the face of the earth.
Silence.
She licked her lips and tried again. “Where are we going?”
Somehow, not knowing where they were racing to added another layer of horror to the situation. If only she knew where they were going, she could, she could…
What?
“Here,” robo-driver growled and turned a corner so fast she had to cling to the seat belt.
