Kimberly’s head hurt to the tune of feeling like someone had run a pitchfork through it, stabbing her multiple times.
Pain shot through her skull as she opened her eyes. A thumping noise pounded in her ears. She could count each beat of her heart.
“Sleeping Beauty’s awake.” Her gaze zeroed in on the quiet voice in the corner of the small dark room.
Sweat dripped off her nose as she tried to reposition herself to get a better look. Her wrists were bound together. She angled her body and quickly realized the same was true of her ankles.
She scanned the small space for Mitch. And then for the other creep when she couldn’t find her husband.
It was just the two of them.
For now.
He’d obviously just alerted someone to the fact that she was conscious. She tried to memorize her surroundings so she could lead law enforcement back when she broke away from this creep. Her eyes strained to see in the dim light.
“Who are you?” she asked. He knew she was awake so there was no point in trying to pretend otherwise. Maybe she could get some information from the creep who was built like a male gymnast. His hair was black as night. The reflective sunglasses he wore most likely covered brown eyes. He wore jeans and a collared shirt, and the underarms were stained with rings of sweat.
He sat in a fold-up chair. His frame blocked something... What?
She noticed the creep’s hip holster, too, with a handgun in it. She had no idea what kind it was and wished she’d taken Mitch up on one of his offers to teach her to shoot a gun. She knew enough to realize that there was a safety mechanism that had to be flipped before the gun would fire. If she got close enough to him to take it, she would need to remember that.
Memorizing details about the creep caused hope to blossom that she might make it out of there alive.
Baxter wanted something from her. Is that who he’d called?
“Do you have a family?” she asked, hoping to get him to speak to her. He’d ended the call without another word and set his phone in his lap. He leaned toward her, clasped both of his hands together and rested his elbows on his knees.
The creep was chewing a mouthful of tobacco. He leaned to the left and spit.
Kimberly felt the hard concrete against her body. Each movement hurt, so she must’ve racked up some bruises on the way down.
Her mouth was dry, making it difficult to swallow. Dust was everywhere and the building couldn’t be bigger than ten by twelve feet. A shed? The red clay on the creep’s boots said she was in West Texas or New Mexico—most likely the latter.
Was she back in her hometown? A chill raced down her back.
Where was Mitch?
Panic nearly doubled her over at thinking anything could’ve happened to him.
The heat gripped her, making it difficult to breathe with all of the dusty clay filling her lungs when she tried to make a move.
This place reminded her of home. The dry air. The heat. If they weren’t in New Mexico, they were close.
“Sit tight,” the creep said. He had overly tanned skin—orange? Did he wear too much self-tanner? His face could only be described as squatty. Much like the rest of him—tree-trunk arms with a thick middle and not a lot of height. He looked strong. The man could bench-press Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The last thing she remembered was being dragged across the parking lot, with a viselike grip secured around her waist, before she was struck with something hard on top of her head. A rock? The butt of a gun? His free hand had covered her mouth so she couldn’t scream for help as he toted her across the parking lot and away from Mitch.
She had the headache to prove she’d received a serious blow.
“Where’s your friend?” she asked when she got no response from her other questions.
“In hell with your boyfriend,” he shot back.
Kimberly’s lungs almost seized but she covered her reaction with a blank face. Mitch had to be alive. The twins needed him. His family needed him. She needed him.
“Tell me where I am and why I’m here,” she said.
He issued a grunt.
“You telling me that you have no idea?” he asked, his voice incredulous.
“Would I ask if I did?” She wished she could reel in the sarcasm as soon as the insulting words left her mouth.
Luckily he didn’t seem offended. That or he didn’t realize he was being insulted. Either way she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. She wasn’t sure if she should tip her hand and let the creep know she knew about Baxter.
She could throw out another name and see what response came.
“Is Tonto involved in this—whatever this is?” she asked.
“Not anymore.”
Her heart pitched. From what she could tell, Tonto wasn’t out of his teens yet. He wasn’t much more than a kid. And the creep’s grin said all she needed to know about what had happened.
“So you killed him. For what? I don’t have any money. My father wasn’t a wealthy man,” she said, trying to hold back tears at the senseless loss of life.
“Tonto was stupid,” he said. The smug smile said he’d most likely done the dirty work himself.
“Stupid people drive past me on the highway every day. Doesn’t mean they should die.”
“No one refuses a job from the boss.” There was disdain in his voice.
“I doubt we’re talking about a legitimate business,” she countered. At least she had him speaking to her. “Maybe he wasn’t a criminal.”
“You’re right about that. He was too weak—”
“To what?” she interrupted. “Hurt innocent people?”
“No one asked him to hurt anyone.” He balked. “The kid would’ve slept with the light on the rest of his life if he had to walk one day in my shoes.”
“Then what was the job?” she prodded.
“To give you up,” he said like he was reading a cereal-box label. Twenty-six grams of sugar. Zero carbohydrates. Kill a kid.
Her breath caught.
“What do you mean by that?” she regained composure before he could see how much hearing those words hurt. Were they true? He could be playing her. Trying to throw her off track.
“He wouldn’t tell us where you’d run off to hide.” He sneered. Spit.
Everything inside her wanted to break free of her bindings and hurt this soulless creep.
For the sake of her children, she would play it as cool as she could.
The door swung open, causing beams of sunlight to bathe the room. She blinked against the sudden burst of light, trying to make out the male silhouette moving toward her. She prayed that Mitch would walk in behind the guy.
When the door slammed shut, she could see again after blinking her eyes a few times.
“It’s about time we finally meet.” A man with tight-cut hair that was graying at the temples strolled in like he was walking into the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel.
“Baxter.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“There’s no need to be so formal. You can call me Paul.” He wore dress slacks and an expensive-looking collared shirt. The material was fine—maybe silk. He seemed too—she didn’t know—clean-cut to be a criminal. Too well dressed to get his hands dirty. But then again he most likely had lackeys, like the creep, for that.
Another thought struck. This one lodged a knot in her stomach.
Would a criminal let her see his face or give out details like his first name if he planned to let her live?
The voice of reason in the back of her head shouted a resounding no.
Her heart hammered her ribs at thinking about her babies. The twins...and Mitch would have to live without her if this man had his way.
If she had to die today, she wanted her children to know she’d gone out fighting...fighting for them...fighting to stay alive so they could be a family even if that meant shared custody and every other Christmas spent together. Her heart wished for more, for Mitch, for a family. But that was wishful thinking.
Now that she’d had a taste of being with them again there was no way she could go back to being on the run alone.
In being face-to-face with the man she was sure had killed her father and ruined her life, she expected to hate him, to want to lash out. And part of her did. But another side to her—the side Randy and Julie had influenced—felt something she didn’t expect to feel, compassion.
Was she frustrated? Yes.
Did she feel a sense of loss? Yes.
Did she hate Paul Baxter? No.
Instead she felt pity. The man standing in front of her was a coldhearted shell. She couldn’t hate him no matter how much a part of her wanted to. She saw a little piece of herself inside his cold blue eyes—eyes that the world had hardened. And she wondered if she hadn’t met the Bristols would she have gone down a different path?
A man like Baxter would only ever live half a life. He’d never know the best gifts in life—true love, kindness and forgiveness. And she was beginning to see the first step to healing was to learn to forgive herself.
A man like Baxter would only know hate and revenge.
A man who lived on the rim of society, preying on innocent people, would need two eyes in the back of his head for the rest of his life because someone would always want to rise up and take him out in order to replace him.
The world he lived in was violent and brutal.
She was even more grateful for the gift of her foster parents. They’d taught her how to reach deep inside herself to become a better person. They’d forgiven her mistakes—a lesson she was still learning. They’d taught her the meaning of real love.
In doing so, they’d given her a life. They were the reason she could open up to Mitch and let love inside. Real love. And if she survived this...nightmare...she would work as hard as she needed to in order to deserve his trust again.
“Whatever it is that you think I have, you’re going to be sadly disappointed,” she told him. “You destroyed my father’s business. I have no money. I’ve got nothing a man like you would want.”
Baxter motioned for the creep sitting in the chair to move out of his way.
As the man stood up and shoved his chair to one side, a metal container came into view—a safe. More than that, her father’s safe. She’d forgotten about the small safe he’d had tucked away in a specially built filing cabinet in his office. He’d shown it to her the day after her eighteenth birthday. No wonder she’d forgotten it existed—that was seven years ago.
“Open it,” Baxter demanded.
“I can’t. I don’t know how. Never seen it before in my life,” she lied.
The expensive leather of his shoe caught the side of her cheek with full force as he kicked her. She let out a cry—a weakness she immediately quelled—as her head snapped back. She felt the cool trickle of blood. Her jaw felt like it was going to explode from pain.
“Are you trying to play me?” Like a shark circling its prey, Baxter walked a ring around her, each step quicker than the last. He reminded her of a prizefighter in the ring, working up to his next punch. “You and I both know Tonto gave your father photos and statements implicating me and my men. I’m not leaving here without the evidence.”
She let her body go limp on the concrete and then curled into a ball to protect her vital organs.
“You better get to work,” he demanded. “Figure it out.”
“I can’t,” she admitted, holding her breath to steel herself for the next blow.
It didn’t come but she didn’t dare look up or speak again. She’d read an article about grizzly bears while waiting for a bus once. It stated that if one came charging toward a human, the best possibility for survival was to curl up in a ball and play dead. That’s exactly what she did, figuring it couldn’t hurt.
A moment later she felt herself being jerked up to sitting position. She curled her arms around her bent knees, hugging them to her chest.
“I’m not lying. I can’t help you. Why don’t you just use a sledgehammer?” she said. She knew the combination at one time but that was years ago.
“It wouldn’t work. Not a sledgehammer or explosives. Not with this kind of safe,” he said. “Now do what you’re told. Open it.”
She held up her bound wrists, figuring she had no choice but to go along with what he said until she figured out a plan B.
“How long have I been here?” she asked.
Baxter nodded toward the creep.
He looked at his wristwatch. “You slept around eleven hours.”
That explained the hunger pangs. She’d been starved as a child at one of her foster homes. Mrs. Saint had used starvation tactics as punishment if the carpets hadn’t been vacuumed when she got home from bridge club.
Eleven hours. That would make this Monday. Afternoon. Her brain cramped at trying to think. She was still woozy and more than a little bit nauseous.
Creep walked toward her with an opened blade from a pocketknife.
She sucked in a burst of air when he ran the blade alongside her cheek with a sneer.
“Just get it over with if you’re going to kill me,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Quit messing with her. Let’s see what she knows, Landry,” Baxter interjected.
“I haven’t seen this thing since I was eighteen years old,” she said. “I’m sure my father has changed the combination since then.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Baxter said, acknowledging that she’d just modified her recollection.
Again, he would only give her information if he planned to make sure she’d never sit across from him in a witness box. She thought about Tonto and her heart seized.
The creep sliced through the masking tape binding her wrists.
She motioned toward her ankles.
“I die and you’ll go to prison for the rest of your life for the murder. Law enforcement is looking for me. They know who you are and that you’ve been chasing me around the country,” she said to Baxter, looking him straight in the eye. She figured that she might as well play her cards, considering she had precious few.
“Are you threatening me?” He laughed but then his face twisted into a sneer. He nodded to the creep.
The creep picked up a backpack before sliding on a pair of plastic gloves. He pulled a rope with a hangman’s knot tied to it. He tugged at the noose.
Baxter took a menacing step toward her. “It’s terrible what happened to that girl from Hatch. It was her turbulent upbringing that caused her to turn on the two people who’d rescued her from the system. The only people who loved her and provided her with a home, food and clothing, according to interested neighbors.”
Baxter let out a wicked-sounding squeal. The man was psycho.
“No one will believe you. I loved Randy and Julie Bristol. People will testify to that effect,” she countered.
“No one’s saying that you didn’t love your foster parents. It’s precisely your love for them and subsequent betrayal that caused the guilt to drive you crazy. You couldn’t live with yourself anymore. So...pity really...you hung yourself.” Baxter physically punctuated his sentence by pretending to place the noose around his neck and pulling. He let his eyes bulge and stuck his tongue out, mimicking a dead person hanging from a rope.
He walked to her, stopping in front of her and then ran his finger along her jawline.
“A shame to waste such a pretty girl.”
“You can’t make me put that thing around my neck.” She breathed steady breaths to hold on to tendrils of what little calm she could.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Baxter said. “I can do anything I want.”
Deputy Talisman.
“Law enforcement knows that you have a deputy in your pocket. The FBI is being brought in to investigate Talisman,” she lied. She had no idea how it would work and prayed that Baxter had none, either.
The look that flashed across his face was priceless.
She tried to work the bindings on her feet as discreetly as possible. At least her hands were free. Was there any way she could get to her feet and charge toward the creep? Have a go at his weapon?
Her legs were numb and she couldn’t remember the last time she felt anything other than prickly sensations on her feet. Without blood circulation she didn’t stand much of a chance of carrying out her plan.
The thought that her twins might find a news story someday that said their mother had taken her own life heated her blood to boiling.
In the shed, it was two against one, and she already knew the creep was strong. She’d picked up a few martial-arts skills but they were mostly defensive maneuvers.
Baxter grabbed her by the back of her hair and pulled her off the ground a few inches. Her hands came up and grabbed hold of his hands.
She used momentum to twist her body around while gripping his hands and land a kick to his groin. He grunted.
“Bitch,” Baxter screamed.
He doubled over. She rolled onto her back and thrust her feet toward his head.