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Samantha drove silently, slowly, through Nutfield. They passed a police car right after the only stoplight in town. In the glow from the streetlights, it looked like Donny in the driver's seat. He waved, and she waved back, as if her driving with an armed Indian-slash-New Yorker in the middle of the night were the most normal thing in the world.
"The cops wave to everybody in town," the man asked, "or do they know you?"
"I've lived here all my life. I know a lot of them."
Sam stopped at the only light in Nutfield and glanced at the man to find him looking at her, studying her. She turned toward the highway.
"Are you a cop?"
A chuckle powered by fear and nerves bubbled up. "A cop? Please."
"Answer the question."
She realized he was serious. "I used to be a glorified secretary. Now I'm a real estate investor."
As if she could have signaled Donny with a wave. Even if she could have, would she dare? Would she risk the lives of the people back at the cabin? No chance. Which meant she had to get to Manchester, help this guy get the package, and get back. And then trust that these men would let them go.
She wouldn't think about that right now. One step at a time.
But the town line came up too fast. The invisible line she never crossed. She'd gone to Dover with Garrison the day before, but that was in the other direction. And she'd been with him. And it had been daytime.
But she could see it in her headlights, the sign marking the Nutfield border.
And the bridge just past it. She'd forgotten the bridge. It was just a normal bridge—nothing special about it. Not particularly high. Not particularly narrow. But it was a bridge, and a creek ran below it. Right now, in midsummer, the creek wouldn't be high. But she imagined running water. Icy water. Frigid temperatures.
Without her permission, her foot shifted to the brake. The SUV slowed to a stop.
"What are you doing?"
She opened her mouth, closed it, swallowed. Took a deep breath. But she couldn't get enough air. She took another one, then another.
The man beside her swore softly.
She tried to speak, couldn't make the words come. The world of night darkened further, the darkness so thick, she couldn't think through it.
The man beside her pulled in a deep breath. Then blew it out.
She couldn't do it.
The man did it again. "Inhale, exhale. Now."
He inhaled, she inhaled. He exhaled, she exhaled. Again, again, again.
Minutes ticked away while she fought for air, fought to stay conscious. She fought, and finally, she won. She breathed a silent prayer of thanks.
She wasn't sure what to say. She focused on her breathing and said nothing.
"Drive."
Could she? Did she have another choice? It wasn't like this guy would just let her go. And he wasn't going to go back to the cabin and switch prisoners. Her choices were to risk all their lives or drive to Manchester.
She would drive.
She took another deep breath and forced her foot off the brake and onto the accelerator.
They inched over the bridge. And just like that, they were on the other side. She managed to get through another few miles of country driving. Hers was the only car, though she had seen headlights behind her a time or two on the winding road. Odd, considering how slowly she was driving, but whoever was behind her clearly wasn't in much of a hurry. Finally, they merged onto the highway toward Manchester.
"You're not much of a talker, are you?" she asked.
"I talk."
"Back at the cabin, you didn't say a word."
He said nothing.
She focused on her breathing while she followed the instructions of the mechanical voice of the phone.
Twenty minutes later, she exited toward Manchester. It was after eleven, and with no restaurants or clubs nearby, this part of town was nearly deserted. There was one car behind her a half mile or so back, a few coming toward her, but little else. As she turned onto a road she hadn't been on in a decade, the man spoke.
"We get out and get to your boyfriend's car, okay? I break in, you look around, let me know if anybody's coming. If someone does, then you act like it's your boyfriend's car. Tell them you have to get something out of it. Tell 'em they can call your boyfriend, call the cops in your town, whatever. Keep him talking. I need you to keep his attention focused on you. Then I'm gonna take him out."
"How exactly—?"
"I'll knock him in the head."
Samantha could hardly believe she was agreeing to this.
And if she did all he said, then what? He needed her alive right now, but what about after he got the package? What was to keep him from killing her?
No, she had to have hope.
And then the images from September 11, 2001, filled her mind's eye. Three planes turned into weapons while the passengers did nothing. And what had kept them from acting? It wasn't the terrorists' threats. It was the hope. Do as we say, the terrorists had said, and we'll let you live. The passengers on the fourth plane believed it, too, until their phones started ringing. Then they knew they had to act, or they would die—and take a lot of other people with them.
Hope had killed thousands of lives that day.
Was hope about to kill her and her friends, too?
She sucked in a breath, blew it out, felt the hope seep out of her with it.
No.
She wouldn't give up. She wouldn't give up. Because she'd been in an impossible situation before, and she'd given up hope, and if not for a voice, she'd have died that night on the side of the road. That night, she'd encountered the voice of hope, and he was still with her now. And if that made her insane...well, she'd known she was on the wrong side of the crazy line for a long time.
She would continue to hope until her last breath, and after that she'd fall into the arms of hope for eternity.
Until then, she'd do what the man said.
They reached the body shop.
"Pass it slowly," he said. "Don't turn in."
She studied it as she passed. It was a large white building with empty spaces in front for parking and a chain link fence that extended from each side of the building and wrapped around a large parking lot in back. Floodlights shone from the building. The lot in back was filled with cars.
She looked in her rearview mirror. In the streetlights above, she saw a silver SUV behind her. He was probably annoyed she was creeping all of a sudden.
The man pointed at a narrow road right before a gas station a hundred yards ahead on the corner. "Take a left."
"Why not turn around in the gas station?"
"There might be cameras."
Oh. Smart. The kind of thing law-abiding citizens didn't consider.
"And we're not turning around."
She turned left. The car that had been following passed and disappeared. They were alone on this dark road. She took a deep breath and crept past a few rundown houses. At the first left twenty-five yards up the road, he said, "Turn here," and she did. When it curved back to the right, he said, "Pull over."
She parked, and he stepped outside to look around. She knew what he was doing—looking for a back way into the body shop. Its lights were showing between the trees and houses. Though it might be possible to get there, they'd have to cut through a yard and then through dense forest first. And maybe he could do that without freaking out. She couldn't.
He sat back in the car and swore. "It'd be hard to make a quick getaway through those woods."
She agreed, especially if she had a panic attack, which she was bound to do. She couldn't walk through woods. She was amazed she was able to sit here.
But she was sitting here. She was doing this. She'd marvel at the miracle later.
"The thing is," Sam said, "if we say we're there to get something out of my car or even my boyfriend's, then why would we sneak in? That would make our story seem implausible."
"Yeah, but if there's no car, prob'ly nobody will even stop, see? We don't want to attract attention."
That made sense. "How do you plan to get past the fence?"
"Climb over it."
He said it like the answer was obvious.
"It's, what, ten feet tall? You think I can climb it?"
He looked at her, sighed. "I got bolt cutters. We can walk through the fence."
That must have been what he'd grabbed from the BMW back at the lake.
"I don't do woods," she said.
He glared at her. "You'll do what I say."
"Woods cause panic attacks." She forced a deep breath. Blew it out. "I have no control over them."
He continued to glare, and she feared he'd decide there and then she wasn't worth the trouble. He wouldn't be the first man to reach that conclusion.
"Fine," he said. "I'll cut the chain, and we'll drive around back. We'll close the gate behind us. Nobody will be the wiser."
She pulled to the main road and looked both ways. No headlights or taillights in either direction. She maneuvered onto the road, then into the driveway of the body shop.
The man jumped out, cut the chain, and opened the gate in less than thirty seconds. She drove through, and he closed the gate behind him. In the rearview, she saw him toss the chain between two parked cars.
And there it was, in a long line of smashed and dented vehicles, Garrison's black Camry.
She parked her SUV nearby and stepped out.
He tossed the bolt cutters back into her SUV, spotted the Camry, and jogged to it. She followed, keeping her gaze on the road. A car drove by, and she peered closely to make sure it wasn't a cop. No blue lights.
The man studied the Camry. "You stay here, keep watch. Anybody comes, you warn me."
She nodded, tried to look more confident than she felt, and he disappeared to the front of the car.
She heard the sound of metal against metal, then a clank.
Then a muffled snick, like the breaking of a twig. She looked beyond the chain link fence to the forest behind the car, but she didn't see anything there. Her imagination running wild? Maybe.
Another snick.
She swallowed. "Did you hear that?"
"What?" He came around the car. "Somebody coming?"
She stared into the woods. "I thought I heard something."
"There's no cops in the woods. Prob'ly an animal or something."
Why didn't that make her feel better?
She kept her focus on the gate where they'd come in, but her attention kept shifting to the woods beside them. She couldn't help thinking there was somebody there. Crazy. She was crazy, and she knew it.
And what was she worried about? They were going to get the package and get back to Garrison and Aiden. Who knew what would happen then, but she had to believe they'd find a way out of this. Maybe the man and his friend would leave them there.
Maybe not. Garrison would have a plan. He had to have a plan, because she had no idea what to do next.
"Got it." He appeared beside her and lifted a small brown package.
A loud boom, and she jumped out of her skin. She turned to the man, but he'd disappeared.
Fallen.
On the ground.
She knelt beside him. In the dim light, she saw blood seeping from a circle on his forehead. His eyes were open.
She gasped, gasped again. Turned and vomited on the pavement.
She heard a metallic rattle, the thump of footsteps. Then voices. She should run, but she couldn't make her legs work. She crawled away from Prat's body, from her vomit. Tried to crawl toward her SUV.
Black, shiny shoes stopped by her head, and she froze.
A man crouched down beside her. He was hardly visible in the darkness, his skin as black as the night sky overhead. His eyes were huge, a bright contrast to the body that surrounded them. "What is your name?"
He had an accent, maybe French.
"Samantha."
"What is your last name, Samantha?"
"Messenger."
"Ah. An interesting name. And you are a smuggler? A thief?"
She shook her head. "No. No. No. I... They're holding my friends prisoner. I don't know anything about it. I did what they said."
"I see. Is one of your friends a man named Frank?"
"Yes. I mean, no, I don't know Frank. He's not my friend. But he is one of the captives."
The man looked up, past her. "This is very confusing."
Another voice said, "We must go."
"Indeed. But what do we do about her?"
"She is not our problem," the man behind her said. She didn't look, didn't turn. Couldn't take her eyes off the man in front of her.
"True." The man in front of her grabbed the package out of the dead man's hand. "Today, you will live, Samantha."
"No! You can't take that. He'll kill them. He'll kill us all if we don't get him that package."
The man stood and brushed off his pants. "That is also not our problem." He slid the package into his pocket. "Since you are a messenger, you can tell Frank and his buyers that Congolese diamonds belong to the Congolese people."
With that, the man and his partner strode across the lot, jumped the fence, and disappeared in the woods.